Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(41)

Raphael was nowhere to be seen.

Scared, but not for herself, she looked down at the gun in her hand. With trembling fingers, she clicked on the safety again. She'd fired in instinctive self-defense, aiming not for Raphael's face, but for his wings as Vivek had advised. An angel without wings . . .

"Oh, God." Stepping carefully over the large shards of glass-eight perfect triangular pieces-she made her way to the edge and glanced down.

A whisper of wind from behind her. "Definitely no problems with vertigo."

She might've fallen had he not had his hands securely on her hips. "You bastard! You scared me to death!" Twisting, she tried to get away.

He held her still, wrapping both arms around her waist. "Behave, Elena."

The oddness of his tone clanged a serious alarm bell in her head. She couldn't help but think of her earlier thoughts-there were a lot of things worse than death. "Are you planning to drop me?"

"You just told yourself that I won't kill you, that I'm more likely to torture you."

Something snapped. "Get. Out. Of. My. Head!" Squeezing her eyes shut, she shoved outward with every ounce of will-power she possessed. It was a stupid, human reaction, but she was human in every way that mattered.

Behind her, Raphael sucked in a breath. Startled, she intensified her attempts to block him, even as the spiraling emptiness of a deadly fall spread out in front of her. Elena didn't look away-she'd rather face death than have her mind invaded, for what was that if not another form of crawling? But she damn well wasn't going to go without a fight. She switched the way she held the gun. This time, she would purposefully aim for his wings.

"Well, well," Raphael said against her ear. "It seems the hunter-born have another skill."

Her head was starting to ache. But she kept up the pressure, hoping her brain would learn to do this automatically after a while. Of course, that wasn't going to be an issue if she didn't get away from Raphael. It was becoming clearer by the second that whatever was wrong with him it was very, very dangerous for her. "Why are you here, doing this? Is it because I cut Dmitri?"

"He was under orders not to touch you."

Tired of leaning away, she relaxed into him, her head against his chest. He took her weight with ease. "What did you do to him?"

"His jaw will have healed completely by now."

The night darkness was so close, the lights from the other buildings so bright, it felt as if she was standing on the edge of the world. But it wasn't the emptiness in front of her that was the real threat. "Does violence excite you?"

"No."

"Hurting me," she pushed, "making me bleed, that gets Dmitri off. Same for you?"

"No."

"Then why the f*ck are you holding me here?"

"Because I can."

And she knew that in this mood, he really might break her.

So she shot him. No warning, no second chances. She simply aimed blindly behind her and shot. The second his arms loosened, she sent herself sideways. She could've as easily fallen, but she trusted her reflexes and they didn't let her down.

She landed on the huge shards of plate glass. They held, but she cut the side of her face and the palms of both hands as she clutched at the glass to keep from sliding off and out into the pitch-black of the night. The instant she had any leverage, she used one of her more acrobatic moves to flip over the glass and to a crouching position on the carpet.

Shoving the hair out of her eyes, she looked toward Raphael. He lay crumpled on the glass, propped up against the table where she'd put her phone what felt like hours ago. He was staring down at his wing, and when she followed his gaze, what she saw made her sick.

The gun had done what Vivek had promised. It had almost destroyed the bottom half of one wing. What Vivek hadn't told her was that when an angel's wings got hurt, he bled. And he bled dark red. It dripped onto the glass, sliding across the clean surface to sink into her carpet. Shaking, she got up. "It'll heal," she whispered, trying to convince herself. If she'd crippled him-"You're immortal. It'll heal."

He looked up, a dazed incomprehension in those incredible, unreal blue eyes. "Why did you shoot me?"

"You were torturing me with fear-probably would've ended up throwing me off the ledge a few times and catching me again, just to hear me scream."

"What?" He frowned, shook his head as if trying to clear it, then looked at the open space where her window used to be. "Yes, you're right."

That wasn't the answer she'd expected. "You were there-why do you sound like you can't believe it?"

His eyes met hers again. "In the Quiet, I'm . . . changed."

"What's the Quiet?"

He didn't answer.

"Do you go there a lot?"

His lips tightened. "No."

"So, are you normal now?" Even as she asked, she was running into the kitchen for towels. When she came out, it was to find him in the same position. "Why won't it stop bleeding?" Her voice rose as panic took hold.

He watched her try to stem the flow without success. "I don't know."

She glanced at the gun she'd left on the other side of the room. Maybe it was stupid to remain here, but she knew this Raphael as she hadn't the other. Whatever the Quiet was, it had turned him into the worst kind of a monster. But was she any better? That gun, the damage it had done . . . Grabbing her phone, she called the Cellars, her fingers slick with Raphael's blood. In front of her, his blue eyes seemed to dim, his head dropping back. "Come on," she said, cupping his cheek with fingers stained red. "Stay awake, Archangel. Don't go into shock."