Angels of Darkness
the straight answer. âThat has never been one of my giftsâand torturing my entire court to unearth one traitor seems a trifle extreme.â
He thought he heard a dark amusement beneath the anger, but with her face turned to the window, her profile shadowed by the tumble of those blue-black curls, he couldnât tell for sure. âDo they know why Iâm here?â
Shaking her head, Nimra turned to him once more, her expression betraying nothing, the flawless mask of an immortal. âIt is probable they believe the very thing you didâthat Raphael has sent you to me because you are broken and I need a toy.â A lifted eyebrow.
He felt as if heâd been called to the carpet. âMy apologies, Lady Nimra.â
âDo attempt to sound a fraction more sincereââa cool orderââor this deception will fail miserably.â
âIâm afraid Iâll never be able to pull off being a poodle.â
To his shock, she laughed, the sound a husky feminine stroke across his senses. âVery well,â she said, eyes glittering with gemstone brightness in the sunlight. âYou may be a wolf on a long leash.â
Noel was startled to feel a different kind of heat within him, a slow-burning ember, dark and potent. Since waking in the Medica, his body destroyed, heâd felt no desire, had thought that part of him dead. But Nimraâs laugh made his body stir enough that he noticed. It was tempting to follow that flicker of heat, to hold the ember up to the light of day, but he didnât allow her laugh or the exquisite caress of her femininity to wipe the truth from his mindâthat the angel with the jewel-dusted wings was deadly. And that while she might be in the right in this particular game, she was no innocent.
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H e heard screams that night. The nightmare always surprised him, though heâd been having it since he opened his eyes in the Medica after the assault. Because the fact was, heâd lost the ability to scream several hours into the torture, remaining conscious only because his attackers had made it a point to never cross that fine line. Broken bones, torn flesh, excruciating burnsâvampires could take a lot of damage without the escape of the cold dark of unconsciousness.
He didnât remember screaming even at the start, determined not to give in, but he must haveâfor the echo of it haunted his dreams. Or perhaps the screams rang inside his mind because that was the sole place heâd had that had been his own, his strength, his dignity stripped from him with malicious force.
Throwing off the sweat-soaked sheets as he shoved away the memories, he got out of bed and walked to the window heâd left open to the honeysuckle-scented air. The heavy warmth of it stroked over his cheeks, fingered its way through his hair, but did nothing to cool his overheated flesh. Still, he lingered, staring out into the inky dark of the night and the slumbering silhouettes of the gardens and trees that sprawled out in every direction.
It was perhaps twenty minutes later, right when he was about to turn away, that he glimpsed wings. They werenât Nimraâs. Frowning, he angled himself so as to be invisible from the ground and watched. The angel appeared out of the shadows a minute later and stopped, his face lifted up toward Nimraâs windowâa long, motionless momentâbefore he carried on.
Interesting.
Pushing away from the window when there was no further movement, Noel walked into the shower, realizing heâd glimpsed the tall male in the audience chamber earlier. The angel had stood on Nimraâs right as she dealt with a number of important petitions, so there was no doubting the fact that he was one of her inner circle. Noel intended to find out everything else about him later today.
It was still dark when he walked out of the shower, but he knew there was no point in attempting to sleep nowâand as a vampire, he could go without sleep for long periods. Part of him didnât know why he even tried to find such rest. Even on the nights when he didnât hear the screams, he heard the laughter.
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N imra walked out into the gardens the next morning to find that Noel had beaten her to the dawn. He sat on a wrought-iron bench beneath the branches of an old cypress, his eyes on the clear waters of the stream that snaked through her lands before joining a wider tributary that led
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