Elena’s mouth snapped shut after having fallen open at the first part of his sentence. “You may possibly have a point.” Running her hands through the fall of hair she’d released from its tie, the shade akin to the white fire she’d seen on his wings, she sighed. “It’s not that I don’t like Titus. He seems okay from what I’ve seen of him, but I just want to celebrate our survival and victory with our city and our friends, not stress about doing the hostess deal.”

“Then I can put your mind at rest.” He closed his hand over the arch of her wing, stroked down.

Shivering, she pressed her hand to his chest, lashes falling.

Raphael repeated the intimate caress. The nerve endings in that part of an angel’s wings were highly sensitive, and Elena’s sensitivity had grown over the preceding months, until he could have her loose limbed and heavy lidded in bed with no touch but this. He’d summarily kill any other man who dared touch her there.

“Titus has no time for formality,” he told her as she sagged against him. “He will be the easiest archangelic guest you will ever host—especially as the city will be holding a celebration at the time.”

All but purring under his touch, it took her a half minute to respond. “Titus likes to party?”

Raphael laughed. “Yes. He will take pleasure in the energy of our city and seduce five or ten very willing women in the process.”

Elena’s lashes lifted, pupils hugely dilated against the gray of her irises, the rim of silver that announced her growing immortality dramatic in the dim light. “He doesn’t have a harem of concubines?”

“No.” Though women did live at Titus’s home, they were not his lovers, but rather those he had given safe harbor. “Titus does not have long liaisons. He spoils the woman he is with at the time, and then he moves on—yet his lovers appear to feel only affection for him.” Raphael had seen that firsthand when he’d been a half-grown stripling in Titus’s army, having signed on because he knew he could learn more from the archangel when it came to the skills of a warrior than he could from any other living angel.

Of honor, too, he had learned much while in Titus’s army. “In all the years that I have known him, never have I heard a woman he has taken to his bed disparage Titus.” And because he knew it would amuse his hunter, he added, “Mostly they just sigh at the sound of his name and lose their train of thought.”

Elena’s laughter was husky, her wing warm and strong under his touch. No one in angelkind had wings like Elena’s, the evocative midnight of her feathers flowing into deepest indigo that shaded into blue and the shimmering hue of dawn, her primaries white-gold. “The man’s clearly got game.” Moaning in the back of her throat when he increased the pressure of his caresses, she nuzzled into the curve of his neck. “That feels so good. Can you do it all night?”

“If you make it worth my while.” Reluctantly halting the touch that gave him as much pleasure as it did her, his body hard with arousal, he drew her out of the room. “Montgomery will soon be seeking us out for dinner. We should not shock him.”

“I think Montgomery is unshockable at this point.”

Raphael caught the butler’s eye as they left the study—the vampire had appeared in the hallway when Raphael opened the study door. It is a quiet evening, Montgomery. A gift after war and chaos. Perhaps you should invite Sivya to a walk along the cliffs.

Montgomery’s eyes reflected alarmed distress. Sire, I assure you, we have not—

I am an archangel, Montgomery. I know those who are mine. He began to climb the stairs with Elena. To have two of my trusted people become one, it is not something to disdain. Understanding the depth of Montgomery’s loyalty, he made his approbation even clearer. You have my sanction to court her, should you need it.

Halting at the landing, he glimpsed the nervous hope in Montgomery’s expression. It was odd to see the distinguished butler thus, but love had a way of making mortals of them all. Bowing deeply, Montgomery said, Sire.

“What was that about?” Elena asked the instant they were behind the closed doors to their bedroom. “I knew you two were talking.”

Watching her remove her weapons, he said, “Why are you so heavily armed in our own home?” She’d changed into a scoop-necked T-shirt in sky blue and soft black pants that hugged her form, her feet bare. Yet she’d somehow managed to secrete away at least three knives.

“Huh.” She stared at the knife she’d pulled from an ankle sheath. “Habit, I guess.” Placing the weapons neatly in a bedside drawer, she said, “So?”

