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)
They both laughed even as their eyes closed, their bodies curled into each other. And so, they held on to one another through the slipstreams of eternity.
27
You were torturing me with fear—probably would’ve ended up throwing me off the ledge a few times and catching me again, just to hear me scream.
—Elena to Raphael (Once, after Raphael was Quiet)
Raphael and Elena left for the Refuge the day after the gathering in the Enclave.
Their territory was in safe hands, and—but for the constant rumblings at the Aegaeon-Illium border—the world remained at peace. As a result, he and his consort took their time with the flight.
Elena could cover the distance now, no longer needing to rely on the mortal machines that had become ever sleeker over the years. She couldn’t, however, do it in one go as Raphael could if he put his mind to it. His hunter had to stop to rest—and right now, she had to stop to eat.
“Our little spark has good taste,” she muttered around a mouthful of a protein-heavy muffin that Sivya had baked for her just that morning, the cook sweetly attentive to all of Elena’s dietary requirements. She’d no doubt be the same with their babe—their child would spend half their time underfoot in the kitchen; of that, Raphael had not a single doubt.
“You know Sivya will be incapable of disciplining our child?” Raphael said with a smile. “Whatever they want, they’ll receive from her.” He ran his knuckles over Elena’s cheek.
Leaning her body into his, Elena smiled. “Every kiddo should have a doting honorary aunt. Our kid is going to be surrounded by warriors and other highly controlled adults most of the time—I can’t see them becoming spoiled.” She looked up at him, her smile fading. “We’ll do a good job, won’t we, Raphael?”
His heart thudded. Pressing his lips to her hair, he said, “We have your grandparents and Lady Sharine to go to for advice. And later…my mother.” If she woke. “For all she became, she was a good mother to me when I was a boy.” Firm but affectionate. “As Nadiel was a good father to me.”
All the fractures had come after he was full grown.
Elena wrapped her arms around him in silent comfort, his own arm around her shoulders, and they sat in the sun while the waves lapped at the shore…until her stomach rumbled.
Laughing, he dug into their supplies to pass her a block of “chocolate” that was, in truth, a high-energy supplement. Then, as she ate, he rose to stretch out his legs and back, spreading his wings at the same time.
Kicking off his boots and socks to walk barefoot on the glittering white sand, he found his eye caught by a shell formed into a perfect spiral. He picked it up, handed it to his lover, his heart. “Look, hunter-mine.”
A delighted smile as she held the shell up to the light to see the silica on it glimmer. And he fell for her all over again, this hunter who had forever altered his life the day she’d walked onto the Tower roof, brash and brave and electric with an intelligence that challenged his arrogance.
Before her, he’d been on the road to becoming the kind of cold and heartless being who would not have been a good father, a cruel archangel whose territory was calm but afraid and cowed, instead of an archangel whose territory was calm but vibrant with energy, its people happy to call it home.
Before her, he’d have crushed the shell without even noticing its delicate beauty.
“Knhebek, Elena,” he murmured.
A startled smile. “I love you, too,” she said, then patted the sand beside her. “Come, sit. Eat a bite with me.”
He didn’t need any food at that point, but he sat with her and ate the nibbles she fed him just because it made him happy to be with her—and delighted her. The sun shone down on them as waves rolled in to shore. After a while, lazy in the heat, he lay down on his back with his wings out so they would act as a protective carpet for Elena.
When she kicked off her own boots and socks, and put her head down on his chest, he curled an arm around her body, holding her to him as they both dozed, their lives in the midst of a beautiful, cataclysmic shift.
* * *
* * *
Elena woke to the realization that she’d fallen into a deep sleep on her archangel’s wide chest. Rubbing her cheek lightly against him, she made a face because he was wearing flight leathers and not the lightweight shirts or tunics he most often wore in New York.
He didn’t stop her when she began to unbuckle the leathers off his body, cooperated by rising when she pushed the top off his shoulders. She sighed at the warm glory of his skin under her palm, but even that wasn’t enough.