“Yes. I’ll take care of it, I promise.” A plant was a plant, even if this one had a slightly different diet. “I like plants.” And plants liked her back . . . more and more these days. She’d managed to baby an incredibly delicate fern back to life after it collapsed into limp brown strands as a result of her abandonment during the battle.
Then again, the plant’s recovery had probably been sheer luck.
It sat healthy and happy and green to the right, next to a cheerful pansy that had attracted Naasir. The vampire touched his fingers to the soft purple petals of the flower, stroking as if he liked the velvety texture.
“Here,” she said, showing him another plant. “You can eat it.” Breaking off a flower, she gave it to him.
He bit carefully, chewed. “I don’t understand why people eat plants,” was his succinct response, but he finished off the flower as they headed back. “We will spar?”
“I’ve been looking forward to it.” Fast and unorthodox, he’d be an excellent opponent from whom to learn. “Though we’ll have to have ground rules.”
He scowled. “You said cheating was okay.”
“It is—for me. Raphael’s an archangel. You’re a centuries-old vampire.” Elena wasn’t sure of Naasir’s exact age, but she had the feeling it had to be around the six- or seven-hundred mark. “I’m not as strong as you.” Raphael had told her she had to be blunt with Naasir.
He is highly intelligent, but he becomes frustrated with too much subtlety. That doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of understanding it—but that he gets annoyed with people who force such subtleties on him.
Tonight, Naasir looked at her with the silver eyes that held such wildness her senses kept telling her he was nothing known, nothing understood. “I could break your neck without effort,” he said, as if simply stating a fact. “The sire would not like that.”
“Neither would I.” Her dry response made him grin, fangs flashing. “I say we do a couple of practice runs so you can gauge your strength against mine.” Elena liked sparring with those stronger than her; it was the only way to get better. Their enemies sure as hell didn’t go easy on her because she was significantly weaker than the average adult angel.
But, she had to be smart about it. No use being too proud and ending up dead because Naasir didn’t realize he wasn’t dealing with a warrior angel his own age. “How about tomorrow?”
“I will ask Janvier if he and his hunter need help with their hunt.”
Elena felt her body tense again at the horror of what had been done to the Little Italy victim, at the idea that Lijuan might somehow have left a taint in their city. “I really wish the wicked witch would take a dive straight into hell.”
“Did Raphael tell you I once tried to bite her?”
“No.” Eyes wide, she turned to face him. “What happened?”
“I was a child. She laughed because she thought I was joking.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t—I wanted to kill her because she smelled like bad meat. Wrong.”
“In that case,” Elena said, “we’ll soon be best friends.”
Naasir wrapped his arm around her neck, his very sharp teeth close to her ear as he said, “You smell good, Ellie.” A tiny bite, playful rather than serious. “Do you think Janvier smells his hunter?”
Elena smiled at the whisper and decided to set aside thoughts of Lijuan and the death the insane archangel left in her wake. Tonight it was about loyalty, about friendship, and about the ties that bound them all to one another, angel, vampire, and mortal. “I hope so.”