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)
Smart one you’ve got here, sire. Galen’s voice held amusement. I pity you as he grows older.
Raphael bit back a laugh. Shut up and let my boy fly, Barbarian.
A grin cutting through his cheeks, Galen did exactly that, and Raphael got to listen to his son’s wild excitement as he descended using the rig. “I’m flying, too, Anise!” he called out to his equally excited friend. “I’m flying!”
69
“Zoe, did I just see you kissing Izar?”
“It’s your fault, you know. I came to spend time with Nixie, and boom, there he was. I’ve run into Nasien here and there, and met Misha at the Tower, but how come no one told me about the sexiest brother?”
—Elena and Zoe (In the year of Phoenix Zakriel’s Birth)
Phoenix flew in truth for the first time six months later.
Raphael and Elena both hovered below the lip of the gorge—because of course their son had asked permission to try to fly from there “Just one time!”
Since they were both well aware he’d no doubt try it on his own one of these days, they’d said yes.
“Baby angels always attempt it,” Caliane had told them when she visited two months earlier. “It’s a rite of passage. I know my child decided to do it well before he was cleared to do so—thankfully, his father was wise to his plotting, and there to spot him when he dived.” A loving affection in her voice that applied equally to father and son.
Now, Raphael yelled up at their son, “Remember all your lessons!” Not just the ones with Galen, but the ones with Raphael.
Elena had given him that gift. “I have him all to myself when you’re pulled way for Cadre business, or back to New York.” A gentle palm on his cheek, love unending in the silver fire of her eyes. “Flight lessons can be father-son time. I know you’ll both love it.”
They had, spending hours together day after day, Nix’s determination to take flight unending. At one point, a puffed Nix had fallen backward into a mass of dry leaves of all the hues of fall, and said, “Flying is hard, Papa.”
Raphael had lain down beside his son, this fragile piece of his heart. “Shall I tell you about how your mama learned to fly?”
A beaming grin as Nix turned his head. “Mama says you pushed her! Like a baby bird!”
Laughing, the two of them side by side on the leaves, Raphael had told him the full story of Elena’s journey to flight. “She worked just as hard as you’re working,” he’d said. “She never gave up.”
“Just like me!” Nix had sat up, leaves stuck to his hair and wings.
Looking at this child with his skin of dark gold and eyes that bore a silver ring that bled a fine white fire into the blue of his irises, Raphael had seen love made physical. For Phoenix Zakriel had been born of the love between a mortal and an immortal, a hunter and an archangel.
“Yes,” he’d said through the hugeness of emotion in his chest. “You’re just as determined as your mother.”
“It scares me, hbeebti,” he’d said to Elena that night, as they lay in bed facing each other, “how much I love him. How much I love you. How happy I am.” As if the universe would decide it was too much and snatch it away.
She’d stroked her fingers through his hair and confessed that she felt the same. “But then I remind myself of the insanity that was the start of our life together, and I figure we’ve got enough credits in the karma bank to cash out for the rest of existence.”
As always, his hunter had exactly the right perspective on things.
“Death Cascade,” he’d said.
“Creepy reborn,” she’d added.
“Uram.”
“Ugh, that thing Her Batshitness raised to fuck with me.”
“You got wrapped up in a cocoon.”
“Our house blew up. I really liked that house.”
“I lost my favorite sword in that explosion.”
What had begun as a crushing rock on his chest had turned into laughter and an exploration of all they’d lived through, all they’d survived, and all they’d conquered.
Together.
Always.
Now, they watched their son take a deep breath, spread his beautiful wings against a misty Refuge day…and soar into flight. His scream of delight filled the gorge, filled Raphael’s entire being.
He yelled up his own excitement, as did Elena, then they—hands interlinked—hovered proudly while their son flew. He couldn’t keep himself aloft for long and soon began to glide down, but Raphael was there to catch him before he went too far.
He nuzzled his son’s soft hair. “Well done, Phin!”
“I flew, Papa! Did you see me?”
“Yes,” Raphael said, his throat thick. “I saw you.”
“Mama! I flew!”
“You did, baby!” Elena beamed. “You were incredible.”
There, in the misty surrounds of the cavernous gorge that bisected the Refuge, Raphael had everything in the entire universe.