Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(88)

Elena swiped Naasir’s legs out from under him the next second and got herself back onto the main part of the roof. She was breathing hard, Naasir growling. Flipping over and to his feet, he clawed at her in seemingly undisciplined anger. Elena fell for it and was on the ground with Naasir’s hand at her throat a heartbeat later.

She slapped the cold, hard surface and Naasir released her, reaching down to help her up. From Naasir, that was a compliment—it meant he’d found his opponent worthy enough that he was sticking around. Otherwise, he’d just walk away.

“Naasir won’t want to leave.” The other man could work apart from the others of the Seven, but his nature rebelled against long-term isolation from his family. “Venom isn’t strong enough to permanently take his place in Amanat and we need the others here.” It meant that of all the Seven, Naasir was the only one who’d be on his own—and he’d already been that way for ten months.

“Naasir may not wish to go,” Raphael said, “but he will.” An archangel’s absolute confidence in one of his men. “He understands the need.”

“Does he have a lover at least?” Naasir didn’t do well without physical contact, especially when separated from Raphael and the others of the Seven, and his partner in Amanat, while lethal, was an ascetic who did not indulge in pleasures of the flesh.

Quiet amusement turned the Archangel of New York back into the man who had been Dmitri’s friend for a thousand years. “He is a wild creature in an elegant, civilized city. What do you think his chances are?”

“He’s drowning in women who’re fascinated with him.” No wonder Caliane was attempting to civilize him. “Your mother must fear he’ll tempt one of her maidens away into danger.”

“I’ve eased her mind on that point. Naasir may snack on the sweet and lovely, but when he chooses a mate, she will be a fierce creature with claws that bloody him and a heart as wild as his own.”

Laughing because Raphael was right, Dmitri watched as, outside, Naasir took two of Elena’s knives and pretended he didn’t know what to do with them so Elena would show him how. “Be careful, Raphael,” he said, well aware Naasir’s loyalty was as unflinching as his own. “The tiger creature is flirting with your consort.”

“Of course he is. She, too, is a fierce creature with a wild heart.” Raphael pushed through the door, his hand snapping up to catch the knife Elena threw in his direction.





32


Janvier could tell Ashwini wanted to kick a hole in the wall when the officious man at the opera box office told them the tickets had been bought at the door, paid for in cash.

After having discovered that the jewelry store where the watch had been bought had wiped its surveillance footage, and the designer shop that had sold the five-thousand-dollar dress had no record of who’d bought it, it was the last straw.

“Damn it, it can’t end like this,” she said, every muscle in her body taut enough to snap. “This evil monster isn’t going to get away with it!”

Cupping her face, he just held her, touched her.

At first, she almost vibrated against him, ready to tear away . . . but she didn’t. Sliding his hands down to wrap his arms around her when she leaned into him, he held her close, her own arms wrapping around him in turn. They stood in silence, uncaring of the people who streamed past them on the sidewalk.

His heart hurt.

The things she’d told him, the future she’d predicted, it threatened to crush him.

Full throttle, he reminded himself. It was how they’d always lived, would live, to the last flicker of the flame that was his Ashblade’s clever, vivid mind.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said when she drew back after an unexpected kiss to his throat. “Clear our heads, try to think of other avenues to explore.” Then, to his delight, she reached up and fixed the scarf that was about to slide off one side of his neck.

She scowled at the smile that creased his cheeks. “Don’t try to hold hands.”

So, of course he did. Not to tease her, but because it felt good to have her palm sliding against his . . . especially when she curled her fingers around his with a tug of her lips. It felt like coming home.

They walked through the businesspeople and the tourists, the occasional mother with a pram, the restaurant hawkers trying to talk them inside for a meal, the roadside stall owners calling out to them about “genuine imitation” gold watches and “faux designer” handbags. It was loud and chaotic and it was New York.

“I wasn’t sure I would like this city,” he said to her. “Yet the mad spirit of it has a way of getting under a man’s skin.”

“You miss the bayou, though, don’t you?” Rich and dark, her eyes saw to the heart of him, and that was her right. “That old hut I tracked you to once—”

“You mean the place where you threatened to bury me in a swamp hole then douse me in fire ants?”

Ashwini bared her teeth at the taunting vampire who was the only person who’d ever totally “got” her. That time in the bayou, he’d answered the door barefoot and wearing jeans only partially buttoned, his body lazily relaxed as he leaned up against the doorjamb of the house surrounded by water on almost every side. The half-submerged cypress trees in that water had been lush with foliage and heavy with Spanish moss in the thick humidity, the landscape unearthly in its beauty.