"For the purpose of this hunt," Raphael said, steel in his tone, "he is. Michaela."
The female archangel leaned back in her chair. "I woke to the sound of something tapping against my window. I assumed it to be a trapped bird and got up to release it."
The image should've been incongruous with Michaela's selfish beauty, but there was a powerful sense of truth in her words. Perhaps, to be "human" in her eyes, you had to have wings.
"But," the archangel continued, "when I reached the window, I found no bird. As I was about to turn away, my eye fell on the lawn and I noticed a lump sitting in the center. I thought it was an animal that had crawled there to die." No shudder of distaste, rather a sense of sadness. Again, it felt true.
Animals obviously ranked higher in Michaela's worldview than humans. Having seen some of the things humans were capable of, Elena couldn't disagree.
Michaela took a deep breath. "I opened the balcony doors and asked one of the guards below to check on it. As you know, the lump turned out to be a burlap sack filled with seven human hearts." A pause. "My guards tell me they were still warm."
Chapter 26
Elena's stomach didn't roil this time. She'd expected as much. "This kind of stuff-taking trophies, taunting people, or in your case, giving gifts-is behavior similar to what you see in vampires after the bloodlust first takes control. At this point, they're more animal than human."
"We knew that, hunter." Michaela made the last word an insult, wiping out any warmth Elena might've felt over the archangel's attitude toward nonhumans.
"Then I can't give you more." She was out of her depth and it was no use pretending otherwise. No hunter in known history had tracked an archangel. "But I will tell you one thing-Uram is far bolder than any vampire. He was there tapping on your window." She saw Michaela shiver, couldn't blame her for being creeped out. "If he carries on at this speed, he'll leave the animal stage behind and start thinking with high-level calculation within the week."
"So soon?" Raphael asked.
She nodded. "Most devolved vamps' first kills are messy, as this was. But it was secret, too. He knew he'd be caught if he didn't hide it."
Raphael nodded. "And vampires in the grip of bloodlust don't think that clearly."
"Over sixty percent are caught locked in bloodthrall at the site of their first kill." A state between lust and stupefaction, it made the vampires insensate to everything around them. Elena had once walked right up to one-he hadn't moved even when she neckleted him, a beatific smile on his face, his hands still buried in his victim's chest. "I have a feeling," she continued, shaking off the memory, "that Uram never went into bloodthrall. If he had, the hearts wouldn't have been warm."
"That is . . . unexpected," Raphael said. "Bloodthrall would have slowed him down."
"But even the worst vampiric killer doesn't slaughter every night," Elena began. "There should be a lull. He's fed the lust-he's bloated with power, with-"
"You forget-he's not a true vampire." Raphael's frame came into view as he shifted slightly. "He won't stop. For now, it seems he hunts at night and during the early morning, so we have the daylight hours to regroup. If he devolves as fast as you predict, then he'll start to hunt in daylight, too."
Elena's eyes widened. "You're saying he's always in bloodlust."
"Yes."
"Dear God." That made Uram a monster beyond comprehension.
The scrape of a chair, the sound muffled by the carpet but still somehow harsh.
Elena looked up to find Michaela on her feet.
"I can't sit here and listen to you speak of Uram this way. You have no comprehension of what it is to lose someone you've known half a millennium." Her eyes met Elena's and at that second, Elena believed her.
"No," she said. "I'm sorry."
Michaela flicked off the sympathy. "I don't need a mortal's pity. Raphael, I would speak with you."
"I'll escort you out."
As they left the room, their wings occasionally brushing, Elena felt a surge of jealousy so strong her hand was on her gun before she realized it. The touch of cold metal against warm skin was what brought her back. Gritting her teeth, she turned and attacked the sandwiches with relish.
By the time Raphael returned, she was no longer starving, which was probably why she didn't stab a fork through his eye when she saw the brush of bronze angel dust on his wing. "Is that like a cat marking its territory?"
Raphael followed her gaze, flaring out the affected wing. "Michaela isn't used to being denied." Picking up a fancy cloth serviette, he came to her. "Wipe it off."
The urge to rebel against the command smashed up against her need to rub that bitch's mark off his wing. Stupid possessiveness won. "Turn around."
He did so in graceful silence. Standing, she dampened the cloth with water before touching it to his wing. She was very careful not to get any of the sticky stuff on herself, but her caution appeared to have been unnecessary. "It's coming off easy. Not like the one you dusted me with." Even now, the light caught on stray flecks embedded in her skin, flecks she was sure Michaela had seen.
"I told you-yours was a special blend."
Something warm and melty spread through her body. "Marking me, angel boy?"
"I prefer to do that with my cock."
Shocked by the rush of wet heat between her thighs, she put the napkin on the table. "All gone."
He flexed his wings, then turned. "You truly are an enigma. So fearless in hunting vampires, so prudish in your sexual tastes."
"I'm not fearless. I'm scared shitless," she said. "And as for the rest-being an enigma is good, right? After all, you only play with your toys as long as they amuse you." She didn't know how it had happened, but she found herself backed up against the table, with Raphael blocking her in.
When he lifted her to the table itself, she didn't protest. She even spread her thighs to accommodate him. Part of her was still cold. What she'd seen in that warehouse had brought too much to the surface. That sound, that dripping, it was a never-ending drumbeat in her head. She wanted to forget. And Raphael-dangerous, seductive, lethal Raphael-was far better than any drug. "No dust," she murmured as he slid his hands up her thighs to grab her hips. "I don't have time to wash it off."
But he didn't kiss her. "Tell me about your nightmares, Elena."
She froze. "Spying again?" She was human-she kept forgetting he had no respect for the boundaries of her mind.