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)
“Better that,” Raphael had said at the time, “than what we feared at the start.” That he would be a monster, Lijuan come anew through the child she’d abused and imprisoned.
“Yes.” A sigh, Suyin’s hands tight on the balcony railing that had been put in place outside a guest suite most often assigned to vampiric visitors. “At least Quon is gone. It has been at least three centuries since Jinhai has mentioned his ‘twin.’ ”
Her knuckles going white against her skin, she’d added, “I want to hope that signifies a permanent healing of the crack in his psyche. He didn’t regress even when he had disagreements with others in the stronghold, so perhaps. But time alone will give us the true answer.”
Tonight, Jinhai’s face stayed fixed in a polite, pleasant expression as Suyin and Raphael caught up; it raised the hairs on Raphael’s arms. There was, his instincts said, something still not quite right about the other angel, and it had nothing to do with his attachment to Suyin.
Then the other man’s face lit up, his eyes sparkling in a way that erased the eerily fixed nature of his expression. “Sire, if I may?”
“Of course.” Suyin watched as Jinhai—after a hasty but polite bow—wove his way to where Aodhan and Illium had just landed.
Raphael and Elena had already caught up with the two in private earlier that day. Whereupon Illium had sprawled on their sofa with his shoes off—after first raiding the snacks Marduk’s staff had provided—while Aodhan showed Elena the small sculpture he’d brought as a gift for their hosts.
No formality, no walls.
Because they were family, had long been family.
“He adores them,” Suyin murmured, her eyes on her ward. “He is bonded to me, but I am like his mother. Or what a mother is supposed to be. They are the interesting older friends who have ever treated him with kindness.
“They’re also the only two I trust to take him out without me—he listens to them, has never tried to bolt or to use the freedom they offer him to give in to the unspeakable urges within.”
The obsidian of her gaze meeting his, the tiny beauty spot just below the far edge of her left eye a constant visual reminder that she was not her aunt. “Quon might be vanquished, but Jinhai yet dreams of doing things he knows are wrong. I, together with the healers, have managed to teach him that such acts are wrong—but that is intellectual knowledge to him.
“The healers tell me he has no capacity to ever develop a conscience, the damage done to him when he was a child a permanent injury; the only reason he doesn’t act on his impulses is because he has given me the power to overrule him—and I do that each time he comes to me with his monstrous dreams.”
Despite that, she—a woman who had experienced the cruelty of captivity herself—had fought for a tortured and abused child’s right to exist, to live. “You’ve given him a life.”
Raphael had a sudden surge of understanding, realizing that Jinhai’s earlier fixed expression had been the other man defaulting to what he’d been taught was acceptable, like a child who had no idea what was going on but had been told to behave. “And look, he’s happy now. He has the capacity to feel joy. I would’ve once said that to be impossible, too.”
Jinhai had managed to hover without intruding at the edge of Illium and Aodhan’s presence while they were greeted by Alexander and Zanaya, but he was now hugging Illium and being hugged in turn with an affection that he clearly understood and wanted. No fixed expression, his face alive with excitement as he spoke to both men, while staying tucked under Illium’s arm.
“His mother was insane,” Suyin said, a haunted darkness to her.
“So was mine,” Raphael found himself saying, feeling a strange, unexpected kinship with Jinhai. “As was my father.”
The Archangel of China sucked in a breath. “I meant no insult, my friend.”
“I take none. It is a known fact.”
Elena’s laughter, his consort in conversation with Titus and Sharine. The ripple of sound undid the knots in his soul just as Caliane rose up from the ground to step onto the roof not far from him and Suyin.
“My son.” Her smile was awash in maternal love. “It has been too long.” A warm embrace, the ice-white of her gown—the shoulders held up with fine chains of diamonds—floating around his legs.
She smelled of the joys of his childhood…and of painful memories past.
When she released him to greet Suyin, he watched her with the eyes of a hawk.
“I slept well before my flight—and in the week preceding,” she said to him after Suyin was pulled away by another guest. “You were quite right to tell me even Ancients need sleep. It just took my body and mind time to get there.” Tucking her arm into his, she said, “Come, where is Elena?”