Archangel’s Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(77)
Author: Nalini Singh

Yes, he thought, she had been. Ingrede had never been openly possessive—except when it came to Tatiana, who had indeed looked at Dmitri with an invitation in her eyes that should’ve been directed at no married man. The memory made him smile. “She was also a jealous thing.”

Raphael laughed. “She gave me the most fierce look when she thought I was attempting to seduce you.”

And then, Dmitri remembered, when she’d realized the angel was nothing but a friend, she had invited Raphael to dinner. So gentle had been Ingrede, but she’d spoken without fear to an immortal as they all stood in a newly sown field, and that immortal had come to their humble table. “I don’t think we’ve ever again laughed as we did at that table.”

“It is a cherished memory,” Raphael said. “One I’ve never forgotten, one that has never faded.”

It helped, he thought, to know that someone else remembered her. Remembered their children. Misha and Caterina had had such fleeting lives, but those lives had burned themselves into Dmitri’s soul. And now, another name was starting to make its mark there, that of a hunter who awakened memories of a time long gone even as she began to shadow his wife’s smile from his mind. Forgive me, Ingrede.

“Kallistos,” Raphael said after long minutes of silence, his eyes on the angels flying across the river to land on the Tower roof.

Dmitri forced his mind off the only two women—one so sweet and of the hearth, the other a hunter but with those same gentle hands—who had laid claim to his heart in his near thousand years of existence. “I’ve alerted every one of our people in the region.” He knew the vampire was close—the taunts had been too personal. At least in Times Square, Kallistos had to have been lingering nearby to witness Dmitri’s reaction. “But he’s old, and he’s intelligent.” However, Isis’s lover didn’t concern him as much as the angel who had been taken. “Will the boy survive the constant use Kallistos is making of him?”

Raphael’s expression was grim, his bones sharp lines against his skin. “He’s young, still vulnerable. There is no knowing how much damage Kallistos has caused.” Do you have a watch on your hunter?

Of course. If Kallistos truly was mad enough to attempt the vengeance he’d threatened, she would be his target—because Honor was mortal, far easier to hurt and kill. As Ingrede had been mortal. “Not this time,” he said, the words a vow.

33

Sorrow welcomed Honor with a bright smile when she dropped by the young woman’s home a couple of hours after returning from Jiana’s estate, and she was delighted when Honor told her it was time for her first self-defense lesson. “I’ll go get out of my jeans.”

Having stopped by her apartment to change into long black exercise pants paired with a simple deep green tank top, Honor began to warm up on the private lawn behind the house while the other woman ran inside.

The vampire who watched her from his relaxed seat on the back steps wore wraparound shades and a black suit with a crisp white shirt, his hair brushed back into perfect lines. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he’d stepped out of some Fifth Avenue salon and wouldn’t know one end of a blade from the other. Except she did know better. She’d seen the way Venom moved—that kind of grace a man only had if he danced. And she wasn’t talking about the ballroom.

“Want a partner?” he asked, taking off his shades to reveal those startling eyes, so very alien. “I promise I’ll be gentle.”

Honor was almost certain she would now be okay with unfamiliar male contact, especially in a combat situation, but she shook her head. “Sorrow should be out soon.”

Venom leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, the sun caressing brown skin that had enough warmth in it that it was extremely strokable. Not as strokable as that of the lethally sexy man Honor had had in her bed not long ago, but she bet Venom didn’t have trouble getting dates, even with those eyes.

Now, his lips curved just a fraction. “I always thought Dmitri would choose someone a little more . . . sophisticated.”

Taunting her, she thought, the viper-eyed male was taunting her to amuse himself. “You remind me of an eight-year-old foster brother I once had,” she said, continuing her stretching routine. “He used to throw mudballs at me after I showered because he thought it was hilarious.” There had been no meanness in Jared and she’d actually kept in touch with him for a while until age and time had faded the relationship. “He didn’t find it funny after I dropped one down his back.”

Venom’s expression turned disgruntled. “I’m hardly a child.”

Strange—she was decades, centuries younger, and at that moment, she wanted to cross the distance between them, rumple his hair, and kiss him on the cheek in amused affection. Before she could shake off the inexplicable feeling, Sorrow ran down the steps, dressed in pants similar to Honor’s and a navy T-shirt bearing the name of a famous Irish bar.

“Are you going to pull out your c**k to prove it now?” the girl asked with mock sweetness, having obviously overheard Venom’s declaration.

The vampire’s eerie pupils contracted to hard pinpoints. “Be careful your claws don’t get you eaten, kitty.”

Making a hissing sound at him, Sorrow stalked to join Honor on the grass. “Dmitri must really hate me,” she muttered. “All the men at his command and he sends me Poison.”

“Kitty?”

Sorrow bared her teeth to expose tiny fangs about half the normal size. “He calls them little kitten teeth.”

Venom, Honor thought, glimpsing the rage in Sorrow’s changing eyes, either had no idea what he was playing with . . . or he had a very good idea. “We’ll start with basic moves,” she said, making a mental note to ask Dmitri to confirm if she was right about the fact that Venom was pushing the girl on purpose to gauge her level of control.

Sorrow leaned closer, lowered her voice. “Does he have to watch?”

“If you tell him to leave, he’ll take even more pleasure in staying.” As it was, Venom was answering a call on his cell phone, his body in a languid position she had no doubt could change in the blink of an eye. One of these days, Honor would spar with the vampire—after first taking Dmitri on in a session.

Her thighs clenched at the idea of tangling with her sexy, dangerous lover in that arena, their bodies sweaty and straining. “Just ignore him,” she said, wrenching her mind back to the present.