Archangel's Kiss

"The screams in that place, Ellie." A shiver, rich brown eyes darkening to black. "He enjoys pain, enjoys it more than anyone I've ever met."

"Raphael's hunter." The angel inclined his head in a slight nod.

"Elena." She slid her hand into a pocket, closed it around the gun. The short sword she and Galen had decided on as best fitting her style hung from her waist, along her right thigh. But even Galen had agreed it was to be a last choice weapon - she simply wasn't fast enough to take on most other angels.

"I am Nazarach." Those distinctive amber eyes went to Aodhan. "I haven't seen you in public for decades."

Aodhan didn't reply, but Nazarach didn't seem to need one, his attention returning to Elena. "I look forward to dancing with you, Elena."

Elena was very sure she wanted those hands nowhere near her. She might not have been born with the extra senses that haunted Ashwini, but the way Nazarach looked at her . . .

as if he was imagining her scream. "Sorry, but Raphael's claimed them all."

A smile that made her female instincts scream in warning. "I'm not one to give up so easily."

"Then I guess I'll see you tonight."

"Yes." His eyes flicked to their right. "I must speak to my men."

Glancing at Aodhan after Nazarach walked off, she realized the angel's spine was rigid.

"Are you alright?"

He gave her a look of surprise. Then, a slight inclination of his head.

Figuring Nazarach was enough to give even one of the Seven the creeps, she pointed to a narrow passageway that would take them away from Nazarach's current position. "Let's go this way."

Aodhan followed her without a word, their wings touching as they turned. "Sorry," she said, stepping away in a quick movement.

A jerky nod, his wings held tight to his back.

It looked like Aodhanreally didn't like having his wings touched. His wings . . . or anything else. She belatedly realized he'd made no contact with anyone in the time since Raphael had introduced him to her. Making a mental note to keep her distance, she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the brighter light on the other side of the passageway.

They'd exited into a small, empty square surrounded by intricately painted wooden walls, each panel showcasing a scene from outside the Forbidden City, from farmers in their fields, to young girls running through a market, to an old man sitting in the sun.

There was peace here, a number of small evergreen trees placed strategically to create a soothing mix of shade and sunlight. Color dappled the paving stones and when she glanced up to find the source, her eye was caught by the bubbled glass of an old stained glass window.

Pretty. And distracting.

That was why it took her a fraction too long to realize the scents she was picking up were too close, that the small object she glimpsed buried in the trunk of a nearby tree was a Guild dagger . . . and that the sound she barely caught was that of a crossbow being cocked.

Chapter 36

"Get down!" she screamed even as the bolts fired.

Not one.Two crossbows.

Aodhan moved to protect her, and that was his mistake. He took a bolt through his wing, the force of it pinning him to the wall even as she went facedown on the paving stones, feeling a bolt pass overhead. Raising her head, she saw Aodhan reach over to pull the projectile out of his wing. Another bolt pinned his opposite shoulder to the wall before he could succeed.

Rolling sideways - something it had been damn difficult to re-teach herself now that she had wings - she got herself into the shadow of one of the trees not far from Aodhan. Her first instinct was to go for the gun, but the bullets were meant to shred angelic wings. She didn't know what effect they'd have on vamps, but if they worked like normal bullets, there was a slight chance she'd hit a vulnerable spot, killing their attackers - and they needed them alive to get to the bottom of this.

Having made up her mind, she dropped the knives in her arm sheaths down into her palms, ignored the bolts thudding into the trunk at her back . . . and focused.

Everything went still, until it was as if the world was moving in slow motion, the sun's haze a blinding mist. Once again, she heard the crossbow being pulled back, the bolt being notched into place. But hearing had never been her primary sense.

Elderberries with sugar.

Taking aim, she threw.

The stained glass shattered, littering the ground in a thousand fractures of color. Her second knife was already traveling - to hit the vampire behind the glass in the neck. She saw the blood geyser up, but her attention was on tracking the second shooter. He remained in position, hidden behind a small, solid wall. Safe. But also unable to shoot without exposing himself.

Scrambling up from her hiding position, she ran to Aodhan, ripping out the bolt in his wing while he took care of the one in his shoulder. "Behind the wa - " Her head jerked up as the scent of elderberries began to move. An instant later, it was joined by a rich burst of bitter coffee.

Swearing, she dropped the blood-slick bolt and ran for the stairs cut into one side of the square, cursing the fact that she couldn't manage a vertical takeoff. Aodhan rose into the air behind her, the draft of his ascent hitting her in the back as she reached the upper-level pavilion the vampires had used as their hide. The scent of coffee was thick, the elderberries stained with blood.

They'd gone down the steps on the other side.

Walking backward, she took a running start, and was airborne. Exhilaration burst into life inside her, a rush that accompanied each and every fight. Fighting the urge to simply follow the air currents, she looked down. From above, the Forbidden City was even bigger than it appeared from the ground, a sprawling warren of upper and lower courtyards connected by delicate bridges, and lanes that split off in several different directions - leading to elegantly shaped buildings and the privacy of closed doors.

