Blinking away the bittersweet images, Elena continued to tell the tale she'd originally heard from an old Buddhist monk as they sat drinking green tea beside an immaculate sand garden. "His eyes turned to rubies, his scales to diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds.

Only one warrior was brave enough to venture near the sleeping dragon."

"Did the dragon wake?"

"Yes." She leaned close, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. "And because the warrior had been so brave, the dragon gave him a piece of his eye."

"The rest?"

"They say the dragon still sleeps, and that if anyone is ever smart enough and brave enough to find it again, the dragon will give him the world's riches."

"I'm going to find the dragon." Sam's eyes turned as bright as those mythical jewels.

"And I'll take good care of your present."

"I know you will." Reaching out, she brushed tumbling black curls off that sweet face, keeping a tight hold on the rage that had her hunter senses humming for blood. "Sleep now. We'll talk again later."

Keir came in as Elena rose. She watched him soothe his pianist's hands over Sam to lull the boy into a deep sleep. "He'll treasure it, you know," the healer said, placing the dagger carefully on the bedside table. "It's the kind of thing a child takes into adulthood."

Elena gave a small nod, barely keeping her feet under a sudden avalanche of memory -

as if her subconscious had just been waiting for Sam's eyes to close. Why here? Why now? Neither Ari nor Belle, nor her mother, had ever made it to a hospital. Only to the morgue.

"Why did you bring her here?" A strident feminine voice. "She's a child."

A big hand around hers, giving her the courage to stand firm. "She deserves to see her sisters one last time."

"Not like this!"

"Beth's too young," the man said, "but Ellie isn't. She knows what happened. Dear God, she saw it all."

"Her mother - "

"Screams every time the drugs wear off, screams until the doctors medicate her again."

Jagged words. "I can't help Marguerite, but I can help Ellie. It's all jumbled up in her mind. She keeps asking me if the monster made Arielle and Mirabelle like him."

"I won't let you do this."

"Try standing in my way."

"Elena?"

Mumbling a hurried good-bye when Keir looked at her with a too-perceptive gaze, she made her way out and into the corridor. Her mind couldn't stop circling around the truth her subconscious had just disgorged - Jeffrey had taken her to see her sisters. He'd fought her aunt, fought the hospital staff, fought everyone . . . because she'd needed to see that Arielle and Mirabelle truly were gone, that they hadn't been dragged into Slater's foul world.

"It's okay, Ellie." A big hand stroking over her head. Tears in that deep voice. "There's no more pain where they are now."

Ari and Bellehad appeared at peace in spite of the way their lives had ended, their eyes closed in rest, their bodies looking whole beneath the white sheets. Elena had pressed her lips to each cold cheek, patted their hair, and said good-bye. They'd stayed beside the bodies for over an hour until . . .

"Okay, Daddy." She slipped her hand into his, looking up at the man who'd always been the strongest pillar in her universe. "We can go now."

Moisture glittered in that pale grey gaze that had always been so firm, so strong.

"Yeah?"

"Don't cry." Reaching up as he bent down, she wiped away those tears. "They're not hurting anymore."

Elena staggered into a side corridor, her hand shaking as she braced herself. She'd always believed she'd lost her father the day it all ended in blood, but she'd been wrong.

He'd still been her father that afternoon at the hospital, still been a man willing to fight for his daughter's right to say good-bye.

When had it all gone wrong? When had her father begun to treat her as an abhorrence he couldn't stand to look at? And how many more memories had she buried?

"Elena?"

Turning, she found herself face-to-face with Keir, his expression careful. "Would you - "

But Elena was already shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but I have to go." She almost ran to the waiting room, taking the hidden stairs to the top level. Her wings dragged on the steps designed for vampires, but she made it up and out into the icy air without being stopped by anyone else.

The wind was a cold slap against her overheated cheeks, the fresh air a welcome balm. "I don't want to remember." A cowardly thought, but she wasn't strong enough to bear the knowledge hanging heavy on the edge of her horizon. Because it was bad. Worse than anything else. And she was already struggling to survive the memories.

A cough from her left. "I'd ask if you were stargazing, but it's only five."

Her back went stiff. What had she said? Anyone but Galen. "Venom."

Chapter 21

The vampire was wearing his signature black sunglasses, his lips holding a familiar mocking edge. "At your service."

She realized he had to have left New York as soon as Dmitri arrived. "Do vampires suffer from jet lag?"

Venom removed his sunglasses, giving her the full impact of those eyes slitted like a snake's. It didn't matter that she'd seen them before - her skin still crawled in visceral shock, a gut-deep response to the alien intelligence in those eyes. Part of her wondered if it was only his eyes that had been changed when he was Made - did Venom think like a human, or was his intellect a far more cold- blooded thing?

"Offering to soothe my aches, hunter?" the vampire said, flicking his tongue over one long incisor and coming away with a golden droplet full of poison. "I'm touched."

