Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, she’d spent a few hours one day placing several more plants in the solar, along with a selection of her other treasures—the delicately carved mask from Indonesia went on the wal beside the door, the tiny glass candy ornaments from Murano in a crystal bowl atop the smal writing desk, and the swathe of hand-embroidered silk from Kashmir she hung up on the other wal like a tapestry. Midnight blue shot with gold, it glowed in the sunlight.
“Setting up a nest, Guild Hunter?” Raphael had asked only last night as he stood leaning against the doorjamb.
She’d looked up from where she was arranging her favorite books in a gorgeous little bookshelf made of reclaimed lumber that Montgomery had found for her, caught by how very male Raphael was—especial y here, in a place she’d turned exquisitely feminine. “It’s what hunters do.” She had a feeling that deep-rooted sense of home would be even more crucial in this new life. “But,” she’d added, “you’ve already created the nest.” This house, for al its size, was nothing like the cold elegance of the Tower. Here was warmth and beauty, a place where she could col apse in bed and snuggle into the blankets.
“Then what is this?”
“I’m marking out a piece of the house as my own territory.”
A cool pause. “I wil not al ow you to put distance between us, Elena.”
She’d seen that one coming, was more than ready to handle it. “I need a place where I can slam the door in your face when I’m mad. I’m pretty sure both of us would prefer that place be here and not elsewhere.”
“And wil I be invited into this part of the nest?”
“Perhaps.” The tease had gotten her a less than amused look. Smiling, she’d reached for a smal box about the size of a memo cube that she’d kept to the side. “I have something for you.”
As with the last time she’d given him a present—the ring that burned with amber fire—he’d appeared both surprised and delighted. “What do you give me?”
“It’s for your suite at the Tower.” Hoping he’d understand, she’d handed over the box.
He’d opened it to remove a chunk of black rock glittering with what looked like deposits of gold. “Pyrite,” he’d murmured, identifying the mineral as it flashed fire in the sunlight. “Shokran, Elena.”
He’d stolen her heart al over again with the way he handled the gift with such care. “There’s a second part,” she’d added. “Tonight, I’l tel you about the strange, haunted mine where I picked up that hunk of rock. There might be a former voodoo priest turned vampire involved.”
Raphael’s expression had shifted, the intimacy in those eyes stealing her breath. You give me a memory, Consort mine. I am honored. A bow of that dark head, the rock being placed careful y back into the box.
Of course then, she’d had to go into his arms, this man who treated her memories as if they were precious jewels. She hadn’t realized until much later, as she fel asleep covered by the heavy warmth of his wing, that Raphael had never chal enged her right to claim partial ownership over a home he had to have lived in for centuries. It had made something in her settle, dig another root into this new life, this new existence.
But fussing with her solar was something she did in her spare time—usual y, when her muscles felt like jel y. Because most of the past four days she’d spent either in the gym she’d discovered in the sprawling basement under the house, up in the air with a number of angelic instructors, or out on the makeshift practice circle, sparring against Raphael and, occasional y, Dmitri.
Today, her opponent was neither her archangel nor his second.
“Last time we fought, you ended up unconscious.” Slitted green eyes watched her without blinking.
Elena bared her teeth. “I also almost took your bal s off.”
“They would’ve grown back.”
“You sure didn’t seem keen to lose them at the time.” Raising her short sword, she said, “Shal we play?”
A smal nod, Venom’s upper body gleamed a warm, inviting brown in the sun, his legs covered by those flowing black pants most of the males seemed to prefer to work out in. “Since you ask with such sweetness.”
As they stabbed and darted out at each other, Venom attempting to go for her wings, while she tried to take him to the ground, she ensured her gaze never met his ful on. She’d learned her lesson the last time, when he’d almost entranced her. That lesson had saved her life in Beijing, but she hadn’t much liked the learning of it and had no intention of repeating the experience. Her short sword hit hard against the curved blade he used, and she felt the vibration al the way up her arm and in her teeth.
He brought up his second blade to block the knife she’d been about to put to his abdomen. “Stalemate.” A viper’s eyes tried to catch her gaze as his muscles locked in place.
Elena wasn’t stupid. Venom was somewhere around the three-hundred-year-old mark by her guess. That meant that physical y, he had a massive advantage. “Don’t hold back.” It was a gritted-out command as she broke the deadlock and danced out of reach.
“I have to,” he said, circling those blades as if they weighed nothing, the sun glancing off them in a pattern that could quickly turn hypnotic. “Face it, El ie, you can’t win if it comes down to brute strength.”