Aodhan, bleeding from the shoulder, one of his wings damaged but still functional, met her above the main courtyard. "They lost themselves in the courtiers below."

"Guess it's time to go hunting. Cover me." Narrowing her senses, she decided to focus on the one who'd been injured. He'd be slower, easier to run to ground.

Scents swirled like a thousand strands of color.

Violets. Lush. Sweet. Intoxicating.

Wood. Freshly cut.

Rain on a sunny day. Bright. New.

Tangled sheets and champagne. Heavy. Feminine.

Elderberries dripping darkest red.

The thrill of the hunt in her blood, she swooped to the area where she'd tracked the elderberries. It was almost too easy. Dressed in a coat of peacock blue, the vampire stood with a group of others of his kind, a silk scarf knotted around his neck. The scarf was wet, drenched with the pulse of his life's fluid.

She was about to point him out to Aodhan when the vampire jerked and fell to the ground, his body twisting as if in the throes of a grand mal seizure. Cries of dismay, the other courtiers scattering like the butterflies they were. Landing on the ground beside the vampire's jerking body, she rolled him to the side, conscious of the blood foaming around his mouth. "Keep his jaw open!" she said to Aodhan as he landed. "If he chokes on his own tongue - "

The body went silent under her hands.

Vampires could survive a lot, but she knew this one was dead, a tool that had become a liability. "What a fucking waste." He was so young. Likely not even a decade into his vampirism. Going by his face, he'd been Made in his late twenties. "Some kind of immortality."

Aodhan's eyes were glacial when he looked up. "Track the other. I'll be right behind you."

"We need the body."

A curt nod.

Elena stood, gun in hand, angling her head into the wind. The scents had changed now, become charged with fear and a nauseating undertone of arousal. Violence as a drug - it seemed to be an inevitable side effect of immortality for some. Shaking off the extraneous thought, she began to walk through the square, tracking the second shooter on the ground.

He'd gone a fair distance, crossing the entire length of the courtyard, down a long, winding passageway filled with carvings that exited into a sunny plaza, up a flight of stairs and across three curved bridges, then down into what was obviously a very private section of the city. No lanterns swung from the sole tree she could see. No beautifully clad women peered flirtatiously from behind deftly lowered fans. No music played.

Instead, there was only an angel sitting on a marble bench beneath that tree with its winter-green leaves, a vampire at her feet. Elena didn't see it coming. One moment the vampire was kneeling, his chest heaving. And the next, his head rolled to a stop at Elena's feet, having been cut off with ruthless ease.

"Stupid," Anoushka murmured, putting the wickedly curved blade on the bench beside her and brushing at her flowing white skirt as if unaware of the blood that spotted it, covering the tiny mirrors worked into the embroidery. "Leading you straight to me."

Elena couldn't ignore the head touching her foot, strands of hair drifting across the black leather of her boot. She saw Anoushka's lips tilt upward as she took a step to the side.

"You won't have many men left if you kill so indiscriminately," Elena said, gauging if she could shoot and hit Anoushka's wing, given the way the other angel was sitting.

Conclusion: Uncertain.

Running wasn't an option either. Not unless she wanted a blade buried in her back.

"If you're waiting for the broken one," Anoushka said, "he's been detained.

Unfortunately, before he could call for reinforcements." The angel rose to her feet. "Do you hear that?"

It was eerie, how silence could weigh so much. "Why target me?"

"You know already, but you're trying to stall me. Shall I humor you?" Anoushka kept her wings tight to her back as she picked up her weapon, continuing to deprive Elena of a clear target. Hitting an angel in the body with a bullet, even one of Vivek's special bullets, was a no go - you might as well be defending yourself with a flyswatter. Only the wings were vulnerable.

Her eyes went to the knife. She recognized it from her weapons class at Guild Academy.

It was called akukri , the curved blade consisting of a single sharp edge. Perfect if you were looking for something with which to efficiently separate a head from its body.

Anoushka's next words proved as much. "It's really very practical - walking into the Cadre's current meeting with your head as my trophy will, as the humans say, make a splash no one will be able to ignore. I planned to do it at the ball itself, but one must adapt." A sigh. "It's a pity we have so little time. I actually might have liked you had things been different." Thekukri turned into a blur in her hand.

And Elena realized the Princess knew exactly what she was doing with that blade.

She didn't hesitate, firing her gun at Anoushka the instant the angel moved, her wings spreading just a fraction. But Neha's daughter, moving with that reptilian speed, snapped her wings to her back before the bullet reached her. It lodged harmlessly in the opposite wall in a shower of plaster.Fuck! Elena shot again, had the satisfaction of seeing blood bloom on Anoushka's leg, but the angel ignored that, reaching for what Elena had taken to be a belt.

It wasn't.

The whip wrapped around Elena's wrist with the quickness of a snake's tongue, threatening to snap her bones. Shooting as she fell, she managed to distract Anoushka enough to pull her hand free. But the gun was out of bullets, and, as Galen had once warned her, she didn't have the luxury of reloading, not with an opponent who needed a scant instant to kill.