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)
“How are your babies doing with you here and their grandad sick?” Elena asked Amy after they broke their handclasp. “The twins must be, what, three years old now?”
Amy studied her. “Do you judge me for that? That I’m a homemaker?”
“My mom was a homemaker,” Elena said through the roughness of her throat. “She was the center of our world.”
Amy blinked rapidly, and then, to Elena’s surprise, reached out to squeeze her hand again. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine either one of my girls dealing with what happened to you and Beth. It gives me nightmares if I ever think about it.”
She exhaled, broke contact. “And they’re doing well. Maynard’s such a good dad to them, and his family is lovely. My sister-in-law’s stepped in to manage anything he can’t—you know he’s Father’s COO? He can’t take time off, given the current situation—Father would strip his hide for that.”
“That I can believe.” Jeffrey expected total dedication.
A faint smile from Amy before she glanced at her watch. “I better head off. If I hurry, I can get home in time to join the kiddos for dinner.”
“See you tomorrow,” Elena said, and they moved past each other.
It had been the longest conversation they’d ever had.
Gwendolyn was still with Jeffrey when Elena reached the room, so Elena stayed outside, her back against the wall next to the room’s open door. The nurses had proved to be good about overlooking two visitors in the room so long as no one got in their way, but Elena’s wings would get in the way. So she was in the hallway when her phone buzzed.
Glancing at the screen, she saw the symbol that indicated a news alert.
She frowned; she hadn’t signed up for a news alert service.
About to delete it and block the number, she saw a message pop up from Vivek: Ellie, shit’s going down. Dmitri’s trying to touch base with Raphael, but he’s in flight somewhere over Qin’s territory that doesn’t have reception.
A cold shiver rippling along her spine, Elena clicked open the link he’d forwarded her. A major quake had just devastated the southern part of Elijah’s territory, one big enough to topple smaller buildings and collapse bridges. Casualties were a given. “Damn it.”
Vivek forwarded her another alert before she’d completely processed the first. This one was about a small quake “cluster” in New Zealand. It hadn’t caused as much damage as the one in Elijah’s territory, but the time proximity of the two had seismologists making ominous references to the “Pacific Ring of Fire.”
Another message from Vivek: This hasn’t hit the media yet, but I’ve intercepted messages from various volcanologists and seismologists about a volcano off the coast of Japan. They’re picking up deep sea quakes only detectable by their instruments, are worried it’s a sign of a huge underwater volcano about to blow.
Hearing the scrape of a chair on the tile floor, she glanced into Jeffrey’s room to see Gwendolyn rising from her vigil by Jeffrey’s bed. Elena slipped the phone into her pocket and turned to face Gwendolyn as she exited the room.
“Ellie.” Face far too thin, she accepted Elena’s hug, hugging her tight in return. Her perfume was a delicate array of roses with an undertone of bergamot, as elegant a scent as the woman herself.
“No major change, that’s what the doctor told me,” she said when they drew apart.
“That’s good news.” It wasn’t, not really, not when Jeffrey’s current state meant he hovered on the line between life and death. But she wasn’t about to douse the flame of Gwendolyn’s—and her own—hope.
However, her resolve faltered when she walked into the room after she’d convinced Gwendolyn to go get a few hours of much-needed rest. Jeffrey’s cheeks were hollow, his face beginning to lose the stamp of the granite will that had been a hallmark of his personality throughout his life—even back when he’d been her papa.
“It’s Ellie,” she said, taking a seat on the stool no one had removed from the room. “I thought you’d want current news—but I’m afraid it’s not good.” Needing to believe that he could hear her, she told him about the surge in quakes and followed it up with updates from the finance pages.
Afterward, she just held his hand and watched the machine that monitored his damaged heart. Her own heart, it hurt. I ache to talk to you, Raphael. But her mind wasn’t powerful enough to reach him across the world, and it wasn’t until hours later, as dawn touched the horizon, that she got the chance.
Beth had arrived earlier and squeezed a chair into the spot next to Elena with the wriggly ease of a baby sister used to getting in between her siblings. Once there, she lay her head on Elena’s shoulder and sniffled into a tissue.
Elena hugged her, and in the process, caught the glimmer of a strand of silver in the strawberry blonde of Beth’s hair. It punched the breath right out of her, the knowledge that her little sister was now older than her in strict mortal terms. Elena had stopped aging when she became an angel, while the march of time continued on in Beth’s fragile mortal body.