Archangel’s Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(62)
Author: Nalini Singh

“I’m almost a thousand years old.” His hand moved in slow, circular motions on her back, but his words were as calculatedly harsh as his touch was tender. “You’re so young it’s laughable. You have neither the strength nor the right to question my decisions.”

With those words, he negated the commitment they’d made to each other. Perhaps he didn’t see it as such, but she couldn’t be with a man who expected to maintain that chasm of distance between them. “Do you know how to find Amos?” she asked, putting aside the hurt she felt, though it was a raw, tender thing. Giving up wasn’t an option. However, she needed time to regroup, to sit down and figure out if Dmitri was ever going to be ready for the kind of relationship she needed.

The idea that the answer might be no . . . it caused a crushing blackness in her soul.

“I’ve already checked his normal haunts and bolt-holes.” His gaze lingered on her face, as if he’d read her very thoughts, but thankfully that was one ability he didn’t possess. “He’ll eventually surface. In the meantime, my men will continue to watch this house—he’s always had an unhealthy attachment to his mother.”

“Yes.” No normal son would think of inviting his mother to join in a sexual game, to attempt to please her with his choice of victims. “What will you do with her?”

“That’s up to you. You’re the victim.”

“No, Dmitri, I’m a survivor.”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “But recompense is still yours.”

“That woman is going to punish herself for the rest of her very long life. Let her be.”

“I’ll speak to her.” He turned to walk toward the entrance. “Are you coming?”

“No, I think I’ll stay here.” But she didn’t. Stepping down to the drive as soon as he disappeared inside, she took a seat on the edge of the fountain. The water fell in a soothing cascade of sound behind her, the breeze a caress over her cheek as she tried to understand the irrational depth of her anguish. She’d always known Dmitri was never going to be human in any sense.

He isn’t my Dmitri.

Again that voice, from so very deep inside of her. As if it came from her soul itself. This time, rather than fighting it, she listened.

Always so strong, so protective. But never hurtful. Not to me. Never.

Whoever this figment of her imagination was, Honor thought, she truly was living in a fantasy world. Dmitri was no one’s knight in shining armor and if it scraped her to bloody rawness to admit that, then she had only herself to blame. Because Dmitri had never lied to her, never pretended to be something he wasn’t.

“Don’t fool yourself about me, Honor. The human part of me died a long time ago.”

“Where are we going?” she asked when the Ferrari pulled away from Jiana’s estate.

“Angel Enclave—Jiana owns a house there.” His words were cool, practical, and she wondered if he even understood how he’d damaged the fragile something between them. “It’s standing empty, but I’ve had men watching it for a while. However, I think it’s time I had a look inside.”

Another thing he hadn’t told her. Another illustration of the fact that while he might appreciate her skills in certain areas, when it came to treating her as an equal . . . But then the idea was laughable, wasn’t it? She’d lived a mere twenty-nine years to his centuries, was mortal to his powerful vampire.

However, none of the logic seemed to matter, and she was no closer to understanding or corralling the violent depth of her emotions by the time Dmitri drove deep into the Angel Enclave, an exclusive settlement along the cliffs that hugged the Hudson. In most cases, the houses were set so far back from the road that it felt as if they were driving through uninhabited land, the trees on either side of the road ancient behemoths that almost blotted out the sky.

When Dmitri stopped, it was in front of gates watched over by a vampire Honor didn’t recognize. Stepping out of the car, and to the ornate metal gates, she pushed them open while Dmitri spoke to the guard. Inside, she saw the drive was relatively short—though the gates disappeared from view when, walking forward alone, she turned a corner. It was beyond tempting to keep going, to see what might very well have been the lair of the monster who’d tortured her, but this wasn’t like with Jewel Wan. She could still think, understood that to go in without backup would be foolhardy.

“Honor.”

She turned to see Dmitri walking toward her—and suddenly the dam broke. “I have every right,” she said, referring to the strange compulsion between them for the first time.

Not even a blink.

Stubborn, always so stubborn. So sure he is right.

On that, she agreed with the voice inside her mind.

The wind whispered slow and easy through the trees, through Dmitri’s hair as she stood waiting for a response from a vampire used to explaining himself to no one. Her fingers spread, and she found herself closing the distance between them to stroke her hand through that thick dark silk. It was an intimate act, one for which she asked no permission, though he was a man no one would touch without invitation.

He didn’t stop her, lifting his own finger to trace the line of her jaw. “You’re asking me to act human,” he said after a long, quiet moment untouched by time. “I’m not human, haven’t been for a long time.”

“And you,” she said, fingers lingering at his nape, “are trying to make me believe you have no capacity for true emotion when I know different.” Dmitri’s heart wasn’t dead, his soul not irrevocably tainted, of that she was certain.

Sliding his free hand down to her lower back, he tugged her closer. “Who are you, Honor St. Nicholas?” It was a strange question, but one to which Dmitri needed an answer. Because this mortal, her scent was that of wildflowers from a mountainside lost in time.

Haunting pools of emerald green met his as she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Her answer made sense to him, though it was an impossibility. “Come. Let’s explore this house.”

“I thought you would’ve already done it.”

“I had my men look through it, but it may be time for a deeper examination with everything else we know.”

Walking beside him, Honor was both grace and a lush feminine beauty. But she also had a deep vein of strength that had well and truly awakened . . . and that intoxicated. He wanted to reach out, to touch her again, the unrelenting need far beyond simple lust. However, that would have to wait—her desire to enter the house, to run Amos to ground, was a pulse against his skin.