“He’s well, Ellie. We watch over him.” A quiet reminder that for all his laughter and beauty, Illium, too, was a member of Raphael’s Seven. And that he had no qualms over issuing the bloodiest of punishments. She would never forget the sight of him standing in that strange, blooming winter garden, skin bloody and sword flashing lightning-bright as he sliced the wings off angels who’d come to do harm.
“He misses you.”
A silly, happy smile erased the shadow of memory. “I’ve only been gone a couple of days.”
“I made a solemn promise that I would tell you to call him every night. Don’t make me a liar.”
“Never.” Elena adored little Sam, had spent hours with him when she’d been confined to the Medica during her recovery after Beijing. “What about Noel?” The adult victim of the archangel Neha’s daughter, Anoushka’s, vicious craving for power had healed of his physical injuries weeks ago. But those weren’t the deepest hurts.
“He is ...” Illium paused for a long time. “Broken. Inside, he is broken.”
Elena knew about being broken. But she also knew about survival. “The man who survived what was done to him”—blood and meat, that’s all he’d been when they’d found him—“will survive that, too.”
“He’ll have to,” Illium said. “Raphael has assigned him to Nimra’s court. She doesn’t play overt games of power—but even Nazarach does not dare step foot in her territory without invitation.”
Elena frowned, making a mental note to ask Raphael why he’d sent the damaged vampire into what sounded like a deadly field. Nimra had to be both brutal and cruel if she managed to hold Nazarach at bay, and Noel needed to heal, not fight for his next breath.
A chopping-slicing sound. Distinct. Unwelcome.
“Is that—” Her eyes widened at the black dot growing larger on the horizon with every slap of sound. “Damn it to hell!” It was the same news crew that had been hounding her the entire morning.
Illium zipped in front of her. “They dare do this?” His voice was suddenly that of the man who’d amputated angelic wings in cold, clear-eyed retribution. “I will ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
“No, Illium.” She managed to grip the muscular warmth of his upper arm. “No blood, not here. This is my home.”
That incredible hair—ebony dipped in crushed sapphires, startling and impossible—blew back in the increasing turbulence caused by the chopper. “If you don’t teach them a lesson now,” he said as she tightened her hold on him to help maintain her position, “the vultures will see you as weak. You cannot be seen as weak, Ellie.”
Because she was Raphael’s consort.
And weakness in an archangel could be fatal.
“Shit.” Strengthening her hold, she screamed against the wind. “How strong are you?” He was five hundred years old, had survived a deathly plunge into the Hudson, and once glowed with power to her naked eye. But she had no idea what that translated to in terms of physical might.
“Strong enough to break that machine in half.”
Oh. “How about you turn it upside down and land it that way instead?” She squeezed his arm, felt muscle and tendon shift under her touch as he took more of her weight. “No fatalities, Bluebell.”
Illium blinked, met her gaze ... then gave a slow, wicked smile. “Where do you go?” When she told him, he said, “I’ll meet you there.”
She released his arm and dropped below the turbulence as fast as possible, clearing off in a direction that would take her out of the path of any activity. But she wasn’t so distant that she missed the sight of Illium flying above the machine.
Her throat dried up, and if he’d been close enough to hear her, she’d have told him to stop. Dear God, those blades would shred his wings if he made a single error of judgment. But then Illium—laughing, playful, powerful Illium, did something and the blades just . . . stopped. He let the chopper free-fall for two stomach-churning seconds before catching it from below and flipping it over.
She realized the fiend was having fun.
Shaking her head, she carried on toward Ignatius’s apartment, which ended up being very close to the Tower. Thankfully, the high-rise had a flat roof, so she didn’t have to make a tight landing. Skidding across the rough surface, she took a minute to catch her breath before searching for and finding the entrance to the building. It was locked.
“Ash, thank you again.” The other hunter had not only taught Elena how to pick locks with the skill of a master jewel thief—and didn’t that just bring up all sorts of intriguing questions—she’d given Elena a set of slim lock-pick tools that she carried in a special pocket built into the knife sheath on her thigh.
Pulling out the pick she needed, she went to work. “Too easy.” She squeezed through the tiny metal door, a hiss escaping her mouth as her right wing scraped along the rusty edges.
Glancing back, she saw that while a few deep blue feathers bore flecks of metal, there was no blood. Probably the best she could’ve hoped for, she thought, deciding against the elevator at the end of the service corridor—who knew how tiny that would be. Instead, she took the stairs down three levels to the floor where Ignatius had had his apartment.
She scented him the moment she opened the stairwell door and stepped into the corridor—the burnt treacle of his scent was imprinted in the walls, in the carpet. But not only his. There were, in fact, so many vampiric scents threaded through the air that she wondered if this wasn’t an “overflow” building, used by vampires who weren’t high enough in the hierarchy to rate a room in the Tower, but needed to be close to it.
A door opened down the hall as she stopped in front of Ignatius’s apartment.