claustrophobic but safe, no entrances or exits aside from the door—which he jammed shut with a special tool of his own making, and no vents large enough for anything to get through.
By the time Sara exited the shower wrapped in a fluffy hotel robe, rubbing at her hair with a matching towel, he was confident enough of her safety to go have his own shower. A freezing one. “Christ.” He gritted his teeth and bore the onslaught. Pleasing his cock wasn’t as important as ensuring that the Guild went on.
He’d asked Simon about that. Why would the archangels potentially sabotage an organization that made their lives a hell of a lot easier?
“It’s a game,” Simon had said. “They need us, but they’ll never allow us to forget that they’re the more powerful. Attacking me, attacking Sara, isn’t about stopping the Guild—it’s about reminding us the Cadre is watching.”
Sara heard the water come on and quickly finished drying her hair before picking up her cell. She had no idea what time zone Ellie was in, but her best friend answered after a single ring.
“Sara,” she said, “do you know what a skill it is to wrap three-feet-tall porcelain vases so they don’t break in transit? And I did it! These gorgeous babies don’t have a scratch on them. Genius, thy name is Elena.”
“Do I even ask?”
“They were a gift.” Ellie sounded delighted. “They’ll look perfect in my living room. Or maybe one in the bedroom, one in the living room.”
Ellie’s preoccupation with her décor struck a familiar chord in Sara. Hunters made nests. It was a response to the fact that they spent so much time on the road, and in the gutter. Sara was worse than most—she loved her parents but they were feckless hippies at best. She’d gone to ten different schools by the time she was seven. A solid, stable home was as necessary to her as breathing. “Can’t wait to see them.”
“You sound funny.”
“I met the Slayer.”
A pause. “No shit.” The whistle was a long one. “Scary?”
“Oh yeah. Built like a tank.” If Deacon ever came after her, she’d have to make sure he never got within punching distance. A single hit with one of those big fists and her neck would snap. “Ellie, there’s a hunter going around killing vampires.”
“Fuck.” Elena’s voice changed, became darker. “You’re hunting him?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m in New York, landed a few hours ago. I can be on the next flight.”
Sara was already shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s going on yet.”
“You can’t go after him alone.”
“I’m not. Deacon’s with me.”
“The Slayer?” Her relief was open. “Good. Look, Sara, I’m hearing things.”
“What?”
“All of us know you’ve got Simon’s position anytime you want. But I had a conversation with a high-level vamp on the plane home and he knew your name.”
Simon had warned her of this. “The Cadre takes an interest in the next Guild Director.”
Elena’s silence was long. “I know you can’t run and hide from this, so I’ll just say—be damn careful. The archangels aren’t anything close to human. I wouldn’t want to be within ten feet of one.”
“I don’t think any of them will bother to personally check me out—probably send some of their vampires to have a look.” And she knew how to handle vampires.
“Lucky you have the Slayer with you. Serious manpower when you need it.” A faint pinging sound came over the line. “Gotta go. I think the takeout’s arrived.”
Hanging up, Sara stared at the phone. Yes, it was lucky, wasn’t it, that Deacon had shown himself to her when he spent most of his time in the shadows. And how very
3
Deacon walked out a couple of minutes later, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans. Her hormones danced. Damn near did the foxtrot. She refused to join in. “Simon sent you.”
To his credit, he didn’t bother to deny it. “Two birds. One stone.” Grabbing a fresh T-shirt from his duffel, he pulled it over his head. “You know it’s the right decision.”
The fact that he sounded so coolly logical made her want to shoot him with the crossbow just to make a point. “The Guild Director can’t be seen as weak.”
“She also can’t be seen as stupid.” Intractable will in those midnight-forest eyes.
Putting down the cell she’d been squeezing half to death, she dug out a brush and began to pull it through her hair. “Tell me about the killer. Is there any chance it could be an impostor?”
He didn’t say anything for several seconds, as if not trusting her sudden capitulation. “Yes. But as of right now, I have three possibles—all hunters. We’ll visit them one by one.”
“Tonight?”
A small nod. “I figure we give it four hours, enough time for the killer to relax his guard.”
“Why didn’t you follow him after he hit Rodney?”
“There was no visible trail.”
She snorted. “And your job is to babysit me.”
“Babysitting you isn’t what I want to do.” Quiet, intense words, stroking over her skin like living velvet. “But since taking you to bed is out of bounds, I’m stuck with babysitting.”
Heat exploded across her skin, a raw, dark fire. “What makes you think I’d let you within a foot of me?” Her voice held the rough edge of desire, but it could as easily have been anger.
“What makes you think I’d ask nice?”
“Try anything and I’ll cheerfully gut you with your own knife.”
Deacon smiled. And it turned him from sexy to devastating. “This’ll be fun.”
But four hours of fitful sleep later, she was in no mood to play. Pulling on her gear before joining Deacon in the corridor, she adjusted her crossbow and set her jaw. “I don’t like the fact that we’re hunting one of our own.”
Silence.
She glanced at him as they began to walk down to the garage, and saw nothing. No expression. No emotion. No mercy. In that moment, he was the Slayer. “How many have you had to kill?”
“Five.”
She blew out a breath at the single precise word, and opened the door to the stairs. No point in making hotel security crazy by being caught on the elevator cameras armed to the teeth. “Why you?”
“It has to be someone.”
She understood all about that. “I never wanted to be Guild Director.”
“That’s why you were chosen—you’ll do what the director is meant to do.”
“As opposed to?”
He exited first, and she knew it was a gesture of protection. Annoying, but on the scale of annoyances, minor.
“You know about Paris. They had that director a few years ago who politicked himself into the position. Almost got all his hunters killed, he was so busy grandstanding.”
Sara nodded and headed to the bike, their chosen method of transport tonight. “I always wondered how that could’ve happened.” Hunters were a tough, forthright lot as a whole. Slick made them suspicious.
“Some people say he struck a deal with a powerful cabal of vampires, that they influenced the vote.”
Very old vampires were rumored to have mind-control abilities, and one of Sara’s more important qualifications for the position of Guild Director was that she had a natural immunity to
