Her hand unclenched in a violent spasm as he made her release the blade. It fell to the ground with a thud cushioned to softness by the blood that had pooled below. She didn’t move, didn’t attempt to stem the flow.

And when Raphael walked to stand less than a foot from her, she stood her ground.

“So, you think you have me over a barrel?” The sky was a seamless blue but Elena felt storm winds whip her hair completely out of its coil.

“No.” She let his scent—clean, bright, of the sea—settle over the lingering coat of vampire on her tongue. “I’m ready to walk away without a backward look, return the deposit you paid the Guild.”

“That,” he said, picking up a napkin and wrapping it around her hand, “is not an option.”

Startled by the unexpected act, she closed her hand to help slow the bleeding. “Why not?”

“I want you to do this,” he responded, as if that was reason enough. And for an archangel, it was.

“What’s the job? Retrieval?”

“Yes.”

Relief began to wash through her like the rain she could feel so close. But no, it was his scent, that fresh bite of water. “All I need to start with is something the vampire wore recently. If you have a general location, even better. If not, I’ll get the Guild’s computer geniuses on tracking public transport and bank records, et cetera, while I hunt on the ground.” Her mind was already at work, considering and discarding options.

“You mistake me, Elena. It’s not a vampire I want you to find.”

That halted her in her tracks. “You’re looking for a human? Well, I can do it but I really don’t have any advantage over a good private investigator.”

“Try again.”

Not vampire. Not human. That left . . . “An angel?” she whispered. “No.”

“No,” he agreed and, once again, she felt the cool brush of relief. It lasted until he said, “An archangel.”