Sylvia Day
A Dark Kiss Of Rapture
A book in the Renegade Angels Trilogy series, 2011
THE AUTHOR
Sylvia Day is the national bestselling, award-winning author of over a dozen novels written across multiple sub-genres. A wife and mother of two, she is a former Russian linguist for the U.S. Army Military Intelligence. Sylvia’s work has been called an “exhilarating adventure” by Publishers Weekly and “wickedly entertaining” by Booklist . Her stories have been translated into Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Czech, Italian, and Thai. She’s been honored with the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, the EPPIE award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Readers’ Crown, and multiple finalist nominations for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Award of Excellence.
Sylvia also writes under the pseudonyms S. J. Day and Livia Dare.
Connect with Sylvia Day online:
http://www.sylviaday.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SylDay
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSylviaDay
GLOSSARY
CHANGE -the process a mortal undergoes to become a vampire .
FALLEN -the Watchers after the fall from grace. They have been stripped of their wings and their souls, leaving them as immortal blood drinkers who cannot procreate.
LYCANS -a subgroup of the Fallen who were spared vampirism by agreeing to serve the Sentinels . They were transfused with demon blood, which restored their souls but made them mortal. They can shape-shift and procreate.
MINION -a mortal who has been Changed into a vampire by one of the Fallen . Most mortals do not adjust well and become rabid. Unlike the Fallen , they cannot tolerate sunlight.
NAPHIL -singular of nephalim .
NEPHALIM -the children of mortal and Watcher parents. Their blood drinking contributed to and inspired the vampiric punishment of the Fallen .
SENTINELS -an elite special ops unit of the seraphim , tasked with enforcing the punishment of the Watchers .
SERAPH -singular of seraphim .
SERAPHIM -the highest rank of angel in the angelic hierarchy.
VAMPIRES -a term that encompasses both the Fallen and their minions .
WATCHERS -two hundred seraphim angels sent to earth at the beginning of time to observe mortals. They violated the laws by taking mortals as mates and were punished with an eternity on earth as vampires with no possibility of forgiveness.
Go tell the Watchers of heaven, who have deserted the lofty sky, and their holy everlasting station, who have been polluted with women, and have done as the sons of men do, by taking to themselves wives, and who have been greatly corrupted on the earth; that on the earth they shall never obtain peace and remission of sin. For they shall not rejoice in their offspring; they shall behold the slaughter of their beloved; shall lament for the destruction of their sons; and shall petition for ever; but shall not obtain mercy and peace.
The Book of Enoch 12:5-7
CHAPTER 1
Raze’s night had been going pretty well, until the woman he’d just spent four hours fucking stumbled across a naked, disemboweled body on his doorstep. Her scream had shattered the serenity of the predawn, forcing him to knock her out before she drew a crowd. Now, as the sun stretched sleepy tendrils of light over the horizon, he stood over the corpse and struggled to contain his roiling fury.
“Dumped on my goddamn porch like trash.” He ran both hands over his shaved head. “Poor bastard.”
“Guesstimate of the time your gift arrived?” Vashti asked, her stiletto-heeled boots tapping out an impatient staccato as she paced. Her crimson hair swayed around her shoulder blades, the vividly-hued tresses the only wash of color against her skintight, all-black jumpsuit. She was a comic book aficionado’s wet dream, with her lush tits and ass offset by a fallen angel’s incomparable beauty. Her appearance was as lethal as the twin katanas she often wore in crisscrossing sheaths on her back, her physical beauty another weapon in the arsenal she used as second-in-command of the entire vampire nation.
“Hell if I know,” he bit out. “There was nothing out of place when I got home at midnight. He was found at four.”
“You didn’t hear anything? Nothing at all?”
Raze scowled. He had a squeaky board on his front porch and everyone knew it. Even if they ruled out the benefit of his vampire hearing, his powerful sense of smell should have picked up on the freshly spilled blood. “No. Christ. If I’d heard anything I would have caught the fuckers.”
Damned if he’d tell her that it hadn’t been possible to hear anything over the woman moaning beneath him and the steady banging of his headboard against the wall as he pounded into her. The smell of hot sex, dripping sweat, and semen filled-latex had saturated the air along with the scent of the blood he’d drunk from her-a lover whose name he couldn’t remember now. It shamed him that the broken body on his doorstop had been lost among the sexual excess.
He stared at his name carved into the corpse’s left biceps and the cattle-branded monogram he recognized as the mark of a vampire known as Grimm. A growl rumbled up from his chest. Even without the mutilation, the victim was Raze’s now. He would stand for the man and the vengeance due him. “I almost wish Grimm was still alive so I could kill him again.”
“You’ve got enough on your plate dealing with his minions,” Syre said, entering the room soundlessly.
Despite the hour, the vampire leader looked flawless. Even in casual dark jeans and a plain T-shirt, there was an elegance to him that was regal and commanding. Raze would brave the pits of hell for Syre if he commanded it. They’d come to earth together, fallen together, lost their wings together. Two hundred of them. And there wasn’t one of the Fallen who wouldn’t give their life for their leader. From the heights of grace as Watchers to the fall that cursed them with vampirism, Syre led them forward with a confidence that inspired them all.
Vash’s pacing came to an abrupt halt. “Do we have any idea how many minions we’re talking about here? How many have you taken out so far, Raze?”
“A dozen pairs, give or take a few. Adrian was on it, too,” he said, referring to the angel who’d severed Syre’s wings. Raze had a lot of reasons to resent Adrian, as well as the Sentinel angels who served under him-the Fallen’s vampiric punishment being the least of it-but there was no denying that when they were aligned and hunting the same prey, Adrian’s involvement was a benefit.