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 psychic injury had never healed.
Elena was afraid that history would repeat itself, that she wouldn’t be able to protect their child as she hadn’t been able to protect the sisters she idolized. “No one who wishes our babe harm will ever come within a city block of them.” He kissed her temple. “They will be beloved and cherished by all our people and the entirety of your Guild.”
Elena had a habit of joking that she’d outstayed her license at the Hunter’s Guild, but he knew that bond not only utilized her hunter-born instincts, but helped keep her anchored to her humanity even as she grew deeper into immortality, deeper into her own power. These days, though she took on only the most dangerous hunts—hunts that might be deadly for a mortal—she also taught multiple classes at the Guild and mentored new recruits who were without family.
She had generation after generation of hunter loyalty behind her.
“There was so much blood.” Her voice trembled. “I’d forgotten after all these years…thought I’d forgotten. His voice, it was so vivid. More vivid than my memories of Belle’s voice, Ari’s voice, and I hate that.”
Raphael would have long ago offered to erase those memories for her—only he knew that any such intrusion would be a far worse nightmare for Elena. She’d once told him that she’d rather give up her life than surrender her memories.
For her memories were what made her.
“That you remember and mourn your family so,” he murmured, “is a testament to your heart.”
Her tears were wet against his chest. “I know it’s not the same,” she said. “I know. Our baby will have a guard around them in any situation where they might be vulnerable…but…” A hard swallow.
“I understand, Elena-mine.” He pressed her to him, and then he admitted his own vicious fear. “My mother went mad, broke me. My father went mad before her. I, too, thought I’d laid my fear to rest…but I dreamed of that forgotten field tonight, dreamed of the wild blooms covered in droplets of my blood as I watched her walk away.”
Her soles had been a glistening red in his dream, his mind supplying imagery so vivid that it was as if he lay in that field again, his bones shattered far beyond his young body’s ability to quickly heal.
“Archangel.” It was Elena’s turn to squeeze him tight, her turn to kiss his skin and stroke his spine.
They stayed locked together until dawnlight began to lance through the curtains. At his age, Raphael needed minimal sleep, but while Elena no longer needed as much as she’d done as a mortal, she did need more than an archangel. Raphael always made it a point to lie with her those hours. It had become habit during the early years, when the nightmares had haunted her night after night, but now, it was just to be together.
He loved having her in his arms, loved spreading his wing over her, loved nuzzling her awake when it was time. Often, sleep-warm and lazy, they’d fall into passion, wings and limbs entwined, but today, they held on to each other with the quiet desperation of two people who knew that, in eight short months, they’d be in charge of the safety of a tiny, helpless, and infinitely precious being.
He shuddered, exhaled.
There is no war, no strife, he told himself. There are no enemies seeking dominion. No evil that stalks the innocent. Our child will be safe.
But while that was Elena’s nightmare, it wasn’t his.
He might be his child’s worst enemy, their most terrible nightmare.
Raphael’s heart cracked, the fault line filling with pain such as he’d never before felt.
5
Sire, we come as called.
—The Gray Angel (After a Battle Won)
Deep, deep in the ocean, in a silent obsidian darkness unknown to mortal eyes, seven hundred and seventy-seven minds that were one sighed to a slumbering consciousness after hundreds of years. They were not truly awake, rather hovering on the gloaming edge between consciousness and dreamscape.
Aeclari.
The word whispered through the dreamscape, streamers of searing blue and glittering wildfire.
In their dream, they searched for the danger that summoned them from their slow rebirth and long rest, and found none…but still they sensed the cold fear that chilled the hearts of the beings they loved beyond all others. There had been other aeclari, others who held their loyalty, but never like this. Never until they had become more than themselves. Never until they had loved.
Aeclari?
A troubled shimmer through the dreamscape. For this was impossible. Two aeclari could not exist in the same time and place. How could they serve both? And yet…there were two.
The first aeclari…so old, so very, very tired.
The dreamscape quieted under the weight of that knowledge, as the age of the aeclari who had created them sank into their cells and pulled them under. But they were not as far into rest as they’d been before this partial waking, their minds hovering just beneath the surface of the world.