Raphael met those poisonous eyes of vibrant green, wondering if Uram had ever seen through to the vicious heart of the woman he'd called his consort. "You seem to have a fascination with my hunter." It was a deliberate statement. Elena washis , and he would protect her.
Michaela waved off the words. "She made interesting prey, but now that she's lost her abilities, the sport will be far too easy. I suppose I should just let her be."
It was a very smooth, very calculated offer. "I think," he said, not correcting her erroneous assumption, "Elena is more than capable of looking after herself."
Michaela's cheekbones cut sharply against skin men had died to touch. "Surely you don't think her my equal?"
"No." He waited, watched her face suffuse with pleasure, with satisfaction. "She's something utterly unique."
For a single icy instant the mask slipped. "Be careful, Raphael." A predator looked back at him, one who'd clean blood off her fingers with chilly fastidiousness, even as she watched her victim writhe in agony at her feet. "I won't sheathe my claws because she's your pet."
"Then I'll ask Elena not to sheathe hers." Taking a sip of his own wine, he leaned back in his chair. "Will you be at the ball?"
A blink and the mask returned, pristine and perfect. "Of course." She ran a hand through her hair, the move pushing her br**sts against the olive-colored fabric of a dress that bared just enough to tempt most men to madness. "Have you ever been to Lijuan's fortress?"
"No." The oldest of the archangels lived in a mountain stronghold secreted within China's extensive borders. "I don't think any of the Cadre have." Though Raphael had managed to get several of his men inside over the centuries. At present, that task was Jason's, and each time he returned, Raphael's spymaster brought more and more disturbing news of Lijuan's court.
Michaela swirled the liquid in her glass. "Uram was invited there once when he was much younger," she told him. "Lijuan took a shine to him."
"I'm not sure whether Uram should've been flattered or not."
A soft, intimate laugh. "She is rather . . . inhuman, isn't she?" This, coming from a member of the Cadre, spoke to the extent of Lijuan's "evolution."
"What did Uram tell you of her stronghold?"
"That it was impenetrable and filled with countless treasures." Her eyes sparkled, whether in contemplation of those treasures or from the memory of her lover, Raphael couldn't say. "He said he'd never seen such artwork, such tapestries and jewels. I don't know that I believed him - have you ever seen Lijuan wearing even a diamond?"
"She has no need to." With hair of purest white and eyes of a strange pearlescent gray that he'd seen nowhere else on this earth, Lijuan was unforgettable without ornamentation. And these days, Raphael thought, the other archangel's attention was fixed on a world the rest of them couldn't even begin to fathom. She hadn't left her stronghold at all this past half year, not even to meet with her fellow archangels. Which made the ball all the more extraordinary. "Has she invited the entire Cadre?"
"Chari has received an invitation," Michaela said of another of her former lovers, "and he says Neha has as well, so I assume she's invited the others. You should ask Favashi to accompany you. I think our Persian princess would like you for a consort."
Raphael met Michaela's gaze. "If you could kill every single beautiful woman in the world, would you?"
Her smile never faded. "In an instant."
Elena hung up the phone with a frown and stepped out onto the balcony. "Illium, do you know anything about Lijuan's pets?"
The other angel shot her a wide-eyed glance. "Ransom has very good sources."
Yes, Elena thought, he did. But even he hadn't been able to discover the identity of these creatures that had the vampires so certain of her death. "What are they?" Her spine locked as her mind offered an explanation. "Not vampires who've given in to bloodlust?"
Locked in a constant loop of violence, feeding and hunger, those vampires made the most sociopathic of killers.
"Come here, little hunter. Taste."
Illium shook his head as she slammed the door on a memory that refused to stay buried, his hair tumbled by the stiff breeze coming off the mountains. He was a jewel against the night, his beauty so intense that it forced the eye to him rather than the stars. She took the lifeline, hung onto the present. "Why hasn't Michaela killed you yet?"
"I'm male. She'd rather f**k me."
The blunt answer threw her off balance for a second. "Have you?"
"Do I look like I want to be eaten alive after sex?"
Startled into a grin, she turned her face into the wind, enjoying the biting freshness. "So, Lijuan's pets?"
"Ask Raphael."
Her smile disappeared at the thought of where Raphael was at that moment. Searching for a distraction, she nodded at the lights she could see dotting the sides of the gorge that fell away beneath them, a massive split in the earth's crust. "Don't tell me people live down there?" Water ran far, far below the lights, but even so, she could feel the raging thunder of its passage.
"Why not? The caves make the most perfect of aeries." His grin was a slash of white across his face. "I have one. When you can fly, you can come see it."
"At the rate I'm going, I'll be eighty by the time I can actually fly."
"It'll only take once," Illium said softly, his face lifted up to the moonlight. The beams played over him as if entranced, turning his skin translucent, his hair a thousand strands of liquid ebony dipped in sapphires. "That first flight is something you never forget - the rush of air as your wings spread, the intoxicating freedom, the sheer joy that dances in the soul from being all that you're meant to be."
Caught by the unexpected poetry of his words, she almost didn't see Raphael sweeping in to land. Almost. Because nothing and no one else could ever hold her attention when her archangel was in the vicinity. Barely aware of Illium going quiet beside her, she watched the devastating grace of Raphael's descent. Illium was as beautiful as a gleaming blade, but Raphael . . . Raphael was magnificent.
"Time for me to go, I think."
She felt Illium leave, but it was a distant knowledge, her eyes drawn inextricably to the archangel who'd landed before her. "How was dinner?" she asked, staring into those cobalt eyes full of secrets it would take her an eternity to unravel.