Angel's Blood (Guild Hunter 1)

"Humanity is nothing to us," he said. "Ants, easily crushed, easily replaced."

She shivered, and this time it was out of pure fear. "Then why allow us to live?"

"You amuse us occasionally. You have your uses."

"Food for your vampires," she said, disgusted at herself for having seen anything human in him. "What-you keep a prison full of 'snacks' for your pets?"

His arms squeezed, cutting off her breath. "There's no need. The snacks offer themselves up on silver platters. But you'd know that-your sister is married to a vampire, after all."

The implication couldn't have been clearer. He'd as much as called her sister, Beth, a vamp-whore. The derogatory term was used to describe those men and women who followed groups of vampires from place to place, offering their bodies as food in return for whatever fleeting pleasure the vampire deigned to give. Every vamp fed differently, hurt or pleasured differently. Some vamp-whores seemed determined to taste, and be tasted by, each and every one of them.

"Leave my sister out of this."

"Why?"

"She was with Harrison before he became a vampire. She's no whore."

He chuckled, but it was the coldest, most dangerous sound she'd ever heard. "I expected better from you, Elena. Doesn't your family call you an abomination? I thought you'd have sympathy for those who love vampires."

If she'd dared let go of his neck, she might just have clawed her nails down his face. "I won't discuss my family with you." Not with him, not with anyone.

You disgust me. Almost the last words her father had said to her.

Jeffrey Deveraux had never been able to understand how he could've birthed a "creature" like her, an "abomination" who refused to follow the dictates of her blue-blooded family and sell herself in marriage in order to expand the sprawling Deveraux empire. He'd told her to give up the vampire hunting, never listening, never understanding that to ask her to stifle her abilities was to ask her to kill something inside of her.

Go, then, go and roll around in the muck. Don't bother coming back.

"It must've been . . . interesting when your brother-in-law chose vampirism," Raphael said, ignoring her words. "Your father didn't disown either Beth or Harrison."

She swallowed, refusing to remember the pitiful hope she'd felt when Harrison was accepted back into the family fold. She'd wanted so desperately to believe that her father had changed, that he'd finally look at her with the same love he lavished on Beth and the two younger children he had with his second wife, Gwendolyn. His first wife, Marguerite, Beth and Elena's mother, was never spoken of. It was as if she hadn't existed.

"My father is none of your business," she said, voice harsh with withheld emotion. Jeffrey Deveraux hadn't changed. He hadn't even bothered to return her call-and she'd understood that Harrison had been allowed back because he was the scion of a major corporation that had deep ties with Deveraux Enterprises. Jeffrey had no use for a daughter who chose to indulge in her "disgraceful, inhuman" ability to scent vampires.

"What about your mother?" A dark whisper.

Something snapped. Letting go of his neck, she kicked out with her legs at the same time that she lifted her arms to do some damage to his oh-so-pretty face. It was a suicidal act, but if there was one topic on which Elena wasn't rational, it was her mother. That this archangel, this immortal who cared nothing for the firefly span of human life, dared use Marguerite Deveraux's ephemeral existence against Elena was unbearable. She wanted to hurt him in spite of the futility of the goal. "Don't you ever-"

He dropped her.

Chapter 7

She screamed . . . and came to a hard landing on her butt, hands braced against the rough caress of expensive tile. "Ummph." Swearing inwardly at the bitten-off sound of surprise, she sat on the ground, trying to catch her breath. Raphael stood above her, a vision out of a painting of heaven and hell. Either. Both. She could see why her ancestors had seen in his kind the guardians of the gods, but she wasn't sure he wasn't a demon. "This isn't the Guild," she managed to say after much too long.

"I decided we would talk here." He held out a hand.

Ignoring it, she pushed herself to her feet, barely stifling the urge to rub at her bruised tailbone. "You always drop your passengers?" she muttered. "Not so graceful after all."

"You're the first human I've carried in centuries," he said, those blue eyes almost black in the darkness. "I'd forgotten how fragile you were. Your face is bleeding."

"What?" She lifted a hand to a tingling spot on her cheek. The cut was so thin she could hardly feel it. "How?"

"The wind, your hair." Turning, he began to walk toward the glass enclosure. "Wipe it off unless you want to offer the Tower vampires a nightcap."

She rubbed it off using the sleeve of her shirt, then fisted her hands, looking daggers at his retreating back. "If you think I'm going to follow you around like a puppy . . ."

He glanced over his shoulder. "I could make you crawl, Elena." No trace of any humanity in his face, nothing but the glow of such power that she wanted to shade herself from it. It was an effort not to take a stumbling step backward. "Do you really want me to force you onto your hands and knees?"

At that second, she knew he'd do exactly that. Something she'd either said or done had finally pushed Raphael beyond his limits. If she wanted to survive this with her soul intact, she'd have to swallow her pride . . . or he'd break her. The realization burned going down and sat like a rock in her stomach. "No," she answered, knowing that if she ever had the chance, she'd stab a knife in his throat for the insult to her pride.

Raphael watched her for several long minutes, a cold standoff that turned her blood to ice. Around her burned a million city lights, but up on this roof, there was only darkness-except for the glow coming off him. She'd heard people whisper of this phenomenon but had never thought to witness it. Because when an angel glowed, he became a being of absolute power, power that was usually directed to kill or destroy. An angel glowed just before he tore you into a thousand pieces.

Elena stared back, unwilling-unable-to give in. She'd gone as far as she could. Anything else and she might as well crawl.

Get on your knees and beg, and maybe I'll reconsider.

She hadn't done it then. She wouldn't do it now. No matter the cost.

Right when she thought it was all over, Raphael turned and continued on to the elevator cage. The glow faded between one breath and the next. She followed, disgustingly aware of the sweat that had broken out along her spine, the sharp taste of fear on her tongue. But overlaying that was a deep, deep anger.