“Do I look like your servant?” A glacial question.
“Now’s not the time, Christian.”
The angel’s shrewd eyes narrowed before he nodded. “I’ll keep watch.”
Nimra shook her head in stunned disbelief when Noel told her the identity of the perpetrator. “I knew she was a little resentful, but never would I have believed her capable of such.”
“I’m convinced she had nothing to do with the Midnight,” Noel continued in a pragmatic tone, but in his eyes she saw the cutting edge of blackest anger. “She seemed genuinely confused when I mentioned it.”
Ice, bleak and cold, invaded her veins. “So I have two who hate me in my court— it puts my ability to read my people in the spotlight, does it not?”
“This court has a heart that is missing in most.” Fierce words from her wolf. “Don’t let those of Amariyah and her ilk steal what you’ve built here.” He held out a hand.
And waited.
I can never appear weak.
Still, she reached out and slid her hand into the rough warmth of his own, wanting to feel “human,” if only for a bare few instants, before she had to become a monster. His fingers curled around her own, a small act of possession. She wondered if he sought to press a claim now, when she could not accept it, but he released her hand the instant they hit the hallways where they might encounter others, watching with eyes of keen blue as she became Nimra the ruler once more.
“Does Fen know?” she asked, wanting no such pain for her friend.
“I didn’t tell him.”
Nimra nodded. “Good.”
Neither one of them spoke again until they walked into the library, Christian exchanging a stiff nod with Noel before the other angel left. Closing the doors, Noel stood with his back to them while she walked across the floor to face a sullen Amariyah where she stood in front of the unused fireplace set with pinecones and dried flowers. Violet’s hand at work.
The vampire spoke before Nimra could say a word, her tone defiant. “My father had nothing to do with it.”
“Your loyalty to Fen does you credit,” Nimra said, making sure her voice betrayed nothing, “but this is one act I can’t forgive, not even for him.” She had no intention of being cruel, but neither could she be merciful. Because a vampire like Amariyah would see in that mercy a weakness, one that would incite her to ever more depraved acts. “You took a life, Amariyah. A small life, a tiny light, but a life nonetheless.”
Amariyah’s hands fisted in the sides of her diaphanous gown, pulling it tight across her thighs. “Then you can explain my death to him.” A bitter laugh. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you as he’s forgiven the fact that you’re the reason for his own death.”
Nimra’s chest grew stiff with anguish, but she kept those emotions off her face, having had centuries of experience at concealing her true self when necessary. “You won’t die,” she said in a tone so cold, it came from the dark, powerful heart of her. “Or you shouldn’t, unless you’ve been doing things beyond that which anyone knows.”
True fear flickered into Amariyah’s eyes for the first time, sweat breaking out along her brow. “What’re you going to do to me?” In that question was the sudden knowledge that there was a reason Nimra was feared by even the most brutal.
Crossing the distance between them, Nimra touched her fingers to the vampire’s hand with a gentleness that hid a weapon of such viciousness, the merest glimpse of it had left her enemies a trembling wreck. “This.”
Though Noel saw nothing, felt nothing, Amariyah began to shudder, then convulse, her body falling to the floor in a wild cacophony of limbs and clashing teeth. When she quietened at last, her eyes remained locked tight, whimpers escaping her mouth as her bones shook, as if from the greatest cold.
“Each time I do this,” Nimra said, her gaze haunted as she looked at the fallen woman, “it takes something from me.”
Scooping up a violently shivering Amariyah, Noel placed her on the sofa, pulling a cashmere throw off the back to cover her. “She’s bleeding a little where she seems to have cut her lip”—he used a tissue from a nearby box to wipe it away—“but otherwise appears fine on a physical level.” He felt a glimmer of understanding about the reason behind Nimra’s reputation, but it whispered away before he could grasp it.
Nimra said nothing, walking to stand in front of the large windows that looked out over the gardens, those jewel- dusted wings trailing along the gleaming varnish of the wooden floors. Unable, unwilling, to leave her so alone and distant, he walked to join her. But when he put his hand on the side of her neck, urging her to lean on him, she resisted. “This is why Nazarach fears me,” she murmured, but said nothing further.
He could’ve pushed, but he made the choice to stand by her side instead, knowing she would not break, would not soften until this was done. Paying her own penance, he thought, though Amariyah was the one who’d caused irreparable harm.
