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)
That meant the situation was even worse than he’d begun to believe.
Needing Elena, he walked back to the bedroom on bare feet, stripped, then slipped in beside her, draping his wing gently over her body.
“Raphael?” she mumbled, her skin warm and soft with sleep against his.
“Sleep, hbeebti. And I will sleep with you.” He kissed her jaw, could see her falling into rest even as he did so.
Only with him was she so trusting. Anyone else, and she’d have been out of bed with a blade in hand in a matter of heartbeats. He also knew she’d placed a dagger under her pillow after realizing she was pregnant. He understood that it had nothing to do with him or her belief in his ability to protect and shield.
Her wings rustling, her words a sleepy whisper, “Love you, Archangel.” A nuzzle. “Rest now.”
He slept, but he didn’t rest. No, he dreamed of a woman with flowers in her hair who walked on grass as green as emeralds, the white of her gown flirting around her ankles as she stepped on droplets of his blood that glinted ruby red in the sunshine.
“Shh, my darling, shh.”
Such a lyrical, haunting beauty of a voice. Lovely enough to have filled his childhood with lullabies more evocative than had ever been sung to an angelic child. Compelling enough to have drawn the adult populations of two warring cities into the ocean.
And…so gentle with him as she stroked back his hair while he lay splintered at her feet on that day when she’d flung him to the earth at brutal velocity. “My darling boy.” A kiss soft and maternal on his temple, her lips stained with his blood when she lifted her head back up and the sky a cerulean clarity behind her.
In that moment, his breath filled with the scent of flowers and of his own blood, his mother was the most beautiful…and the most insane being he had ever seen.
9
Blood of my blood. Son of my son.
—Archangel Marduk (As the Mantle Fell)
The invitation arrived a week later.
“Marduk and Tiamat request our presence at a ball,” Elena said to Raphael after tracking him down to the training room under the Tower, where he’d just finished a sparring session with Dmitri. Both men were shirtless, all hard muscle and gleaming skin—and countless bruises that were healing in front of her eyes.
At least there were no broken bones or cuts.
Elena and Honor never watched these bouts—they knew they’d turn homicidal. Instead, they left the two best friends to beat each other to a pulp in the name of no-holds-barred combat training. Raphael utilized none of his archangelic powers during these bouts—which left the two men equally matched.
Usually, both would be grinning about now, but today, Raphael’s lips tightened as he used a towel to wipe the sweat off his face, while Dmitri winced before he headed off to his and Honor’s suite to shower. He didn’t even bother to mess with Elena by wrapping a scent tendril of champagne or dark chocolate around her.
Depending on her mood, she would’ve either given him the finger, or flicked a throwing star at his ear or other peripheral body part. Not because it would hurt him if it landed, but because she didn’t want to piss off Honor. Oddly enough, what had begun as asshole behavior on his part and retaliation on hers had turned into a weirdly familiar interaction that neither of them took seriously.
She and Dmitri would never be friends, but—bonded by their loyalty to Raphael—they weren’t enemies, either.
“Fuck,” Raphael said. “I was afraid of this.”
“They’re going into Sleep, aren’t they?” Trying not to be distracted by the expanse of sweat-damp golden skin, Elena threw him a cold bottle of water from the cooling chamber built into the wall.
“It won’t be immediately after the ball.” Raphael drank half the bottle before continuing. “Too high a risk of someone keeping an eye on them and figuring out their place of Sleep. We already know their sense of time isn’t ours, so we could have ten years or fifty.”
Elena couldn’t help it; she closed the distance between them to press a kiss to his shoulder. Raphael’s lips curved, his free hand going to lie low on her back, and his wings spreading in a show for her alone. Throwing the closed bottle on the sparring mat, he ran his knuckles down the vee of skin revealed by her relaxed white shirt.
She’d forced herself to sit down and handle business admin this morning.
But this…this was far more fun. Running her fingers lazily down his pecs, she said, “Whether they leave in a year or in ten, I’m still not going to be ready. Tiamat and Marduk are so…” She had no words for the enormity of their impact on the world.
“Yes. They are.” Raphael slid his hands under her shirt, his skin rough and warm against her own as he ran his thumbs gently over her abdomen. “When’s the ball?”