Archangel's Blade (12 page)

Valeria was reclining on a cream-colored chaise lounge set in front of a window, dressed in a crimson satin robe that stopped midthigh—the belt tied loosely enough at her waist that the inside curve of one perfect breast was artfully exposed. She'd angled her head to ensure the early morning light hit it at the ideal angle to heighten her already stunning features. Long golden brown hair curled over her shoulders to bounce against nipples gone hard and ready where they touched the satin.

As an invitation, it couldn't have been clearer.

Until that deep blue gaze turned from its appreciation of Dmitri's body to fall on Honor. Suddenly Valeria was limbs in motion, fury a red flush across the creamy skin of her face as she rose to her feet—but Honor glimpsed a split second of the most vicious hunger beneath the rage. Valeria was recalling how she'd used Honor, debased her. And she wanted only to do it again.

“Well . . .” Calculation in those stunning eyes that spoke of immortal beauty. “You brought me a snack. You always were a sweetheart.”

Honor saw Dmitri tense and—without thinking—reached out to touch him on his back out of sight of Valeria.
Not yet.
Coiled tension, taut muscle, but he didn't strike, this beautiful predator with death in his eyes. “This is a nice room,” he murmured instead in that silken voice Honor never, ever wanted to hear in the dark.

Lines marred the smoothness of Valeria's forehead. “What?”

“Small windows, though,” Dmitri continued, his back flexing slightly under Honor's spread hand. Startled to realize she was still touching him, she dropped it. “Means,” he added, “there's only one exit.”

Honor had always known Dmitri was ruthless, but it was when she glimpsed the dull haze of fear creep over the lake blue of Valeria's gaze that she understood exactly where he stood in the food chain. The female vampire glanced around, her eyes wild when she faced them again. “It was just a bit of fun, Dmitri. You know how it is.”

“Hmm. Tell me.”

Valeria seemed to take the slow purr as encouragement. “Life can get so tedious after centuries of excess. It was a naughty little thrill to have the hunter at our disposal.” Walking forward, sleek thighs exposed in teasing glimpses through the crimson satin, she ignored Honor to stroke her hand down Dmitri's chest, slow and with unhidden pleasure.

Honor's fingers clenched on the gun. It took teeth-gritting control not to put a bullet right between those blue eyes so wide and alluring.

Dmitri simply raised his hand, closed it over the vampire's. “An intriguing game,” he said, his voice dropping as he tugged Valeria ever closer, until he was speaking with his lips brushing her ear, her breasts flush against his chest. “I wouldn't have thought you that creative.” He fisted his free hand in the brunette's hair.

Valeria's eyes closed, her body shuddering from the contact with his muscled body. “I would take the credit”—a husky whisper—“but you'd find me out.”

Dmitri's laugh would've made Honor thrust a blade in his gut and run as far as humanly possible. But Valeria smiled, opened her eyes. “I got an invitation.” A greedy look over at Honor. “Her fear was so potent by the time I got there, but she wouldn't scream or beg. Not for weeks.”

Dmitri jerked Valeria's face back toward him, the act ungentle. “You kept the invitation, didn't you?”

“Yes. It was a memento.” Lips trailing over his jaw. “Did you bring her for me, Dmitri? Can I have her all to myself?”

Honor touched her hand to Dmitri's back again, not knowing why she believed that would do any good, not even knowing why she thought she could possibly read this vampire so old and powerful it made her bones ache to think about it.

“First tell me who you shared her with,” he whispered, ignoring the fact that Valeria had tugged open the tie of her robe to expose creamy skin framed in crimson. “I want to know who else has your tastes.”

“But I want her to myself.” Petulance.

The woman all but orgasmed at the command in that voice full of knife blades and midnight screams. “They say you make it hurt, Dmitri.”

In response, he used his grip on her hair to pull her head back so hard it made tears form in her eyes. She licked her lips, made no effort to cover the dark pink nipple exposed by the shift of satin over skin. “Tommy. I saw Tommy there once when I ran late during my turn with her.”

