Guild Hunter 04 - Archangel's Blade

involved being buried alive in a coffin, given only enough blood to survive.
    Her lower lip quivered.
    “My coat’s in the back.”
    Twisting, she pulled it over herself, shrinking down in the seat. “Are you going to put me in the earth?”
    “No. That particular penalty’s been taken off the books.” Raphael had done it for Elena, a gift from an archangel to his consort. “I’ve been tasked to come up with a replacement.”
    Sorrow tugged his coat tighter around herself. “I’m sorry.” The hesitant, scared words of the child he’d called her.
    Sighing, he drove them over the Harlem River and cut across Manhattan to traverse the George Washington Bridge, before bringing the car to a stop on a clifftop outlook that faced Manhattan. The cityscape was a spread of gemstones against the black of the sky, the angels sweeping across it cast in silhouette. “I’m putting you under Contract, Sorrow.” It was the only way to teach her control. “Doesn’t matter if you were Made without your consent, you won’t be free until I decide you’re not a risk.”
    Having unzipped and pulled off her boots during the drive, she curled her legs under her on the seat. Tiny as she was, it didn’t take much effort. “Will you teach me what I need to know?” A plea.
    “No. Venom will take care of it.” The girl was becoming dependent on him.
    “I’m cold.”
    “I know, Misha. You’re being a very brave boy.”
    “They hurt Mama and Rina.” Valiant attempts to fight his sobs. “They hurt Mama and Rina, Papa.”
    The sound of Misha’s cries still haunted him. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, add another voice to that. “Venom will also start teaching you how to control your talent.” Though Sorrow didn’t know it, Venom’s ability to mesmerize put hers in the shade. “I expect you to follow his commands.”
    “I will.” A pause filled with things unsaid after that quiet acknowledgment. “Wha am I becoming?” she asked at last.
    He could’ve lied to her, given her false hope, but that would only get her dead. Turning, he reached forward to tuck a wing of slick raven hair, streaked with color stolen by the night, behind her ear. She flinched and he knew she’d felt the cold blade of his anger. “No one knows. But the one thing I will not allow you to become is a problem. Do you understand?”
    Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Yes.” A whisper before she turned her face into the hand he still had brushing her cheek. “I’m scared, Dmitri.”
    “Papa, I’m scared.”
    Sorrow wasn’t Misha, small and defenseless, but she might as well have been. And so, in spite of his vow to maintain his distance, he didn’t tell her that she should be afraid, that almost everyone believed her chances of surviving this were beyond limited. Instead, he caressed the dark silk of her hair and thought of the soft black curls he’d once felt under his palm as his son’s body lay wracked with convulsions in his arms.
     
     
    “Please! No! Stop!”
    Honor shoved off the sheets and rolled out of the bed, her heart thudding triple time. A glance at the clock told her it had been a bare three hours since she’d collapsed, after having worked on the tattoo past midnight. Trouble was, she kept remembering what Valeria, Tommy, and their friends had done to her.
    Except that nightmare . . . she could’ve sworn it had had nothing to do with the pit. Maybe it had been an echo of the childhood night terrors that had been the reason she’d never been adopted, though infants were always in demand. Apparently, she’d screamed and screamed and screamed, until she wore herself out—only to start again as soon as she woke. The screaming had continued until she was four or five, after which she’d tended to wake herself up when they began and spend the rest of the night fighting sleep.
    Abandonment issues, one child psychologist had called it. Honor wasn’t so sure. What she’d felt when she woke from those childhood nightmares had been too huge, too vast, a terrible darkness filled with utter desolation. The same thing that had her throat so thick now, her heart pounding deep and hard enough to bruise. Rubbing her hand over her chest to dispel the feeling, she headed to the shower.
    Dressed in fresh clothes afterward, she picked up the phone and input a number she’d never expected to use at four a.m. on a cool spring morning, the sky a smoky black broken by a scattering of light-filled offices in the high-rises.
    A dark