“Jesus, Ellie. I took an oath to protect my hunters and I’m not going to back off just because Raphael’s one scary m—”

“Then do it for Zoe,” Elena interrupted. “Do you want her to grow up without a mom?”

“Bitch.” Sara’s tone was close to a growl. “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d have to come beat you up. Damn emotional blackmail.”

“Promise me, Sara.” Her hand tightened painfully on the receiver. “This hunt is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done—don’t make me worry about you, too. Promise.”

A long, long pause. “I promise I won’t approach Raphael . . . unless I think you’re in lethal danger. That’s all you’re going to get.”

“That’ll do.” She’d just have to make sure Sara never discovered that the hunt itself equaled near-certain death. One misstep and it would be bye-bye, Elena P. Deveraux.

Something beeped. “Got another call—probably Ash,” Sara said.

Last Elena had heard, Ashwini a.k.a. Ash a.k.a. Ashblade, was in bayou country on the hunt for a smooth-talking Cajun vamp who had a habit of making enemies out of angels . . . then playing cat and mouse with Ash. “She still down Louisiana way?”

“No. The Cajun decided to ‘tour’ Europe.” Sara snorted inelegantly. “You know, one of these days, he’s going to make her really mad and find himself staked naked in public, honey-glazed and with a Bite Me sign around his neck.”

“I want tickets.” Hanging up to Sara’s laughter, Elena rubbed her hands over her face and decided it was time to get to work. This hunt was going to go down no matter what—she might as well try to come out of it in one piece.

Untucking the white shirt, she changed her black pants for jeans and tied her hair up into a haphazard ponytail, then flipped open her computer a second time. Since she didn’t like the idea of the Cadre looking over her shoulder—even if they were her employers—she pulled up an Internet browser and clicked through to a popular search engine rather than logging into the Guild’s databases.