Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter #2)(45)

“I haven’t shared my secrets for more sunrises than you can imagine.” He tugged her even closer. “But until I met you, I’d never claimed a hunter, either.”

There was something strange about scent-tracking through the Refuge. It wasn’t only that she seemed to be developing the ability to track angels—that came and went, the new scents static in the back of her mind—it was that she could feel eyes on her every step of the way. “You’d think they’d never seen a hunter before,” she muttered under her breath.

Illium, walking beside her, vivid interest in his own eyes, took her words for a question. “Many of them haven’t.”

“I guess.” She frowned as she caught a hint of a scent that tugged at her instincts, but it whispered away so fast, she couldn’t pinpoint the elements that made up the whole. “Maybe they’re just checking you out.” Bare-chested and with the lithe muscle of a man who knew how to use his body, he was, as Sara would put it, “deliciously bitable.”

A wicked smile. “Your wings are trailing in the snow.”

Glancing behind her, she saw the white tips encrusted with ice. “No wonder they feel numb.” She pulled the wings back up, realizing they’d entered one of the main thoroughfares. It bustled with activity, but beneath it all was a hum of lethal anger. “Do all vampires know about this place?”

“No, only the most trusted.”

Which made the assault on Sam all the more egregious. But of course, everyone knew the vampire had been nothing but a tool. It was the angel who mattered, the angel who’d be put to death in the most painful way known to immortals—and they’d had a long time to come up with methods of torture. Catching a minute hint of citrus, she angled left, to a section almost free of angelic eyes. “Any orange groves in this direction?”

“No. They’re in Astaad’s and Favashi’s parts of the Refuge.”

Chocolate. Oranges. Faint, so faint.

Going down on one knee, she brushed aside the snow with her bare hand, having learned that while she felt the cold, she was in no danger of frostbite.

“I could dig for you,” Illium offered, crouching across from her, his forehead almost touching hers as he leaned in. One of his feathers floated to the ground, an exotic accent against the pristine white. “Should I?”

She shook her head. “I need to go down layer by layer, in case the snow trapped his—” Her fingers scraped against something hard, colder than the snow. “Feels like a pendant or a coin.” Brushing off the white flecks that melted at contact with her skin, she angled it to catch the light.

Her breath turned to ice in her chest.

“That’s Lijuan’s symbol.” Illium’s voice was low, hard, her laid-back escort replaced by the man who’d amputated his enemies’ wings with clean efficiency.

“Yes.” She’d never forget that kneeling angel with a deaths-head face as long as she lived. “What kind of an archangel uses that as her personal symbol?”

Illium didn’t answer, and she hadn’t really expected him to. Fighting her instinctive urge to throw the disturbing thing into the deepest crevice she could find, she brought the medallion to her nose, and drew in a long breath.

Bronze.

Iron.

Ice.

Oranges glazed in chocolate.

“The vampire touched this.” Wanting no further contact with the artifact, she placed it in Illium’s outstretched hand. “Let’s go.”

“Have you got the scent?”

“I might have.” She could feel it tugging at her, buried beneath all the snow, in constant danger of being melted away if the winter sun turned blazing in one of the rapid transitions she’d come to expect up here.

Pulling on that faint thread, she began to walk. “What’s down there?” Her target was a covered passageway between two neatly shut-up buildings. It appeared a black hole into nowhere.

“A small internal garden.” Illium’s sword made a shushing sound as he slid it out of its scabbard. “The angels who reside here are currently in Montreal, but there should be a lamp burning on the wall.”

“Let’s go.” It got very, very dark less than a meter into the passage, but light appeared at the other end not long afterward. She sped up her pace, exiting into the bright white scene that awaited with a silent sigh of relief.

It was, as Illium had said, an enclosed garden, a private retreat from the world beyond. In summer, it likely overflowed with blooms, but it had a unique kind of charm even in the arms of winter. The fountain in the middle lay still, its two upper basins and pool filled with snow. More snow covered the statues that ringed the pool, some inside, some outside, all caught in motion.

Walking closer, she felt an unexpected delight spark to life inside her—the statues were all of children, each face drawn with a loving hand. “There’s Sam!” she said, seeing a smaller version of the child angel, one foot in the fountain, hands on the rim, pure mischief in his expression. “And there’s Issi.”

“Aodhan used them as models.” At her questioning look, he added, “One of the Seven.”

“He’s gifted.” Each statue was meticulously detailed, down to the torn button on a shirt or the hanging lace of an abandoned shoe. As she circled the artwork, her smile faded, her gut raw with the knowledge that someone had defiled this place.