Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(43)

An hour later, Elena tugged at the restraints locking her arms to the chair. All she succeeded in doing was tightening the ropes around her ankles. Hog-tied. She was hog-tied! Her arms had been wrenched behind her back and tied, then the rope run down to wrap securely around one ankle, before crossing over to her other ankle. The final touch had been to take the rope back up to her wrists and around her waist to the back. She was effectively chained to a heavy chair that she had no hope of tipping over.

"I can smell blood, Elena," Dmitri drawled, walking back into the room. "Are you trying to flirt?"

She glared at him, recalling exactly how much fun he'd had divesting her of her weapons. He hadn't been crass. No, he'd been sensuality personified, that damn drugging scent of his snaking through her body like the most potent aphrodisiac on the planet. She'd still managed to get in some kicks-before being bound, having her cuts disinfected, and parked in what looked like a small sitting room somewhere in the higher levels of the Tower. "How's Raphael?"

Dmitri came to stand in front of her, having taken off his charcoal suit jacket and dark red tie to reveal a crisp white shirt. The top few buttons were open, exposing a delicious triangle of bronze skin. Not a tan, she thought. He was clearly from somewhere with a hotter sun, somewhere exotic and-"Stop it!" Now that she was concentrating, she could distinguish the faint scent he was stroking over every inch of her skin.

He smiled and there was a promise of pain in that smile. "I wasn't focusing anything on you."

"Liar."

"I confess." He came even closer, bending down to brace his hands on the arms of the chair. "You're very sensitive to my scent." He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. "Even sweaty and bloody, you have a unique scent of your own. It makes me want to take a big, greedy bite."

"Not in this lifetime," she said, voice husky with the strength of will it was taking to resist his slow seduction.

She'd misjudged Dmitri because he didn't leak power like the other old ones she'd met, which meant he was in a class of his own . . . and probably more than capable of throwing off the effects of a control chip.

That was a secret hunters had died to protect-because sometimes, a vampire's second-long disorientation, his belief that he'd been tagged and immobilized, was all you had. In that second, you could escape or do actual damage. "Why are you fixated on me?" she asked bluntly, burying her knowledge of the chip's fatal flaw. As far as she knew, only angels could read minds-and they had no reason to sabotage the effectiveness of a hunter's most powerful weapon-but she wasn't taking any chances. "You're so f*cking sexy"-damn it, it was true-"you've got to have women throwing themselves at you. Why me?"

"I told you-you make things interesting." His lips curved but the bloody spikes in his eyes reminded her he wasn't exactly happy with her right then. "You'll live, you know."

"I will?"

"At least until you complete the job." He stared at her.

She stared back. Dmitri very likely knew every detail of the job, but if he didn't, she wasn't going to spill the beans and dig her grave even deeper. "You can't imagine how much pleasure that gives me."

"What do you know about pleasure, Guild Hunter?" His tone turned blade sharp, his skin almost glowing from within.

Her throat dried up as she realized she'd been wrong again. Dmitri wasn't only powerful, he was powerful. So old that now he wasn't concealing it, the age of him made her bones ache. "I know that what you promise as pleasure will lead inexorably to pain."

He blinked, his lashes incongruously long. "But with a master of the art, all pain is pleasure."

Shivers raked up her spine, brushed across her nipples. "No, thanks."

"The decision is no longer up to you." He rose to his full height. "Are you hungry?"

Startled by the pragmatic question, she shook off the drugging aftereffects of his scent, and took a moment to think. "I'm starving."

"Then you'll be fed."

Scowling at the way he'd phrased that, she said nothing as he disappeared out the door, only to return several minutes later with a covered plate. When he removed the lid, she found herself looking at what appeared to be a dinner of grilled fish in some kind of white sauce, teamed with lightly sauteed vegetables and baby potatoes. Her mouth watered. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He grabbed another chair and moved it opposite her without effort, though it was the twin of the one she sat in, unable even to tilt. "What would you like first?"

She set her jaw. "I am not letting you feed me."

He speared a piece of carrot. "The men who accompanied me to your apartment-do you know who they were?"

She kept her mouth shut, not trusting him not to shove food at her while her guard was down.

"Members of the Seven," he said, answering his own question. "Those vampires and angels who protect Raphael with no thought to our own advancement."

Curiosity was a flame inside her, enough for her to speak. "Why?"

"That's for us to know." He ate the carrot with every appearance of enjoyment. While vampires couldn't gain sustenance from such food, she knew they could digest a certain amount without problem. It was why most low-level vamps were able to pass for human. "What you need to know is that we'll get rid of anything, and anyone, who poses a threat to him, even if it means we forfeit our own lives."