“Lucky for me.” Except she didn"t think so. Leaning back in her chair, she let Raphael and Lijuan carry on the conversation. As they talked, she watched, she listened . . . and she tried to figure out why Lijuan seemed so very wrong .
Yes, her power was one that made Elena"s skin crawl, but Raphael had once broken every bone in a vampire"s body and left him as a caution to others. And their conversation on the plane had made it clear he was as capable of that kind of brutality today as he"d been the day she first met him.
Yet she took Raphael to her bed night after night, clung to his embrace when the nightmares got too bad. Trust, there was trust between them. But even before, when he"d only been the Archangel of New York—hard, cruel, certainly without mercy—she"d never felt this creep across her skin, this sense that she was in the presence of something that simply should not be .
“Ah, here is the meal.”
Elena had already turned her head toward the door, having scented the approaching vampires.
Jasmine and honey.
Sweet balsam wood dusted in cinnamon.
A kiss of sunshine touched with paint.
Odd combinations, strange scents, but vampires were like that. She"d asked Dmitri what they smelled like to each other. The vampire had given her that taunting smile he kept just for her.
“Nothing. We save our senses for the mortals—for the food.”
The three who came into the room were all male, but one alone bore the oil-slick black hair and 219
REB
almond-shaped eyes of Lijuan"s homeland. He was the balsam wood. Beside him was a Eurasian man with the solid shoulders of a boxer and the sky blue eyes of some boy from Kansas, his face not quite put together right, but arresting all the same despite, or perhaps because of, his unusual features. He was the jasmine. And the sunshine—her stomach twisted at the memories evoked by that scent, memories of blood and death, putrid flesh lying on every side as Uram squeezed her shattered ankle.
The sunshine shifted closer, laid a delicate setting of hand-painted porcelain on the low, carved table that was the only barrier between her and Raphael, and Lijuan. His hand was the lustrous darkness found at the heart of the mpingo tree, so rich, so pure that furniture made from the heartwood went for thousands upon thousands of dollars.
His skin was so beautiful, so evocative of the months she"d once spent in Africa, that it took her a moment to look into his eyes, to realize that he was dead.
Raphael knew the instant Elena realized the vampire standing before her, pouring honey-colored oolong tea into a tiny cup, was one of the reborn. Her entire frame went still, so very still, the quiet of a hunter who"d sighted prey.
He could"ve spoken to her mentally, warned her not to betray fear, but with Lijuan"s growing abilities, it was possible she might hear the warning—and Raphael would not do anything that would paint Elena as weaker. Instead, he trusted his hunter, and she didn"t let him down.
“Thank you,” she said politely as the reborn finished pouring.
A small nod from the vampire who was so fresh, so new, he couldn"t have been reborn long. His eyes—yes, there was something there, knowledge of who he"d been, what he was now. But there was no panic in them. Perhaps the man didn"t yet understand what he"d become. Raphael waited as the reborn moved around to pour for him, even as the blue-eyed one poured for Lijuan.
“A toast,” Lijuan said, lifting the cup as the men began to transfer the food onto the table from a serving cart made of wood and gilded with gold. “To new beginnings.” Her eyes were on Elena.
Raphael fought the primal urge to step in between, to protect Elena from a threat she had no hope of surviving . . . but then, he thought, his hunter had survived him. “To change,” he said.
Lijuan"s gaze moved to him, but she didn"t challenge the subtle difference in his toast. “That will do.” She waved a hand at the three men, and they left as silently as they"d arrived.
“No audience?” Raphael passed Elena a small platter that held a sweet red bean cake he knew she"d like.
“Not today.” She watched Elena eat the cake he"d given her. “Does food continue to hold pleasure for you, Raphael?”
220
REB
“Yes.” It was a simple answer. He was still rooted to this earth, to the world. “You no longer eat.” It was a guess, but he wasn"t expecting her nod.
“It"s become unnecessary.” She sipped from the cup in her hand. “With friends, I make an effort, but . . .”
He understood what she was saying. No archangel would ever starve to death, even if he or she stopped eating altogether. However, lack of sustenance would eventually begin to leach power. It might take years, perhaps decades, but the loss might well be permanent. An archangel couldn"t afford to take that chance.
Lijuan was telling him she"d gone beyond that. Which brought up the question of how she was now gaining her power.