Guild Hunter 02 - Angels' Flight

“You’re used to Archangel Tower.”
     
    “Hard not to be. It dominates Manhattan.” Raphael’s Tower, the place from which the archangel effectively ruled North America, had become as much a symbol of New York as the ubiquitous red apple. “Have you ever seen it at night? It’s like a knife of light, cutting through the sky.” Beauty and cruelty intertwined.
     
    “Once or twice,” Janvier said. “I’ve never been close to Raphael, though. You?”
     
    She shook her head. “I hear he’s one scary s.o.b.”
     
    The vampire driving them met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “That’s putting it mildly.”
     
    Janvier leaned forward, his interest buzzing along her skin. “You’ve met the archangel?”
     
    “He came to Atlanta for a meeting with my sire six months ago.” Ashwini saw goose bumps rise over the vampire’s skin. “I thought I knew what power felt like. I was wrong.”
     
    Hearing that from a vampire who was no newborn made Ashwini damn glad she was “only” dealing with a midlevel angel. “Huge windows that open out into nothing,” she said, caught again by the timeless elegance of the plantation house as it came into focus. “Easy to fall out of one.”
     
    Janvier put his arm around the back of the seat. “Angels can fly.”
     
    “
Janvier
.”
     
    A chuckle, fingers stroking across her hair as he removed his hand. “Would you like to fly?”
     
    She thought of her dreams, that sensation of falling endlessly, caught in a whirlwind of nightmare. “No. I like my feet set firmly on the ground.”
     
    “You surprise me,
cher
. I know how much you like jumping off bridges.”
     
    “I’m attached to a bungee cord at the time.”
     
    “Ah, far safer, then.”
     
    The car came to a stop before she could return the amused volley, and they stepped out into Atlanta’s lush embrace. “Would you?” she asked, glancing at him all loose-limbed and roughly sexy beside her as they walked to the front door. “Like to fly?”
     
    “I’m bayou-born. One of the first after my people came to Louisiana.” He slid his hands into his pockets, his voice holding the music of his home. “It’s water that’s in my blood, not air.”
     
    “The hunter-born hate water.” It was no secret—not for a vampire as experienced as Janvier.
     
    “But you’re not one of the bloodhounds,” Janvier pointed out. “Water doesn’t mask a vampire’s scent for you—you’re a tracker. You rely on your eyes.”
     
    “Trackers hate water, too.” A snarl directed squarely at him. “It destroys the trail.”
     
    “Hey, ow,” he said, still in that easy, unhurried voice, “I took you through the bayou, sugar. Lots of damp earth—plenty of signs for a tracker to follow.”
     
    “I had mold growing in my toes by the end of that hunt.”
     
    “Now I find myself envious of mold—see what you do to me.” Teasing words, a gaze that stroked her with fire.
     
    “You ever make me hunt you in that kind of damp again,” she said, feeling her stomach give a little twinge as his eyes moved over her, proprietary in a way they had no right to be, “I’ll make you eat the bloody mold.”
     
    Janvier was still laughing when they walked up the final steps to find the door being held open by a small, wrinkled woman who was unquestionably human. Even if Ashwini hadn’t noticedthe myriad other signs that proclaimed her mortality, the simple fact was the angels only accepted Candidates between the ages of twenty-five and forty. And once Made, a vampire was frozen in time—except, of course, for the gradual polish of a beauty no mortal would ever possess.
     
    But there was another kind of beauty in this woman’s face, marked as it was by the experiences of a life lived to the fullest. A life still being lived that way, Ashwini thought, watching those bright blue eyes take in Janvier with a definite glint of female appreciation—one that didn’t dim as she invited them inside. “The master is waiting for you in the living area.”
     
    “Will you show us the way, darlin’?”
     
    The woman dimpled. “Of course. Please follow me.”
     
    As they walked behind the older woman, Ashwini jabbed Janvier with her elbow. “Do you have no shame?”
     
    “None whatsoever.”
     
    An instant later they were being shown through doors large enough to accommodate an angel’s wings. The maid whispered away after letting them in, and while Ashwini’s hunter senses would never let her ignore