Laughter in the air, her hair afire in the mountain sunlight. Did you always win?
No, that’s why it was so much fun. It was the first time in an eon that he’d recalled that memory, buried as it had been under centuries of power and politics.
Look at the treetops, he told Elena, glimpsing movement. Our curious friends are back.
Careful to maintain her height, Elena peered downward. He knew the instant she spotted the monkeys that always emerged somewhere along their flight path to Amanat—her delight unhidden, she appeared the girl she’d never had the chance to be, anointed in the blood of her sisters at an age when she should’ve been making a pest of herself to those same sisters.
There’re some more to the left, she said, her mental voice a whisper. They’re pointing at us.
Staying at his current altitude as she dared go a little closer, her white-gold primaries catching the light, he kept an eye out for threats. A day before the ball, there were apt to be any number of very dangerous people already in and around the city. And they all knew Elena was Raphael’s heart.
• • •
The strange shield of energy that usually protected Amanat not in evidence today, they flew straight through to land at the edge of it. Settling her wings, Elena followed the wild blue of her archangel’s eyes to a vampire running along the defensive wall that surrounded the ancient city.
Elena’s credentials from the Guild had always borne the legend Licensed to Hunt Vampires & Assorted Others. The historical licenses framed in the Guild library, yellowed and crumbling, all noted the same—but the funny thing was, aside from Elena’s blue-moon hunt of Uram, the men and women of the Guild didn’t hunt anything except vampires.
She’d always figured the “Assorted Others” tag was to cover them in case they had to go after a human in the course of a Guild case, had been satisfied with that understanding.
Today, however, as she watched Naasir loping atop the wall with a strange, liquid grace that made him appear boneless, she had the feeling she didn’t know as much as she thought. “What,” she said to Raphael, “is he?” Regardless of having visited Amanat more than once by now, she’d had very little direct contact with Naasir.
Raphael gave her a distinctly amused look. “Naasir is one of my Seven.”
“Raphael.”
“What do you think he is?”
“A tiger on the hunt, that’s how I categorized his scent the first time I met him, and I haven’t changed my mind,” she said, as Naasir came down the wall with an ease that made it seem he walked on a flat surface. “His voice might be cultured, but there’s something intensely feral about him. It’s different from what I feel with Venom . . . or deeper, I don’t know.”
“I think,” Raphael said at her frustrated growl, “I will leave Naasir a mystery for you to solve. I wouldn’t want immortality to become boring for my consort.”
Elena let out a snarl, but she was intrigued by the challenge.
The vampire reached them the next instant, inclining his head in a slight bow. “Sire.” Eyes of pure metallic silver set against skin of a rich, strokable brown met Elena’s. “Consort.” The greeting was by-the-book formal, but as always, she had the feeling that in any other situation, he’d see her as prey.
Nodding in return and resisting the urge to go for a weapon, she realized the vampire had cut his hair. It had reached the bottom of his nape the last time she’d seen him. It now just brushed it, the jagged waves around his face still as choppy and as vividly silver.
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.