Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Michaela knew that meant he’d been sighted much earlier—but Andreas knew she already waited here. What good to tell her that her son was on the horizon when it would not change what she was doing? When her stomach was already a tautness of nerves and her need to see Gavriel a gnawing on her bones—Gavi, Keir had called him, a childhood name that had carried into use among his intimates today.
Would she one day be permitted to call him so?
“While we wait,” she said, needing a distraction, “tell me further about Marduk, this Ancestor who was not an Ancestor.”
Andreas’s voice held a profound sadness as he said, “Marduk was…Marduk. To me it seems a great tragedy that he Sleeps forevermore—or that is his intent. He made this world a far better place, and he made me proud to call myself his second, but he was unyielding in his view that this time was not for him.”
He made this world a far better place…
Michaela knew without asking that no one had said that about her when she vanished into Sleep. What, she wondered, had her son learned about her growing up? Not from Keir—the healer was all that was good and kind, would’ve never abused her memory to her son. But others…others would not have been so gentle.
As she hadn’t been gentle with them.
So many enemies she’d left behind, enemies who would’ve sought to harm her child—in spirit if not in body—had they known he was hers. But that secret had been kept, not only by Keir and her own loyal people, but by Raphael and his consort, and all those bound to Raphael who had known of Gavriel’s existence.
They had protected and nurtured her babe so he could grow into the man who flew to her today. She would’ve done the same had the roles been reversed; this, she could say in the full knowledge that it was the truth. Perhaps no one would’ve ever entrusted a child into her care, but had they done so, she wouldn’t have betrayed their trust.
Children, mortal or immortal, were never to be hurt. Not under Michaela’s watch.
Perhaps Gavriel had heard that about her. One good thing at least.
“Marduk did have a serious advantage,” Andreas added, “in that people were awed by him simply because of how he looked. They didn’t dare misbehave lest he punish them in some primeval way of great ferocity.” Humor now. “He found their reaction endlessly amusing, and used it to great effect. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t capable of harsh discipline where needed.”
Michaela, by contrast, had always been known for her beauty. She’d been proud of being the muse of artists, prouder still of entangling immortals and mortals both in her web and manipulating them to do what she wished.
Uram.
The Archangel of the Steppes become the Archangel Bloodborn.
Had she ever loved him in truth? Or had it been about power and control?
That was a question to which she might never have an answer, because the woman she’d been had thought in ways that seemed alien to her now. Another self. One who had died while she lived.
No, that was a lie.
She continued to live inside the Michaela who had taken her first gasping breath after death. So did all she’d done, and to look away from that history would be to be a coward. She’d done what she had—the good and the bad—and it was time for her reckoning.
“I will leave now, sire,” Andreas said seven or eight minutes out from her son’s projected arrival time. “You will wish to meet him alone.”
“Yes, thank you, Andreas.” But she looked over at him as he turned. “I’m very glad that you were yet in the territory when I awoke.” Not only because he was intelligent and strong, but because he was also fearless and principled enough to stand against her should it be necessary.
No more did she want her people to fawn over her. No more would she create vampires like Riker who were slavishly devoted to her despite her cruelty. He’d been executed during her Sleep after going into murderous bloodlust—she carried that death on her conscience, too, because she’d had the making of Riker and she hadn’t taught him strength and discipline. No, she’d made him her vicious lapdog.
He’d died because she’d failed.
This time around, she would build a court of the strong.
She hadn’t yet asked Andreas if he’d stay on permanently as her second—that, she knew, was a decision to be made—on both sides—after the interim term to which he’d agreed.
Andreas inclined his head, the rich brown-black of his hair glossy in the early evening sunlight. “I grieve for Marduk,” he said, his face stark, “but I’m grateful to have the ability to stay longer in these lands. They have become home to me, sing in my blood now.”