"I'm an angel," he murmured, his voice slurred. "Shock is for mortals."
Someone picked up the phone. "Vivek?"
"Elena, you're alive!"
"Damn it, Vivek, what the hell was in those bullets?"
"I told you."
"Has it been tested?"
"Yeah. It's been used in the field a few times-gives you maybe twenty minutes to half an hour at most. Angels begin to heal the instant after the bullet hits."
She glanced down at Raphael's shattered wing. "It's not healing. It's getting worse by the minute."
"That's impossible."
She hung up since he clearly knew nothing. "Come on, Raphael! What do I do?"
"Call Dmitri." His color was fading to gray, a pale death mask that struck terror into her heart.
Guilt and fear for him choking a knot in her throat, she dialed Archangel Tower and was immediately put through to Dmitri. "Get to my apartment," she ordered.
"That's not-"
"I've done something to Raphael. He's bleeding and it's not clotting."
A blink of silence. "He's immortal."
"His blood is red, same as mine."
"I'll kill you in tiny, tiny bites if you've harmed him." He hung up.
"Dmitri's on his way," she told Raphael, as the cell phone slid out of her bloody hand. "I don't think he thinks very highly of me."
"He is loyal." His hair fell over his forehead, making him look absurdly boyish.
Another spurt of blood hit her leg, hot and rich. "Why the hell aren't you healing?"
A moment of brightness in those glassy blue eyes. "You've made me a little mortal."
Those were his last words before lapsing into unconsciousness-probably nothing but the shock speaking, she realized. She was still by his side when Dmitri and several other vampires arrived. They simply broke down the door instead of bothering to knock.
"Hold the hunter." Dmitri ignored her as his lackeys dragged her away from Raphael.
She would've struggled but she knew it was pointless. There were too many of them and she had no chip-embedded weapons on her. Bearing unique serial numbers and with each and every use tracked by the VPA and Guild both, the devices were issued only for hunts, or when a hunter's life was in demonstrable danger from a vampiric threat. The official line was that it was to stop hunters from becoming dangerously overconfident, but they all knew it was because the powerful vamps didn't like the idea of being vulnerable to any old hunter with a grudge. Right now, she didn't care. "Help him!"
Dmitri threw her a glance filled with pure malice. "Be quiet. The sole reason you're not dead is because Raphael will enjoy doing the task himself." Lifting a hand, he spoke into some kind of a transmitter snapped around his wrist. "Enter."
Two large angelic males suddenly appeared in the open wall that had been her window, a stretcher held between them. The shock on their faces when they saw Raphael told her this was worse than bad. Her stomach shriveled in on itself, but the angels recovered quickly, following Dmitri's instructions to put Raphael on the stretcher and fly him to the Tower.
One of the angels-a redhead, balked. "Wouldn't it be better to take him straight home?"
"The healer and medics are about to reach the Tower," Dmitri responded.
Nodding, the angel picked up the front of the stretcher as his partner followed suit on the other end. "See you there."
Elena wasn't exactly sure about the power dynamics in the room. The hierarchy of the world was supposed to go archangel-angel-vampire-human, in that order. But Dmitri was clearly running the show here-and unlike with the baby angel who'd made the drop at her apartment, these angels were old and powerful.
Now, with Raphael gone, Dmitri's attention shifted to her. As he walked closer, she cursed the stupid policy on chip-embedded weapons. Without them, she was as vulnerable as a child.
And Dmitri looked ready to tear her apart with his bare hands.
Walking until he stood only inches from her, he gripped her chin, his hands bloody, his gaze black with a heart of flame.
She gasped. "Your eyes-" There was a spiking circle of red where the pupil should've been, a spreading stain with bladelike edges. "What the hell?"
His hand tightened. Then he leaned closer. She froze. If he tried to take blood, she knew she wouldn't be able to remain quiet-instinct would take over and she'd try to go for her weapons. It wasn't something she could stop. But Dmitri surprised her again. His lips brushed her ear instead of her neck. "I'm going to watch him break you. And then I'll lick up your blood for dessert."
Fear-raw and brutal-bloomed in the pit of her stomach, but she faced him with studied nonchalance. "How's your neck?"
His fingers tightened hard enough that she knew she was going to have bruises. "In my time, women knew their place."
She didn't ask, wouldn't fall for that trick.
But it turned out Dmitri didn't need her cooperation. "Flat on their back, legs spread."
She narrowed her eyes. "Raphael hasn't rescinded his hands-off policy, so I'd watch it if I were you."
He laughed and the sound was a razor slicing over her skin. His fingers gentled, cupped her cheek, and he came even closer, until she was pressed between muscled vampire flesh. But it was only Dmitri she truly "saw"-his lethal rage, his eyes . . . his scent. It wrapped around her like the most obscenely luscious of coats, tasting of fur and diamonds and sex. "I hope he keeps you alive for a long, long time." His tongue flicked over the thudding beat of her pulse. "I hope he invites me to play."
Chapter 19
An hour later, Elena tugged at the restraints locking her arms to the chair. All she succeeded in doing was tightening the ropes around her ankles. Hog-tied. She was hog-tied! Her arms had been wrenched behind her back and tied, then the rope run down to wrap securely around one ankle, before crossing over to her other ankle. The final touch had been to take the rope back up to her wrists and around her waist to the back. She was effectively chained to a heavy chair that she had no hope of tipping over.
"I can smell blood, Elena," Dmitri drawled, walking back into the room. "Are you trying to flirt?"
She glared at him, recalling exactly how much fun he'd had divesting her of her weapons. He hadn't been crass. No, he'd been sensuality personified, that damn drugging scent of his snaking through her body like the most potent aphrodisiac on the planet. She'd still managed to get in some kicks-before being bound, having her cuts disinfected, and parked in what looked like a small sitting room somewhere in the higher levels of the Tower. "How's Raphael?"