"Just being friendly," she said, matching snark for snark.

Venom's pupils contracted the instant before he slid his sunglasses back on.

She couldn't help it. "Why isn't your tongue forked?"

"Why can't you fly?" A smirk. "Those things on your back aren't accessories you know."

She gave him the finger, but part of her was glad for his annoying presence. He'd pulled her firmly into the present, the past locked in that cupboard where she preferred to keep it the majority of the time. "Aren't you supposed to act as my guide?"

He waved a hand. "Follow me, milady."

Despite his words, they walked side by side as he led her to Raphael's main office, something she hadn't even known existed until then. "What's the mood like in Manhattan?" She'd spoken to both Sara and Ransom about it, but a vampire's take on things, especially a vampire as strong as Venom, was likely to be different from a human's.

Of course, Venom didn't give her any kind of a straight answer. "People are starting to believe the rumors of your resurrection were greatly exaggerated. Most think you're dead and buried somewhere. So sad."

She ignored the deliberate provocation. "The truth still hasn't gotten out? I know Raphael's people wouldn't tell, but the others? Michaela?"

"All jealous. Raphael's the first archangel in living memory to have Made an angel." A glance at her from those mirrored frames that showed her nothing but her own face floating in darkness. "You're a unique prize. Be careful you don't get bagged and put up on some wall."

Raphael was sitting behind a huge black desk when she walked in, Venom having left her at the door. Deja vu hit her with relentless force. He had a desk like that in his Tower, too.

"If I were to splay you out on my desk and thrust my fingers into you right now, I think I'd find different."

Raphael looked up at that instant, his eyes smoldering with an unequivocally sexual heat that said he knew exactly what she was thinking. Holding that gaze, she closed the door and walked to him with slow, intent steps. Instead of stopping when she reached the granite, she jumped up and, sweeping the papers out of her way, swung her legs over the other side, spreading them to bracket him in between.

The archangel put his hands on her thighs. "Again you come to me with nightmares in your eyes."

"Yes," she said, pushing her hands through his hair. "I come to you." It was a trust she'd given no one else.

He squeezed her thighs, pulling her closer with an effortless strength that made her heart race. The Archangel of New York was in a dangerous mood today. Bending down as he lifted up his head, she kissed him. Her dominant position lasted a bare second. A subtle shift in his hold and he had her in his lap, her legs on either side of his, the damp heat between her thighs pressed to the rigid line of his cock.

Gasping at the sudden, electric contact, it took her a second to realize she'd spread her wings over his desk. "I'm messing up your papers," she whispered against lips that had tempted her into the most erotic of sins.

He moved up his hand to close over her breast.

A shock of sensation. Her spine arched.

"I'll take recompense for your misdemeanor in flesh. Are you ready to pay?" A question full of a sensual cruelty that made her survival instincts ripple in fear.

But instead of fighting she relaxed. Raphael, she thought, was more than terrifying enough to banish even the worst nightmare. When his teeth closed over the pulse in her neck, when his hands ripped away her top to leave her upper body bare, she gripped his shoulders and hung on.

Then those strong white teeth moved lower.

Her stomach swirled with an addictive mix of fear and desire. "Raphael."

He flicked out his tongue, one hand on her back, the other plumping up her breast so he could lave the nipple with a slow focus that had her entire body going taut in expectation.

"Are you planning to bite?" It was a husky question.

Perhaps.

Hearing the chill in that, she found herself hesitating, even as her body craved his touch.

Was she anywhere near strong enough to take on the Archangel of New York in this kind of a mood?

You're my mate, Elena. You have no choice but to learn.

He was in her mind, slipping in as desire short-circuited her defenses. "Will you ever understand the need for boundaries?" She nipped at his lip, frustrated enough to act on instinct.

His eyes turned to midnight as he lifted his head, his thumb brushing over the peak he'd aroused to throbbing readiness. "No."

"Sorry" - she wrapped her arms around his neck - "you don't get away with autocratic answers with me." And she wasn't going to let her anger drive a wedge between them.

This thing that tied them together - this raw, painful emotion - was worth fighting for.

"And I'm never going to accept being made a puppet. Not by Lijuan, and certainly not by the man I consider mine."

He didn't answer, just watched her with that aloof focus. He'd watched her like that the first time they'd met. Then, she'd been afraid he'd kill her. Now, she knew he wouldn't.

But . . . he might hurt her in ways only an immortal could. She should've backed down -

but she'd never been one to do that.

"What," she said, touching her nose to his in unspoken affection, in a trust that was a fragile thread he could snap with a single careless act, "has you in such a bad mood?"

The scent of the sea swelled, until she could almost touch the foam. The pause, it was full of things unspoken, a gleaming blade hanging over their heads. Sweat broke out along her spine but she continued to hold him, continued to fight for a relationship that had come out of nowhere and become the most important thing in her universe.