“Yes.” No angel allowed anyone but a trusted lover to caress her in such a fashion. “Are you not afraid?” she asked, echoes of her own past sliding oily and dark through the aftershocks of pleasure. “You saw what I did to Amariyah.”
Noel continued with the exquisite delicacy of his caresses. “You did what you did with thought and care. You aren’t a capricious woman.”
She’d given him her blood, her body, but his words, they were as precious. “I’m pleased you see me in such a way.” It was strange to be standing here unclothed, in the arms of a man who continued to wear his armor of cotton and denim— and yet she was, if not content, then oddly at peace.
Then Noel spoke, and his words carried within them the promise of splintering the peace to nothingness. “Will you tell me about your power?”
CHAPTER 8
“What would you say if I told you it was a secret for me to keep?”
No change in his expression. “I’m patient.”
Laughing at the arrogance even as something very old in her grew still, quiet, she went to touch her fingers to his face, dropped her hand midway. “I would show you, Noel, but no.” It would be a violation for this man who’d had all choice stripped from him by the monsters who had stained the Refuge with their crimes, regardless of the fact that he’d feel no pain, only the same bone- melting pleasure he’d lavished on her. “I give back,” she whispered. “I give back what was given unto others.”
“Pleasure for pleasure,” Noel said, understanding at once. “Pain for pain.”
A solemn nod. “It is not the act itself, but the intent behind it that determines what someone will feel when I use my power.”
It made him change his hold, shift her into the protection of his body. Yes, she was a powerful angel, but whatever it was her gift demanded from her, it haunted her. “That’s why Nazarach leaves you alone.” The other angel was renowned for his viciousness.
Nimra’s voice when it came was hard. “We had a meeting when I first took over this territory. He thought to control me. He has never returned to my lands.”
Noel felt his lips curve in a feral smile. “Good.”
Noel’s body continued to hum with the taste of Nimra the next day. Her blood held such power that he knew he wouldn’t need to feed again for a week… though there were different kinds of need, he thought, as he began to go through the file Nimra had sent him that morning. It was a list of people she knew had had access to Midnight and who might wish her harm.
However, from what Noel understood of the people on the list— and what he was able to learn from Dmitri when he called the leader of Raphael’s Seven— none of them would have left anything to chance, especially given how difficult Midnight was to source. The fact that Nimra’s cat had died, betraying the game, spoke of an amateur. Of course, there was also the old adage that poison was a woman’s weapon.
Amariyah had convinced him with her confusion, and Asirani— no matter her unrequited feelings for Christian— seemed loyal. But Noel wasn’t about to write her off without further investigation. Knowing the vampire had a habit of coming in early to the small office she had on the lower floor, he decided to see if he could track her down. He was in the corridor leading to her office when he heard whispering, low and furious. It was instinct to soften his footsteps.
“… just listen.” Soft, feminine. Asirani.
“It will change nothing.” Christian’s stiff tones. “I don’t wish to hurt you, but I have no such feelings for you.”
“She’s never going to look at you the way you want.” Not bitter, almost… sad.
“That is none of your concern.”
“Of course it is. She might be our lady, but she’s also my friend.” An exhale that telegraphed frustration. “She plays with Noel, but it’s because he’s a vampire. There’s no chance of a serious relationship.”
“I will be here when she is ready for that relationship.”
Noel stepped forward until he could see the pair reflected in the antique mirror on the other side of the corridor. Asirani, striking in a sheath of emerald green, her hair swept up off her neck, was shaking her head, her expression solemn, while black- garbed Christian did his impression of a Roman statue. When the female vampire turned, as if to enter her office, Noel retraced his steps away from the couple.
Asirani’s view of his relationship with Nimra was hardly news. Many angels took vampiric lovers, but long- term relationships were far rarer. The fact that vampires and angels couldn’t have children together was one of the most powerful reasons why. But regardless of what Asirani believed, Nimra didn’t play games. For now, she was Noel’s. As for the future— his first priority was to ensure her safety.
That thought had him circling back to Asirani.
There had been unhidden care in her tone when she’d spoken of Nimra, a distinct vein of empathy. Disappointment, too, along with a touch of anger— both directed at Christian, but not even an undertone of the kind of resentment she’d need to feel to want Nimra dead. All of which left him with no viable suspects.
