Hugging herself, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, ice forming in the hollow of her stomach. "I don't want it anywhere near me."
"Interesting." Reaching in, he picked up the box. "I sense nothing, and yet even without blood, it sings to you."
"Don't touch it," she ordered between gritted teeth. "I told you to throw it away."
"We can't, Elena. You know that."
She didn't want to know it. "Power games. So what? We tell her thanks and send back a bauble or something. You must have a few lying around."
"That will not do." Eyes that had shifted to the shadowed color found in the deepest, darkest part of dawn, before the sun rose to the horizon. "This is a very specific gift. It's a test."
"So what?" she said again. "Archangels play power games. Who the fuck says I have to?"
Raphael put the box on a corner of his desk, his wings whispering against hers. "Like it or not, by becoming my lover, you've accepted an invitation to those games."
Her skin felt as if it was being touched by a thousand spidery fingers. "Can we throw it away after I open it?"
"Yes."
"That won't be bad politics?"
"It'll be a statement." He held out his hand. "Come, hunter. I need a drop of your blood."
"See? Creepy?" Shuddering, she took out one of her knives and pricked her left index finger. "Anyone who gives gifts locked by blood isn't ever going to give you a bath set."
Taking her hand, Raphael held it over the box, squeezing her finger just hard enough to release a single, luminous drop of blood. She watched it hang on her skin for a frozen moment, as if loathe to touch the velvet box, before it fell in a slow, soft splash. The box seemed to consume it, a voracious blackness that hungered for the taste of life. Her hand clenched around the knife. "I really don't want to go to this ball."
Raphael kissed her fingertip before releasing her hand. "Do you want me to open it?"
"Yes." She wasn't going to touch that thing if she could help it.
He flipped it open. She couldn't see what was inside at first, her view blocked by his hand, but then he moved . . .
Her gorge rose. Dropping the knife, she spun and headed for the door she hoped led to the bathroom. Her relief was overpowered by the retching that ripped through her as she stumbled into the tiled enclosure. Dropping her head above the toilet, she brought up her lunch in a hard, rough pulse that felt like it was peeling off the lining of her stomach itself.
Sometime in the middle, she became aware that she was on her knees, Raphael beside her, his hand holding her hair away from her face, his wings spread to enclose her in white-gold. Trembling as the muscle spasms quieted, she pushed the flush button and sat back.
Raphael got up, bringing her a cold cloth. She wiped it over her face, very aware of him hunkering in front of her, his anger a blistering flame. "What," he said in that frigid tone she'd heard him use with Michaela once, "does that necklace mean?"
"It has to be a copy," she choked out. "We buried the real one. Isaw ." The lid of the coffin closing, her last glimpse of Belle's face.
Hands cupping her cheeks, beautiful wings spread wide. "Don't let her win. Don't let her use your memories against you."
"God, thebitch ." Anger rose in a blinding wave. "She did it on purpose, didn't she?" It wasn't truly a question, because she knew the answer. "I'm no threat to her, she's just doing this because it'sfun . She wants to break me." For no reason than that it would give her a few moments amusement.
"She obviously doesn't know you." He tugged her to her feet.
Walking to the washbasin, she put the cloth on the counter and rinsed out her mouth with near-scalding water. "Belle," she said after she felt clean at last, "would've ripped out Lijuan's throat for daring to use her against me." The memory of her sister's sweet, wild nature had her straightening her spine. "Let's go."
This time, though she continued to refuse to touch it, she looked very carefully at the necklace Lijuan had sent her. "It's a copy." Relief rocked through her, her legs threatening to collapse until she braced her hand on the desk. The Chinese archangel hadn't desecrated Belle's final resting place. "We decided to engrave Belle's name