Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,67

his head, his red-rimmed eyes proved to have irises of a stunning indigo.

Elena barely stopped herself from going for the long blade worn against her spine. Old, this one was old. Nine thousand years, Raphael had said, but this wasn’t just age. This was the kind of power Dmitri would hold in another millennia or two. As for those eyes, she’d bet her new set of throwing knives that they hadn’t begun that way. It was vampirism that had taken what might’ve been more ordinary blue or gray eyes and altered them to this startling and unearthly hue.

Why wasn’t he Favashi’s second?

Power alone does not a second make, but I think he was her third.

“Archangel.” Riva rose to his feet in a clatter of limbs. His chair toppled behind him onto the thick Turkish rug.

Flushing, he bent to pick it up.

Gadriel whispered away at the same time.

“It has been an age, Riva.” Raphael held out his arm. “I think two hundred years at least.”

The vampire clasped his forearm, but the two didn’t embrace as Raphael would’ve done with Dmitri. “Not so very long when one has lived nine thousand years.” Riva’s voice was melodious and deep, but his fingers trembled before he broke contact.

“Tell me what has happened.” Cold and dark with power, Raphael’s words weren’t a request. “There is no use in lying. I can see it.”

Shuddering, the vampire seemed to pull himself together with a conscious effort of will. He wasn’t fully successful—his face quivered before he clenched his jaw, and though Elena couldn’t see his hands because he’d put his arms behind his back, she could tell from the strain in his muscles that he was gripping the wrist of one with vicious force.

“I lost time.” The column of his throat moved. “At least five hours. I have no memory of where I was or what I did during that time, but when I woke . . .” His voice broke.

“At this time,” Raphael said, “I am your liege. Speak.”

His entire body trembling, Riva began to shrug off his jacket.

Raphael, Elena murmured mind-to-mind. Should I step out? This wasn’t about humiliating the guy after all; no one this powerful would want to be seen as weak, much less by the consort to an archangel.

Raphael spoke directly to Riva. “My consort asks if you would prefer that she step out.”

The vampire’s eyes flared before he inclined his head in a deep bow. “No,” he said. “I thank you for your consideration, Consort, but I am too old to be shy in such matters.” Words spoken with a courtly grace and innate confidence that showed her a glimpse of who he was when not under such strain.

Jacket off, Riva reached down to pull off his T-shirt, revealing a ridged abdomen hard with muscle. Nothing unusual about that in a warrior vampire his age—what was unusual were the lines of black that snaked under his skin from the right side of his abdomen, so dark and oddly liquid that they were striking even against the rich hue of his skin.

Elena sucked in a breath. “Are they moving?” Tiny, incremental pieces of motion.

Face twisted and hands fisted at his sides, Riva’s words were shards of glass. “I kept telling myself that I was imagining it, but it’s a lie I can no longer swallow. At first, they were nothing but scratches. I thought I must’ve fallen from my bike and hurt myself. I believed I had hit my head, and that was why I couldn’t recall the lost hours.”

Riva’s words tumbled out atop of one another; Elena could almost hear how he’d convinced himself that it had been nothing, just a stupid accident.

“Where in the city did you come to consciousness?” Raphael asked, while Elena continued to watch the viscous black lines, her fingers itching to cut them out. She couldn’t get it out of her head that the fucking things were eating Riva from the inside out.

“Not in the city—two hours outside of it, with my bike fallen on the ground beside me.” His shoulders slumped. “I knew even then that it was all wrong; that area was nowhere in my plans for the day.”

Pain in eyes too bright to be real, eerie in a way that meant he’d never be mistaken for human. “It’s clear I’m no longer fit for my duties.” Words spoken directly to Raphael. “You must replace me. Gadriel is more than competent enough to take over. I . . . I . . . Sire,