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)
Her arms spasmed tighter around Beth, holding on with panicked desperation. “Don’t cry, Bethie.” She rubbed her chin over her sister’s head. “You know he’s a tough bastard,” she said, channeling Sara.
A sobbing laugh. “Only you would call Dad a bastard while he’s right there.”
“We have an understanding.” Elena tried to infuse humor into her voice. “It’s a compliment. He’s always stuck around. I don’t think he’s going to give up now.”
“He did stick around, didn’t he, Ellie?” Beth snuggled further into her, forever the baby sister to Elena’s big sister.
There should’ve been two older sisters, Elena an aggrieved middle child, but Belle and Ari were gone and Elena was the big sister Beth knew and remembered best. “Yes.” She pressed a kiss to Beth’s hair. “How’s Maggie?”
Elena’s niece was now eighteen and a half years old, a blooming young woman with her mother’s loving temperament sprinkled with a streak of Ari’s steel spine. Memories hidden in the genes, Elena thought as Beth told her of her daughter’s dance performances and how the two of them were already planning a trip to a London fashion museum as her graduation gift.
“I love how you are with her.” Beth was the kind of mother Marguerite had been: interested in her children and eager to help them flourish. “And with Laurie, too. Did he enjoy that motocross race I couldn’t get to?” Her nephew’s race had fallen on the same date as the Refuge ball.
Beth’s eyes, that stunning turquoise bequeathed her by their maternal grandmother, just glowed. “Won third prize and has been wearing the medal at every opportunity. He’s so proud of himself. He told me to make sure I have a copy of his photo from the prize-giving to give to you because you’re going to want to put it up on that wall in your home.”
Her laughter was affectionate. “And by the way, we have been instructed not to call him Laurie anymore. That’s for babies, apparently. He’s decided he wants to use his given name.”
“Laurent it is, then.” Elena could just imagine her thirteen-year-old nephew deciding it was far more sophisticated to be a Laurent than a Laurie.
“Oh, and Maggie’s designing you a fancy jacket in her textiles class. Don’t tell her I spilled or she’ll Moooom me.”
Elena joined in her sister’s laughter. “Your secret’s safe with me. I can’t wait for the jacket.” Maggie was as into fashion as Zoe was into weapons. “And Laurent is right. I definitely want to put that picture on my photo wall.” A wall of memories that she was building against the unknown future while trying to live in the present.
You know what I’ve learned from my baby girl? To enjoy the now. It’ll be gone soon enough, and no one knows what the next hour, much less tomorrow, will bring.
Words Sara had spoken to Elena one night as they sat on her rooftop lounge.
Elena knew her best friend was right. That didn’t mean it was easy when she was surrounded by symbols of the unavoidable and relentless passage of time. The longer she lived as an immortal, the better she understood the depth of Illium’s strength: he was more than five hundred years old . . . and he continued to have mortal friends.
He’d been a pallbearer for a baker in Harlem during her residence in New York, and he still visited the bakery—and the baker’s elderly widow. The last time she’d seen him with one of their distinctive blue paper bags, she’d said, “How do you do it? Keep on loving people who die on you?”
A shrug, sorrow deep in those golden eyes. “You can’t contain love, Ellie, and you can’t predict friendships. Lorenzo was one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and his wife remains one. I wouldn’t give up all the nights I spent laughing with them, no matter the anguish.”
Elena wasn’t sure she had the same strength, wasn’t sure she wouldn’t curl up inside at some point, so heartsick at losing person after person that she just couldn’t do it anymore.
25
Elena only left her sister when Beth was no longer teary, and the last sounds she heard from the room were of Beth regaling Jeffrey with the tale of Maggie’s first proper boyfriend. “Of course Harrison’s losing his mind. I had to remind him that she’s not Daddy’s little girl anymore, and her boyfriend’s a good kid. Though I’m sure you’ll probably run a background check on him the minute you wake.”
Lips curving, Elena decided to return to the Tower on the wing. Her injured tendon had healed, but she didn’t risk a vertical takeoff, instead climbing up to the hospital roof. Though emblazoned with a landing circle for a medical chopper, it was empty when she reached it.
Elena took a deep breath.
The cold morning air infused with the chaotic mishmash that was the scent of the city was a welcome change from the medicinal aroma of the hospital, and she inhaled appreciative lungfuls of it as she glided off the roof before winging her way up to a higher elevation.