“I"m not an idiot,” Elena muttered. “I want to do some exercise.”
“You"re supposed to rest "til morning.”
“Trust me, I know my body.” She stood with a groan. “If I don"t loosen these muscles now, it"ll be worse tomorrow.”
Illium didn"t say anything, simply watched as she walked to the bathroom. Closing the door, she splashed water over her face and willed herself to stop thinking about what might be happening between Raphael and Michaela. She wasn"t worried that Raphael would sleep with Michaela—quite bluntly, Raphael wasn"t the cheating kind. If he tired of her—and yeah, it hurt to even consider that—he"d tell her to her face. More, she had a feeling he saw through Michaela"s beauty to the venom inside.
But it was impossible to forget the female archangel"s stunning face, that body that had seduced kings and destroyed empires. By contrast, Elena"s own face—reflected in the mirror—was too thin, her skin carrying the pallor of a year spent in sleep. Confidence wasn"t exactly easy.
“Enough.” Putting down the face-towel, she walked back out.
The bedroom proved empty, but she was in no doubt that Illium was nearby. Heading out onto the wide space of the balcony, she began to go through a stretching routine she"d been taught at Guild Academy. Most of the moves still worked, though she had to get creative with a few, given that she now had wings to consider. She tripped a couple of times—until she forced herself to remember to keep the trailing edges raised. It had the same effect as if she"d been trying to keep her arms straight while typing—the ache was a slow burn that got progressively more painful.
Stubborn determination made her want to push through it, but remembering the state she"d been 37
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in this afternoon, she took a break. Dragging herself back into the bedroom and out to the large living area, she found some juice and threw it back. The taste was fresh and tart on her tongue, an indication that this medieval-looking city of mountain and rock had an orange grove hidden somewhere deep within.
“You have a phone call.”
Turning on her heel, she found Illium holding up a sleek silver portable handset. So much for the medieval imagery. “I didn"t hear it ring.”
“I turned off the ringer while you were napping.” Passing it over, he took an apple from the fruit bowl. “It"s Ransom.”
Surprised at Illium"s familiar tone, she lifted the receiver to her ear. “Hey, handsome.”
She could hear the smile in the other hunter"s voice when he replied. “You flying yet?”
“Soon.”
“You sure are keeping some interesting company lately.”
Glancing at Illium as the blue-winged angel walked out onto the separate balcony that flowed off this room, she said, “Where did you meet Illium?”
“Erotique.”
“You know some of the dancers?” Ransom had grown up on the streets, retained most of his contacts even now.
“A couple. I get a lot of good intel there—even the most powerful of vamps gets talky when a woman"s got her mouth near his cock.”
Elena wasn"t surprised—vampires had once been human after all. It took a long time for the echoes to fade completely. “So what did they blab?”
A crackle through the lines. “. . . want to know.”
“What?” She pressed the receiver closer.
“Word"s out that you"re alive. Everyone thinks you"re a bloodsucker—far as I can tell, none of the ones in the know have let the truth slip.”
“Good.” She needed time to get her own head around her new reality before explaining it to anyone else. “Was that what you wanted to tell me?”
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“No. One of the dancers heard the vamps are placing bets on you surviving a year.”
“What"re the odds?”
“Ninety-nine to one.”
Elena didn"t have to ask which was the winning side. “What do they know that I don"t?”
“Rumor is, Lijuan has a habit of feeding her guests to her pets.”
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VI
Raphael watched Michaela lift the crystal wineglass to her lips with the effortless grace of a woman who"d had centuries to perfect her elegant facade. Impartially speaking, she was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world, her skin a flawless shade akin to the most exotic coffee swirled with cream, her eyes a green that put gemstones to shame, her hair a tumble of black threaded with bronze, brown, a hundred shades in between.
Stunning—and she used her looks as effectively and as unemotionally as others might a gun. If men, mortal and immortal, had died because they"d fallen prey to that beauty, that was their mistake.
“So,” she now purred, venom coated in honey, “your hunter survived.” When he didn"t say anything, she made a moue of disappointment. “Why keep it a secret?”
“I didn"t think you were that interested in Elena"s survival.”Only her death.