Honor remembered that day, remembered the elegant female voice arguing with the deeper male one as Valeria cajoled the man into allowing her to stay.

The man—Tommy—had eventually folded. Together the two of them had . . . they'd made Honor scream. Her hand clenched on Dmitri's T-shirt as he moved the hand not in Valeria's hair to close around her throat. “Just Tommy?”

“There were others, but I never saw. We had our own times.” Breasts rising and falling, lips parting.

“The invitation, Valeria.” Unvarnished command. “Tell me about the invitation.”

The brunette shaped the rigid muscle of his chest with possessive hands Honor wanted to break into a thousand pieces. “In my bedroom, in the top drawer of the little table beside the bed.” Fingers trailing down to tug up his tee, revealing skin of a warm, dark tan. “I'll show you when we go up.” Again, her eyes shifted to Honor. “I want her.”

That was when Dmitri smiled, arched Valeria's neck again . . . and slit her throat with about as much emotion as might be expected from a hunting cat taking down prey, the heavy blade a sleek silver shimmer in the morning sunlight.

As the female vampire clapped her hands around her throat, he gripped her by that throat and pinned her against the wall with the blade thrust into her neck. “Don't pull it out,” he ordered when Valeria went to do exactly that. “Or I'll cut off your hands.”

Honor had jerked up her gun at the first slice, but now her eyes met Dmitri's as he raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. “I can't shoot her now.” Not when the vampire was pinned like an insect, the red satin of her robe a wetter, richer shade, her skin bloody cream.

Dmitri moved toward Honor, and she realized that aside from the hand he'd used to grip Valeria's throat, he'd managed to avoid getting any blood on himself in spite of the arterial gush—which led to the very scary conclusion that he'd done this before. “You,” he said, touching her chin with the fingers of his clean hand, before ripping out the roses from a vase and upending it to wash the bloody one clean, “are too human.”

Yes.
It was a welcome shock, a confirmation that she'd retained the core of herself no matter the horror of that dark pit where Valeria and Tommy and their grotesque friends had used her until they tore her very spirit to tatters. Walking past Dmitri to face the brunette vampire, she said, “Anything else you'd like to share about my kidnapping and assault?” to the monster with the wide blue eyes.

Dmitri took a seat on the chaise, reaching over to choose a chocolate from the crystal bowl on a nearby table. When Valeria bared her teeth at Honor, refusing to answer the question, he shot the other woman through the thigh, in almost precisely the spot where the female vampire liked to feed.

Valeria screamed, high and shrill.

Honor understood that the punishments used for immortals, their bodies able to recover from brutal injuries, weren't the same as for mortals. But she'd never been up close and personal with the merciless reality of it. “Does it bother you at all?” she asked Dmitri when Valeria's screams died out into sobs.

He shrugged, shoulders moving with muscled grace beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “No.” Putting his gun down beside the crystal bowl, he said, “Valeria, be a good hostess and answer Honor's question,” before popping one of the chocolates into his mouth.

“I don't know anything else,” the vampire sobbed, her eyes rimmed red with her tears. “J-just about T-Tommy.”

“Oh, don't worry,” Honor said, remembering how Valeria had sipped at her own tears, how she'd giggled when Honor screamed so much her throat turned raw, her voice gone, “we'll get to Tommy.” She didn't know what Valeria heard in her voice, but the vampire suddenly looked afraid in a way Honor would have never expected in a vampire of her age and power.

“He did everything, remember?” Valeria said, hands rising to her throat again as the wound began to heal around the heavy hunting knife.

“I wouldn't.” Dmitri ate another chocolate.

Dropping her hands in spasming fear, Valeria continued to speak to Honor, eyes shimmering with tears. “He was the one who hurt you—I just wanted to feed.”

Yes, Tommy had hurt her, as only a man could hurt a woman. But only because Valeria had egged him on. Before that, his physical assaults had been relatively minor in the scheme of things—the bastard had enjoyed her blood more than anything else. Valeria, however, had always been very inventive when it was just her and Honor in the dark.

