Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
He’d have loved to jump onto a platform, only to reappear in the Refuge.
Too bad the experiments had never managed to progress beyond fresh vegetables. Which had come out black and dead on the other side no matter what, until only a rare few scholars continued to pursue the goal. Privately, Dmitri believed they were doomed to failure—because they were working with incomplete information. No one had ever been able to explain the energies that created archangels and forced Cascades after all.
Their world was no easy calculation, its mysteries fathoms deep.
Today, he kept himself busy by communicating with Venom on issues about which he hadn’t had the chance to give his second-in-command a briefing.
Honor, in contrast, read books that she’d downloaded onto her phone. A small and transparent sheet, it folded up to fit even the most miserly pocket, but many people had gone even further a century ago and begun to embed the phones into their palms.
When a few angels attempted the same, their bodies had thoroughly rejected the idea. Their healing ability meant the embed became uncomfortable as scar tissue built up around it—and for angels on the more powerful end of the spectrum, their body extruded the intrusion after a matter of days at most.
Vampires had the same problem, though to a lesser extent. As a result, the physical phone would never die, whether worn on the wrist or carried in a pocket. Even mortals were switching back. A genius inventor had created a brain implant phone that connected to the eyes—and, contrary to all predictions, caused a mass exodus away from embedded tech.
Turned out brain embeds were a step too far.
“Take my flesh, take my blood,” a poet had written, “but do not seek to take my last refuge, my final quietness.”
When Dmitri glanced over to see what Honor was reading, he spotted imagery from a book about baby angels.
He knew she’d already read that book at least five times, but his heart aching, he let her be.
The trip took an eternity and they weren’t done even once the jet landed. Because there were no suitable landing areas in the Refuge itself.
Which was why Dmitri had stored his silent phantom of a motorcycle in a warehouse at the landing strip.
Neither one of them breathed easy until Dmitri stopped the motorcycle on the edge of the Refuge. When they glanced up, it was to see a grinning Naasir crouched on a large boulder above them.
The chimera pounced.
“How is she?” Dmitri asked after hugging the wild child become a man who was such a huge part of his heart.
“In the Medica, growling at everyone.” Naasir beamed.
Releasing Dmitri, he lifted Honor off her feet with his embrace, then nuzzled against her as he always did. With the affection of a child, though in strict terms, Naasir was older and stronger. When Honor petted his hair, Naasir leaned into it, turning his head so she could press a kiss to his cheek.
“Andi says she feels as big as a house,” he told them afterward, “and that everyone is annoying, and she wants to bite their heads off.”
Dmitri couldn’t imagine sweet, warm Andi doing anything of the sort—but then again, she was mated to Naasir. There was definitely mischief in her bloodstream, and more than a streak of the primal.
“Come!” Naasir led them to the gentle beauty of the building that housed the Medica. Rebuilt after the quakes that had shaken the Refuge to ensure it remained solid from the foundations up, it was a single-story structure that hugged the rugged landscape, full of windows and skylights that let in the mountain light and allowed patients sweeping views, but that could be blacked out by curtains and technology should the light make sleep difficult.
Andromeda was in the wing for birthing mothers. In effect, it was a wing for any one birthing mother at a time. With angelic fertility so low, it was rare for there to be more than one woman in there at a time. Even after the Cascade, pregnancies had rarely coincided so closely. But the wing still had four separate rooms, just in case of a baby boom.
Andromeda’s was on the very edge, and featured huge wraparound doors that allowed the light to pour in—and crucially, could be opened so that an angel didn’t feel pinned inside. Or so a wild creature like Naasir wouldn’t feel trapped.
It also faced the part of the Refuge where it was understood that no one was to fly without permission. The area was private to the Medica, with Refuge residents giving it a wide berth, so that any angel who wished to give birth under the piercing mountain sky could do so in privacy.
Even the youngest of them capable of flight knew of the no-fly zone. Those same young ones would often be the first visitors after Keir announced the restriction lifted for a period. They’d fly in and peer from beyond the glass, all unwieldy wings and excitement.