Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
The most adorable bolt of power “zapped” her. It felt like a tickle.
It still shouldn’t have come out of a toddler.
“Wow,” she said while panicking inside. “You’re smart.”
But something else had already caught her son’s attention—a blue flower, which he decided to grab in one pudgy fist. Sitting down, he began to carefully eat the petals.
Elena and Raphael just looked at him with the mild curiosity of parents who were simply glad he was in their line of sight and not attempting to get into the Tower’s weapons locker so he could “sword-fight.”
“Tasty?” Raphael asked.
“I’m a ’orsie,” was the response, one petal sticking out of his mouth.
“Oh, of course, that explains it. I did wonder.” Raphael’s lips quirked up as he looked at Elena. “Don’t worry about the power bolt, Elena-mine. I seem to have a vague memory of my mother saying I did that as a toddler, but grew out of it…until I grew back into it as an adult, I suppose.”
Elena rubbed her forehead. “I really hope your mother wakes. It’d be nice to have some advice on how to deal with your mini-me.”
But the minutes ticked on with no sign of Amanat.
Elena glanced over to where Raphael was smiling and talking to Nix as their son ran beside him while tugging his favorite toy with him—a wooden bee designed to be pulled along on wheels.
“You’re getting faster and faster, Phin,” he said. “Soon I won’t be able to keep up with you!”
Her heart broke for her archangel.
The shadow of madness continued to haunt him. While the dreams were rare, she often sensed him lying awake at night, mind turbulent with the idea that he might one day harm their son.
All she could do was remind him that, unlike Nadiel and Caliane, they lived with each other day to day, that she’d notice any mental decline long before it became dangerous.
That reminder did seem to work, but she knew that seeing his mother rise after a short Sleep, once more herself, would be the most solid brick in the foundation of his confidence that he could deal with the situation should it ever occur—that he never had to let it get to the point where he harmed the people he loved.
Seeing that the skies were now more gray than anything else, Elena exhaled. Caliane had well and truly missed the deadline, but as long as Raphael and Nixie were playing, she wouldn’t remind her archangel that darkness would fall within the next hour, signaling bedtime for their little boy.
He was so young for an angel and needed even more sleep than mortal children.
Another surprise she’d discovered during the journey of motherhood. Just one of those things angelkind knew so well that no one had thought to mention it to her.
“It is a healthy thing,” Keir had assured her when she brought up her worry about Nix’s sleeping habits during her year in the Refuge. “Remember, immortals mature at a far slower rate than mortals. You must apply that to everything.
“Even when he is the age at which you first met Sameon,” Keir had added, “he’ll spend near half the day in sleep so his bones can strengthen, his wing muscles developing as his brain settles down from the adventures of the day. That is why school is so few hours for the little ones. So they have time to play before they need to rest.”
“Mama!”
Wanting to laugh, her entire body warm with love as Nix ran to her, his hands out and hooked in his “I’m a scary creature” look, Elena instead made a scared face and began to run away from him.
It made him giggle and “growl” and give chase.
Of course, it was Misha who’d taught him that game, with Bengal and Tigress’s enthusiastic participation. He was also an excellent babysitter so long as Elena and Raphael didn’t mind that their child was a little more untamed in the aftermath.
Babysitter wasn’t quite the right word, however. It was more a case of Misha swinging by when he had a free afternoon and taking off with an ecstatic Nixie. They’d come back with stories of stalking through forests, catching fish with their bare hands, and building forts from foraged materials.
Children should be wild things, chérie. Full of mud and laughter and play.
Elena no longer knew if Marguerite had ever truly said those words to her when she’d been a child, or if they were from one of their dream conversations, but she knew her mother would agree wholeheartedly with them.
Her father as he’d become after losing Marguerite, Ari, and Belle might’ve chided her that Nix would end up spoiled and undisciplined, but the father who’d thrown Ellie up into the air when she was a child would’ve understood.
The earth trembled under her feet.
Heart kicking even as Raphael called out her name, Elena turned and scooped Nix off the ground; he’d stumbled onto his hands and knees at the tremor. “I think”—she kissed his cheek, his body warm from all his running around—“Grandma is about to arrive.”