Chapter 42
I’m not a one-being anymore, Dmitri. I have cubs like me.
—A Chimera on the Birth of his Children (Once, on a Joyous day in the Refuge)
Raphael came in to land to find Izar on the balcony wall, a finger lifted to his lips.
Hovering on the other side of the man he really needed to stop thinking of as the wild boy he’d hauled out of many an attempted swan dive off the Tower, he saw his consort fast asleep under a shade cloth that Izar must’ve set up.
He’d also covered her with a thick but soft throw.
Raphael landed in silence, then, smiling, hugged the boy become a man. He held on for long enough that the chimera in Izar was content. Because to Naasir and his boys, Raphael was the ultimate head of their pack. “It’s good to see you,” he murmured in a low tone that wouldn’t disturb his consort.
To this day, he couldn’t believe that all three of Naasir and Andromeda’s cubs had made it to adulthood alive—but then, he thought the same of Illium.
He still laughed whenever he remembered the scene some time before Illium’s ascension when the other man had volunteered to babysit the then-toddlers, only to call Raphael in a panic four hours into it.
“I’ve lost one!” he’d yelled, his hair sticking up and several feathers on his shoulders, as if he was molting. “Oh fuck, shit. He’s up there!”
In the end, babysitter and boys had all made it through safe and sound, though Illium had probably lost a few years of his immortal life.
“Was I like that?” the blue-winged angel had asked Raphael over a bottle of mead some months later.
“Worse.”
“How am I alive?”
“A question for the ages.”
Now, he and Izar talked in hushed voices in one corner of the balcony.
“I spoke to the Primary,” Izar told him. “He likes to play chess. He played with Misha in New York.”
Raphael raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know that.”
“It isn’t a secret thing,” Izar clarified, “but they played at night, while Misha was working alone in the Tower. The Legion and I talk about what it must be like to be a one-being. Papa knows, but we don’t.”
Raphael would’ve never made that connection, but now that Izar had pointed it out, he couldn’t not see it. Not only were the triplets identical, they had a point of view unlike that of any other people in the world but for their father. And, it seemed, the Legion—at least on some matters.
“How is Nasien? I haven’t seen him this past year.”
“He told me he hunted and ate a crocodile.” Izar rolled his eyes. “It was probably a baby one.”
Raphael’s lips twitched at the quintessentially sibling comment as Izar added, “He’s still in Archangel Aegaeon’s territory. Spying while pretending to be a quiet scholar doing dusty research in the archives.” A fierce grin. “Because Archangel Illium is one of ours.”
“He learn anything interesting since his last report?” Nasien was officially part of Jason’s team, and almost as good as the spymaster in going unnoticed even though he had looks as distinctive as his two brothers.
A shake of Izar’s head, shadowy stripes beneath his skin and on his wings as he permitted his tiger out in Raphael’s presence. “Aegaeon’s troops continue to train as if readying themselves for a strike, but they do not move en masse to the border.”
Raphael could only hope that Aegaeon would hold to his unspoken word that he’d do nothing while both consorts were pregnant. Because if it came to war, then Raphael would have to leave Elena to go to Illium’s aid.
It would break both their hearts, but neither one of them would be able to breathe knowing that their Bluebell fought alone against a powerful enemy.
Elena sighed in her sleep, her lips curved.
His entire being pulsed with a love so deep that it had no name, no beginning, no ending. It just was.