Archangel's Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(45)

Elena’s head turned toward the door an instant before Dmitri sensed Raphael’s approaching presence. Spreading out those wings of midnight and dawn behind her, she walked to touch her hand to Raphael’s chest, something silent and powerful passing between the archangel and his consort.

It remained incomprehensible to Dmitri how Elena, an angel with a weak mortal heart, had formed such a bond with Raphael. But he had taken a vow and he would defend that bond to his last breath. “Sire,” he said when the two drew apart, “I would speak to you.” It’s about Isis. He didn’t know how much the archangel had told his consort.

I see. Eyes of an intense, infinite blue met his before shifting to Elena. “Your indulgence.”

Elena glanced between them, gaze perceptive. “I need to call Evelyn,” she said, naming her youngest sister. “I’ll do it from the solar.”

“Wait.” Dmitri and Elena agreed on little, but he’d never questioned her loyalty to those who were hers. “You may want to talk to Beth as well. It appears Harrison has been forced to seek alternative accommodation.” Andreas had mentioned it during their meeting after he spoke to Leon and Reg.

Now Elena’s mouth tightened. “Good on Beth if she’s kicked him out.” A pause. “Thanks.”

Dmitri held his silence until she left. “She doesn’t know.” He didn’t find that the least surprising. Raphael was well into his second millennium of existence. A being that ancient had many memories.

“She will before this night is out. I won’t have her vulnerable.” The archangel walked with him to step out on the sprawling green of the lawn that led to the cliff and the constant rush of a Hudson tinged red-gold by the setting sun. I will not speak that which is yours to tell.

I know. He agreed with Raphael’s decision to brief Elena, because while he couldn’t accept the weakness she represented in the archangel’s defenses, he understood that once a man claimed a woman, it was his task to protect her. Dmitri had failed in that task, failed his Ingrede, and it was a failure for which he would never forgive himself. “Did she truly save your life against Lijuan?” he asked, wrenching his mind from the raw agony of the past and the memory of a woman with eyes of slanted brown who had trusted him to keep her safe.

“Do not sound so disgruntled, Dmitri.”

“I merely find it an impossible truth.” And yet it was a truth, so he would add it to what he knew of Elena. “Isis . . . it seems we left a stone unturned.” He told the archangel the full details of the dead vampire’s dismembered body, the tattoo.

“Bold and stupid both.” Wings of white streaked with gold spread a fraction.

Dmitri took a step back, examined the feathers. “Your wings, the gold is spreading.” His primaries were almost totally metallic, the sunlight playing off the filaments in glittering sparks.

“Yes,” Raphael said, strands of hair lifting off his face in the early evening breeze. “It became apparent the night after I confronted Lijuan. Elena thinks I am evolving in some way. We shall see.”

The last time an archangel had evolved, she had raised the dead. But Raphael had never committed the atrocities that stained Lijuan’s hands, and he was the son of two archangels. His evolution couldn’t be predicted.

“I’ve compiled a list of all those who remained loyal to Isis till the end,” Dmitri said, even as he considered the tactical advantages of obscuring the truth of why Raphael’s wings had altered in color. “Jason is tracking down their whereabouts.” None had been seen entering the country, but that meant nothing.

“I’ll speak to him. I’ve kept a discreet watch on certain people through the centuries.” A glance out of those eyes of inhuman blue. “As have you, Dmitri.”

“None of them could have done this.” He’d already made certain of it. “However, games,” he said, “no matter how vicious, are something I can handle with ease.” Even if those games attempted to awaken the ghost of an angel who hadn’t deserved the quick death they’d dealt her. “It’s the second situation that’s become more critical.”

Raphael listened in silence as Dmitri laid out the facts of the mortal “hunt.” “This Honor,” the archangel said when Dmitri finished, his tone icy with anger, “she is competent?”

“Yes.” Brilliant mind, human heart, ancient eyes.

“Elena is a better tracker.”

Impossible to dispute, since Elena was hunter-born, a bloodhound as far as vampires were concerned. “That skill isn’t necessary at present.” And this was Honor’s hunt, as Isis had been Dmitri’s. “We’re digging out the snakes, not chasing them.”

“An apt analogy.” Wings rustling as he folded them tight to his back, Raphael turned to look Dmitri straight in the eye. “Many believe such depravity is exactly what you would savor.”

Dmitri knew that, understood full well how close he was to crossing lines that could not be uncrossed. “It seems even I am not yet that degenerate.”

You would never harm a woman in such a way, Dmitri. The archangel’s voice in his mind, the purity of it almost painful. We both know this. It’s why I allow you to push Elena in ways for which I would kill another.

Some would say you trust me too much, Sire.