Chapter 48
Mortal born. Mortal fall. Mortal heart. Ambrosia’s sweet kiss. Wings of dawn. Wings of night. This will be.
—The Legion to Elena (Once, as they remembered Cassandra, Seer of Seers)
Perspiration beaded along Raphael’s spine as Elena walked up and down the hallways of the Medica almost exactly three weeks later, the running water beneath the clear tiles a peaceful harmony that was doing nothing whatsoever to dampen his nerves.
“Oof.” Her hand clamped down on his as another contraction hit.
Raphael knew his wings were glowing with the force of his frustration at his total inability to do anything to help her. Even his Cascade-given ability to heal could do nothing in this situation—Elena had to give birth, and that was that.
It infuriated him.
“No blowing up the Medica,” his consort told him. “We do not want Keir annoyed with us.”
“You’re making jokes while I’m losing my mind?”
Weaving her fingers through his, she said, “Now, breathe with me. In, hold, out.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Very funny, Guild Hunter.”
A wicked grin before she rose up to kiss him. “The super-parasite and I will be fine, Archangel,” she said. “Cassandra said so.”
Raphael exhaled. Took a moment. Focused on that damn peaceful running water. “I’m sorry. This should be about you, and here you are having to comfort me.”
She elbowed him in the side. “We’ve only been here ten minutes. Just wait till I break your hand during the actual birth.”
“Hbeebti, if it brings you comfort, you may break every bone in my body.”
Fingers linked with his, Elena walked on.
And in his need to be there for her, he found his own calm.
He also managed to make her laugh when the pain got so bad that even his tough hunter’s face paled, and they left the hallways to make their way to the same birthing chamber Hannah had used not so long ago.
The Legion stood with their backs to the glass in a thick mass while others of their brethren crouched on the roof and still others guarded the remaining flanks of the Medica.
It wasn’t needed, the Refuge a safe place, especially so in this time of peace, but seeing them calmed him—as it had Eli.
For the Legion had done the same during Hannah’s birthing.
The knowledge that Dmitri stood sentry in their stronghold, watching over their people, further eased the strain.
He knew Eli would’ve done the task for him as he had for the other man a month earlier, but their circumstances were different.
Elijah was father to a newborn right now, his protective instincts in overdrive.
To ask him to leave Hannah and Aanisa even for short bursts would’ve been a cruelty.
But Dmitri’s arrival two days past had been a welcome surprise for far more than that pragmatic reason.
Raphael’s best friend had been a father as a mortal, gone through this process twice with Ingrede.
He’d also known Raphael for an eon. The two of them had spent the night of Dmitri’s arrival drinking mead and talking—the kind of conversation a man could only have with a friend who’d known him since they were both young men.
Now, confident in the knowledge that Dmitri had things in hand with Galen and Jean-Baptiste for backup while Naasir and Trace had joined the team in New York in turn, he focused only on Elena.
He wiped her brow of the sweat that accumulated there, rubbed her back when the pain was too much, and spoke into her mind when she bore down on his hand—because she’d asked him to.
“You’re storm winds and the crashing ocean in my mind,” she’d said on a gulped breath. “I know I’m home, that I’m safe, when I feel that.”
A knock on the door before Majda came in. She’d gone for a walk to give them time alone, but Raphael was glad to see her return. “She’s in pain,” he said to Elena’s grandmother.
“I know, son.” Her gentle affection might’ve annoyed the youth he’d been—but that had been a long time ago.
Today, he was only grateful for her maternal presence.
“Keir says immortal births can be painful and there aren’t any drugs that’ll work on Elena’s system. He also doesn’t want to risk using his healing abilities too much and stifling her natural processes.”
Raphael knew all that—the healer had explained it to him and Elena. But hearing Majda say that in her calm voice helped. As did having her in the room with them as Elena continued to walk.
The older woman talked Elena into bracing herself against a wall at one point, so she could massage Elena’s back in a specific technique that she taught Raphael then and there, so he could take over.
Later, she lovingly bullied Elena into eating a bowl of soup when morning fell into dusk.
Still his consort labored.
Until it was the twilight hour, a time when it felt like the entire world slept. Raphael had a quiet moment with Elena while Majda spoke with the healers as they prepared things in another corner.
Because his hunter was almost ready.
“You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known,” he said, cradling her in his arms from behind as she stood upright, having decided against giving birth lying down. “Seeing this? It’s only made that clearer to me, warrior-mine.”
She leaned her tired body into him, her voice husky. “Let’s do this, Archangel.”
The next contraction hit her so hard that he felt her body ripple—and then the healers were swarming, Keir chief among them. But it was Raphael who got Elena to the standing birthing rail.
He braced her while she wrapped her hands in the straps that hung from the overhead rail. Angelic birthing could be done in multiple ways, all of it up to the comfort of the mother.
Elena had decided on this one about an hour ago.
“It suits my body,” she’d said. “It also means you can hold me throughout.”
