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)
“In the meantime we’ll redraw the territorial boundaries. But with the Mantle failing, the latter can’t be our priority. Andreas and the others will be tasked with squelching any unrest while we deal with the far bigger issue at hand.”
She hadn’t been surprised at his choice of Andreas for the position. A soft hand wouldn’t do, not with a territory already that unstable. But knowing Andreas’s way of handling matters, she’d asked the question any consort in her position would’ve asked. “Do you think he might come in too hard, risk a revolt?”
“You’ve never seen Andreas lead, Elena-mine. He is very, very good. Never harsh for the sake of it and never wasteful of his people. His wing respects and likes him, as do any others who’ve worked with him. Even you like him.” A smile in the last words.
“Hmm,” she’d said, her feelings toward Andreas still complicated—she could understand his way of dealing with issues, but not necessarily agree with them. “You know him better than I ever could, Archangel.” Their acquaintance was measured in centuries, hers in years. “If you think he’s right for the job, then he’s right for the job.”
She’d looked at that face of astonishing masculine beauty, taken in the faint hollows that had begun to develop in his cheeks. “And you, my Rafe?” she’d said, using the nickname of his youth as a kiss of affection between consorts. “You look tired. Are you resting at all?”
“That should be my question, hbeebti.” Those eyes so blue as to defy the laws of nature had searched her face. “How is your father?”
She’d told him all of it, and now she walked into the ICU once more.
Though the antiseptic smell no longer made her nauseous, her stomach still clenched reflexively when she turned the corner toward Jeffrey’s room . . . and came face-to-face with Amy.
Amethyst Gwendolyn Deveraux was her mother’s daughter. Eyes of darkest blue, hair of raven black with a natural wave to it, and skin of such a rich cream as to be luxuriant. Not a freckle in sight.
Her eyes flared at seeing Elena, but she didn’t nod with stiff politeness and walk away as she’d always before done. “He still hasn’t woken again.” Shoulders tense, she glanced up at Elena, the height difference between them significant; Amy and Eve were as petite as Gwendolyn, while Elena carried Jeffrey in her long legs and bones.
“Did you two fight when he woke while you were here?” Amy demanded.
Elena didn’t blame her half sister for the suspicion. “No. The opposite.” Leaning one shoulder against the wall, her arms loosely folded, she gave Amy a tired smile. “We weren’t always like we became, Amy. The night he woke, he was the father who lifted me onto his shoulders and who gave me piggyback rides, the man who read me bedtime stories.”
A red flush on her half sister’s cheekbones, but her words weren’t angry. “He never did any of those things for us,” she said quietly.
Elena hadn’t meant to cause the other woman any hurt, felt sick that she had. But from what little she knew of Amy, her half sister wouldn’t accept apologies or platitudes. “If I had a piece of him that you never saw,” she said, “then you’ve experienced a part of him I never did.”
Jeffrey had been a different father to Amy and Eve, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “He’s been a firm presence through your entire life. I only really had him for ten years of my life.”
Amy’s shoulders dropped. Lifting a trembling hand to her lips, she whispered, “I can’t lose him.” Huge, wet eyes. “He’s the person I go to whenever I have a problem with no easy resolution, the person who knows the right things to say, the person who never lets me down.”
Elena didn’t begrudge Amy that connection with their shared father. “It’d destroy me if he goes before we’ve fixed this fight we’ve been having for decades.”
Their eyes met, Amy’s shimmering wet.
Elena hesitated before straightening and reaching out to take Amy’s hand. The other woman flinched, but instead of pulling back, she closed her fingers over Elena’s. They stood there in silent sympathy for a single long minute that forever changed the relationship between them before Amy took a deep breath and said, “Mom’s with him. Eve did the morning shift.”
Elena already knew that, having caught up with her youngest half sister earlier that day. She didn’t know when she’d stop seeing Eve as the round-cheeked eleven-year-old who—in the most down-to-earth manner—had told her that “I just want to be a bit less fat, but I really like cake,” but the truth was that Eve was now the age at which Elena had first met Raphael.
Eve still liked to wear her black hair in twin braids that reached her shoulders, but no one would ever mistake her for anything but a petite powerhouse of a hunter. Her dark gray eyes remained as beautiful, but age had added a maturity and knowledge to them that made Elena both proud of her and nostalgic for the little girl she’d once been.