Archangel's Viper by Nalini Singh

  "You're strong," Aodhan had said quietly a century earlier. "Your eyes might be of a viper, but you have the heart of a lion. You demand the world bow to you. I wish I had your courage, Venom."

  As Illium's blood hit his bloodstream, Venom felt his veins pulse and hoped Aodhan was finding his own lion's heart in Lumia, where the angel had accompanied Raphael and Elena for the meeting of the Cadre. That lion's heart had always been there; Aodhan was a warrior through and through. He'd lost his faith in himself after an act of horror that nearly ended his light--but that faith, it was coming back. And an Aodhan Venom had only ever glimpsed was emerging.

  "Thanks," he said, lifting his head from Illium's wrist after about ten seconds. "Janvier told me Elena's company is doing flavored premium blood now." It always struck him as hysterical that the Guild Hunter had fallen into a business that catered to a strictly vampiric clientele.

  "It's one of the hot new businesses in Manhattan, according to Immortal Insider magazine." Illium ran his fingers through his hair, the blue-tipped black strands falling back in place around his face afterward. "You should go visit one of their blood cafes," he said with a straight face belied by the amusement in his eyes. "It'll give the business a big publicity boost among the fashionable crowd."

  Venom snorted, not about to become a poster boy for flavored blood. What the fuck?

  "I think our guest is fully compos mentis." Dmitri rose to his feet.

  So did Venom, while Illium continued to hover just off the edge in a casual display of brutal strength. They gave Kenasha the courtesy of allowing him to get to his feet, though it was a dubious courtesy at best, since the angel looked scared stiff of the precipitous drop mere feet away. And that was beyond pitiful. As an angel, the other man should've been far more comfortable here than either Venom or Dmitri.

  Then again, his wings appeared even more useless now that he was standing. The muscles and tendons drooped, like those of a marionette with its strings cut. "Are you sure you're not sick?" Venom asked, concerned for Illium and the other Tower angels.

  "If I am, it's because of Daisy's blood," Kenasha whined. "She did something to me."

  "Are any of your angelic friends displaying similarly wasted wings?"

  Kenasha paled under the midnight cold of Dmitri's voice, a trembling figure framed by the lights of a city that didn't know the meaning of sleep. "No. I didn't tell any of them about her blood. I'm the only one who drank from her." He ran shaky hands down his front in a futile effort to smooth the wrinkles in the bruise-colored velvet of his ornate topcoat. It was embellished with two strips of yellow brocade and frog closures.

  Venom wondered what Holly would think of Kenasha's sartorial choice.

  Dmitri made fleeting eye contact with Venom, passing the baton, since Venom knew more about the situation. The problem was that Kenasha couldn't meet Venom's eyes--his terror of Venom's gaze was worse than the general fear that clung to him and stunk up the air. No matter. It wasn't like the angel could lie his way out of this, not with Venom, Dmitri, and Illium all focused on his quivering face.

  "Tell us exactly how you found Daisy."

  19

  Kenasha repeated the story of rescuing Daisy from the Hudson. "After I realized she wasn't a corpse, I thought I'd be a hero," he whispered. "Like the other people who helped during the Falling. I thought if she was important, I'd be able to tell everyone I'd rescued her."

  Venom wanted to slap the self-obsessed prick. "What did she tell you about how she ended up in the river?"

  Kenasha shifted his feet. And Dmitri spoke with silken menace. "It seems you'd prefer to have this conversation with the sire."

  The angel looked so horrified at the idea that it was comical. Venom could actually feel Dmitri's grim amusement. There weren't many people who wanted to come face to face with the Archangel of New York. Venom had never understood that--he knew Raphael burned with power, but he wasn't capricious or cruel without reason.

  Yes, he ruled with a steel hand. However, that hand didn't get involved in the petty business of people's lives.

  "No, no." Kenasha tugged at the white ruffles poking out of the top of his coat; it was a miracle he didn't choke in the froth. "Daisy said she was attacked by an angel who picked her up and flew her across the city to a warehouse. She escaped from him when he was glutted on blood, somehow ending up in the river--she couldn't remember the details of how. I think she was probably hallucinating and disoriented because of the drugs. We all know angels don't get blood-glutted."