CHAPTER 7
It took two days for Amariyah to wake. Out of respect for Fen, Nimra had decreed that no word of this would ever reach him, with both Violet and Christian sworn to secrecy. Noel had no fear that either would break their word. Violet was beyond loyal, and Christian, in spite of his jealousy, was honorable to the core. Fen himself had been told that Amariyah had been sent out of state on an errand for Nimra, and would likely be tired when she returned.
Noel was with the vampire when she finally woke, her eyes hollow, her bones cutting against skin gone dull and lifeless. “Any other person who dared such an act,” he told her, “would be on the street right now, but because your father doesn’t know of what you did, you’ll be permitted to remain here.
“But,” he added, “step one foot out of line, and I will personally ensure true death.” It was a harsh statement, but his own loyalty was to Nimra, and more, he understood the predator that lived beneath the skin of every vampire, had glimpsed a twisted darkness in Amariyah that enjoyed causing pain to those who were helpless to fight back.
Whatever the other vampire heard in his voice— or perhaps it was the echo of her punishment— had fear creeping across her face. “My father is the only reason I’m still here,” she whispered, her voice raw. “I’ll be gone from the house of this monster the second he leaves me.”
Nimra stood at the window of her private sitting room, watching Amariyah’s unsteady progress through the dusk to the cottage. Christian had arranged for Fen to be out, so Amariyah would have time to clean herself up. “Fen is very intelligent,” she said to the man who’d entered the room without knocking. “I’m not sure he’ll accept the story about a business trip once he sees her gaunt appearance.” Blood and sleep would revive Amariyah, but it would take hours.
“Christian just sent me a message to say he engineered a delay from the city— they’ll spend the night.”
“Good.” She kept her back to him, knowing he had questions to which he deserved answers. Not because he was her wolf, but because he was becoming more, becoming something she’d never expected.
Now he said, “I brought you some food.”
Turning as Amariyah disappeared from sight, she met that gaze so startlingly bright in the shadowy light of day fading into night. “Do you think you’ll simply wear me down to your way of doing things?”
“Of course.” An unexpected smile that burned through the cold that had lingered in her veins ever since the punishment, as her body remembered that she was not only a being of terrible power, but a feminine creature. “I am a man, after all.”
Knowing she was being charmed, but unable to resist, she walked with him to the informal dining area—where he’d placed a tray full of fruit, sandwiches, and cookies. “This is no meal fit for an angel,” she said when he pulled out a chair.
“I see your smile, my lady Nimra.” A kiss pressed to her nape, a hot intimacy she had not given him permission to take.
“You walk a dangerous road, Noel.”
He rubbed his thumbs along the tendons that ran down the back of her neck, his touch firm and sure. “I never was one for taking the easy path.” His lips against her ear, his body big and solid around her own as he slid his hands down to brace them on the arms of her chair. “But first you must eat.”
When he moved to sit beside her, lifting a succulent slice of peach to her lips, she should’ve reminded him that she was no child. An angel could go without food for long periods and not suffer any ill effects. But the past few days had cut jagged wounds inside her, and Noel, with his rough tenderness, spoke to a part of her that had not seen the light since centuries before Eitriel.
Inexplicable that it should be this vampire, damaged on such a deep level, who should have so profound an impact on her… or perhaps not. Because beyond the shadows in the blue, she glimpsed the wary hope of a brutalized wolf.
So she allowed him to feed her the peach, then slices of pear, bites of sandwich, followed by a rich chocolate cookie. Somewhere along the way, she ended up sitting with her knees pressed up to his chair, his legs on either side of her own. Her hands spread on his thighs, the rock- solid strength of him flexing taut and beautiful under her touch.
Other parts of him were taut, too.
But though his eyes lingered on her lips, his thumb brushing off crumbs that weren’t there, he didn’t seek to come to her bed, this wolf who was starting to entangle himself in her life in a way no man had ever dared to attempt.
Noel didn’t sleep again that night, his mind full of the echoes of evil, the laughter of those who had debased him until he was less than an animal.
“It is done,” Raphael had said to him after it was all over, his face merciless in judgment, his wings glowing with power. “They have been executed.”
At the time, Noel had said, “Good,” with vicious pleasure, but now he knew vengeance alone would never be enough. His attackers had marked him in ways that might never be erased.