Guild Hunter 01 - Angels' Blood

she cut the side of her face and the palms of both hands as she clutched at the glass to keep from sliding off and out into the pitch-black of the night. The instant she had any leverage, she used one of her more acrobatic moves to flip over the glass and to a crouching position on the carpet.
    Shoving the hair out of her eyes, she looked toward Raphael. He lay crumpled on the glass, propped up against the table where she’d put her phone what felt like hours ago. He was staring down at his wing, and when she followed his gaze, what she saw made her sick.
    The gun had done what Vivek had promised. It had almost destroyed the bottom half of one wing. What Vivek hadn’t told her was that when an angel’s wings got hurt, he bled. And he bled dark red. It dripped onto the glass, sliding across the clean surface to sink into her carpet. Shaking, she got up. “It’ll heal,” she whispered, trying to convince herself. If she’d crippled him—“You’re immortal. It’ll heal.”
    He looked up, a dazed incomprehension in those incredible, unreal blue eyes. “Why did you shoot me?”
    “You were torturing me with fear—probably would’ve ended up throwing me off the ledge a few times and catching me again, just to hear me scream.”
    “What?” He frowned, shook his head as if trying to clear it, then looked at the open space where her window used to be. “Yes, you’re right.”
    That wasn’t the answer she’d expected. “You were there—why do you sound like you can’t believe it?”
    His eyes met hers again. “In the Quiet, I’m . . . changed.”
    “What’s the Quiet?”
    He didn’t answer.
    “Do you go there a lot?”
    His lips tightened. “No.”
    “So, are you normal now?” Even as she asked, she was running into the kitchen for towels. When she came out, it was to find him in the same position. “Why won’t it stop bleeding?” Her voice rose as panic took hold.
    He watched her try to stem the flow without success. “I don’t know.”
    She glanced at the gun she’d left on the other side of the room. Maybe it was stupid to remain here, but she knew this Raphael as she hadn’t the other. Whatever the Quiet was, it had turned him into the worst kind of a monster. But was she any better? That gun, the damage it had done . . . Grabbing her phone, she called the Cellars, her fingers slick with Raphael’s blood. In front of her, his blue eyes seemed to dim, his head dropping back. “Come on,” she said, cupping his cheek with fingers stained red. “Stay awake, Archangel. Don’t go into shock.”
    “I’m an angel,” he murmured, his voice slurred. “Shock is for mortals.”
    Someone picked up the phone. “Vivek?”
    “Elena, you’re alive!”
    “Damn it, Vivek, what the hell was in those bullets?”
    “I told you.”
    “Has it been tested?”
    “Yeah. It’s been used in the field a few times—gives you maybe twenty minutes to half an hour at most. Angels begin to heal the instant after the bullet hits.”
    She glanced down at Raphael’s shattered wing. “It’s not healing. It’s getting worse by the minute.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    She hung up since he clearly knew nothing. “Come on, Raphael! What do I do?”
    “Call Dmitri.” His color was fading to gray, a pale death mask that struck terror into her heart.
    Guilt and fear for him choking a knot in her throat, she dialed Archangel Tower and was immediately put through to Dmitri. “Get to my apartment,” she ordered.
    “That’s not—”
    “I’ve done something to Raphael. He’s bleeding and it’s not clotting.”
    A blink of silence. “He’s immortal.”
    “His blood is red, same as mine.”
    “I’ll kill you in tiny, tiny bites if you’ve harmed him.” He hung up.
    “Dmitri’s on his way,” she told Raphael, as the cell phone slid out of her bloody hand. “I don’t think he thinks very highly of me.”
    “He is loyal.” His hair fell over his forehead, making him look absurdly boyish.
    Another spurt of blood hit her leg, hot and rich. “Why the hell aren’t you healing?”
    A moment of brightness in those glassy blue eyes. “You’ve made me a little mortal.”
    Those were his last words before lapsing into unconsciousness—probably nothing but the shock speaking, she realized. She was still by his side when Dmitri and several other vampires arrived. They simply broke down the door instead of bothering to knock.
    “Hold the hunter.” Dmitri ignored her as his lackeys dragged her