“No. The victim was left in a warehouse run by a vampire who still has ten years to go on his Contract.”
“No chance of the body not being immediately reported to the Tower.” Dmitri spoke to the archangel with a familiarity that made it clear their relationship was nothing so simple as lord and liege. “You could’ve contacted me without flying here.”
Raphael glanced at Honor. “Leave us.”
No one had ever before spoken to her in that tone. “I might,” she said, not certain where she found the guts to challenge this being who made every tiny hair on her body rise in an alarm so primal, it came from the part of her brain that was without sentience or reason, “be able to help.”
The Archangel of New York looked at her for a long, chilling moment. “Perhaps. But that is not for you to decide.”
Dmitri’s lips tugged upward a fraction at whatever he saw on her face. “Go, Honor. I’ll make sure you get to examine the body.”
It was galling to realize she’d been dismissed, an overly ambitious child, but she was smart enough to know it was nothing personal. Raphael might have taken a hunter for his consort, but he wasn’t, and never would be, anything close to mortal. Turning on her heel, she headed for the stream once more. As for Dmitri—she’d settle that account later.
19
Raphael’s eyes followed Honor’s progress. “Be careful, Dmitri. She has more spirit than all your other women put together.”
Dmitri watched that strong, lithe body disappear into the trees, the strength of her even more compelling for having been reborn from the ashes of brutality. “Do you think me in danger, Sire?”
“No. But then, I did not think myself in danger either.” Allowing his wings to brush the carpet of fallen leaves, he returned to the matter that had brought him here. “This time, the message was unhidden.”
Dmitri had guessed as much. “Tell me.”
“The male was branded with a glyph. The sun hiding a sickle moon.”
“There now, lover. You will never forget me.”
His chest muscles tightened. “We’ve been unable to confirm the identity of the previous victim,” he said, strangling the memory. “Is this one ours?”
“No.” Dmitri.
I can handle seeing the body. The memory was a vicious one, but it didn’t cripple. “The fangs?”
“Near translucent.”
“A report came in from the lab early this morning,” he said, turning toward the stream. “There was a problem with the first vampire’s blood.” Honor should hear this.
Raphael fell into step with him as they headed toward her. “Tell me about your hunter.”
“I have a feeling you already know.”
A faint smile. “You’re protective of her.”
Dmitri thought back to the last time he’d felt protective of a woman. It had been an eon ago. So long ago that he hadn’t recognized the feeling until Raphael pointed it out. “It seems so.” Such protectiveness wasn’t an emotion he welcomed, speaking as it did of ties beyond the raw physicality of sex.
Sinking into a woman’s hot, wet sheath, playing with his bedmate until she whimpered and begged, it was an amusement. Pleasure and pain, sex or blood, none of it touched the quiet, hidden core of his heart, where he continued to honor his vows to his wife.
“I can take care of this, Dmitri.”
“No.” They might have killed Isis together, but the angel had been Dmitri’s nightmare. “The message was addressed to me. I’ll find its author.”
Honor’s form appeared out of the trees on the heels of his declaration. She was standing with her body angled slightly toward them, as if she’d sensed their approach, her expression one of cool consideration.
“The first vampire’s blood,” he said to her, intrigued by the realization that she was calculating a reprisal aimed at him, “was not what it should’ve been.”
“Vampiric blood is distinctive.” Lines marring her forehead. “What was wrong with his?”
Dmitri couldn’t tell her about the toxin that built up in the bodies of angels, that was used to turn humans into vampires. That was a secret so profound Illium had been stripped of his feathers for speaking it to a mortal, a woman who had long since turned to dust. But he could give Honor the result. “The conversion process was incomplete.”
Hereto hidden strands of mahogany in her hair caught the light as Honor angled her head. “An amateur attempt that went wrong?”
He would fist that hair around his hands when he sank into her. “Yes.” Involving an angel unaware that the toxin in his blood hadn’t yet reached the threshold for a successful Making.
“I can talk to the other hunters, see if they’ve heard of anything similar.” Folding her arms, she looked down at the pebbles, back up. “Thing is, the body drop in Times Square, the butchery, it’s not something you’d do your first time around. There must be evidence of previous practice efforts.”