Archangel’s Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(61)
Author: Nalini Singh

Her blood ran ice-cold, even as her earlier suspicion that Jiana was a gifted actress died a quick death—a mother’s love was nothing rational. “Please tell me he’s not there.”

Dmitri touched her hair, the caress unexpectedly tender. “No.”

“Was he always so—” She swallowed the term she wanted to use at the hollow blankness of Jiana’s eyes.

“Amos was . . . changed in ways he shouldn’t have been when he was Made.”

Jiana gave a cracked laugh. “He went insane, Dmitri. Like some do, the ones we never talk about.” Pushing back thick black hair streaked with fine threads of brown and red, the motion jerky, she locked gazes with Honor, her own holding a sudden, violent anger. “Did you know that, hunter? A small minority of the Made go mad during the transformation.”

Like every hunter, Honor had heard the rumors, but this was the first time it had been confirmed. “If that’s true, I’d have assumed the angels would have eliminated the problem.” The angelic race didn’t hold power because they played nice.

Jiana’s anger faded as fast as it had awakened, a poignant pain carving deep grooves around those lush lips. “Amos’s madness was not a bold thing. It was a quiet, creeping taint. He was a hundred years old before he began to show the first signs, two hundred before I could no longer deny them.” She wiped her cheeks for the second time, seemingly unaware that her robe was gaping open at the top to expose the inner curves of her br**sts, high and taut. “By the time he reached three hundred, I knew nothing could be done. I dedicated myself to curbing his excesses so they wouldn’t lead to execution.”

To Honor’s surprise, Dmitri walked across to hunker down in front of Jiana, taking the woman’s long, fine-boned hands in his. “He is your son. You protected him. But he knows what he’s doing is wrong and he’s choosing to continue to do it.”

A true psychopath, Honor thought, remembering how Amos had crooned to her after punching her in the stomach.

“You shouldn’t have made me angry.” A hand stroking down her back in a mockery of care. “I didn’t bring you here to hurt you.” His lips along her jaw, over her throat. “So be an obedient pet and do as you’re told.”

She’d bitten his ear instead, hard enough to almost tear off a chunk. He’d punched her so violently for that, she’d blacked out . . . and woken to find herself bleeding.

“It’s the madness.” Jiana’s tremulous voice cut through the horrific memory, her tone a plea. “That’s what drives him.”

Honor wasn’t so sure. Amos had struck her as coldly intelligent, a man who—as Dmitri had said—had chosen to revel in his sadistic urges rather than attempting to fight them. Not only that, but he’d consciously nurtured the sickness in others.

“He was spoken to when his leanings became clear”—Dmitri’s voice was gentler than Honor had ever heard it— “given both warning and an offer of assistance. He chose to walk away.”

Jiana’s lower lip trembled, and then she was falling into Dmitri’s arms, her cries so primal her entire frame shook as if her bones would fall to pieces. Honor’s own heart ached, her eyes burning in maternal sympathy.

She was a mother, she understood what it was to need to do everything in her power to protect her child.

Honor blinked, physically shaking that eerily familiar voice out of her head. Familiar, but not her own—she had never borne a child, never nurtured a life within her womb. Yet her emotional response to Jiana’s pain was so deep that she couldn’t not be torn by it, even knowing that the depth of her understanding was an impossible thing.

Dmitri’s broad shoulders were rock steady in her vision as he held Jiana, and she knew. She knew. Dmitri had had a child. No, that was wrong. He’d had children. Unsettled by that almost angry mental correction, she rubbed at her temple, but the thought stuck, seemed so very right that she couldn’t unthink it.

“Where is he, Jiana?” Dmitri asked after Jiana’s sobs quieted into painful silence.

The gorgeous vampire shook her head, her hair sliding over her face as she pulled away. “I haven’t seen him for three weeks. He has done this before, gone away. But he always contacts me to tell me his whereabouts. This time, there is only silence.” Her eyes went to the envelope. “Except for that. It came five days ago.”

Terrible as it was, Honor could understand Jiana’s maternal instincts overriding all else—even when faced with the malevolent reality of her son’s evil. However, there was one thing that made no sense to her. “Why are you in seclusion?” So much so that the vampire had had to feed from the blood junkies. “From that card, it looks like he wants to please, not hurt you.”

“Yes.” A tight smile. “I hate this, prostituting myself to stay alive.”

Again, her response made no sense—surely Jiana had enough contacts that she could’ve arranged something more palatable. Oh. “You’re punishing yourself.”

Jiana gave a shaky smile. “I asked him to stop—they found you so soon afterward, I believed he’d played some part in that. Then the card came . . .” She tugged the edges of her robe closed over her br**sts, her words fading as her eyes turned distant. “I guess you always hope. Against all reason.”

Dmitri’s hair shone silky and touchable in the sunlight as they stood on the front steps of Jiana’s gracious home. “Jewel Wan,” she said to him, “might’ve given you Jiana’s name but you knew it couldn’t be her.” He’d treated the other vampire with courtesy since the second they arrived.

When he said nothing, she clamped her hand on his arm. “How long have you suspected Amos?”

Dark eyes pinned her to the spot, told her nothing. “What good would it have done you to know who I had in mind?”

“Stop protecting me! I don’t need it anymore!”

Dmitri’s expression shifted, the stone becoming a piercing arrow. “When have I ever protected you?”

“What?”

I know you will always take care of me.

She clasped her hands to her temples. “That voice.” So deep inside of her.

“Honor?” Dmitri’s hand on her lower back, his breath lifting the curling tendrils of hair along her temple as he leaned close. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“No, it’s nothing,” she said, because to give any other answer would be to acknowledge the aural hallucination. “Just the . . . echo of a dream.” Seeping over into her waking life. “You should’ve told me.”