Archangel's Storm, di Nalini Singh - 5° libro della serie "Guild Hunter"

KNIVES AND SHEATHS

A Guild Hunter Short Story

The original version of this short story was meant to be a scene in ARCHANGEL’S STORM, but I deleted it in an earlier draft and the information shared here about Lijuan eventually became part of chapter 8 in the book.

However, I thought the scene offered a nice glimpse of Elena and Raphael’s relationship, so I decided to edit and extend it into a short story. I hope you enjoy!

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Hanging up the phone after getting some further details from Jason about the developing situation, Raphael turned to where his consort stood on the other side of the private office attached to their Tower suite. She was currently sliding knives into the special forearm sheaths she used for the most lightweight of her blades, a scowl on her face.

“Damn it.” Pure aggravation. “I really need to replace these—this side’s threatening to fray right off.”

“Deacon would not do such shoddy work,” he murmured, naming the weapons-maker so respected that he handled commissions from immortals around the world, his waiting list extending years into the future. However, regardless of the incentives offered, Deacon’s first loyalty was to the guild of hunters of which he had once been a member.

Elena colored. “I’m too embarrassed to ask him to make me new ones—I bought these on a whim from a weapons-maker in Turkey. I feel like I cheated on Deacon.” Ripping off and throwing the sheaths on the bed, she put her hands on her hips. “So, Lijuan’s up to her old tricks?”

“It’s not so surprising—she believes herself beyond even the Cadre.” Raphael had once thought Lijuan right, but now he’d seen her wounded, knew the other archangel could be stopped.

Elena reached back to redo her braid with quick, competent hands, one of which bore a healing knife wound she’d sustained during a training session. It would be gone within the next two hours, her strength growing at an unexpected rate—but then, his consort had never once done the expected.

“You’d think after seeing the results last time, no one would volunteer to become reborn,” Elena said, her eyes filled with memories of the horrific night in the Forbidden City when a dead woman had jerked back to shambling life in front of them. “She has to be coercing them…” A shake of her head. “No, most of her people treat her like a goddess, so I can believe they’d sacrifice themselves to her vision, even knowing the horror. She could conceivably build an army.”

“Yes.” It was a future that could not be permitted to come into being, for Lijuan’s reborn were a plague. “Jason’s information is that she’s only making one or two at a time before executing her creations—but we cannot stop monitoring her.”

Braid done, Elena picked up the inferior knife sheaths and chucked them in the trash, putting her throwing knives onto a table with the mournful look of a woman being parted from the most precious of jewels. “No, and not only because of the reborn—Lijuan isn’t going to be satisfied until you’re dead.” Her irises gleamed metallic silver around the rims, immortality having taken a stronger hold on her in the preceding months. “And I won’t be satisfied until the bitch is boiling in her own blood.”

Raphael raised an eyebrow. “I would say you’ve been spending too much time with Dmitri were he here.”

“No, that’s all me,” she said with a smile that was a blade to his heart, it cut so deep. “She tried to hurt you, and she’ll keep on trying to hurt you because she knows you have the potential to destroy her. I don’t intend to sit back and let her, archangel or not.”

A warrior, he thought, his wings unfurling, that was who he had taken for his consort. “If you will permit,” he said, “I would assist you in your task. Lijuan cannot be allowed to blanket the world with her perversions.”

His consort’s face dissolved into laughter before she reset it into a suitably haughty expression. “I do permit.” Walking across to join him where he stood with his back to the plate-glass window that looked out over the steel spires of Manhattan, she ran her fingers across the inner surface of his left wing. “Your wings…the gold filaments aren’t like before. It’s as if each has been coated with finely crushed glass, until it glitters like living flame.” That she found him beautiful was an unspoken kiss.

“It is a time of evolution. Now we must wait and see if another Lijuan is born amongst the Cadre.” He rubbed his finger over the arch of Elena’s own wing, felt her responsive shiver.

“Enough talk of Her Grand Evilness and her nefarious plots.” Wrapping both arms around his neck, his hunter dressed in black leather and armed to the teeth but for her bare forearms, said, “Kiss me, Archangel.”

I am but your slave. He caught her laughter in his mouth, felt it in his veins, the passion between them a smoldering flame.

Pulse a drumbeat when they separated, she parted moist lips to say, “You’re lethal.”

He smiled and knew it held the arrogance of deadly power—it was who he was, what he needed to be to rule. But his consort was not a woman to be scared by such a thing, and she demanded another kiss before stepping back, cheeks flushed and breath shallow. “No melting my bones. I have to go haul three baby vamps off their asses and back to their angel.”

“I sense a note of disgust.”

“I’m one of the most experienced hunters in the city, and Sara puts me on babysitting detail—I’d think it was a conspiracy, but turns out a whole group of baby vampires got it into their heads that they need to ‘rebel against the hierarchy’.” A snort. “Ransom’s got two on his list today, and Ashwini’s bringing in three.”

“It’s astonishing,” Raphael said, moving to the sprawling breadth of his desk, “how people do not find such a cause until after they have been Made.” The lure of almost-immortality was a drug, but the reality was a hundred years of subservience to the angels, and that reality could have a bitter taste.

“Buyer’s remorse doesn’t negate the Contract.” She rubbed absently at her forearms. “I should be back in three hours tops, since none of my targets appear to be geniuses. Do you have time to spar with me? With Dmitri, Venom, and Jason all gone, I’m losing practice time.”

“I need to meet with Nazarach,” he said, speaking of one of the powerful angels in his territory, “but Janvier has settled in and should have some time, so speak with him when you return.” According to Dmitri, the younger vampire was the dirtiest street-fighter the leader of Raphael’s Seven had ever met. He’d be able to assist Elena increase her arsenal of tricks, give her further tools to survive the immortal world. Come here, Consort.

Giving him an arch look, she sauntered over. “You summoned?”

He opened the small box sitting on his desk and brought out two butter-soft knife sheaths meant for her forearms. "I cannot have you out in the world without your blades."

“Raphael!” Gathering up the gifts, she made feminine sounds of pleasure he usually only ever heard as she lay sweat-slicked and naked in their bed. “This is Deacon’s work. Oooh, they feel…” Doing up the buckles, she slid in the knives and shivered.

“Careful, Elena. I may decide you enjoy those sheaths far too much.”

Grinning, she twisted and pulled out the blades in a quick draw, testing positioning and tightness. “God, Deacon is talented.” She slid the knives back in a second later, and spun into his arms with the lithe grace of a fighter, her smile fading into an intensity of emotion so raw, it was a stormcloud over her irises.

“You know me.” Her fingers brushing his cheek. “You see me.” Thank you.

He brought her closer to his body, her weapons hard edges against him. “You are extraordinary.” And you are my consort. Mine to know, mine to see.

Lips curving, though the intensity didn’t abate, she rose up on tiptoe and whispered, "Knhebek, Archangel," the emotion in her a vivid wildness as she spoke words of love in the language that meant so much to her. Knhebek.

(c) Copyright 2012 by Nalini Singh