Archangel’s Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(21)
Author: Nalini Singh

It took her a couple of seconds to figure out the system on her end. “Since when is a hand on your shoulder ‘wrapped around you’?”

The old sadness and older hurt he’d sensed in her since the instant she came face-to-face with her brother was still there, but he could hear his Ash rising through it. “Ah, perhaps I am simply indulging in a fantasy. Foolish male that I am.”

A snort sounded from behind him . . . but then she slid her arms around his body, pressing her chest flush to his back, the strength of her grip making him feel possessed, owned. The contact eased the aged, potent need inside him enough that his chest no longer hurt, air filling his lungs again.

“So, I ask and I receive. You’re in a generous mood.”

“Don’t get too cocky, cuddlebunny.”

His grin was bright. “What’s a cuddlebunny?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“You, at the moment. Sexy, non?”

He loved it when she teased him. “Oui, if it makes you cuddle so close.”

Her laughter was husky, and it was all he needed to hear.

•   •   •

They rode for hours, taking a break now and then to stretch their legs or admire a view—or for Ashwini to get some hot coffee into her.

“I’m going to hit caffeine overload at this rate,” she pointed out the second time Janvier made a quick pit stop at a diner, the snow that had begun to fall soft and pretty and no challenge to Janvier’s skill at handling the bike.

“Humor me, cher. I don’t want you frozen.” A wicked smile. “I like your blood running hot.”

“Stop thinking about my blood.”

“Now you ask for the impossible from your cuddlebunny.”

With each mile that passed, each playful word from him, Ashwini felt more and more of the strain caused by the unexpected encounter with Arvi leaching away . . . and more and more of her heart falling into the hands of the man who’d seen the fractures in her and given her laughter to heal it.

What was she going to do about this, about them? It no longer seemed as simple as keeping a secret, keeping her distance. Because, as proven by her current position, the latter had proved a spectacular failure, and the former seemed a betrayal of everything they’d become to each other. “Naasir is right,” she said when Janvier brought the bike to a halt at a gas station on their way back to Manhattan, the air clear of snow once more.

Taking off his helmet, Janvier looked over his shoulder at her. “About what?”

“About people making things too complicated for—” A loud buzzing interrupted her words. “Hold on,” she said, her heart slamming into her ribs because the decision about what to tell Janvier might just have been made for her.

However, the late night call wasn’t from Banli House.

“It’s Sara.” Ashwini felt her blood go cold; the Guild Director wouldn’t be calling her at a quarter after eleven unless there was a serious problem. “Sara, what’s happened?”

“Cops just contacted me. They have a body they’ve tagged as Guild business. From the description, it’s in the same condition as the dog.”

Ashwini had steeled herself for bad news, but Sara’s words knocked the air out of her nonetheless. “Damn it.” Fisting her hand against Janvier’s shoulder, she closed her eyes for a second before flicking them open. “I’ll handle this.”

“You’re not in hunting condition, Ash. You know that.”

Janvier tapped her thigh and made a motion for her to cover the phone so they could speak.

“One second, Sara.”

“I couldn’t hear her clearly,” Janvier said as soon as she blocked the receiver, “but did she say a body connected to the dog?” At her nod, his face grew grim. “The city doesn’t need this right now, so soon after the battle. It’s barely begun to heal.”

“Are you offering Tower assistance?”

“No way around Tower involvement,” he pointed out. “Guild would have to report this to Dmitri sooner or later. Might as well work together from the start.”

Ashwini couldn’t argue with him—this was no normal Guild case. “I’ve got Tower assistance,” she said to Sara. Annoyed as she was about having to fight to do her job, she also knew the Guild Director was right; she wasn’t in the physical condition to handle this on her own. It’d be stupid not to have backup in case things turned to shit.

“Janvier?” Sara asked.

“Yes.” She passed on what he’d said about the city’s psychological state.

“He has a point.” A faint tapping sound came through the connection, Sara likely drumming her pen against her desk. “I assume Janvier will pass on the details to Dmitri?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll contact Dmitri in the morning, sort out our game plan, but for now, work under the assumption that the investigation needs to fly under the radar.”

“So the case is mine?”

“I’ll tell the cops to hold the scene for you.”

10

Ashwini and Janvier arrived back in Manhattan in half the time it should’ve taken. It was the most exhilarating ride of her life, the bike moving as smooth as a ribbon of water along a well-worn channel. Pure silk and steel and speed.

That exhilaration was replaced by bright, hard anger the instant they reached the scene.

The victim had been found in a Dumpster behind a restaurant officially located in Little Italy. In actuality, it hugged up against the far edge of the Vampire Quarter. One street over from this quiet one, and the clubs were questionable at best, deadly at worst.

Last time she’d been in the area—chasing a vamp who’d skipped out on his Contract and decided to hide in the dark underbelly of the city—she’d walked into one of those clubs and come across a blissed-out junkie passed out in the lap of a well-groomed and elegant vampire with a tinge of red in his eyes. He had the junkie’s sequined mini shoved off her shoulder, his hand molding her bare breast as he drank from her neck.

Another male vamp had his fangs buried in her inner thigh.

Ashwini had known she was wasting her time, but she’d made them stop, then waited until the woman was conscious. At which point the junkie had called Ash a bitch who needed to get fucked. Then she’d spread her legs lewdly to reveal she wore no panties, and shoved one of the vampires down between her thighs, telling him to feed. Her eyes had rolled back in her head an instant later, orgasmic cries torn out of her throat.