Guild Hunter 02 - Angels' Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

do is give your support to either Antoine or Callan.”
     
    “Everyone needs to evolve.” A cool statement, one that held the chill winds of time. “Antoine is growing too settled—it may be time for the mantle to pass to Callan.”
     
    “I thought you liked Antoine.”
     
    “I’m an angel—liking someone is only one part of the equation.” His face turned toward her, his expression lethal in its very neutrality. “I asked for you because you bloodied an angel who tried to take you a year ago.”
     

4
     
    H er heart was a rock in her throat. “He was young and stupid—it wasn’t hard to disable him long enough to get away.”
    “You pinned his wings to a wall with seven crossbow bolts.”
     
    Swallowing the rock, she decided to hell with it. “Was he a relative?”
     
    “Even if he had been, I don’t abide lack of intelligence in those around me. Egan was punished for his idiocy.”
     
    Ashwini truly didn’t want to know what Nazarach had done to the slender angel who’d attempted to make her his playmate. But the wildness in her couldn’t help asking, “Because he tried to go after a hunter… or because he failed?”
     
    Another cold smile. “You should ask Egan—his tongue has regrown.” Rising from his relaxed position, he held out a hand. “Fly with me, Ashwini.”
     
    Even from a foot away, it felt as if he were wrapping her in a thousand ropes, strangling, crushing, killing. “I can’t touch you.”
     
    His eyes gleamed and she saw her death in them. “I’m so distasteful?”
     
    “You have too much in you,” she whispered, fighting for breath. “Too many lives, too many memories, too many ghosts.”
     
    That hand lowered, his expression intrigued. “You have the eye?”
     
    Such an old way of speaking. But then, Nazarach had wit-nessed the dark march of seven centuries. “Of a kind.” She
     
    When Janvier’s hand came around her nape, she accepted the touch without startlement, as if something in her had known, had reached for him. One touch, and suddenly her throat opened, the summer air sweet as nectar to her parched lungs.
     
    “Sire,” Janvier said, his voice soft, his address one of respect. “Don’t destroy a treasure for a moment’s fleeting pleasure.”
     
    “Audrina was not to your taste?” the angel asked, his eyes never moving off Ashwini. “I find that hard to believe.”
     
    “My tastes have changed.” Janvier’s free hand came to rest on her upper arm. “Even if Ash isn’t cooperating.”
     
    Nazarach went motionless for a moment—and at that instant, Ashwini knew she’d fight the death he threw at them. Because she’d brought Janvier into this. He was hers to protect.
     
    But then Nazarach laughed, and the danger passed. “She’ll be the death of you, Janvier.”
     
    “It’s my death to choose.”
     
    Spreading out his wings, Nazarach smiled that cold, immortal smile. “Perhaps watching you dance with the hunter will be far more entertaining than taking her.” A minute later, he’d swept off the balcony and into the sky, a magnificent, haunting being with as much cruelty in him as wisdom.
     
    Ashwini tried to pull away from Janvier. The vampire held her. “So, you’re a
sorcière
.”
     
    Janvier, too, she thought, was old. “Witches get burned at the stake.”
     
    “Do you see my ghosts, Ash?” A quiet question.
     
    She was glad to be able to shake her head. “I see only what you show me.”
     
    Lips brushing her neck an instant before she broke away to spin around and face him. “Audrina?”
     
    “A delectable morsel.” His eyes went to her breasts and she realized her damp hair had left them rather well-defined.
     
    Had Nazarach considered that an invitation?
     
    Shivering inwardly, she turned to twist the damp mass off her neck and into a knot.
     
    “Beautiful,” Janvier murmured. “I could stare at your neck for hours. So long, so slender.” The languorous cadence of his voice stroked over her,