It was hard to describe that silver—it wasn’t anything like the gray of age. No, it was true silver, glittering and metallic, until she was certain that if you took strands of Naasir’s hair and wove it into a bracelet, it would appear as if it was made of the precious metal. Yet when the wind lifted his hair away from the exotic lines of his face, she saw it was soft, each strand exquisitely fine. Then they settled back into place, and so did the metallic effect.
A tiger with silver eyes.
One she’d seen with his head bent over the neck of an angel clearly in the throes of sexual bliss, his hand fisted in her hair and his fangs wet with her blood. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized angels would allow vampires to feed from them, but then, Naasir was no ordinary vampire . . . if he was a vampire at all.
21
“No, Naasir,” Raphael said, as if the other male had spoken. “You cannot make a meal of Elena.”
“A pity,” came the expressionless answer. “I’ve never eaten the flesh of such a young angel.”
Eyes narrowed, Elena looked from one to the other. “Very funny.”
Naasir’s gaze lingered on her. “I did not realize there was a joke involved.”
Okay, that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. It was a joke, right? He doesn’t actually eat angels?
Raphael stretched out his wings. Not usually, no. He prefers wilder game.
Deciding she would definitely pay her far-too-amused consort back for this, she walked on ahead of the two of them, Raphael’s presence beside Naasir the only reason she could accept the silver-eyed menace at her back.
As she walked, Elena took in the changes since their last visit. Amanat had been awakening in slow degrees, but was now literally in full bloom despite the cold. Recalling the temperate feeling in the city last time, she decided the shield must help maintain a constant pleasant temperature within.
Flowers tumbled from planters and window boxes, bright reds and lush pinks alongside unexpected blues and stunning yellows, the petals soft and the blooms ranging from tiny blossoms to roses the size of dinner plates. Their perfume was a rich tapestry that delighted her senses, lingered in the air, the colors vibrant against the stone gray of the buildings.
A passing woman dressed in a gauzy gown in a sweet shade of peach—pretty but no doubt chilly with the shield down—lowered her eyes the instant she glimpsed Elena.
Why is it every time we come here, she said, uncomfortable with the response, everyone treats me like . . .
Royalty? Because you are.
Her shoulders tightened. It was one thing to know she was consort to an archangel, another to be treated like a power when she knew full well that many of those who bowed their heads to her had far more power in their little fingers than she had in her whole “baby angel” body. Caliane doesn’t like me. It made the formal respectfulness even more unsettling.
In fact, Elena added, turning right to follow an otherwise deserted pathway when Naasir indicated the Ancient waited in that direction, she’d probably be delighted if Naasir indulged his carnivorous instincts.
My mother is an archangel of old. Whatever her opinions of our relationship, she would never air the family’s dirty laundry in public.
Have I told you how much I hate all these stupid polite rules? Scowling, she reached the end of the path . . . and the breath rushed out of her: In front of her was a small pond fed by a waterfall so elegant its sound was delicate music. Flowers grew riotously around the water, the area a carpet of bluebells that reminded her of Illium.
Only a single stone bench disturbed the blue-green of the natural carpet, and on it sat an archangel of breathtaking beauty, her hair as black as night and her wings a sweep of pure white. The crushed sapphires of her eyes seemed full of an aching sadness when she turned to see who disturbed her peace, but the dazzling joy that lit up her face at seeing Raphael soon eclipsed what had gone before.
“My son.” Rising, she walked to him through the bluebells, her wings trailing along the grass . . . and though she stepped on the flowers, they sprang back unscathed. It was a potent display of power, all the more so because Elena was certain Caliane was unaware of it, all her attention on Raphael.
When he bent to kiss her cheek, Elena saw Caliane’s eyes sheen wet. “Come.” She took his arm. “Let me show you how my city has grown since last we met.”
“Mother.” Quiet steel. “You do not greet my consort.”
“Guild Hunter.”
Elena felt the urge to check the air for frost, the greeting was so icy. I thought you said she was never rude, she muttered on the mental plane, even as she made a graceful bow courtesy of Illium’s tutoring skills.
It appears you are a special case.
Stifling a laugh at the cool response, Elena fell into step beside Naasir as Caliane drew Raphael ahead. She’d have to tell Sara about this—her best friend found her “mother-in-law problems” beyond hysterical. As a woman who’d never imagined she’d trust any male enough to tie her life to his, much less meet and deal with his mother, Elena found it cathartic to share the weirdness of this part of her life with Sara.