  Illium, Dmitri, and Venom had all gone predator-still halfway through Kenasha's monologue.

  "When?" Venom asked softly.

  Face stark white, the other man didn't try to prevaricate. "Not long before Raphael fought Uram in the sky."

  His ignorance of how the two events were connected wasn't a surprise. The Tower had managed to keep the details of Uram's unprecedented descent into insanity and murder limited to a tight group of people. The world did not need to know that the vastly powerful beings who ruled them could fall prey to ravening madness.

  "What else did she say about the attack on her?" Venom pressed.

  Kenasha frowned, and Venom could almost hear the gears in his brain grinding as he thought back. That, at least, wasn't an affectation. The old immortals weren't always good at keeping track of their memories--or even storing them in a linear fashion. They'd lived so long that their memories were tangled skeins it took time to unravel.

  "She said he plucked her up from the street while she was walking to work." Kenasha's frown grew deeper. "I knew she must've been on drugs when she told me that no one could see her, even though she struggled to free herself."

  Glamour.

  Not every archangel possessed it, but the ones who did could also disappear objects and people held close to their body, the field of glamour not limited to their own flesh.

  "Then she said the angel fed on her blood and put himself in her." Kenasha shrugged. "She was quite pretty before so I can understand why the angel wanted to use her in such a way."

  Venom felt ice crawl through his veins. "Those were her exact words? That the angel 'put himself in her'?"

  Kenasha nodded. "I remember because . . ." Going red, he clammed up.

  Illium chose that second to buffet his wings, creating a churning eddy of wind that nearly sucked the other angel off the edge.

  Squeals leaving his mouth, Kenasha scrabbled for purchase.

  "Talk," Dmitri said without mercy.

  Chest heaving where he'd collapsed on the floor, Kenasha blubbered. "I remember because I was thinking how delicious it would be to take a woman who'd already been claimed by a much more powerful angel--he had to be powerful, didn't he? I mean, he'd flown her all the way across Manhattan."

  Illium just shook his head. Venom knew that carrying a single human or vampire didn't make most angels break a sweat--Elena was an exception, her immortal strength yet growing in her bones, and still, she could already carry children. When it came to the angel-born, even the youngest Tower angel, Izak, could pull off carrying an adult any day of the week with one arm tied behind his back.

  Illium, in contrast, could stop helicopters and planes.

  He'd infamously turned a chopper upside down in midair after the paparazzi began to pursue Elena as if she was a mortal they could hound at will. Needless to say, the consort had never again had to deal with such dangerous tactics from the press.

  Kenasha, Venom thought, was--what was the word Holly had used?--yes, a deadbeat. The angelic equivalent of the work-shy mortal slob who sat on his parents' couch, sucked up all their energy and money, and came to eventually resemble a tub of lard.

  No strength, no muscle. No backbone.

  "What else?" Venom asked this particular tub of lard.

  A blank look. "That was it. I never did take her. I tasted her blood, you see," he whispered on a disgusting shiver of pleasure, "and afterward, it was all I wanted from her."

  Venom prowled closer,
causing Kenasha to scramble back until he was a hairsbreadth from the edge and a fall that shouldn't be deadly to an angel of his age--except that Kenasha had made himself so weak that it was highly probable he'd turn to red paste intermingled with rivers of fat when he hit the ground.

  It was an amusing visual Venom would have to share with Holly. "When you say it was before Raphael's fight with Uram," he said, "exactly how much time are we talking?"

  Gulping, Kenasha tugged at his frothy collar again. "Um, the day before? Yes, I think so. The day before."

  That meant there was a good chance Daisy had been taken around the same time as Holly and her friends. It was highly possible the two women had been in close proximity to one another, their fractured memories hiding the truth but not managing to erase it out of existence.

  I thought you were dead. I'm so sorry. I thought you were dead.

  Daisy's chilling words made all too much sense now. The other woman had escaped Uram but left Holly behind because she believed Holly was already dead. Venom couldn't judge her for that belief, not when he'd seen the carnage Uram had created--it would've been difficult to separate the living from the dead in that charnel house, especially if Holly had been unconscious at the time and Daisy mentally disoriented.

