Angels' Flight(8)

She’d answered their questions, said what she knew they wanted to hear. It had been the last day she’d ever pretended to be “normal.” So they’d let her out, let her go. “Never again,” she whispered.

And the hell of it was, people still liked her.

Her hand fisted. Not everyone. Dr. Taj wanted only the sister he’d known before, the rising star whose glitter matched his own. Who the hell cared if that star had been dying piece by slow piece as she tried desperately to hang on to a sky she’d never quite understood?

It was the heat that wrenched her out of the abyss, her skin beginning to protest its treatment. Flicking off the water with a grateful sigh, she rubbed herself down using the fluffy peach-colored towel that went with the elegant décor of the room. It would’ve been normal to head out into the bedroom in the matching robe hung on the back of the door, but Ashwini was a hunter. And, within the Guild, paranoia was not only accepted but encouraged.

It was as well. Because when she walked out—barefoot, but otherwise dressed, her gun hidden in the curve of her lower back—it was to find the most dangerous being in Atlanta waiting for her.

“Nazarach,” she said, stopping in the bathroom doorway. “This is a surprise.”

The angel stepped out onto the balcony. “Come.”

Sensing it would be suicidal to refuse, she followed him out into the summer air, the night heavy with the warm scents of the flowers that ringed the estate. “Janvier?”

“I know his tastes well.”

Ashwini’s hands clenched on the railing—a courtesy for guests, one she hadn’t expected. “Why am I here?” Why are you?

Nazarach leaned his elbows on the railing, his wings relaxed but no less magnificent. “I asked for you on this hunt. Do you know why?”

“I’ve done previous work in tracking down kidnap victims.” In most cases, those vampires had been taken by some hate group that planned to torture the “sin” of vampirism out of them. “I intended to do some background work on Monique tonight.”

“Leave it. She’ll stay alive and unharmed until Callan gets what he wants.”

“You sound very certain.”

The angel smiled and it was like no smile she’d ever seen, heavy with age, with the shadows of death that twisted around her senses like razor-sharp thorns.

“Callan,” Nazarach said, “didn’t survive my court by being without wit. He knows that while now Antoine plays politics, the oldest Beaumont will find a way to kill him if he harms Monique. So long as Antoine lives, Monique will, too.”

“You could stop this feud,” she said, focusing on breathing, on staying alive. “All you have to do is give your support to either Antoine or Callan.”

“Everyone needs to evolve.” A cool statement, one that held the chill winds of time. “Antoine is growing too settled—it may be time for the mantle to pass to Callan.”

“I thought you liked Antoine.”

“I’m an angel—liking someone is only one part of the equation.” His face turned toward her, his expression lethal in its very neutrality. “I asked for you because you bloodied an angel who tried to take you a year ago.”





4


Her heart was a rock in her throat. “He was young and stupid—it wasn’t hard to disable him long enough to get away.”

“You pinned his wings to a wall with seven crossbow bolts.”

Swallowing the rock, she decided to hell with it. “Was he a relative?”

“Even if he had been, I don’t abide lack of intelligence in those around me. Egan was punished for his idiocy.”

Ashwini truly didn’t want to know what Nazarach had done to the slender angel who’d attempted to make her his playmate. But the wildness in her couldn’t help asking, “Because he tried to go after a hunter…?or because he failed?”

Another cold smile. “You should ask Egan—his tongue has regrown.” Rising from his relaxed position, he held out a hand. “Fly with me, Ashwini.”

Even from a foot away, it felt as if he were wrapping her in a thousand ropes, strangling, crushing, killing. “I can’t touch you.”

His eyes gleamed and she saw her death in them. “I’m so distasteful?”

“You have too much in you,” she whispered, fighting for breath. “Too many lives, too many memories, too many ghosts.”

That hand lowered, his expression intrigued. “You have the eye?”

Such an old way of speaking. But then, Nazarach had wit-nessed the dark march of seven centuries. “Of a kind.” She backed up, trying to find air in a world that suddenly seemed to have none.

When Janvier’s hand came around her nape, she accepted the touch without startlement, as if something in her had known, had reached for him. One touch, and suddenly her throat opened, the summer air sweet as nectar to her parched lungs.

“Sire,” Janvier said, his voice soft, his address one of respect. “Don’t destroy a treasure for a moment’s fleeting pleasure.”

“Audrina was not to your taste?” the angel asked, his eyes never moving off Ashwini. “I find that hard to believe.”

“My tastes have changed.” Janvier’s free hand came to rest on her upper arm. “Even if Ash isn’t cooperating.”