Dmitri knelt beside the angel whose eyes were bulging out of his head—whether in pain or fear, Venom couldn’t tell. “Hold him still.”
Lip curling at the idea of touching the other man, Venom nonetheless knelt down and did as asked so that Dmitri could use the syringes he held in his hand to take blood samples. He held out both capped syringes toward Illium. “Fly these down to the infirmary so they can start on the tests. Gentle hold. You don’t want to accidentally crush one and get contaminated by the blood.”
Gingerly taking the samples, Illium said, “I have no desire to look like a plucked chicken. Been there, have no wish to repeat the experience.” A pause. “Though . . . to be clear, I looked more like a fluffy duck—cute, not as if I had a molting disease.” Illium was gone in a wash of wind seconds later.
Venom had seen Illium’s feathers regenerating after an accident, but he was also aware the angel had once been stripped of his feathers as punishment for the crime of speaking angelic secrets to a mortal woman he mourned to this day. The latter had been before Venom’s time. “Were Illium’s feathers different before he lost them the first time?” he asked Dmitri, realizing he’d just assumed they’d regenerated identical to the original.
Dmitri gripped Kenasha’s mouth, forced it open with the vise of his grip.
Ready, Venom used his pocketknife to slice his own wrist open, then dripped the blood into the contemptible angel’s mouth.
“No,” Dmitri said as Kenasha’s throat began to move spasmodically. “Our Bluebell didn’t have the silver then.” A faint smile. “He was vain before. Imagine how much worse he got when glittering threads of silver began to appear in among the filaments.”
“When you’re this beautiful,” Illium said, coming up to hover on the other side of the balcony, “you have no choice but to be vain.” He buffed his nails on his arm, then blew on them, and at that instant, he was once more the angel Venom knew: intelligent and generous and with a warm playfulness to him.
Most immortals had lost that playfulness long ago. Even Venom.
Kenasha choked and spluttered but Dmitri was relentless. Venom could easily donate this much blood within a short period of time, but he’d have to feed soon to make up for it. He wouldn’t be weak if he didn’t, but he’d be weaker, and Venom preferred to be at full strength. When his wrist began to heal, he slit it open again.
It took a lot longer than he’d estimated for Kenasha’s body to stop quivering.
“Holly’s strong,” he murmured, pleased deep within.
“Want a bite?” Illium held out his own wrist. “This is first-class blood, available only to a select few.”
Venom felt his lips kick up. “Thanks.” He had no problem taking blood from his fellow members of the Seven—as he had no problem donating blood in turn. And when it came to Illium, he only had to drink a small amount.
Bluebell packed a punch.
Not as strong as Raphael, but more than strong enough that one day, Venom knew he’d look up into the sky and see an archangel with wings of bluebell blue glittering with silver threads.
His heart ached when he thought of that distant moment in time.
How much worse must it be for Dmitri, who’d watched both Illium and Aodhan grow up? Because as the moon followed the sun, when Illium ascended to become an archangel, Aodhan would go with him as his second. The angel with wings of shattered light had been the hardest of the Seven for Venom to get to know . . . and yet he’d given Venom an extraordinary gift.
“You’re strong,” Aodhan had said quietly a century earlier. “Your eyes might be of a viper, but you have the heart of a lion. You demand the world bow to you. I wish I had your courage, Venom.”
As Illium’s blood hit his bloodstream, Venom felt his veins pulse and hoped Aodhan was finding his own lion’s heart in Lumia, where the angel had accompanied Raphael and Elena for the meeting of the Cadre. That lion’s heart had always been there; Aodhan was a warrior through and through. He’d lost his faith in himself after an act of horror that nearly ended his light—but that faith, it was coming back. And an Aodhan Venom had only ever glimpsed was emerging.
“Thanks,” he said, lifting his head from Illium’s wrist after about ten seconds. “Janvier told me Elena’s company is doing flavored premium blood now.” It always struck him as hysterical that the Guild Hunter had fallen into a business that catered to a strictly vampiric clientele.
“It’s one of the hot new businesses in Manhattan, according to Immortal Insider magazine.” Illium ran his fingers through his hair, the blue-tipped black strands falling back in place around his face afterward. “You should go visit one of their blood cafés,” he said with a straight face belied by the amusement in his eyes. “It’ll give the business a big publicity boost among the fashionable crowd.”
Venom snorted, not about to become a poster boy for flavored blood. What the fuck?
“I think our guest is fully compos mentis.” Dmitri rose to his feet.
So did Venom, while Illium continued to hover just off the edge in a casual display of brutal strength. They gave Kenasha the courtesy of allowing him to get to his feet, though it was a dubious courtesy at best, since the angel looked scared stiff of the precipitous drop mere feet away. And that was beyond pitiful. As an angel, the other man should’ve been far more comfortable here than either Venom or Dmitri.
Then again, his wings appeared even more useless now that he was standing. The muscles and tendons drooped, like those of a marionette with its strings cut. “Are you sure you’re not sick?” Venom asked, concerned for Illium and the other Tower angels.
“If I am, it’s because of Daisy’s blood,” Kenasha whined. “She did something to me.”
“Are any of your angelic friends displaying similarly wasted wings?”
Kenasha paled under the midnight cold of Dmitri’s voice, a trembling figure framed by the lights of a city that didn’t know the meaning of sleep. “No. I didn’t tell any of them about her blood. I’m the only one who drank from her.” He ran shaky hands down his front in a futile effort to smooth the wrinkles in the bruise-colored velvet of his ornate topcoat. It was embellished with two strips of yellow brocade and frog closures.
Venom wondered what Holly would think of Kenasha’s sartorial choice.
Dmitri made fleeting eye contact with Venom, passing the baton, since Venom knew more about the situation. The problem was that Kenasha couldn’t meet Venom’s eyes—his terror of Venom’s gaze was worse than the general fear that clung to him and stunk up the air. No matter. It wasn’t like the angel could lie his way out of this, not with Venom, Dmitri, and Illium all focused on his quivering face.