  "Look at me," Venom said to the gutless creature who'd stolen any chance Daisy had to reclaim a life for herself. "That is not a request."

  Kenasha lifted his face, his lips trembling. All it took was an instant of connection with a man this weak, and Venom had him mesmerized. The angel was his puppet now. Venom took him through the whole sequence of questioning again, adding a few new ones along the way.

  The answers were the same. "He didn't lie."

  "You realize that is extremely creepy?" Illium had come to stand on the balcony a couple of minutes earlier, and now waved his hand up and down in front of Kenasha's face. "What would he do if you asked him to jump off the balcony?" he asked in an intrigued tone.

  "Don't," Dmitri said before Venom could demonstrate. "I'd just have to waste a Tower team's time on scraping him up."

  Venom lifted his hands, palms out, to Illium. "Sorry." Then he glanced at Dmitri. "What will you do with him?"

  "He'll be losing those wings first of all." Dmitri's expression held no mercy. "I don't care what he says--we have to eliminate any risk to the other angels in the city. Then he'll be under house arrest until Raphael's return. Kenasha's a coward and a self-centered piece of shit, but he's old enough that his punishment should come directly from the sire."

  After a short pause, the leader of the Seven added, "I wouldn't worry that he'll get off easy; Raphael has a dim view of enforced captivity." Dark, unsaid things in his tone. "Daisy didn't choose to take a Contract. Nor did she choose to become a blood donor. Kenasha has no defense for his actions."

  "I can do the wing slice now," Illium volunteered, sliding out a heavy broadsword from his back that hadn't been visible until then and that Venom knew was currently Illium's third-favorite blade of choice.

  Illium's ability to hide the sword wasn't quite glamour, but it was close to it, at least on a small scale. And unlike with Holly's "droplet of power," Bluebell could control his ability, could disappear his weapons at will.

  "Too much blood and mess on the balcony," Dmitri said. "Take him to the healers so they can get a sample of his wings--and any other samples they need--then fly him back to his home. Do the excision there. Incinerate his wings afterward."

  Golden energy arced between Illium's fingertips. "Is he going to be zombie Kenasha the whole way?" he asked Venom.

  Venom shook his head. "The connection will break once he's a short distance from me. He should be like this while in the Tower, though--it'll make it easier for the healers to get samples without him throwing any dramatics."

  Nodding, Illium took charge of the other angel and dropped down to the infirmary level.

  "Uram marked her," Venom said quietly. "Do we tell the sire?"

  "Only if it's something we can't handle ourselves," Dmitri replied, his gaze on the glittering city that spread out around them, dark water in the distance. "He's surrounded by enemies right now. We can't afford to divide his attention."

  Venom nodded. "I'll work on this."

  Dmitri folded his arms as the cold night wind ruffled the dark strands of his hair. "You have it. But Venom, this changes things." He released a harsh breath. "You have to treat Holly as an unknown threat. She could have things hidden inside her far beyond what came from Daisy."

  Venom had seen the way Dmitri hugged Holly to his side, witnessed the affection of his kiss on top of her rainbow-colored hair. This from a man who otherwise only interacted that way with his wife--and with Naasir, whom he'd all but raised. "What would you do if she does?" he asked softly. "Would you execute her?"

  Darkness, dangerous and old, swept across Dmitri's face. "It's your job to make sure that doesn't become a possibility." His eyes locked with Venom's. "Don't let me down."

  *

  Holly woke feeling as if she'd just spent ten hours on the weight machine at the gym. Every freaking muscle in her body ached. Even the ones in her toes. But at least she was someplace warm, where the heat seeped into her bones and made her want to stretch out and never leave.

  She curled her fingers into the luxuriantly soft blanket that covered her, and smiled. This stone floor is so nic--

  Her eyes snapped open. She wasn't the least surprised to see Venom sitting on the thick light gray carpet on the other side of the stone. Dressed in black pants and a steel gray shirt open at the throat, he wasn't looking at her. His back leaning against a sofa, and his hair not as flawlessly combed as usual, he was staring out at the lights of the night-cloaked city, one of his legs raised and bent at the knee.