“Dmitri,” Honor said, “I've changed my mind.”

And then she shot Valeria through the other thigh.

It worried her a little that she didn't hesitate, but this
woman, who now screamed because it was her own flesh on the line, had
tortured
her. Who the fuck was anyone else to say what would make her feel better . . . because putting that bullet in Valeria sure as hell did. “I'm done.” Never again would this pathetic creature stalk her in her nightmares.

“See if you can find the invitation.” Dmitri rose to his feet. “Valeria and I need to talk in private.”

Holstering her weapon, she turned to him. “Don't kill her.” It would be too quick, not enough. And from what Valeria had done to her, her expertise in certain kinds of pain, Honor knew she was far from the vampire's first victim.

A lazy smile that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “Trust me.”

The strange thing was that she did. Perhaps that made her a self-deluding fool, but it didn't change the fact of it. Leaving him with the terrified vampire, who was already whimpering and attempting to cajole a man Honor knew no female wiles would ever influence, she strode out and up the stairs.

The theme of opulent elegance continued on through the rest of the house, the artwork on the walls displayed in frames gilded with gold, but tastefully so, the runners handmade in tones that didn't break the flow of the decor, an exquisitely carved marble banister bordering the curving staircase to the second level. The bedroom boasted a massive four-poster bed of dark wood with curtains tied neatly back at the corners. The sheets were finest Egyptian cotton, tumbled from Valeria's early morning wake-up.

It was as she was opening the bedside drawer that the first scream reverberated through the house, so high-pitched that Honor couldn't imagine what Dmitri was doing to Valeria. Pity stirred within her, but she set her jaw and kept going. Because if Dmitri showed mercy here, then other vampires would soon begin to give in to their darkest lusts and the world would turn bloodred.

The invitation was a silver card folded in half.

Ennui is such a bore, is it not, Valeria?
Words written in black ink in a graceful hand that could've been either male or female.
I have an entertainment that should satisfy even your jaded appetites.

Below that was an address, a list of three dates and times, and a note that said:
Should you wish to indulge, come at the same times on the same days in the weeks following.

There was no signature, and though Honor had handled the note with care, she knew there were unlikely to be any fingerprints. Still, she went down to the kitchen, to the accompaniment of another chilling scream, and found a plastic bag. Not Ziploc, but it would do for now. Placing the card inside, she walked back to the morning room, the halls full of a lingering silence broken only by the sound of Valeria's whimpers.

She stepped inside to find not a speck of blood on Dmitri's body or clothes, his bronzed arms catching her eye as he tucked his gun into an ankle holster with the unhurried actions of a man who knew he was the most dangerous thing in the room by far. Valeria by contrast, was somehow . . . diminished.

“I have it,” she said.

“Good.” He angled his head toward the drive. “Illium will watch Valeria until Andreas's men arrive.”

Valeria made a low, pleading sound just as Honor looked out the window—to glimpse the astonishing sight of an angel with wings of silver-kissed blue coming to land on the verdant green of the lawn. “He's . . .” Her breath rushed out of her. She'd seen still photos, even television images of the blue-winged angel, but none of it had done him justice. None of it could.

The impact was even more startling up close. Staring at him as they met by the car, she took in the eyes of Venetian gold, the black hair dipped in shimmering blue, the face that was so pure in its beauty, he should've been too pretty. He wasn't. He was simply the most beautiful male creature she had ever seen in her life.

Meeting her gaze, he said, “I' m Illium.”

Her lips threatened to curve at the unashamed curiosity in those golden eyes. “Honor.”

Dmitri, having taken a quick call on his cell phone, opened the driver's-side door. “Valeria tries anything,” he told Illium, “cut her arms off.”

The blue-winged angel didn't look the least disturbed by the order. Added to Dmitri's obvious trust in him, it made it clear that, beauty or not, Illium was no pretty ornament. Though, she thought, catching the acute intelligence in that face as he spoke to Dmitri, he was fully capable of using the impact of his looks to his advantage.