Archangel's Shadows(163)
Raphael’s eyes didn’t move off her, the power in them chilling. “You did an extraordinary job of containing him without causing a deadly injury.”
Ashwini decided she wasn’t delirious. Raphael definitely sounded amused. “I might have gone a bit overboard,” she admitted with a wince. “I just didn’t want to risk that he’d crawl away, escape justice to carry on his reign of torture and death.”
“A worthy motive,” Raphael said, his expression growing chilly again as he added, “He deserves the pain.”
“You have to teach me the knife-through-the-brain trick,” Elena said, giving Ashwini an excuse to look away from the archangel who had noticed her. No sane person wanted an archangel’s notice. Ever.
“There’s a twist at the end,” she said, curling her fingers surreptitiously around Janvier’s. He curled back in turn, warm and strong.
And it became easier to breathe. “That’s what you have to be careful about,” she told Ellie. “Otherwise, you scramble the brains too badly for the vamp to recover.”
The other hunter’s eyes gleamed. “We’ll talk.” She looked up at her consort. “So, what did that slimy coward have to say for himself?”
“That he was no traitor.” Cold disgust in Raphael’s words. “In truth, he had no true loyalties, did only what was good for Giorgio. Cornelius had known him in the past, and when he saw Giorgio in the Quarter, he tracked him to his home and asked for sanctuary, convincing Giorgio that he’d be rewarded when Lijuan arose anew.”
“Sire,” Janvier said, “Giorgio wasn’t always thus. He was a great physician. Is it the madness of age?”
Raphael’s answer was absolute. “No. He simply became bored with eternity and this was his entertainment.” The pure male beauty of the archangel’s features did nothing to hide the ruthlessness that made him one of the Cadre. “I believe he accepted Cornelius not because of any belief in Lijuan’s resurrection, but because he wished for a partner in his perversions.”
“Giorgio shouldn’t have been able to get away with his misuse of women for as long as he did,” Dmitri said, his voice stripped of all traces of civility.
Thinking of Carys’s surprise at Ashwini’s response to the report of the two missing pros, she said, “You need a better way to stay in touch with the vulnerable.”
“Ash is right,” Janvier said. “There’s a gray world beneath the surface of the city, and it’s from this pool that predators like Giorgio pick their prey. I’m also concerned about how many submissive mortals I saw in the Quarter clubs.”
Dmitri frowned. “We have a network in place, but its focus is on keeping an eye on the immortals, rather than on mortals who might become prey. It’s a gap we need to work out a way to plug.”
What the Tower needed, Ashwini thought, was someone like Ransom, someone trusted on the streets and protective of its denizens, but who wasn’t mortal. It had to be a vampire, a man or woman who’d already made the choice to live in the immortal world.
“We can discuss this further tomorrow,” Raphael said. “For now, the predators are locked up, and you both”—those eyes full of power noticing Ashwini and Janvier again—“have earned the night off. Enjoy the peace while it lasts.”
There was no doubting it was an order.
“Sire,” Janvier said, and the two of them left to head out. He’d already grabbed a black and red motorcycle jacket to replace the jacket he’d given to the woman he’d rescued, so there was only one other thing to remember.
“Grab a few bottles of blood,” she said to him once they were in the main corridor. “You need more than I can give you.”