  There was something starkly distant about him at that moment.

  She spotted her boots near the edge of the stone, managed to use her foot to get one under the blanket without alerting him. Reaching down to quietly bring it up without altering her curled-up position on the heated stone . . . she threw it so that it landed with a thump next to Venom.

  His attention jerked to her, a smile curving his lips. And he wasn't distant and unknowable any longer. "So, the sleepy kitty is awake." He prowled to her on all fours. It should've looked wrong, but his body flowed like liquid and it was perfectly normal.

  Coming to a stop on the stone floor about a foot from her, he went to his stomach and, folding his arms under his chin, propped his head on them. "Have a good sleep?"

  She wanted to reply with a snarky comment just because it was Venom who was asking, but she was too warm and comfortable--aside from the aching muscles. Yawning, she snuggled the blanket back up to her chin. "Yes. What happened?" She had a vague memory of being punched by Daisy but that didn't make sense--Daisy had been strapped down and too far away to hit Holly.

  "Something interesting," he said. "But you should eat first. You missed dinner."

  "How long have I been out?"

  "Approximately five and a half hours." A quick glance at his watch. "It's currently exactly one minute past midnight."

  Holly's aching body contradicted the hours of rest. "I feel like I went twelve rounds with Dmitri in a bad mood," she admitted.

  A tilt of his head. "Has he ever sparred with you?"

  "A little. But he doesn't really let go--I think he's worried he'll break my neck without realizing it."

  "You're not that easy to break."

  Holly thought again of how he'd thrown her, and of how her body had just kind of . . . flowed. "How do I learn to do that consciously?" she asked. "The boneless glide down walls?"

  "Instinct," was the unhelpful response. "Stop fighting yourself and you'll do it the same way you walk and breathe." His eyes were so pretty and wildly green.

  And she was clearly faint from lack of food.

  Her stomach rumbled right on cue. "Did you know they deliver takeout to the Tower?" The first time she'd placed an order, she'd gone out front
to wait, worried the delivery guy would get scared off by the genuinely scary vampires on guard. Even Holly didn't dare mess with those grim-eyed men and women.

  To her shock, the middle-aged delivery guy had rolled up to her with a grin and a small bag of free chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven. "After that last order," he'd said, "the Tower is our best customer by a country mile."

  It had taken Holly a while to discover that the last order had been placed by a squadron of angelic fighters who'd had a hankering for deep-dish pizza. They'd ordered fifty . . . then fifty more after a second training session.

  On the same day.

  "I cooked you something." Venom's eyes held hers, and this close, she glimpsed the golden striations in the extraordinary viper green. In contrast, the slits of black were such a pure shade of obsidian that she could almost see her own reflection in them.

  Lifting her hand without her conscious volition, she brushed the very tip of her right index finger across his eyelashes.

  20

  His lashes were straight and dark and uncompromising . . . but they felt like the softest of feathers, a whisper of a touch. He didn't stop her, just watched her with that unblinking gaze he got sometimes; it tended to frighten people who didn't know him. Those people erroneously assumed it was a threat when it was simply another part of Venom's nature.

  Holly just felt . . . at peace.

  She couldn't hurt him if she lost control. She couldn't terrify him. She couldn't even shock him. She could annoy him, but they both enjoyed that--a dirty little secret neither one of them would ever speak aloud. "What did you cook?" she asked in that peaceful, lethargic, oddly content state.

  "Fried rice with fresh crab and scallops."

  Holly jerked upright into a seated position. "Really? Give it to me!" She loved seafood fried rice so much that she'd learned to cook it; of course, hers was never as good as her mom's. Daphne just threw in "this and that," mostly leftover bits and pieces, and it always turned out fantastic. "You're competing with my mom's top-shelf cooking, just so you know."

  "I am warned." Flowing upright in a way that made it seem as if he had no bones in his body, Venom walked barefoot across the huge living area and up three small steps to the kitchen area. The gray of his shirt sat flawlessly on his shoulders, the fabric of his pants hugging his butt. What? She couldn't look? She was human and Venom was built like a racehorse, sleek and muscled and fast.