“I’m hunter-born,” she said, shifting to keep Anoushka off balance as the angel played with the blade in her hand.
Anoushka moved with her, sinuous, graceful.
Recalling Venom’s little trick, she kept her own gaze slightly to the left. Anoushka laughed. “Oh, you are smart. Such a shame you were too young to save your family.”
Elena jerked as if kicked, her guard dropping for a fragment of a second. Anoushka struck, slicing deep into Elena’s arm before she managed to get out of the way. Ignoring the burn, ignoring the heart-pain caused by the angel’s words, Elena caught a second knife in her free hand. “To the death, then?”
“Did you really think otherwise?” Anoushka swept out with the kukri, her movements blindingly fast.
Elena threw both knives, heard Anoushka deflect one with the blade as she twisted out of the way of the other. And still the angel managed to cut a line into Elena’s unmarked arm.
The bitch was playing with her.
It was, Elena realized, Anoushka’s sole weakness. That and an ego that made her believe herself fit to be an archangel. “They say your blood is poison.”
“Thomas drank from me before he went to scare you.” A piece of swift bladework that had Elena falling to the earth, only just managing to roll out of the way before Anoushka sliced off a piece of her wing. “Impressive.” A mocking bow, as if they were sparring in the most civilized of fashions.
She could feel the blood loss from the deep cuts on her arms beginning to have an effect. Not disabling. Not yet. But it was going to slow her down soon. “Thomas’s death was a delayed response to the poison?”
“He thought he’d been honored above all others, allowed to sip from my veins.”
“So he was dead no matter what happened, even if he didn’t find me?”
“He was getting a little too possessive, the sweet dear.” A sigh. “Such fools are men. Even Raphael—he should’ve killed you the first time he met you. Now you are his weakness.”
Elena saw something in Anoushka’s expression change at that instant, and knew death was looking her in the face. She threw a blade. It went harmlessly to the ground as Anoushka moved . . . but that move put her in direct sunlight, blinding her for a split second. Elena’s next two knives slammed home in her eye sockets, driving her backward.
Anoushka screamed, dropped the kukri. Ignoring it, Elena retrieved the short sword hanging from her belt and—without giving herself a chance to think—slammed the blade down into the angel’s heart, pinning her to the earth. Blood bloomed across the white of Anoushka’s top as Elena opened up her mind and screamed. Raphael! She didn’t care who the fuck else heard her, as long as he did.
Hissing in open fury, Anoushka ripped the knives from her eyes, throwing them to the side. As she jerked upward, in spite of the blade that anchored her to the earth, her nails clawed, Elena remembered that Anoushka was her mother’s daughter. Moving out of the way in the nick of time, she twisted the blade while it remained in the angel’s body. Anoushka’s scream was a thin, bloodcurdling cry as she fell back to the ground, her poisonous fingers dropping to flutter on the paving stones. Fighting the nausea in her stomach, Elena twisted the blade again, turning Anoushka’s heart into so much mush.
It would regenerate, but right now, Anoushka lay twitching on the ground, her mutilated eyes bleeding red on her cheeks.
Her mother’s eyes, so beautiful, so like her own, sightless and distorted, the veins scarlet against the white.
Elena wrenched herself out of the memory, fighting the abyss that threatened to suck her in, leave her helpless.
“I’m not strong enough. Forgive me, my babies.”
Elena had tried not to hear those whispered words. She’d been half asleep that night, Beth still so small, tucked in beside her. Her baby sister had always been afraid of her new room in the Big House. But she’d slept soundlessly that night, as if sure Elena would keep her safe. Only Elena had heard their mother enter their bedroom, only Elena had tried not to understand.
Elena.
She shuddered at the scent of the wind, of the rain. Relief made her careless, her body completely unprotected as Anoushka rose in a screaming rush, kicking Elena to the stones and clawing out with her hand.
Agony blazed down Elena’s thigh. She fell to the ground, hearing Anoushka’s body hit the stone wall with an audible snap at almost the same instant. Raphael touched her thigh a moment later . . . and she realized she couldn’t feel anything in that leg.
“Raphael,” she whispered, panicked. The numbness was spreading, crawling up her body, making her heart shudder.