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)
The ones who remained behind would ensure everyone believed the entire Legion was present and accounted for—it wasn’t as if anyone went around counting their numbers. People just looked up and, oh, there was a new gargoyle on an old skyscraper, and there was one crouched in a tree in one of the parks that ran through the city.
Just going along being their lovable weird selves.
The air at the high elevation at which they flew was frigid, the light that began to touch the horizon a softness of pink and gold. Her flight clothing well insulated, Elena felt good flying into it, appreciating the gift of flight as much today as she had the first day she’d taken to the sky.
Never would she take it for granted.
She swept left and down once they were far enough out that it was only them and the Legion over an endless expanse of ocean blue. Then she played in the air—and her archangel played with her.
Both of them knew that, no matter what, she’d be grounded for a period after the birth as her body recovered. It was a simple physiological fact that Nisia had shared—plus, Elena had the feeling that she wouldn’t want to be away from their spark for even a second, and infants that young couldn’t be taken up into the high atmosphere.
So she and the baby would cuddle and bond and walk the Refuge, and wait until they could touch the skies together. Today, however, she whooped it up while the Legion flew up and over her, not confused but playful, too.
Elena, we like this.
She grinned. Me too!
They flew on after that play, because she knew she’d tire herself out if she kept it up. Despite her discretion, however, Raphael still ended up carrying her the final half hour to their scheduled rest stop on a deserted island—which Sam had stocked with supplies.
Jason had fueled two other rest stops, a number of Tower couriers taking care of several more, while Galen and Izar would, when it was time, fly out from the Refuge to hide food caches in two other locations.
Because Elena continued to eat like a horse that hadn’t seen food in years.
The first rest stop left her feeling lethargic as a result, and she curled up to sleep for a bit against Raphael’s chest while the Legion hunkered around, curious about this new place but watchful all the same.
She woke to find herself tucked against Raphael’s chest as he flew through the air on wings far more powerful than her own. “I’m heavy,” she mumbled.
“And I’m an archangel.” A kiss protective and hot and of her lover. “I could carry you forever and never tire, Guild Hunter. Sleep.”
She did sleep again, her body needing it. Then she flew until the next stop, and so it continued, the journey a slow and meandering one full of small delights—like witnessing a horde of tiny turtle hatchlings race to the ocean, their safety assured by the Legion, who kept the circling birds at bay.
This hatching, at least, had been given a free pass at the start of their lives.
Elena sobbed at seeing it. She didn’t even care if it was just her hormones. She was stupid happy to see those turtles run their tiny hearts out to the water, where she would imagine they all grew up to be big strong turtles.
Then there were the multiple glorious sunsets and sunrises across time zones, the sky a painter’s favorite canvas, the hues altering between one breath and the next, until she flew in a kaleidoscope.
“I think this is a babymoon,” she mumbled to Raphael when they stopped for a proper rest at a spot that one of their people, one of those who loved them, had set up with bedding for her. “Sara and I heard about babymoons when she was pregnant. We used to joke about what she was going to do on her babymoon. I knew she wasn’t serious about it—she was too busy as director.”
Already sleepy, she snuggled in. “But I snitched to Deacon about the whole concept, and he decided to kidnap her for a long weekend in the Caribbean—while I, Vivek, and the others covered for her.”
The memories warmed her from the inside. “She was so annoyed when she realized—you know how irritated she got when she didn’t have her finger on the pulse—but she came back tanned and happy and no longer in the mood to chop off heads. She needed that weekend. Just like I need this small adventure before I nest.” The last word was a mumble, sleep already sucking her under.
She was aware of slipping into the soft dark, and she was aware of sitting on the decrepit sofa on Sara’s roof while her best friend sat beside her, both of them nursing hot mugs of cocoa liberally doctored with alcohol against the chill night air.