Archangel's Blade

stomach.

“You shouldn’t have made me angry.” A hand stroking down her back in a mockery of care. “I didn’t bring you here to hurt you.” His lips along her jaw, over her throat. “So be an obedient pet and do as you’re told.”

She’d bitten his ear instead, hard enough to almost tear off a chunk. He’d punched her so violently for that, she’d blacked out . . . and woken to find herself bleeding.

“It’s the madness.” Jiana’s tremulous voice cut through the horrific memory, her tone a plea. “That’s what drives him.”

Honor wasn’t so sure. Amos had struck her as coldly intelligent, a man who—as Dmitri had said—had chosen to revel in his sadistic urges rather than attempting to fight them. Not only that, but he’d consciously nurtured the sickness in others.

“He was spoken to when his leanings became clear”—Dmitri’s voice was gentler than Honor had ever heard it— “given both warning and an offer of assistance. He chose to walk away.”

Jiana’s lower lip trembled, and then she was falling into Dmitri’s arms, her cries so primal her entire frame shook as if her bones would fall to pieces. Honor’s own heart ached, her eyes burning in maternal sympathy.

She was a mother, she understood what it was to need to do everything in her power to protect her child.

Honor blinked, physically shaking that eerily familiar voice out of her head. Familiar, but not her own—she had never borne a child, never nurtured a life within her womb. Yet her emotional response to Jiana’s pain was so deep that she couldn’t not be torn by it, even knowing that the depth of her understanding was an impossible thing.

Dmitri’s broad shoulders were rock steady in her vision as he held Jiana, and she knew. She knew. Dmitri had had a child. No, that was wrong. He’d had children. Unsettled by that almost angry mental correction, she rubbed at her temple, but the thought stuck, seemed so very right that she couldn’t unthink it.

“Where is he, Jiana?” Dmitri asked after Jiana’s sobs quieted into painful silence.

The gorgeous vampire shook her head, her hair sliding over her face as she pulled away. “I haven’t seen him for three weeks. He has done this before, gone away. But he always contacts me to tell me his whereabouts. This time, there is only silence.” Her eyes went to the envelope. “Except for that. It came five days ago.”

Terrible as it was, Honor could understand Jiana’s maternal instincts overriding all else—even when faced with the malevolent reality of her son’s evil. However, there was one thing that made no sense to her. “Why are you in seclusion?” So much so that the vampire had had to feed from the blood junkies. “From that card, it looks like he wants to please, not hurt you.”

“Yes.” A tight smile. “I hate this, prostituting myself to stay alive.”

Again, her response made no sense—surely Jiana had enough contacts that she could’ve arranged something more palatable. Oh. “You’re punishing yourself.”

Jiana gave a shaky smile. “I asked him to stop—they found you so soon afterward, I believed he’d played some part in that. Then the card came . . .” She tugged the edges of her robe closed over her breasts, her words fading as her eyes turned distant. “I guess you always hope. Against all reason.”

Dmitri’s hair shone silky and touchable in the sunlight as they stood on the front steps of Jiana’s gracious home. “Jewel Wan,” she said to him, “might’ve given you Jiana’s name but you knew it couldn’t be her.” He’d treated the other vampire with courtesy since the second they arrived.

When he said nothing, she clamped her hand on his arm. “How long have you suspected Amos?”

Dark eyes pinned her to the spot, told her nothing. “What good would it have done you to know who I had in mind?”

“Stop protecting me! I don’t need it anymore!”

Dmitri’s expression shifted, the stone becoming a piercing arrow. “When have I ever protected you?”

“What?”

I know you will always take care of me.

She clasped her hands to her temples. “That voice.” So deep inside of her.

“Honor?” Dmitri’s hand on her lower back, his breath lifting the curling tendrils of hair along her temple as he leaned close. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“No, it’s nothing,” she said, because to give any other answer would be to acknowledge the aural hallucination. “Just the . . . echo of a dream.” Seeping over into her waking life. “You should’ve told me.”

“I’m almost a thousand years old.” His hand moved in slow, circular motions on her back, but his words were as calculatedly harsh as his touch was tender. “You’re so young it’s laughable. You have neither the strength nor the right to question my decisions.”

With those words, he negated the commitment they’d made to each other. Perhaps he didn’t see it as such, but she couldn’t be with a man who expected to maintain that chasm of distance between them. “Do you know how to find Amos?” she asked, putting aside the hurt she felt, though it was a raw, tender thing. Giving up wasn’t an option. However, she needed time to regroup, to sit down and figure out if Dmitri was ever going to be ready for the kind of relationship she needed.

The idea that the answer might be no . . . it caused a crushing blackness in her soul.

“I’ve already checked his normal haunts and bolt-holes.” His gaze lingered on her face, as if he’d read her very thoughts, but thankfully that was one ability he didn’t possess. “He’ll eventually surface. In the meantime, my men will continue to watch this house—he’s always had an unhealthy attachment to his mother.”

“Yes.” No normal son would think of inviting his mother to join in a sexual game, to attempt to please her with his choice of victims. “What will you do with her?”

“That’s up to you. You’re the victim.”

“No, Dmitri, I’m a survivor.”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “But recompense is still yours.”

“That woman is going to punish herself for the rest of her very long life. Let her be.”

“I’ll speak to her.” He turned to walk toward the entrance. “Are you coming?”

“No, I think I’ll stay here.” But she didn’t. Stepping down to the drive as soon as he disappeared inside, she took a seat on the edge of the fountain. The water fell in a soothing cascade of sound behind her, the breeze a caress over her cheek as she tried to understand the irrational depth of her anguish. She’d always known Dmitri was never going to be human in any sense.

He isn’t my Dmitri.

Again that voice, from so very deep inside of her. As if it came from her soul itself. This time, rather than fighting it, she listened.

Always so strong, so protective. But never hurtful. Not to me. Never.

Whoever this figment of her imagination was, Honor thought, she truly was living in a fantasy world. Dmitri was no one’s knight in shining armor and if it scraped her to bloody rawness to admit that, then she had only herself to blame. Because Dmitri had never lied to her, never pretended to be something he wasn’t.

“Don’t fool yourself about me, Honor. The human part of me died a long time ago.”

“Where are we going?” she asked when the Ferrari pulled away from Jiana’s estate.

“Angel Enclave—Jiana owns a house there.” His words were cool, practical, and she wondered if he even understood how he’d damaged the fragile something between them. “It’s standing empty, but I’ve had men watching it for a while. However, I think it’s time I had a look inside.”

Another thing he hadn’t told her. Another illustration of the fact that while he might appreciate her skills in certain areas, when it came to treating her as an equal . . . But then the idea was laughable, wasn’t it? She’d lived a mere twenty-nine years to his centuries, was mortal to his powerful vampire.

However, none of the logic seemed to matter, and she was no closer to understanding or corralling the violent depth of her emotions by the time Dmitri drove deep into the Angel Enclave, an exclusive settlement along the cliffs that hugged the Hudson. In most cases, the houses were set so far back from the road that it felt as if they were driving through uninhabited land, the trees on either side of the road ancient behemoths that almost