Christian could be a prick but he’d swallowed his antagonism and cooperated with Noel when it came to Nimra’s interests. Exeter had spent centuries by her side, Fen decades. He couldn’t see either man developing such a deep hatred for her without her being aware of the change. As for the two older servants, quite aside from all else, they had proven quietly devoted.
Frowning, he headed out into the breaking day in search of Nimra— because there was one thing they hadn’t considered, and it was the very thing that might hold the answer. He half expected to find her beside Mimosa’s grave, but midway to the wild gardens where her pet was buried, something made him look up… and what he saw stole his breath.
She was stunning against the slate gray sky streaked with the golds, oranges, and pinks of dawn, her wings backlit with soft fire, her body shown to lithe perfection in the layered gown of fine bronze silk that the wind kissed to her skin. Leaning against the smooth trunk of a young magnolia, he indulged in the beauty of her. Seeing her wings spread to their greatest width, her hair whipping off her face as she glided on the air currents, reminded him of the Refuge, the remote city that had been his home for so long.
He’d been placed in the angelic stronghold after completing his hundred- year Contract, when he’d chosen to remain in service to Raphael. There, he’d been part of the guard that helped maintain the archangel’s holdings in the Refuge, as well as watching over the vulnerable who were the reason for the existence of the hidden mountain city. However, he’d soon been drafted into a roaming squad that took care of tasks all over the world.
New York, where Raphael had his Tower, had been a wonder to a lad who’d come out of the untamed emptiness of the moors. With its soaring buildings and streets buzzing with humanity, he’d been at once overwhelmed and exhilarated. Kinshasa had stirred the explorer’s soul that lived within him, the part that had led him to dare the challenge of vampirism in the first place. Paris, Beirut, Liechtenstein, Belize, each place had spoken to him in a different way… but none had sung the soft, sultry song that Nimra’s territory whispered to his soul.
A caress of jewel- dusted wings against the painted sky, cutting across the air with breathless ease. His heart squeezed, and he wondered if she knew he watched her, if she flew for him. A fraction of an instant later, he caught a glimpse of another set of wings and his mood turned black.
Christian flew to cut under and around Nimra, as if in invitation to dance. His wingspan was larger than hers, his style of flight less graceful, more aggressive. Nimra didn’t respond to the invitation, but neither did she land. Instead, as Noel watched, the two angels flew in the same wide sky, cutting across each other’s paths on occasion, and sometimes seeming to time their turns and dives to a hairbreadth so as to just miss each other.
Anger simmered through his veins.
It wasn’t cold and tight and hard as it had been for so long, but hot, spiked with a raw masculine jealousy. He had no wings, would never be able to follow Nimra onto that playing field. Gritting his teeth, he folded his arms and continued to keep watch. Maybe he couldn’t follow, but if Christian thought that gave him the advantage, he didn’t know Noel.
Troubled to a depth she hadn’t been for decades, since the day she learned of Eitriel’s betrayal, Nimra had come to seek solace in the skies. She’d found no answers in the endless sweep of dawn, and now discovered she was being watched by the very same eyes that had caused her disquiet. It was a compulsion to fly for him, to show him her power, her strength.
Noel had taken only her blood, not her body, in the dark heat of the night’s intimacy, and yet he’d touched her too deep all the same. She’d been ready to offer surcease, find some peace for herself. But somehow, he’d wrapped a wolf- strong tendril around her very heart. Nimra wasn’t certain she appreciated the vulnerability. It had nothing to do with the scars left by Eitriel, and everything to do with the strength of the draw she felt toward the vampire coming ever closer as she flew in to land.
“Good morning, Noel,” she said, folding back her wings as her feet touched the earth.
In answer, he strode across the ground, his strides eating up the distance. And then he kissed her. Hot and hard and all consuming, his lips a burn against her own, his jaw rough against her skin. “You are mine,” he said when he finally allowed her to breathe, his thumbs rubbing over her cheekbones. “I don’t share.” A possessive statement from the core of the man he was, the veneer of civilization stripped away.
The primal intensity of him was a blaze against her senses, but she coated her voice in ice. “Do you think I would betray you?”
“No, Nimra. But if that popinjay doesn’t stop flirting with you, blood will be spilled.”
Pushing off his hands, she took a step back. “As the ruler of this territory I must deal with many men.” If Noel believed he had the right to put limits on her, then he was not the man she’d thought him to be.