"The look on your face," Illium murmured. "I once had a woman look at me that way."
Elena knew Illium had lost his feathers, lost his ability to fly, for speaking angelic secrets to a mortal . . . a mortal he'd loved. "Did you look at her that way, too?"
Those eyes of beaten gold were compelling even with the distance between them. "Only she'd know. And she went to earth long before the world grew cities of steel and glass."
He returned his attention to the vista before him.
Sitting up in bed, she stared at the curving beauty of his wings, shimmering silver blue in the dark, and wondered if Illium still mourned for his human lover. But that was a question she had no right to ask. "The vampire?"
"His name is Noel. He hasn't regained consciousness." His voice was a na**d edge.
"He's one of ours."
And she knew they wouldn't stop until they tracked down the assailant. The hunter in her approved. "What about this angel's attempt to become Cadre?" The world didn't need another archangel with a penchant for the most malicious kind of pleasure.
"Secondary." A flat statement. "It'll be taken care of when we execute him for the insult to Noel, to Raphael."
Elena understood about cutting off evil at the root, but she wasn't used to the swift justice of immortals. "I'm guessing angels don't have a judge and jury system."
A snort. "You saw Uram - would you have wanted him to have a day in court?"
No. Mind turbulent with the memories of Uram's atrocities, she said, "Tell me about Erotique."
Illium raised an eyebrow at her mention of the exclusive Manhattan club patronized by vampires. "Thinking about a career change?"
"Geraldine worked as a dancer there." Elena would never forget the plea in the other woman's eyes as she lay dying after Uram slit her throat. "She wanted so badly to be Made."
"I don't know that she would've enjoyed immortality." Swinging his legs off the railing and down onto the balcony, Illium walked over to lean his shoulder against the doorway.
"Geraldine struck me as a natural victim."
Elena remembered that pale, pale skin overlaced with the scent of vampire. The world would have called her a vamp-whore, and once, Elena would have agreed with them -
that was before she'd stood in a room full of vampires and their lovers, before she'd understood that while seduction could be a drug, it could also be the most adult of exchanges, a game in which the victor would spend the night seeing to the loser's pleasure.
But Geraldine hadn't been like the men and women Elena had seen in the Tower, full of an easy sensual confidence. Illium was right. She'd been a victim. "And she'd have been that for eternity."
"Yes." Wings a delicate arc over his back, Illium met her gaze. "Trust me on this, Ellie.
It's not a good thing to be."
"Why do you sound as if you know?" she asked, aware she'd never forget the mute desperation of Geraldine's dying plea. "You're no victim."
"I Made a human once," he murmured, his lashes shading the expression in his eyes. "He was biologically compatible, and he passed all the personality tests. But he had no . . .
core, no sense of self. I only discovered that later, when it was too late. He'd tied himself to another angel by then, one who enjoyed having a victim."
"He's dead?"
"Of course. Victims never last long."
It was a stark glimpse into one of the darker sides of immortality. "The longer you live, the more mistakes you make."
"And the more sorrows you carry."
Perhaps she should have been startled by the solemn comment, but Illium, she was beginning to learn, was an angel who rarely showed his true face to the world. Much like the man he called sire. "Do you remember everything?"
"Yes."