But there was nothing to stop him from picking her up bodily and dumping her in bed if he realized the extent of her exhaustion. Her wings felt like hundred-pound weights on her back, her calf muscles so much jelly. Blowing out a breath, she dug up a fraction more stamina from somewhere and started circling out from the spot where they’d found the body, glad that this area, while not abandoned, appeared shut up.
As a result, there weren’t a lot of scents to muddy the trail. The tree in the corner, some kind of a cedar, its branches bowed with the weight of its foliage, didn’t trump the smell of pine trees in autumn, their needles littering the earth. And that scent belonged to the vampire who’d been beaten into an unrecognizable pulp. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a single other new scent.
There was also no evidence of activity on the ground, the paving stones clean, but for a few stray leaves and some clearly delineated spots of blood near the dark smudge where they’d discovered the body. Examining the scene with extreme care so as not to compromise any trace evidence, she confirmed the splatter was contained within a radius of about one foot.
“Dumped from a low height,” she said to Raphael when he landed beside her. “And since this place is rife with wings . . .” Her body swayed.
Raphael had her in the iron of his embrace before she could even register the lapse. “Then you can do nothing. We’ll speak to the vampire when he wakes.”
“The site? Needs to be processed, just in case.”
“Dmitri’s on the way with a team.”
It went against the grain to give up without a fight, but her body was shutting down on her, her wings threatening to drag their way through the blood. “I want to know what the victim says.” The words came out slurred, her last thought that anyone cold-blooded enough to brand a living being as a message was probably not going to be an improvement on Uram.
Sire.
Easing quietly from bed less than an hour after he’d placed Elena on the sheets, her wings spread out in a caress of midnight and dawn as she lay on her stomach, Raphael pulled on a pair of pants and met Dmitri in the hallway outside. The vampire’s face was expressionless, but Raphael had known him for hundreds of years. “What did you discover?”
“Illium recognized him.”
“How?”
“Apparently the male was wearing a ring he won from Illium in a game of poker.”
Raphael had seen the vampire’s fingers. Most had been shattered so badly they’d been nothing more than crushed pebbles in a sack of skin. And yet, that skin hadn’t been broken. That level of brutality took both time and an emotionless kind of focus. “Who?”
“His name is Noel. He’s one of ours.”
Raphael felt his anger turn granite-hard. He’d allow no one to butcher his people. Before he could speak, Dmitri said, “Why didn’t you tell me he’d been branded?” The words fell like mines between them, a scab hiding still raw wounds.
5
“The burn will fade.” Raphael held the vampire’s gaze. “It will fade.”
Dmitri said nothing for several moments before drawing in a long breath. “The healers found something stuffed in Noel’s chest cavity. The ones who took him broke him open, then allowed him to heal enough to conceal it.”
It was another example of the methodical nature of the beating. “What was it?”
Dmitri withdrew a dagger from his pocket. It had a small but distinctive G on the pommel, the symbol of the Hunters Guild. A cold blade, rage unsheathed, sliced through Raphael’s veins. “He plans to become Cadre by destroying what another archangel created.”
The old ones saw Elena as exactly that—Raphael’s creation, his possession. They didn’t understand that she held his heart, held it so utterly that there was nothing he wouldn’t do, no line he wouldn’t cross to keep her safe. “Did you find anything at the scene that could lead to the identity of the one behind this?”
“No, but there aren’t many who’d dare taunt you,” Dmitri said, putting the dagger back into his pocket. “Even fewer who’d think they could get away with it.”
“Nazarach is in the Refuge,” he said, knowing the other angel was more than old enough to be dangerous. “Find out who else might consider themselves a contender.”
“There’s only one on the verge of becoming an archangel.”
The Cadre alone was supposed to be privy to that truth, but Raphael trusted Dmitri far more than he trusted his fellow archangels. “He also has no need to play these kinds of games.” To be an archangel was to be Cadre. It was as simple—and as inevitable—as that.
“It’s one of the old ones.” Angelic history told of a few rare instances of those who were not archangels becoming Cadre. They never lived long. But the fact of their existence gave dark hope to those who craved the drug of power without understanding the price it inevitably demanded. “Someone strong enough to seduce others.”
“There’s something else,” Dmitri said as Raphael was turning to go back to Elena. “Michaela”—he named another member of the Cadre of Ten—“has sent a message to say she’s about to arrive at the Refuge.”
“She waited longer than I expected.” Michaela and Elena were like oil and fire. The female archangel couldn’t stand to be anything but the center of attention. And yet when Elena, with her rough hunter clothing and pale hair, walked into a room, the balance of power shifted in the most subtle of fashions. Raphael didn’t think Elena was even aware of it—but it was why Michaela had despised her from their very first meeting.
“Whether it’s against Michaela or this pretender, she”—Dmitri glanced at the closed door at Raphael’s back—“isn’t strong enough to defend herself. It would take very little effort to end her life.”
“Illium and Jason are here. Naasir?” He’d trust only his Seven to watch over her.
“On his way back.” Dmitri, as the head of Raphael’s security, knew exactly where each of his men was at any given time. “I’ll make sure she’s never alone.”
Raphael heard the unspoken words. “And will she be safe with you?”
The vampire’s expression altered. “She weakens you.”
“She is my heart. Protect her as you did once before.”
“If I’d known the consequences of that decision . . . But it is done.” When Dmitri gave a curt nod, Raphael knew his Seven wouldn’t move against her. Some archangels might have killed Dmitri for daring to stand against him, but the vampire had earned that right.
More, Raphael understood the value of what Dmitri and the rest of his Seven had given him. Without them, he may well have become another Uram, another Lijuan, long before Elena was even born. “Give Illium the majority of the shifts. Elena’s less likely to object to him.”
Dmitri snorted. “Her precious Bluebell’s going to fall in love with her, and then you’ll have to kill him.”
“What better guard for Elena than one who loves her?” As long as that guard never forgot it was an archangel’s mate he watched over. Betrayal would not be tolerated. “When’s Michaela scheduled to arrive?”
“Within the hour. She’s extended an invitation to dinner.”
“Accept it.” It was always better to know your enemy.
Elena woke from a mercifully dreamless sleep to the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. And it wasn’t the clean scent of rain, of the wind, that filled her senses. Her shields, however, remained down. Shifting on the bed, she glanced through the open balcony doors to see Illium’s distinctive blue wings spread out as he sat nonchalantly on the railing, his legs hanging over the steep plunge of the gorge.
Silhouetted against the starlit sky, he appeared a being out of myth and legend. But as she’d seen this afternoon, if this place was a fairy tale, it was the dark and blood-soaked original. “You’ll fall off if you’re not careful.”