A shrug. "A sword, a gun, occasionally a scimitar. It's excellent for beheadings."
Elena shook her head at the bloodthirsty recital, then froze when that head began to spin.
"Go wash off the blood, Bluebell."
"After Raphael returns."
Elena took a few steps around the pavilion after pushing at Illium to move. "I can walk home." She could feel the bruises blooming, but it wasn't as bad as it could've been -
especially when it came to her heart. She rubbed the heel of her hand over it. A little sore, but otherwise okay. "And since I'm not suicidal, you can escort me there."
"The sire asked you to stay."
Actually, Elena thought, it had been more of an order - with no expectation that she'd choose to do anything else. "Illium, you should know something about me if this friendship's going to have a hope in hell of working. I'm unlikely to obey Raphael's every order."
Illium's face filled with censure. "He's right, Ellie. You're not safe here."
"I'm hunter-born," she told him, the words husky. "I've never been safe."
"Oh, my little hunter, my sweet, sweet hunter."
Jerking off the memory like an unwanted coat, but knowing it would return to claim her again and again and again, she began to walk. Illium tried to get in her way, but she had the advantage - she knew he wouldn't lay a finger on her.
She'd forgotten about the angels he'd left in the gardens.
They looked like broken birds, their blood staining the ground, turning the field of flowers into an abattoir.
Chapter 12
Blood and pain scented the air in a rich perfume that seeped into her very pores.
Suddenly, she missed her apartment, the bathroom she'd turned into a personal haven, with a strength that made her tremble inside, her stomach tight enough to hurt.
"How long will they lie there?" she forced herself to ask.
"Until they can move themselves," Illium said, each word a razor. "Or until Michaela sends someone to retrieve them."
That, Elena knew, would never happen. Turning away from the mass of bodies, severed wings, and crushed flowers, she walked slowly up the path. "Wait. My book."
"I'll retrieve it for you after Raphael returns."
Elena hesitated, but knew she didn't have it in her to turn back and walk past the bodies again. "Thank you." She'd only taken a few more steps when the scent of rain, of the wind, infiltrated her every sense.
Illium melted away in silence, and it was Raphael who walked beside her. She expected a reprimand for deviating from his orders, but he said nothing until they were inside the walls of their private wing. Even then, he simply watched her strip off her clothes and enter the shower.
He was waiting with a huge towel when she stepped out, and as he wrapped it around her, the tenderness of the gesture threatened to break her. She looked up, met his eyes as he pushed damp strands of hair off her face. His words were quiet as he said, "The violence of our life shocks you."
Under her palm, his heart beat strong and sure. It was such a human sound, so honest, so real. "It's not the violence." She'd killed her own mentor when he went mad, butchering young boys like they were so much meat. "It's the inhumanity of it all."
Raphael stroked his hand over her hair, his wings unfolding to surround her. "Michaela came after you for a very human motive - she's jealous. You're now the center of attention, and she cannot stand it."
"But the cruelty in her eyes." Elena shivered at the memory. "She enjoyed hurting me, enjoyed it in a way that reminded me of Uram." The bloodborn angel had kicked at her broken ankle, sent her screaming. And then he'd smiled.
"They were mates for a reason." Another stroke, his heart so warm and vibrant under the cheek she'd pressed to his chest. But he was also the man who'd punished a vampire with such icy practicality that New Yorkers avoided that once bloodstained patch of Times Square even now.
"What did you do to Michaela?" she asked, her skin going cold with the realization that humiliation alone would have never been enough for Raphael. He didn't act capriciously, but when he did act, the world shivered.
A midnight breeze in her mind.I told you once, Elena. Never feel sorry for Michaela.