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)
Yes, unfortunately I do. He downed his drink. Stop waking her.
It is too late, child of mortals. Laughter in Cassandra’s voice, the ancient weight of her presence tempered by an odd youthfulness. Tell your consort that I linger in twilight still, unwilling to go into my rest without playing witness to what Marduk will do in this world.
Rubbing at her temple, Elena conveyed the message to Raphael. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I really thought she was asleep.”
A gleam in her archangel’s eye as he leaned down to murmur in her ear. “You, Guild Hunter, must promise to make it up to me.”
Even as passion fire licked over Elena’s skin, Zanaya went forward to greet Marduk, and the others followed suit. Marduk gave short nods and thumped a fisted hand over his heart to acknowledge the welcome of each. Until Hannah. With her, he lifted her hand almost to his lips, his smile unexpected.
Wow, he can be charming.
Only to Lady Sharine and Hannah, apparently. Did Cassandra tell you of his consort yet?
Ah, child of mortals, his consort is . . . exactly what Marduk needs.
The owl in the corner that clearly only Elena and Raphael could see blinked sleepily.
Cassandra’s voice slowed in cadence. You would like her. A sighing murmur. She once threatened to cut off Marduk’s head and feed it to a three-headed . . .
Elena strained toward the voice, but knew Cassandra was gone even before her owl spread its wings and rose toward the skylight, fading as it flew into Cassandra’s dreams.
Marduk snapped up his head without warning to glare at the owl.
When he looked back down, it was straight into Elena’s eyes. His gaze had gone slitted, a raptor given human form, the chill blue inhuman in its very essence.
When Raphael stirred beside her, she stopped him with a slight mental touch—and didn’t break Marduk’s gaze. It was a weight on her mind, a pressure relentless . . . before Marduk threw back his head and laughed. “Blood of my line,” he said afterward to Raphael. “You chose as I chose.”
Then he turned abruptly to talk to Suyin.
48
Half an hour later, Elena went to check in with Montgomery. “This is the strangest cocktail party in the history of cocktail parties.”
The butler was too well-mannered and trained to allow his lips to so much as twitch, but he replied sotto voce. “I have always said archangels are predators, but Marduk reminds me of a great beast watching over sheep while twitching its tail, deciding which one he’ll eat.”
Elena was glad she hadn’t been drinking anything at the time because she’d surely have spit it out. “Montgomery, you have a way with words.” Because he was absolutely right; Marduk was just . . . different.
Like her Legion had been different.
It made her wonder if Marduk would adapt as they’d adapted. Somehow, she didn’t think so—because he was the creator, the template from which the Legion had been cast.
Now, she watched as he listened to Alexander with an attentiveness so intense that some might see it as aggression. However, as every archangel in this room had already learned, Marduk’s reactions were not readable in the same way as those of the rest of the Cadre.
Even Aegaeon, the easiest to rouse to anger, had soon settled. “He’s not like us,” he’d said to Titus in Elena’s hearing, while giving Marduk the side-eye. “Is this what we came from?”
“Magnificent, isn’t he?” Titus had slapped his fellow archangel on the shoulder. “I should like to have skin that will ward off sword blows as if they are nothing.”
That had made Elena take another look at the scales that rippled up one side of Marduk’s body. Titus, she realized, was right. She didn’t think a sword would get through that multihued toughness of skin.
“My fellow members of the Cadre.” Raphael’s voice rang over the conversations in the room.
Everyone stopped, looked at him.
“We needed this time to become acquainted with Archangel Marduk,” he said, “but that time must, of necessity, be short. The Cadre must now do its duty.”
Solemn faces, no disagreement.
The archangels took their drinks and began to head toward the circle of chairs.
Hannah, after a touch of her hand to Elijah’s, came to Elena. “Are you staying?”
Elena shook her head. “You?” Each consort had to make their own decision.
“No.” Hannah’s eyes lingered on Marduk. “He’s . . . distracted by us. You and me and Lady Sharine. Not because we are women, I think, but because he misses his own love.”
Elena hadn’t seen what Hannah had, but they were two very different women, with different skills—Hannah was no doubt right.
“Lady Sharine.” She smiled as Illium’s mother came to join them. Sharine had already kissed Elena on the cheek with maternal warmth and told her that she looked lovely. No matter how old she got, Elena didn’t think she’d ever not get soft in the heart at seeing approval in those eyes so lovely and kind.