Angel's Blood (Guild Hunter 1)

Raphael's eyes were closed, but he wasn't truly asleep. He was in a semiconscious coma, a condition for which humans or vampires had no equivalent. The angels knew it as anshara , a state of being that could be achieved only by those who had lived longer than half a millennium, and that allowed both reason and deep rest at the same time. Now, the conscious part of him was absorbed in knitting the wound Elena had made with her little gun, while the rest of him slept. A useful state. But not one that could be brought on by choice.

Anshara only came to pass when an angel had been badly injured. That had happened rarely in the last eight hundred years of Raphael's existence. When he'd been young and inexperienced, he'd damaged himself-or been damaged-a few times.

Images of dancing in the sky before his wings tangled, and he plummeted to earth with the certain understanding that his blood would paint a red carpet across the meadow floor.

Ancient memories. Of the boy he'd been.

Broken arms, broken legs, blood spilling out of a shattered mouth.

And her. Standing over him, crooning. "Shh, my darling. Shh."

Sheer terror racing through his bloodstream, his heart heavy with the knowledge that he was helpless to stop her . . . his mother, his greatest nightmare.

Black haired and blue eyed, she'd been the feminine image from which he'd been cast. But she'd been old by then, so very old, not in appearance but in the mind, in the soul. And unlike Lijuan, she hadn't evolved. She'd . . . devolved.

In the present, he could see his wing knitting together filament by filament but it wasn't enough to keep the memories at bay. During anshara, the mind disgorged things long locked away, covering the soul in a layer of opaqueness no mortal could hope to understand. These were the memories of a hundred different mortal lifetimes. He was old, so old . . . but no, he wasn't ancient. These memories weren't all his. Some were those of his race, the secret repository of all their knowledge, hidden inside the minds of their children.

Caliane's memories rose to the surface.

And he was looking down at his bleeding and broken body from a crouching position, watching his/her hand stroke his hair off his face. "It hurts now but it had to be done."

The boy on the ground couldn't speak, drowning in his own blood.

"You will not die, Raphael. You cannot die. You are immortal." Leaning down to press a cool kiss against the bloody ruin of the boy's cheek. "You are the son of two archangels."

The boy's miraculously undamaged eyes filled with betrayal. His father was dead. Immortals could die.

Sadness shifted through Caliane. "He had to die, my love. If he had not, hell would have reigned on earth."

The boy's eyes grew darker, more accusing. Caliane sighed, then smiled. "And so must I-that is why you came to kill me, is it not?" Soft, delighted laughter. "You can't kill me, my sweet Raphael. Only another of the Cadre of Ten can destroy an archangel. And they will never find me."

A shocking transition into his own mind, his own memories. Because he had none of Caliane's after that-she'd made the memory transfer as he lay so badly injured he hadn't even been able to crawl for months. Nor had he been able to lift his eyes to watch her take flight. Instead, his last memory of his mother was of the sight of her bare feet stepping lightly across the verdant green of the meadow, a trail of angel dust sparkling in her wake.

"Mother," he tried to say.

"Shh, my darling. Shh." Then a gust of wind blew dirt into his eyes.

When he blinked awake, Caliane was gone.

And he was looking into the face of a vampire.

Blood born

He fed.

His parched bones swelled, filled with life.

But he needed more.

So much more.

This was the ecstasy the others had been trying to keep from him while bloating themselves with power. Now they would pay the price. Blood dripped from his canines as he screamed a challenge that shattered window glass on every building within a mile radius.

It was time.

Chapter 21

Dmitri's expression held pure relief. "Sire?"

"What time is it?" he asked, his voice strong. Anshara had done its work. But he'd have to pay the price it demanded soon.

"Dawn," Dmitri answered in the old way. "Light is just touching the horizon."

Raphael got out of bed and flexed his wing. "The hunter?"

"Bound in another room."

The wing was back to normal except for one thing. He looked down at the inner pattern. The smooth brushstrokes of gold had been interrupted at the point where Elena's bullet had torn through. Now the bottom half of that wing bore a unique pattern in gold on white-an explosion from a central point. He smiled. So, he would carry the mark of Elena's burst of violence.

"Sire?" Dmitri's voice was questioning as he noted the smile.

Raphael continued to look down at the wing, at the mark caused by the Quiet. It would serve as a useful reminder. "Did you hurt her, Dmitri?" He glanced at his second, noting the disheveled hair, the wrinkled clothing.

"No." The vampire's lips curved upward in a feral smile. "I thought you'd enjoy that pleasure."

Raphael touched Elena's mind. She was asleep, exhausted from a night spent attempting to break her bonds. "This is a battle between me and the hunter. No one else will interfere. Take care the others know that."

Dmitri couldn't hide his surprise. "You won't punish her? Why?"

Raphael answered to no one, but Dmitri had been with him longer than any other. "Because I took the first shot. And she is mortal."

The vampire's expression remained unconvinced. "I like Elena, but if she escapes punishment, others might question your power."

"Make sure they understand that Elena occupies a very special place in the scheme of things. Anyone else who dares challenge me will soon wish I'd shown them the same mercy I showed Germaine."

Dmitri's face paled. "May I ask one question?"

He waited in silent permission.

"Why were you so badly injured?" Dmitri pulled out a gun he'd had tucked into the small of his back. "I checked the bullet she used-it should've only caused minor damage, given her a head start of ten minutes at most."

Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal.

"I needed to be injured," he responded obliquely. "It was the answer to a question."

Dmitri looked frustrated. "Can it happen again?"

"I'll make sure it doesn't." He took pity on the leader of his Seven. "Do not worry, Dmitri-you won't have to watch the city shudder under the rule of another archangel. Not for another eternity."