Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter 2)

she said, "I might miss the vampire's scent on the ground if he wasn't flown straight to Michaela's."

Illium held out a hand. "It'll be much quicker for you to fly to Michaela's, check the grounds, then return."

Knowing he was right, she squelched her personal reluctance and went to him, aware of Naasir vanishing into the dark. "Is it me or is Naasir about as tame as your average mountain lion?"

"Compared to him, the lions are tabby cats." Illium closed his arms around her waist as she wrapped hers around his neck, her wings held tight to her spine. It made her easier to carry - and it hid the incredibly sensitive inner curve where her wings grew out of her back.

"Your bruises."

"Don't drop me because you're worried about holding on too hard."

"I won't let you fall." It was an intimate whisper against her ear as he rose into the air.

"Famous last words," she muttered, the wind whipping the hair off her face, threatening to steal her breath, her words.

"You're spoiled, Ellie. You're used to being carried by an archangel." He skimmed under several other angels, heading toward an elegant group of buildings on a relatively smooth piece of ground. The land around the buildings was lit with delicately shaped metal lanterns, the paths a lilting melody of form and function.

"Are there gardens down there?" she asked, Illium's breath warm against her cheek as he bent his head to catch her question.

"She rarely visits, but Michaela's gardens are famed in the Refuge. Even in the cold, she finds things that will grow, sometimes even bloom."

Bloom.

Her mind cascaded with images from the garden of wildflowers - blood-soaked petals littering the ground, maimed bodies crushing the flowers, and most powerful of all, the setting sun glinting off Illium's sword as he amputated wings with merciless efficiency.

She wondered if those angels were still there, lying forsaken in the dark.

"She may be many things - cruel, malicious, selfish," Illium murmured as he brought them to a smooth landing on the outer terrace of Michaela's home, "but I don't think the Queen of Constantinople would harm a child."

"You didn't see the look in her eyes at the pavilion." Stepping out of Illium's arms, she wasn't surprised to see Riker appear in front of the closed doorway. She'd picked up his scent - cedar painted with ice, evocative and unexpected - the instant they landed.

"Hello, Riker." It took effort to keep her voice civil - the last time she'd seen Michaela's favorite guard, he'd been pinned to a wall, his heart skewered by the torn-off leg of a table, but the time before that, he'd tried to play a very nasty game with her.

Riker stared at her in that way he had - cold-blooded as any reptile. "You're in my mistress's territory. You have no protection here."

"I'm looking for Sam," Elena said. "Illium tells me Michaela wouldn't hurt a child, so I'm hoping she'll give us permission to search the grounds - in case the vampire passed through here."

"My mistress has no need of your approval."

Elena shoved her hand through her hair, attempting to keep her tone temperate though a helpless urgency pumped through her blood. "Look," she said, "I'm not here to pick a fight. And if your mistress truly cares about the young, she won't be happy to find that you blocked us."

Riker didn't move, those reptilian eyes never shifting off her.

Feeling time slipping through her fingers, she was about to ask Illium if he could simply fly her over the grounds so she could see if the scent lingered in the air, when Riker reached for the doorknob. "The mistress will allow you to walk through the house."

Surprised, Elena made no delay in following Riker, with Illium at her back. Michaela's home took her breath away - the entranceway alone was worthy of the term "work of art"; the tiles beneath her feet were ebony veined with quartz, the walls on either side painted with scenes that sent the mind soaring. Elena was no sophisticate, but even she recognized the artist. "Michelangelo?"

"If he did," Illium murmured, "he'd have forgotten it the moment he left. No mortal must know of the Refuge."

And yet, Elena thought, Sara did. Her heart squeezed. She knew Raphael had allowed it because of - andfor  - her, taking a far bigger step than she'd ever have expected of the archangel she'd met on that windswept roof in New York. "He remembered somewhere deep in his soul," she said, checking out a room that flowed off the entranceway.

It proved clean. She picked up the scents of several other vampires as they continued to walk, but not even a flicker of the one she'd sensed in that small kitchen drowning in the salt of a mother's tears. But they'd barely scratched the surface. Looking up at the soaring central core, she put her hand on the banister. "I need to go upstairs."

"You will keep your distance from the mistress's quarters."

"Fine." If Michaela was protecting the vampire, it wouldn't do any good for Elena to go barging in and get both herself and Illium killed before they'd gotten Sam out of danger.

All she had to do was find the merest trace of scent.

But the second floor proved as pristine and as elegant as the first, each sculpture placed in exactly the right position to enhance the overall grace of the house, the rugs beneath her feet drenched with color. It was as she was crossing the ruby and cream one near the second set of stairs that it hit her.

Oranges dipped in chocolate.

Her entire body stiffened. Spinning on her heel, she sprinted down a hallway that Riker had specifically warned her not to enter, instinct overriding common sense. This was what she'd been born to do, her senses honed to -

An arm around her waist, pulling her back against a firm, muscled chest, her wings screaming against the overload of sensation. "Riker would like nothing better than to have a legitimate excuse to kill you." Illium's voice, that faint British accent laced with a steely thread of warning.

"Right." She shook her head to clear it, suddenly aware of Michaela's favorite vampire standing only inches from her side. And she'd let him get that close, she'd been so blinded by the compulsion to follow the scent, to bring back the child. "Right."

Illium continued to hold her until she pushed at his hands and took a step to the left, creating more distance between her and Riker. "Raphael?"

"It's done." Eyes the rich, unique color of Venetian gold looked into hers. "He won't be long."

Elena had to fist her hands, grit her teeth, to fight the thundering need to run after that fading scent. Riker stood on Illium's other side. But his eyes, they never moved off her.