Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(34)

"Bring it on. You still owe me three hundred bucks."

"That's because you cheated." There was a slight pettiness to his tone but that was Vivek. He lived down here twenty-four /seven out of choice.

Up there, I'm nothing, a burden. Down here, I'm king.

She couldn't argue with him. Vivek controlled everything in the Cellars. "Give me a few minutes to shower." Raphael wasn't a vampire, but the rawly masculine essence of him was burned into her brain, her skin, her very pores. She wanted him gone!

"How did you lose her?" Raphael stared at Dmitri, impassive.

"She cut my throat."

Raphael looked at the vampire's clean shirt, his damp hair. "It occurred soon after she left if you've had time to clean up."

"Yes. She didn't want an escort home."

"Did you provoke the attack?" he asked calmly, because the answer mattered nothing to him, except as a test of Dmitri's loyalty.

"I wanted to taste her."

Raphael struck out without warning, slamming Dmitri to the floor with a broken jaw. "I told you she was off-limits. Are you challenging my authority?"

The vampire stood, waiting for his jaw to heal enough that he could speak. "You fought."

"Yes, but I didn't rescind my order."

A bow of Dmitri's head. "My apologies, sire. I did not realize her blood was yours." Disappointment in his eyes, but no hint of rebellion. "I'm surprised you only broke my jaw."

With the dazzling clarity of absolute Quiet, Raphael could see that Dmitri was sincere. "I need you functional. We have work to do."

"I can track her."

That was a secret no mortal knew. Vampires like Dmitri, the ones who gained the ability to entrance hunters with the seduction of scent, could also sometimes turn the tables on their foes. "That's not necessary." This was his hunt-he knew where she'd go. If he was wrong, he knew who to ask. They would answer.

"What would you like me to do?" Dmitri asked, his voice almost normal. He was old enough that most injuries-especially those that involved little to no loss of blood-healed relatively quickly.

"Get me the Guild Director's home address, as well as that of Ransom Winterwolf."

Elena made the word "hide" then waited as Vivek thought. "Anytime this century, V."

"Patience." He sat with absolute stillness, but it was no act of self-discipline. Vivek had lost all feeling below the shoulders in an accident as a child. If he hadn't, he'd have been hunter-born. Instead, aside from his considerable duties as Cellar Manager, he functioned as the Guild's eyes and ears in a connected world, his high-tech wheelchair built for wireless capability-he often knew what people were saying about the Guild before the words even passed their lips.

Now, he murmured something under his breath and on the computer board, the letters shifted to make home. "What next, Ellie?" It was clear he wasn't talking about the game.

She tapped her fingers on her thigh. "I need to talk to Sara."

"You're under blackout orders."

"Then you talk to her-tell her she's in danger. Everyone knows she's the one person certain to know my location." And it wasn't Dmitri she was worried about.

Vivek used a vocal command to open the door through which she'd entered. "Go. I'll make the call then let you back in."

She wasn't in the mood for his childishness. "I'm not going to steal your damn codes!"

"Go or I don't move."

Shoving away from the computer console, she strode out. "Hurry up." The door snapped shut behind her.

Sliding down to sit with her back against it, she didn't stop to consider that Ransom might also be in danger. She wasn't used to thinking of him as vulnerable. She wouldn't have worried so much about Sara either, before the baby. Not only could Sara take care of herself, but her husband, Deacon, was a lethal son of a bitch. But God, Zoe was so little.

The door slid open behind her. "Sara wants to talk to you." Vivek sounded peevish.

She walked in to find him sulking in the blackout booth, which meant Sara didn't want him listening in. Elena winced. When Vivek sulked, life in the Cellars got very uncomfortable-bone-melting temperature changes, odd smells in the air, food that tasted like sawdust. Once, she'd had to spend a whole torturous month down here after Vivek had had a fight with Sara. Talk about a shit storm. But Vivek's moods were nothing, not when Sara's life was on the line.

Elena picked up the old-fashioned phone. It was so old it was hackerproof. "Sara, you need to get down here with your family."

"The Guild Director doesn't turn tail and hide." Sara's tone was hard, revealing the steel backbone that had given her the strength to hold her position in a profession overrun with testosterone.

"Don't be an idiot!" Elena clenched her hand hard enough that her nails left half-moon crescents on her palms. "Dmitri isn't some baby vamp. He's Raphael's head of security!"

"And that's something else we need to discuss-just how big a 'disagreement' did you and Raphael have?"

Her soul chilled. "Why?"

"Because I came back to my office to find a new message waiting-he's looking for you, Ellie."