Dmitri’s expression was unreadable when he looked at her, his thoughts hidden. “Can you track Amos?”
Aware she couldn’t hope to convince him to take another path when their relationship was barely formed, she held her peace for the moment. “The blood here survived, but I’m guessing the rain will have made a mess of any smaller traces. However, Amos was bleeding badly so there’s a chance if he didn’t manage to get to a vehicle.”
“It should be safe, but take someone with you.” He raised his hand and she felt a rush of air above her head as wings of sooty black streaked across to land lower down the rise. “Jason will keep you company. I have something to attend to.”
She caught the edge in his tone. “Dmitri.”
“I’m going to personally tear apart Jiana’s Enclave property, and I’ll set Tower personnel to ensuring Amos has no hidden bolt-holes. If there are any files naming those who accepted his invitation, I’ll find them.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she looked out over the flowers. “I think we tracked them all.” There were no unknown scents or bodies in her memories, no voices that didn’t fit. “Thank you.”
A brush over her hair, and then he was gone, leaving her to her task.
She used every ounce of her skill, even asked Elena to drop by and confirm, but her instincts proved correct—Amos had bled through the culvert, but his trail ended there.
“Car,” Elena agreed when Honor showed her the tracks, her words crisp regardless of the dark circles under her eyes. “No hint of any further scent. You want me to tell the Tower to put out an alert on vehicles owned by him?”
“He’s too smart to have used anything that can be traced back to him.” Amos’s cunning was a vicious thing.
A single bead of water rolled off the white-gold of a primary feather as the other hunter spread her wings a fraction. “Never know with immortals—arrogance can sometimes blind them to reality.”
“Yes.” Honor took in the dark circles again, the lines of strain. “Tough night?”
The other woman blew out a breath, strands of her hair escaping her braid to whisper across her face. “Was up until five a.m. talking with one of my sisters. She’s going through some stuff.” A shake of her head. “Love can kick you in the gut sometimes.”
Honor thought of Dmitri, of how vulnerable she was to him, and couldn’t disagree. “But when it’s right . . .”
“Yes.” Elena’s eyes met her own, the silver shimmering despite the lack of sunlight. “I’m in no position to throw stones about getting involved with dangerous men, so I’ll just say—living in the world of immortals can be brutal. You ever need anything, including support to tie Dmitri up so you can torment him with a fork, call me.”
Honor’s lips twitched, an unexpected respite. “You still haven’t forgiven him for that.”
“I intend to carry the grudge into eternity.” Those pale, striking eyes returned to the culvert, to the blood trail, all humor fading. “I’m not a mother, but to do what you say Jiana did . . .”
“Yes.”
Elena left soon afterward, her wings a splash of brilliance against the steel of the sky, but Honor didn’t return to the city. Instead, she walked to join Jason where he stood in the shadow of an old magnolia tree, its leaves a thick waxy green. “I’d like a look through the house.” It was an itch at the back of her neck, a sense that she’d missed something . . . or perhaps seen something she hadn’t understood at the time.
The house was as elegant as the last time she’d stepped inside it—except for the evidence of a violent fight.
Holes in the walls, bloody palm prints, broken furniture, and paintings skewed crooked where they hadn’t been pulled off and thrown to the ground. “If Amos was sedated,” she said, “how did he do all this, manage to beat Jiana?”
Jason, his presence so silent that she was almost startled to hear the rustle of his wings, spoke for the first time. “A slow-acting or mild sedative would have left him with some awareness of what was happening—enough that he tried to fight it.”
“Jiana would have known,” she murmured, “how to calculate any dose to her son’s size and strength. Then all she’d have had to do was taunt him into a rage.” She could see the weaving, staggering pattern clearly now. He’d crashed into the wall there, skewed the ornamental mirror, tipped over the wooden table with its delicate legs, then kicked his way free and done something that sprayed blood over the wall.
“A blow to Jiana’s mouth,” she said, nodding at the spray.
“We’ll know for certain soon enough,” he said, his wings a whisper of darkness as he walked into a room off the main hall. “Raphael will take the memory from her mind.”
Honor shivered at the idea of such a violation. “How do you stand it?” she asked, aware it was an intimate question, but compelled to ask. “Knowing he could do the same to you?”
“Trust.” He gave her an unreadable look over his shoulder, his eyes as dark as his wings. “The kind of trust that allows you to take Dmitri to your bed even knowing what he’s capable of doing to women who edge his temper.”
Startled by the response, and by the fact that he’d picked up that piece of information though it appeared he’d just returned to the city, she looked with more care at that face marked by the swirling lines of a tattoo that should’ve made him stand out no matter his surroundings. And yet . . . Shadows, she thought, clung to Jason.