“Thanks, I"ll tell Dmitri to make sure his hench-people know you"re coming.” In spite of her attempt to not let it matter, she couldn"t help but wonder if any of her keepsakes, the little things she"d collected on her trips as a hunter, had survived.
“Hah! I can take on hench-people with one hand tied behind my back.” A thready laugh. “God, Ellie, I get this wave of relief every time I hear your voice.”
“You"ll be hearing it for a lot longer now—I"m immortal,” she joked, not yet able to truly comprehend the enormity of the change in her life. Hunters in the field died young. They didn"t live forever.
“Yeah. You"ll be around to watch over my baby and her babies long after I"m gone.”
“I don"t want to talk about that.” It made her heart ache to imagine a future without Sara, without Ransom, without Deacon.
“Silly girl. I think it"s wonderful—a gift.”
“I"m not so sure.” She told Sara what she"d been thinking in regard to her value as a hostage.
“Am I being paranoid?”
“No.” Now, the other woman sounded like the hard-assed Guild Director she was. “That"s why I packed Vivek"s special gun in the bag of weapons on its way to you.”
Elena"s fingers curled into her palm.
The last time she"d used that weapon, Raphael had bled endless red on her carpet, and Dmitri had almost slit her throat. But none of that, she thought, uncurling her fingers one by one, diminished the value of a weapon meant to disable wings, not when—her gaze went to the skies 17
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beyond the window—she was surrounded by immortals in a place that whispered of things no human was supposed to know. “Thanks. Even if you did get me into this in the first place.”
“Hey, I made you filthy rich, too.”
Elena blinked, tried to find her voice.
“You forgot didn"t you?” Sara laughed.
“I was too busy being in a coma,” Elena managed to choke out. “Raphael paid me?”
“Every last penny.”
It took her a second to realize what that meant. “Wow.” The deposit had been more money than she could"ve hoped to make in a lifetime. And it had been a mere twenty-five percent of the total.
“I think ?filthy rich" might be an understatement.”
“Yeah. But you did complete the job he hired you to do, which I"m guessing had something to do with that fight with Uram?”
Elena bit her lip. Raphael had been explicit in his warning about all information connected to the sadistic monster who"d killed and tortured so many—any mortal she told would die. No exceptions. Perhaps that had changed now, but she wasn"t going to chance her best friend"s life on the faith of a relationship she barely understood. “I can"t tell you, Sara.”
“You"ll tell me all these other secrets but not this one?” Sara didn"t sound pissed, she sounded intrigued. “Interesting.”
“Don"t go digging that way.” Elena"s stomach pitched as her mind put on a nausea-inducing slideshow of the horror that had been Uram. That last room . . . the stench of rotting flesh, the gleam of blood-soaked bone, the slimy pulp of the eyes he"d dug out of a dying vampire"s skull.
Steeling her spine against the bile burning the back of her throat, she tried to imbue her voice with the depth of her worry. “It"s bad news.”
“I don"t have a death wis—ah, Zoe"s awake.” Maternal love filled every syllable. “And look at that, so is Deacon. Zoe"s daddy wakes to her slightest cry, doesn"t he, sweetie pie?”
Elena drew in a cleansing breath, the loving images created by Sara"s words banishing those of Uram"s depravity. “I think you guys are getting more sickening with each day.”
“My baby"s almost one and a half now, Ellie,” Sara whispered. “I want you to see her.”
“I will.” It was a promise. “I"m going to learn to use these wings if it kills me.” Her eye fell on Lijuan"s invitation as the words left her mouth, death closing a skeletal hand around her throat.
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III
However, a week after her conversation with Sara, Elena found herself thinking not of death but of vengeance. “I knew you were into pain, but I didn"t know you were a sadist,” she said to Dmitri"s back, her bones melting into the luscious heat of the isolated hot spring the damn vampire had all but carried her to—after pounding her ass to dust in a training session meant to toughen her muscles.
Turning, he focused the full power of those dark eyes on her, eyes that could tempt an innocent into sin, a sinner into hell itself. “When,” he murmured in a voice that spoke of closed doors and broken taboos, “have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”
Fur stroked over her lips, between her legs, along her back.