“Consort,” Naasir said, in that smooth voice she had the sense could become a lethal growl without warning, “there’s something the Sire has asked me to show you.”
She couldn’t read him. At all. It truly was like talking to a big, predatory beast that hadn’t yet decided whether to eat her. Palm itching, she gave in and drew a knife, playing it desultorily through her fingers like a damn security blanket. “What is it?”
“This way.” He waved to a narrower pathway to the left.
Raphael, I’m going off to parts unknown with this vampire who isn’t a vampire.
He has promised not to bite without warning.
Imagining the fiendish revenge she was going to take on Raphael for teasing her so mercilessly, she followed the silver-eyed male who continued to make her senses itch and her primal hindbrain crouch in readiness for flight. “Can I ask a question?”
No response, no reaction.
Deciding that didn’t mean no, she plowed on ahead. “Who Made you?” Venom, with his reptilian speed and the eyes of a viper, had been Made by the Queen of Snakes and Poisons; it could be that Naasir, too, carried the mark of the one who’d Made him . . . if he had been Made and wasn’t a wholly unknown creature.
“A long-dead angel who thought to own me,” was his enigmatic answer, the silver in his eyes almost liquid. “I tore out his throat. After that, I ate his liver and his heart. The remaining internal organs weren’t as tasty so I gave them to his other creatures.”
Elena’s hand tightened on the handle of the knife, conscious Naasir carried gleaming blades of his own in the sheaths strapped to his arms. “I wouldn’t think a vampire who killed an angel would be permitted to live.”
A slow, feral smile. “I didn’t say I killed him.”
Every single hair in her body stood up, the same instinct that had probably saved her ancestors from saber-toothed tigers telling her to run the fuck away! Fast!
Except they’d reached an old temple that hadn’t yet been repaired, parts of it tumbled and covered with creeping vines sprinkled with tiny star-shaped flowers of blue and white. The eerie vampire-maybe-not-vampire led her up the steps. His next words were pragmatic and so civilized, she could barely believe it was the same man who’d spoken about eating an angel’s liver and heart.
“I made this discovery several hours ago,” he said. “As it’s on the edge of the city, easy to police, I decided to wait to act until the Sire’s arrival.”
An angel whispered out of the shadows on the heels of his words, her wings white with a kiss of delicate green at the primaries, from what Elena could see, and her clothing similar to Elena’s own—except this woman’s pants were of some kind of strong brown fabric instead of leather, and her white top a flowing thing rather than the more fitted styles Elena preferred. She wasn’t yet expert enough at fighting with wings to risk tangling herself or her weapons up in froufrou clothes.
“Consort,” the other woman said. “I am Isabel.”
Naasir’s partner, Elena realized, situated here to give the vampire winged backup. “Elena,” she said and held out her hand, the other woman having been away from Amanat during Elena’s previous visits.
Isabel shook it with a smile, her eyes an extraordinary dark brown, her black hair pulled back in an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, and her skin a tawny gold that reminded Elena of paintings she’d seen of Egyptian goddesses. “I’ve made certain nothing was disturbed,” Isabel told her. “Those who ventured this way took little persuading to seek other pleasures.”
A slight shift in the winds that traveled through the temple, Isabel’s blouse shaped to her body for a fleeting second as Elena’s senses jacked into high gear. The scent of decay, putrefaction . . . and below it, of disease.
Not needing Isabel or Naasir to show her the way, Elena walked into the damaged building, the roof a filigree that created delicate patterns of light and shadow beneath her feet. At any other time, she would’ve lingered, taken photographs of the effect to share with Eve, her youngest half sister utterly fascinated by the lost city come to life in a land far from its original homeland.
Today, however, she followed the scent trail in a near-straight line to halfway across the temple. The woman was sitting with her back against one of the intricately carved columns, one hand cradled in a basket of dead flowers, the basket positioned in a way that made Elena think the victim had set it down herself, her body too tired to go any farther. She wore a dress of deep red silk that flattered her femininity without being sexual, the fabric vibrant against the rich cream of her ravaged skin.
There smell was distinctive but faint, the current cold in the city having preserved the victim as she’d died.
Girding her stomach against the rush of pity and anger, Elena crouched down, her wings spreading on the icy smoothness of the stone floor. A single glance was enough to confirm that the unusually small number of sores that marked the woman were visually identical to those on the bodies of the New York victims. No other obvious injuries, but that could be deceptive.