Chapter 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?”
Elena heard the unspoken question. “A month. I won’t be showing.
” They’d decided to keep the knowledge to a very limited circle as long as possible.
Angelic pregnancies could be even more fragile than human ones in the early stages; Elena wanted to be past her first trimester before she began to tell most of their crew.
And though the pregnancy had been a shock, her heart skittered at the idea of losing the babe before they’d ever had a chance.
One person, however, had to know. Because this wasn’t just about family, but about old wounds and a savage crime that echoed through time. “Eve’s going to be landing tomorrow morning.”
Her sister hadn’t hesitated—or requested any further information beyond confirmation that Elena wasn’t in danger—when Elena asked her to come to New York. She’d just told Illium that Elena needed her, and left knowing he wouldn’t stand in her way.
Rather, the blue-winged archangel had called Elena to check if everything was all right, and accepted her answer of, “Sister business.”
“Don’t steal Eve,” he’d said before hanging up. “Best ground troop commander I have—and she doesn’t put up with any bullshit, including mine.”
“She refuses to work anywhere near my vicinity,” Elena had grumbled. “Can you believe that? I’m sunshine and goddamn roses to be around.”
Illium’s grin had lit up the aged gold of his eyes. “Adi tells me big sisters can’t help but big sister. Enjoy driving her crazy.”
Yes, Elena thought, she was lucky in the people she called family.
“Will you talk at the Enclave house?” Raphael closed his wings as he tucked her closer to his body.
“In the greenhouse.”
“I’ll make myself scarce.”
Leaning into him, the scent of him fresh sweat and power, Elena admitted the truth.
“I have no idea how to even start the conversation. There’s so much pain tied up in who we both are.
” Eve hadn’t even been a possibility when Ari and Belle, then Marguerite, had died, but she’d been raised by a man viciously scarred by those losses.
“I know, hbeebti.” A brush of his lips over her hair. “I know.”
She pressed another kiss to his skin, this time to his throat, her breath hot against him. “You’re the best distraction.”
“I’m also sweaty, and this is a training room scheduled to be in use in ten minutes.” Breaking contact, he grabbed her hand. “Upstairs.”
She took great delight in attempting to distract him the entire way to their suite—and got repaid by having him spin her around to face the back of the door the instant they got back into the room.
Even as she braced herself with her hands against the cool white of it, he was incinerating her pants off her body using power so controlled, it was a scalpel.
The display of discipline made her want to tackle him to the floor and devour him. And yeah, her hormones were haywire and she wasn’t mad about it. “I liked those pants,” she said with a scowl nullified by the shallowness of her breathing.
Hands on her waist, he said, “You’ll like this better,” and kicked her legs apart before thrusting his hand between her thighs. A deep chuckle at her ear.
Reaching back, she fisted her hand in his hair and hauled him close enough to bite his jaw. “Now.” She was far beyond ready.
He sucked hard at her neck as he positioned his cock at her entrance and began to push in past intimate flesh that felt swollen with sensitivity. He moved his hands up her body to cup her breasts at the same time, and her body ignited. Pushing back into him, she surprised him into thrusting home.
“Elena?” Concern, his big body motionless behind her.
She couldn’t answer except with a movement of her hips that urged him on. More, Archangel, she managed before lust fried her brain.
A deep groan—and then he gave her that more, one hand sliding down her body to touch the taut, hidden nub of her clitoris while he continued to hold her breast with the other as he moved inside her in deep, slow thrusts that had her forgetting to breathe.
She came hard and in silence, her entire body centered on the pleasure of this, of him.
Knees shaky in the aftermath, she let him hold her up as he emptied himself inside her. Then, reaching one hand back to gently stroke his nape, she mumbled, “This is what got us into trouble in the first place.”
A hoarse chuckle. “If you’re going to be like this the entire pregnancy, I better up my training regimen.”
Elena’s laughter was lazy with pleasure and drunk with love.
* * *
That delicious distraction, however, was far from her mind when she picked Eve up from the Tower jetport, where her sister’s silent transport had coasted to a stop just after ten the next morning.
Eve, petite and dark-haired, was dressed in a short-sleeved white top that was thick strips of fine armor woven into a simple but striking pattern, and khaki pants that could’ve originated in any time from the early twentieth century on.
She gave Elena a sharp glance the second she exited, but Elena kept the conversation to small talk as they headed to Elena’s vehicle—a specially modified one that allowed for an angelic driver.
It had mostly meant increasing the depth of a vehicle to comfortably accommodate wings.
There were no back seats, either, and the roof could be fully retracted to permit for an aerial exit or entrance.
These modified vehicles started at twice the price of normal ones, but sales were brisk.
Especially for the sleeker, sportier models.
Turned out more than one angel had a need for terrestrial speed.
“You’re chattering,” Eve said, gray eyes narrowed on the other side of the door and her tone that of a hard-ass ground troop commander who expected people to listen when she spoke. “You never do that. What is going on?”
Elena got into the car, forcing Eve to follow. She’d been awake since five this morning, had gone over how to ease their way into the conversation at least three hundred times. So she opened her mouth and blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”
Eve’s head swiveled so fast toward her that Elena winced—while keeping her eyes resolutely on the jetport’s landing area beyond the safety fencing.
“Did you say you’re pregnant?”
“Yep. Confirmed by Nisia.”
“Wow.” Eve sat back. “Wow.”
A minute later. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
“I’m going to be an aunt again!” Eve’s voice held her grin as she reached over to grab Elena in an awkward, tangled, crushing hug. For a tiny woman, Eve was a powerhouse. And she loved in that same huge way.
“For real, I mean,” Eve said when they drew apart, both of them laugh-crying. “I love that Beth’s and Amy’s descendants stay in touch, but it doesn’t feel the same. Not so far out from when we were all sisters together.”
Elena nodded as she wiped off her tears as Eve did the same; she got it.
The descendants were family, but not as they’d once been.
The ties between them grew ever more nebulous with each new generation.
A thing held together by memory but not stifled by it—because neither Elena nor Eve would ever want to stop their mortal kin from growing into their divergent lives.
“Tell Illium he’s going to have to wrangle babysitting duties into your schedule,” Elena managed to say, shaky with how happy her sister’s happiness made her. She’d been so tangled up in fear and worry that she hadn’t allowed herself to just be excited like any expectant first-time mom.
It felt good.
“Hah! He’ll be fighting me for those privileges—you know he’ll hijack the baby the instant the kid’s grown-up enough to spend summers elsewhere?”
Elena laughed, and the drive home was exhilaration and discussions of pregnancy and baby supplies Elena would need, and Eve pondering what she could gift as “Baby’s first weapon.” The creamy hue of her skin flushed with color, she looked young and vibrant and so alive that it hurt.
A sudden acute cold in Elena’s veins, a chill reminder that life wasn’t guaranteed, that Eve being a vampire didn’t mean she’d live forever. Eve could die. As Ari had died. As Belle had died.
“Come here, little hunter. Taste.”