"Banks, L A - Vampire Huntress 5 - 2005 - Forbidden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Banks L. A)

head of the bastard who'd done this, was the only acceptable answer to levy the
debt paid in full.
Down in Hell they had a phrase: Fair exchange is no robbery. Then so be it. A
head for a head, a mind for a mind… and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
fucking tooth—the chairman's fangs mounted on her wall mantel. This was war.
Damali could feel her eyes narrow to slits as her man tried to stand, and then
tried to get away from her and her team. Oh, hell no. They'd raped his mind and
stolen his dignity. And for that unforgivable offense, she'd blow the Vampire
Council's doors off the damned hinges. In her mind's eye, she could see the
pentagram-shaped table surrounded by dark thrones, and the chairman's smug
expression. But Hell had no fury like a woman scorned. Her thoughts frayed and
descended to the pit.
Fuck you, Mr. Chairman. This time, it's just me and you.

Carlos could feel his eyeballs roll backward beneath his lids as consciousness
ebbed and flowed like a reluctant tide. One moment he had been sitting on the
ground, naked, awed, and so profoundly moved that he couldn't speak, and in the
next moment, he was being hurried away by many hands and clamoring voices all
trying to get him into a vehicle and onto hallowed ground. Were it not for
Damali's hand firmly holding his and her voice cutting through the melee, he
would have tried to escape them all.
For the first time in his entire existence he truly feared he was losing his
mind. Something was very wrong. He'd gone into the Light—more accurately, had
been propelled into it, summoned by it, sucked toward a bright, indescribable
iridescent wonder that had a pulse, a center, and held the heartbeat of the
universe. Beings of unfathomable strength had hurled him forward, their silvery
light sabers cutting at filaments of dark tendrils, holding him, burning him to
ash. The heat was so intense that his bones had liquefied, his skin had
blackened and crumbled away, his eyes had melted and had run down his cheeks
like gory, oozing tears… but silver metallic wings with the texture of satin had
shielded him from the furnace blast beneath him. What were they and who'd sent
them?
Healing warmth had entered him, coating his burning insides with instant peace,
quenching the sun's fury against his skin. One being had parted to become many
with raised golden shields that seemed as though each held a living, moving orb
of sunlight until he was encircled by them, each ball of molten, living, golden
light fusing to become a ring around him. The ring had covered him, entered him…
All he could remember now was that they came and then in a fluttering cloud
they'd dispersed, shooting away so quickly they'd left only a blinding blur of
white light in their wake.
But perhaps the powers-that-be had messed up somehow. Maybe they didn't catch
his soul in time, and how did a man turned vampire return to the sun?
He couldn't hear. Everything was coming at him in muffled tones. People spoke in
indecipherable guttural fragments. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion. It
was like moving through mud. His mind was a slurry of confusion. He was nearly
blind, each friendly face blurred beyond recognition until it was breath-close
to his face. His skin felt thick and dull, the sensation of hands soothing his
shoulders, rubbing his back, bundling him into a coat, but all of it took
seconds to register. Breathing was an effort that consumed his concentration.
The most troubling aspect was the heaviness he felt in his limbs, as though his