Free Angels' Flight by Nalini Singh Page B

wasn’t often that the ten most powerful beings in the world met in one place.
    “Where is Uram?” Raphael asked, glancing at the incomplete semicircle of chairs.
    Michaela was the one who answered. “He had a situation in his territory that required immediate attention.” Her lips curved as she spoke, and she was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman who had ever lived . . . if you didn’t look beneath the surface.
    “She makes Uram her puppet.” It was a murmur so low that Raphael knew it had been meant for him alone.
    Glancing at Lijuan, he shook his head. “He’s too powerful. She might control his cock, but nothing else.”
    Lijuan smiled, and it was a smile that held nothing of humanity. The oldest of the archangels had long passed the age where she could even pretend at being mortal. Now, when Raphael looked at her, he saw only a strange darkness, a whisper of worlds beyond either mortal or immortal ken.
    “And are we not important?” A pointed question from Neha, the archangel who ruled India and its surrounds.
    “Leave it, Neha,” Elijah said in that calm way of his. “We all know of Uram’s arrogance. If he chooses not to be here, then he forfeits the right to question our decisions.”
    That soothed the Queen of Poisons. Astaad and Titus seemed not to care either way, but Charisemnon wasn’t so easily appeased. “He spits on the Cadre,” the archangel said, his aristocratic face drawn in sharply angry lines. “He may as well renounce his membership.”
    “Don’t be stupid, Chari,” Michaela said, and the way she did it, the tone, made it clear she’d once had him in her bed. “An archangel doesn’t get invited to join the Cadre. We become Cadre when we become archangels.”
    “She’s right.” Favashi spoke for the first time. The quietest of the archangels, she held sway over Persia, and was so good at remaining unnoticed that her enemies forgot about her. Which was why she ruled as they lay in their graves.
    “Enough,” Raphael said. “We’re here for a reason. Let’s get to it so we can return to our respective territories.”
    “Where is the mortal?” Neha asked.
    “Waiting outside. Illium flew him up from the lowlands.” Raphael didn’t ask Illium to bring their visitor inside. “We’re here because Simon, the mortal, is growing old. The American chapter of the Guild will need a new director within the next year.”
    “So let them choose one.” Astaad shrugged. “What does it matter to us as long as they do their job?”
    That job happened to be a critical one. Angels might Make vampires, but it was the Guild Hunters who ensured those vampires obeyed their hundred-year Contract. Humans signed the Contract easily enough, hungry for immortality. However, fulfilling the terms was another matter—a great many of the newly Made had changes of heart after a few paltry years of service.
    And the angels, despite the myths created around their immortal beauty, were not agents of some heavenly entity. They were rulers and businessmen, practical and merciless. They did not like losing their investments. Hence, the Guild and its hunters.
    “It matters,” Michaela said in a biting tone, “because the American and European branches of the Guild are the most powerful. If the next director can’t do his job, we face a rebellion.”
    Raphael found her choice of words interesting. It betrayed something about the vampires under her tender care that they’d seize any chance of escape.
    “I grow tired of this.” Titus stirred his muscular bulk, his skin gleaming blue-black. “Bring in the human and let us hear him.”
    Agreeing, Raphael touched Illium’s mind. Send Simon in.
    The doors opened on the heels of his command and a tall man with the sinewy muscles of a street fighter or foot soldier walked in. His hair was white, his skin wrinkled, but his eyes, they sparkled bright blue. Illium pulled the doors shut the instant Simon cleared them, cloaking the room in