“Montgomery is courting Sivya.”

“No! Really?”

“You must pretend not to notice,” he cautioned her. “They would be appalled to think they’d been so remiss in their duties as to make you aware of their personal lives.”

Elena pursed her lips, eyebrows drawn together, and began to tug off her T-shirt. “But you noticed.” The sound came out slightly muffled.

“I am their liege. I am meant to notice and make certain they do not sacrifice their joy in the mistaken belief that I would find their coupling discourteous.” He cupped her br**sts after she threw the T-shirt over the back of a chair, his need to claim her a pounding in his blood.

He had come to within a split-second of igniting them both on the battlefield in a final attempt to defeat Lijuan’s evil, come to within a split-second of never again holding Elena in his arms. The memory was yet raw. “As my consort,” he said, dipping his head to press his lips to the curve of her shoulder, “your job is to notice when they are a pair, so as to assure their duties don’t separate them any more than necessary.”

Her hands were in his hair, her lips warm and wet against the line of his jaw. “It’s weird to think of Montgomery and coupling in the same breath.” A small gasp when he tugged at one tightly furled nipple. “I’m convinced he sleeps in his suit.”

“Enough talk of others, hbeebti. It is time for our own coupling.” Each hour, every hour of peace was a treasure. War boiled black and violent on the horizon, and when it came, it would engulf the world.

7

The sky was a smudgy gray with only the faintest tinge of orange by the time Ashwini and Janvier arrived at their next destination, located in neighboring Soho—though the area bore that name only until sunset. Then it became the Vampire Quarter. That was when the swanky shops and chichi cafés shut their doors, to be replaced by blood cafés and vampire clubs filled with the cruel and the beautiful.

Hmm . . .

Removing her helmet after Janvier parked down the street from a freestanding dual-level town house on the edge of the Quarter, she said, “The dog, it might be a vamp who’s lost it.”

He took off his own helmet and the silky mahogany of his hair tumbled out. She couldn’t help it; she reached out and scraped her nails lightly from the front to the back of his scalp, the strands cool and the texture exquisite. Leaning his back against her chest, he made a sound deep in his throat.

Her breath caught, her br**sts swelling against her bra.

She wanted to wrap her arms around his shoulders, nuzzle her face into the warm line of his throat, and lick him up. Clenching her fist so tight her nails dug into her palms, she got off the bike and hooked the helmet over a handlebar. Doing the same with his own, Janvier swung off the powerful machine with a lazy grace that always caught her attention—and that of any other female in the vicinity.

“Could be,” he said, as if their conversation had never been interrupted by a caress she shouldn’t have permitted herself to make. “You know some vamps don’t do well after three hundred years or so.”

The remembered feel of him burning against her palm, Ashwini unzipped her jacket to give her hands something to do. “What would drinking animal blood do to a vamp?”

Janvier leaned back against the bike after unzipping his own jacket to reveal the thin white T-shirt beneath. He wasn’t, however, wearing the twin blades that were his weapons of choice. Pressed up against him on the bike, she’d felt nothing but Janvier, no sign of the crisscrossing holster he’d normally wear on his back, over the tee.

While he hadn’t utilized the blades during their mission in Atlanta, she’d become used to seeing them on him since he came to New York. “Where are your kukris?” she asked before he could answer her question about animal blood.

He rubbed the back of his neck, a flush on his cheekbones. “The holster snapped this morning.”

Ashwini bit the inside of her cheek in an effort to fight her smile. She’d told him to get the worn leather replaced after seeing the state of it while he’d been staying at her place. While the scabbards were metal, to prevent the razor-sharp blades from cutting through, the holster built around them had to be soft and flexible enough not to limit his range of movement. “That’s too bad.”

Shooting her a look of open suspicion at the bland response, he shrugged. “It’ll take a specialist artisan a week to make a replacement once I send him the old holster. I have no hope of getting myself on Deacon’s schedule for at least a year.”