He did exactly that while she labored to bring their child into the world, Keir in constant healer contact with her, while Majda cooled her heated skin and comforted her in a way that Raphael knew Elena would only ever accept from a maternal source.
She even sang gentle songs in Moroccan Arabic to her when Elena asked for a distraction, bringing a piece of Elena’s mother into the room with them.
“You’re doing it, baby girl,” she said toward the end, tears in her eyes. “Just one more push, Ellie.”
Pulling down on the straps, Elena screamed—and pushed!
When Keir said “Raphael” in a sharp tone, he shifted around to in front of Elena to catch their child in his hands.
Tears streaming down his face as the healers did what needed to be done, he looked up at his trembling consort and threw his power around her so she wouldn’t fall. Never would he let his Elena fall.
Holding their child in his arms, he said, “Hbeebti, we made a little boy.” A perfect little boy with ten fingers and ten toes and translucent wings, his skin as golden as his mother’s, and his hair as black as his father’s.
Elena cried, too, and he was up and there to catch her with one arm when she released the straps to sag into him, take their baby into her arms—with Raphael’s underneath for support because she was shaky from the strain of the birth.
“He’s gorgeous.” She sobbed. “Our own wrinkled little old man of a super-parasite.”
Laughing, he just held his small family and was grateful to whatever powers controlled the energies of the world that he’d been given this gift beyond price.
He wasn’t even mad at the ethereal white owls he’d spotted sitting on the shoulders of the Legion, all of them facing outward as Cassandra gave them privacy while letting them know she shared in their happiness.
Today, awash in love, Raphael welcomed her.
* * *
It wasn’t until much later, after Elena was asleep, that Keir told him the results of the post-birth tests. “Your babe is immortal…but he does still have some mortal cells in his body, the majority in the region of his heart.” A bemused look. “I truly have no idea what they mean.”
Raphael did. “Elena’s heart has always been mortal.” She’d remained fierce in her determination to retain the part of her that made her Elena. Never had she wanted to become a jaded immortal.
“I know that,” Keir said, “but it makes no logical sense.” He came as close to tearing out his hair as Raphael had ever seen. “Her heart regenerated from yours, Raphael. Quite apart from that, after so long, she should no longer have any mortal cells in her body to pass on to the child.”
“I think you do not understand Elena’s stubbornness, Keir. After she is awake, if she wishes, you can do further tests to satisfy your curiosity—though I warn you, she is apt to remain as much an enigma as Naasir.”
Keir looked over at mother and child, their babe tucked next to Elena in a little bassinet that Majda had woven for her.
“My mother’s sister of the heart came from a faraway land on a ship that had crossed all the seas. She wove just such a sleeping basket for our Marguerite,” she’d said as she brushed Elena’s hair back from her face, her hands tender. “It will allow you to keep your babe safely by your side in bed.”
Now, after Keir had left, Raphael pressed a gentle kiss to his consort’s cheek, which made her smile in her exhausted rest. Their babe made a small sound at that very moment, and when Raphael looked over, he saw those tiny hands fisted and raised.
“Come now.” He scooped their child into his arms. “No tears. Your mother needs her sleep.”
The babe scrunched up his face, but as Raphael walked around the room, he kept on talking to him in a low murmur that seemed to soothe his spirit.
Giving a tiny yawn, their boy settled back down, but Raphael continued to hold the fragile, warm weight of him, astonished that he’d helped create this child so perfect and of them.
His midnight hair was now covered by a little knitted hat made by Yana, and his beautiful dark gold skin flushed a soft pink from his recent sleep. His eyes in the scant glimpses they’d had as yet appeared to be a striking blue akin to Raphael’s.
His wings were an unknown and would be for years. He had the translucent wings of all newborn angels; they wouldn’t begin to grow feathers and change into their distinctive adult pattern until their child was at the crawling stage.
The pattern would be set by toddlerhood.
Legion, he said, looking out at the backs of the Legion warriors that surrounded the Medica. Our child has been born. Both mother and child are in good health. We will introduce him to you once Elena is awake. For this was a moment to be shared by both of them.
Seven hundred and seventy-seven excited whispers in his head even though only half that number were in the Refuge, a clear message: We wait. We stand guard. We are…happy for you.
His heart swelled at the Legion’s hesitant but continued exploration of emotion. As we are happy you are with us. Turning from the window, he walked to Elena’s side and took a seat in the rocking chair the healers had brought into the suite after the birthing.
It was designed for beings with wings, wouldn’t accidentally trap his wingtips underneath, and was of a size that fit him comfortably but would be too large for Elena—which was why she had her own chair near the window, where she’d asked for it to be placed.
“I’ll nurse him in the sunlight,” she’d said drowsily before she drifted off into sleep.
Then, “Wow, I’m a mom. Crazy.”
Raphael smiled at the memory of her startled expression before she fell asleep, and then he sat with their child in his arms, his consort resting beside him, and all was well in his world.