Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Cracks spiderwebbed from that point outward.
Raphael wasn’t feeling much more in control, his wings aglow as power aggressive and without direction surged through his veins. Aegaeon’s chest glowed, the light coming from the silver swirl embedded in his skin. Onscreen, the others were in no better condition.
Another minute and the entire Cadre would be out of control.
“We start with the Librarian,” he said, because it was the only answer he had that might defuse the tension. “We must also make plans to relocate our vulnerable to our beta location should the Mantle continue to deteriorate.”
That beta location was underground, beneath an island. A good hiding place and one they could play off as a fun adventure for a short period, but it was no home for children with wings. But angelic children also couldn’t live in a homeland accessible to mortals and ordinary vampires.
If angels had a vulnerability, it was their children—angelic young could be wounded, could be easily killed. The reprisal for any such act would, of course, devastate entire civilizations—but there were mortals who wouldn’t care, driven by a vicious fury toward angelkind.
Raphael understood that fury better since he’d fallen in love with his hunter. She’d made him face the cruelty with which many immortals treated mortals and vampires—but that knowledge didn’t change the undeniable fact that if it came to a war, angelkind would win.
That had been proven through time.
It was impossible to defeat a race of beings that had archangels at their core. As evidenced by the story Qin had written of his dismemberment, a mortal could blow Raphael into a million pieces . . . and he’d still rise.
Again and again and again.
Better, then, to never give mortals even the faintest hope of easy angelic prey. So it was that angelic children were never visible except in highly constrained circumstances that made them effectively untouchable.
16
Elena decided to walk home; her wing hurt enough that she didn’t want to risk taking flight, and it wasn’t as if New York’s streets would ever be unfamiliar to her. Steam rose out of the grates that lined the street, the sidewalks were clean from the night’s rain, the air spring-crisp, and while traffic was flowing smooth enough for morning, the horns and shouts had already begun.
She’d wanted to stay longer with her father, but after Jeffrey’s sudden decline, a newly distraught Gwendolyn had clearly needed private time with her husband. Elena had left her stepmother holding on to Jeffrey’s hand as she murmured words loving and gentle to her father.
The poor woman couldn’t have slept more than three or four hours before Elena rang to tell her what had happened. Despite Gwendolyn’s obvious exhaustion, Elena hadn’t even considered not informing her straightaway; it would’ve devastated her stepmother if Elena had made that choice and Jeffrey slipped away before Gwendolyn could see him again.
“Hunter angel! Try my coffee!”
Normally, that moniker made her groan and threaten to murder people. Today, however, she didn’t have the heart or the will. She took the coffee the smiling cart operator held out, even managed enough of a return smile that he beamed. “Thanks,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”
“On the house!” Short and shiny-faced, with a mop of light brown curls against freckled skin, his accent was less New York and more something on the other side of the Atlantic.
“I’m paying,” Elena insisted, uncomfortable with the power dynamic. “If it’s good, I’ll still tell everyone.”
They haggled a bit, with the vendor finally throwing up his hands with a scowl. “Bloody New Yorker!” His accent thickened. “Try to do her a favor and whaddya get!”
Elena was startled into a laugh. “I’ll be a bloody New Yorker even if I live to be ten thousand years old.”
He scowled, but it was for show, his grin peeking out at the corners of his mouth.
Her own smile faded with every step she took, the hot coffee doing nothing to thaw the chill within. Deep inside, she’d always known that Jeffrey would one day die. Today she’d learned that she’d never be ready for it. Because Jeffrey was the parent who’d stayed.
Even during their worst moments, she hadn’t forgotten that.
Part of her remained the little girl who’d been so, so angry at her mother for choosing to end her terrible pain at the cost of her grieving younger children. That swaying shadow on the wall, the tumbled high-heeled shoe on the checkboard tile, the way Elena had rushed to scoop Beth up and out of the house before her baby sister saw, none of the memories of discovering her mother’s body would ever leave Elena.
In the same way, the wounded child within her had apparently believed that her father would be endless, too—except in life, not death.
A wash of wind, an angel landing beside her.
She wasn’t the least surprised when Illium threw an arm over her shoulders, their wings companionably crushed against each other. “He called you, didn’t he?” she said.