Chapter 55
Beloved, I hear a babe crying. A little boy, his tears endless.
Is he in danger, my love?
No, he is safe in the arms of the archangel who loves the child of mortals.
—Cassandra and Qin (In a Dreamscape)
Four years later, a shirtless Raphael rocked their crying baby against his chest as he walked around their Tower suite while an exhausted Elena slept. Their child’s tears broke her heart, but she’d simply been unable to stay awake any longer after countless days of wakefulness.
Raphael had literally thrown her on the bed and pulled a blanket over her. “Sleep,” he’d ordered. “One of us needs to be sane through this. It’s my turn now.”
Even Bengal, the most loyal of friends, was worn-out; he’d been anxious and worried from the start when Nixie began to cry tears of pain and heartbreak.
“You too,” Raphael had ordered. “You need to be rested to protect him.”
Bengal was curled up, snoring, at the small of Elena’s back, his body hidden by her wings.
As they slept the sleep of the exhausted, Raphael walked and talked to their distressed child. “It’ll be all right, Nixie.” He spoke the words into his son’s mind at the same time. “I know it hurts, but Papa has you.”
His son clung to him with tiny fists, his face scrunched up as he struggled to deal with the pain that came from the wings that had begun to strengthen and take on more solid form at his back.
“I didn’t know it was like this for babies,” Elena had said to him the first night after it began, her voice full of her own tears. “Mine just itched like mad.”
“It is like teething for mortal children,” he’d told her. “He will have no memory of it, and we have ways to ease him through it. Remember, Elena-mine, in mortal terms, he is only a few months old.”
But though they’d used the soothing balm, their poor babe was inconsolable. Nisia, Raphael said into his healer’s mind, are you sure there is nothing else to be done for Phoenix?
I’m sorry, sire. I have checked, and there is nothing wrong with him except that he is as stubborn as his parents and infuriated by this pain he cannot stop.
Raphael kissed their boy on his tear-reddened cheeks. Your bedside manner is as gentle as always.
No threats to smite me while you’re sleep-deprived because of the child, Nisia ordered. Do you want me to do a shift?
No, Raphael said. He needs to be with us for this. The smiting can wait.
Excellent.
A hiccupping sob, another rasping breath…and Nix’s fists unclenching on his body. His son gave him a reproachful look out of eyes identical to Raphael’s own, his thick black lashes wet, before exhaustion finally took him under.
Elena jerked awake at the same time, as if startled by the sudden quiet. “What? Where?” she cried out, strands of her hair stuck to the side of her face and her sleep tee twisted.
Bengal snapped up to a standing position, a growl building in his throat as he padded over Elena’s wings.
“Shh.” Raphael got into their line of sight with Nixie in his arms.
Hands flying to her mouth, Elena widened her eyes. He’s asleep!
Just.
Bengal, too, went silent.
They all stayed in position, scared of startling Phoenix awake, but when he began to breathe in a deep, steady rhythm, Raphael took the risk of laying him in the bassinet next to the bed…
before collapsing facedown beside his consort—while Bengal jumped off the bed to pad over to the bassinet and put his forepaws carefully on the edge so he could look down at the baby.
Elena and Raphael just lay there limp, two people who’d been through the wars and had no energy for anything else.
“We survived a Cascade of Death,” Raphael said at last, making sure to keep his voice low as he flipped over onto his back. “We can survive this.”
“Right.” Elena continued to stare at the ceiling. “Or maybe the Cascade was just a test, and this is the actual event.”
“Nixie is a child. I am an archangel.”
“Who gets his heart ripped out when his son does that pain-crying.” She found his hand on the sheet. “I wish I could stop him hurting.”
The thing was that Raphael could—he just wasn’t allowed to; any kind of interference with the developing mind of an infant, even such a small thing as tamping down pain, was verboten among angelkind, and for good reason. No one knew how such interference might impact the child long-term.
“I hate this.”
“I know.” She wove her fingers through his. “Me too. But we’ll get through it.”
He turned to look at her as she turned her face toward him.
“Together.”
“Always.”