Archangel's Viper (Guild Hunter 10)

It was part of a silent language he’d taught her during their sessions while he’d been away from New York. He’d made her practice the rapid hand movements until she could use them without thought. Similar to sign language, but much faster, it could, Holly had originally thought, be utilized only by people who had their reflexes. Which would’ve made it pretty useless.

But it had turned out it could also be used in combat situations with other angels and vampires in the Tower. She just had to slow things down so they could see the movements. The speed he’d taught her was so, should the two of them be in a hostile situation, they could talk without anyone being the wiser.

The move he’d just made, it meant: Ball’s in your court.

Holly shuddered deep within. He was telling her that Raphael and Michaela wouldn’t interfere. If the horror was to end here, she had to be the one to end it. Only she knew what was at stake. Only she understood that this echo of energy was created of the most horrific part of Uram, the part that had existed right before his death. When the archangel had been a being driven by madness and blood- hungry for the pain of others.

Shelley. Maxie. Cara. Rania. Ping. Kimiya. Nataja. Daisy.

Her friends’ names, and those of three other women who’d never stood a chance, they were a silent mantra in a hidden part of her consciousness as she spoke again to the echo. Thank you, she said, as if he’d answered her question when he’d done no such thing. I hope my body serves you well.

A pause. You have served me well. Swirled in the madness was a regal graciousness. Now it is time for you to cease to exist.

He pulled energy from the lump of flesh in the crib. It ran up Holly’s arm in an acid-green electrical storm that threatened to melt her brain and explode her heart. She gritted her teeth . . . or tried to. The echo had control of her body and it wouldn’t let her take that instinctive action. When the energy threatened to erase her brain, her memories, she hunkered down and fought back using the very power he’d given her.

Because she still had access to part of that power. It had become fused into her cells and this body was yet hers, each and every part of it imprinted with the force of her life. If he truly had been an archangel, she couldn’t have regained any access to the strength forged of his energy and her determination. But he was only a faded echo. Powerful, but not a power. Not like Raphael or Michaela or the Uram he’d once been.

Steeling her mind, Holly refused to be crushed, but she made no move to betray herself . . . not until the echo ripped her hand off the now-lifeless lump in the crib. As she watched, the fleshy host quickly turned a putrid green at the edges, the rot snaking so swiftly through the rest of it that it was clear it had been rotting for a long time, the putrefaction held back only by Michaela’s blood. A foul smell began to emanate from it.

Flicking out a hand, Michaela incinerated the thing she’d birthed.

Ashes lay in the crib.

And Holly’s skin glowed with an acid green power this body wasn’t built to contain. With the extra power came a stronger echo. More knowledge. A vague, vague hint of sanity. Holly had been winging this, and the best plan she’d come up with, given her limited control, had been to force one of the archangels to kill her—kill them both—by inciting the echo into an act of total insanity.

Such as attempting to tear off Michaela’s wings.

But now, she paused, thought. Do you see what you’ve become? She made her voice non-confrontational, never forgetting that she was talking to an immortal who was used to having people bow and scrape to him. That wasn’t always the way—from what she’d seen of Raphael’s rule, he preferred strength around him. Venom didn’t bow and scrape to anyone, and Raphael’s hunter consort was a warrior through and through, one who held her ground.

Uram had been different. From an older time. She knew because she’d researched him obsessively. You were considered an archangel among archangels. Neha admired you, called you the most handsome man she had ever met aside from Eris—and you forgave her bias there, I think. Even Lijuan respected you and she respects very few people.

The echo rumbled inside her. I will have all their respect once more.

Will you? Holly fought his hold on her mind to bring up the images she’d tried to bury for four long years. Of nightmare and horror and Uram sitting on a thronelike chair, his mouth rimmed with blood while a severed arm lay in his lap.

A roar erupted from her mouth. “Lies!”

She glimpsed confusion in Michaela’s eyes, battle-ready tension in Raphael. Only Venom watched in motionless, expressionless silence. He understood what was going on. He knew Holly wasn’t dead.

Ask your fellow archangels, she whispered. Ask them what you became. That nightmare is the only part of you that remains. Not the archangel who was considered the fastest among the archangels. Not the archangel who ruled with an iron fist but had the respect of his generals. Not the archangel who had the most beautiful woman in the world as his lover. Just that ravenous monster who thirsts endlessly for blood.

Her pulse leaped at the thought, her mouth watering.

Nauseated, she forced herself to continue. You feel it. You feel the urge to drink. You’re looking at Michaela’s throat. You want to rip it out.

Another roar of sound, her hands fisting without her conscious volition.

“Uram.” Michaela circling the crib to come cautiously closer. “It’s all right, my love. This body will frustrate you until you can reshape and regrow it to your requirements, but that will not take you long.”

A memory flash that wasn’t her own: Michaela flat on the ground with her wings outspread and her chest ripped open, a glowing red fireball in place of her heart. The female archangel’s body jerked, blood streaking the smooth brown of her skin.

The terror in her expression shocked Holly into silence.

Archangels didn’t get terrified. Archangels were the terror.

Holly’s hand rose, her fingers brushing the taller woman’s cheek. “My sweet.”

No terror today. Michaela’s eyes shimmered, the bright green dazzling beyond the wash of water. “You are the only one who ever understood me.”

Holly’s fingers played along the swanlike length of Michaela’s throat, stopping for a heartbeat at her pulse, before running down between the archangel’s breasts to eventually spread over her heart. It beat rapidly under her palm. “I tore this open,” came from her mouth. “I put myself inside you.”

Michaela’s hand closed over hers and the punch of archangelic power rocked Holly’s entire body. Michaela was glowing and when an archangel glowed, people usually died. However, this archangel wasn’t in a murderous mood—and didn’t believe she was dealing with a mortal. “It is no matter,” she said with a soft smile. “I didn’t understand then. I didn’t know you were asking me to keep you safe until you could return.”

Why am I so weak?

It took Holly a second to realize the question was for her. Because you are only a faded echo of a great archangel. You are a ghost.

I will grow strong again.

Do you truly believe so? Holly asked seriously. Can you draw power from the world around you?

Her eyes went unerringly to Michaela’s neck, and to the pulse that beat there. Her fingers curved slightly over Michaela’s heart. Blood will feed me. Blood will make me grow.

The madness is returning, Holly said before the shred of sanity slipped away forever. You will once more become enslaved to blood. A monster who will be feared but never respected. Even then, you will never be what you once were.

Rage in her veins. “I need your blood, my love,” her mouth said to Michaela. “Just enough to give me a little more strength.”

Michaela angled her neck in a trust that shook Holly. She’d always thought of the Archangel of Budapest as arrogant and beautiful and manipulative. That was how Michaela came across in the media that so loved her. And, blinded by the differences in their power and age, Holly had never once thought about how Michaela was a woman, too, one who’d loved a man who had died.

Holly ran her fingers over the line of Michaela’s throat before rising on tiptoe to bend her mouth to that pulsing spot. Blood spurted onto her tongue, hot and fresh and so powerful that it made her physically stagger. But still she drank and drank, until she could literally drink no more.