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)
Majda’s tears had been quiet, Jean-Baptiste’s anguish raw.
And Jeffrey? Jeffrey had watched the daisies on the water until there wasn’t even a whisper of them on the horizon, his thin face carved with lines of grief he’d locked in a box for two decades.
Today, Marguerite’s eyes crinkled, the near-white of her hair haloed by the sunshine coming in through the kitchen window. “I have told you many times, chérie, I will always visit my bébé.” A glance back, a smile. “Ari and Belle are here now. I hear them laugh.”
Elena did, too, her sisters forever young women full of promise. “Do you ever see Beth?”
“Oui, of course!” Marguerite laughed, her movements whispering the scent of gardenias into the air. “My smallest bébé, she comes to see me with her own children and their children! So many we are, Ellie! My table overflows.”
Elena knew she was dreaming this night, but still, the conversation made her happy. She liked to believe in a world “beyond the veil,” as the angels said, where her family was safe and whole and happy. She didn’t ask about her father—it seemed cruel when he’d loved two women in his life, and when the second of those women—kind, elegant Gwendolyn—had always known that she was the second.
Jeffrey Deveraux had only ever truly loved one woman, and if he lived beyond the veil, it would be with Marguerite.
“Careful, azeeztee.” Marguerite caught a pea when it would’ve gone flying to the floor, then popped it into her mouth. “Delicious.”
Elena laughed and ate a few, too. “Maman?”
“Yes, bébé?”
“I’m going to have a baby, too.” She pressed a hand to her stomach as she held her mother’s sparkling gaze—so full of joie de vivre.
Marguerite’s entire face glowed. “Oh, oh!” Leaning over the basket of unshelled peas, she cupped Elena’s face in her hands, and in that instant, she felt warm and alive and oh-so-real. “I will spoil them so, mon petit-enfant. I will be a most terrible influence.”
Then the peas were gone and they were standing, and her much shorter mother was enfolding Elena in her arms and murmuring to her. “You will be a wonderful maman, azeeztee. Better than I ever was.”
Elena didn’t even care that she was in this awkward bent-over position, just wanted to stay longer. “Ma—”
“Hush.” Marguerite’s hand stroking her hair. “I broke, bébé. I broke and I left you and Beth and your papa. But you won’t break. You’re as strong as Jeffrey was. He stayed. You’ll stay, too.”
* * *
* * *
Elena’s eyes opened to the soft light of dawn and the awareness that Raphael was lying awake beside her, his wing over her body. “He stayed,” she murmured. “That’s what my mother said to me in the dream. Jeffrey stayed, and so will I.”
Having loved her long enough to understand what she meant without further explanation, Raphael just cuddled her closer. The scent of him was warmth and power and home. “Your mother knows her child.” A nuzzle of her hair. “A good dream, then?”
“Yes, a wonderful one.” She stroked the underside of his wings. “Did I fall asleep before you came out of the shower?” She remembered a heavy lethargy in her bones, the decision to lie down for just a minute.
“Yes.” His hand on her bare abdomen, her body naked under the blanket and his wing; the towel must’ve come off at some point. “Super-parasite, remember?”
Her cheeks creased. “We need to break that habit before they come along, or we’re going to scar our child for life.”
“Perhaps we should argue about names. I hear that this is common among first-time parents.”
Turning in his arms, she smiled at him, happy in this moment, her body full of energy. “Hello, Archangel.”
“No,” he said sternly. “We are expected for breakfast.”
“It’s only dawn.” Then she kissed him.
And because he was her Raphael, he slid his hand from her abdomen to between her legs and well…they were almost late for breakfast.
Which the four of them had decided to eat in the lush green gardens of this home. Winter had come in this hemisphere of the world, but with this part of Marduk’s territory being subtropical, the foliage still thrived. And with the sun out on this blazingly clear morning, even Elena didn’t feel a chill.
They prepared their meal together—for Marduk and Tiamat had never had any staff here, in this haven away from the world. The conversation during breakfast was easy in the way of old and trusted friends but full of the poignant awareness of the goodbye to come.
They all knew it, even if nothing had been verbalized.
It wasn’t until after breakfast was done, as they walked in the wilderness that surrounded the home, that Marduk stopped by a deep green pond shadowed by the tree canopy, and took his mate’s hand in his.
Tiamat, in turn, smiled. “Yes, my beloved,” she said, though Marduk hadn’t spoken aloud.