At that instant, he looked both sulky and irritated with himself. Knowing how na**d she felt without her favorite weapons, she couldn’t keep the secret any longer. “Or,” she said, “you could use the holster Deacon dropped off at my apartment yesterday.”

Janvier straightened. “For me?”

Folding her arms against the impact of the fierce delight in his voice, she nodded. “He used your old holster to make a blueprint for the new one while you were out getting me cake that day.” She’d sent him to a specific and distant bakery for just that reason. “The scabbards should slide right in.” Deacon did not make mistakes.

“But how? Deacon is booked years in advance.”

“He always has time for hunters.” Sara’s husband had once been a hunter himself.

Janvier’s smile was slow, deep, and so painfully real, it caught her heart and refused to let go. “I’m not a hunter.”

But you’re mine. Biting back the words she could never say, not if she cared for him in any way, she scowled. “Don’t make a big deal about it or I’ll dump it into the Hudson.”

Cheeks creased and the sunlight in the bayou green of his eyes blinding, he shook his head. “I cannot help it, cher.”

Ashwini broke the eye contact; she couldn’t resist him when he smiled that way. “You were telling me about what happens to vamps who drink animal blood.”

“The blood of animals is too weak to provide nourishment,” he said, his voice liquid warmth that seeped into every cell of her body. “I remember hearing of a vampire who fed on animals for two months after becoming lost in the mountains. Moitié fou Billy, they called him. But since he was so weak, he wasn’t dangerous.”

Ashwini had picked up enough Cajun French from being around Janvier to know he’d just indicated the vamp had gone half-crazy. “So our hypothetical animal-blood drinker might already be out for the count.”

A nod. “But there is the desiccation—it’s unnatural, unless the pup died in an environment that would produce that result.”

Ashwini’s phone beeped at that instant. Glancing at the screen, she saw a note from the vet. “Dr. Shamar decided to have another look at the dog before she left for the night, discovered he had a chip embedded under his skin. Kind of thing pet owners put in so cats and dogs can be ID’d if animal control picks them up.” The doctor had missed it during her initial examination because the chip had slipped between two ridges of bone.

“She was able to scan it, look up the dog in the system. Apparently it went missing a couple of days after the end of the fighting.” Dr. Shamar had added a note that she’d made no notification to the owners and wouldn’t do so until advised otherwise. After thanking the other woman, Ashwini looked at Janvier. “Is that enough time for natural mummification, even in an optimum environment?”

Janvier spread his hands. “We shall have to ask a scientist.”

“Honor might know someone.” Her best friend was an expert in ancient languages and history and had a wide range of contacts. “I’ll give her a call tomorrow.” Sliding away her phone, she braced herself against a sudden, chilling wind that tasted of snow. “It’s possible Lijuan shared her ability to suck the life out of people with someone else.”

Janvier closed the distance between them, his body heat a caress. “It was her ace in the hole. I can’t see her giving that away, can you, cher?”

“No.” It was Naasir who’d told them the Archangel of China could share strength with her generals, but it wasn’t a permanent transfer. As soon as Lijuan was out of the equation, those generals had crumpled.

Hands on her hips, she chewed on another possibility. “Lijuan’s creations tend to be infectious.” The archangel’s horrific reborn had been a plague. “Only”—Ashwini frowned—“she wasn’t creating when she fed. The sacrifices ended up shells, so I guess we’re back to square one on that.”

Janvier shifted to take the brunt of a fresh gust of wind. “I’ll report our theories to Raphael nonetheless. He must be alerted to the possibility that Lijuan may have left a lingering taint in the city.”

Ashwini raised both eyebrows. “Back in Atlanta, you said you’d never met him, and now you’re on a first-name basis?”

“I hadn’t met him then,” he said, that sneakily seductive sunlight still in his eyes. “Vampires my age do not usually ever have personal contact with the archangel to whom we give our allegiance.”