Chapter 56
See you at seven, Evie.
—A message
Six months later, after the painful months Elena and Raphael had christened “the Cascade of Nix,” Phoenix was out of the pains of early wing development, and at about the same stage of growth as a mortal of around ten months of age—complete with cheerful babbling talk that charmed everyone in sight.
Elena smiled as her sister tickled his round little belly while he lay on a blanket in the dappled sunshine outside their Enclave home. Elena lay on her side on the blanket beside him, having not yet changed out of her hunting gear. She hadn’t had to spill any blood today, just pull an idiot in.
A purple-blue bloom fell from the canopy of the magnificent jacaranda tree under which they sat. Elena picked it up as Nix laughed that infectious baby laugh of his, and “tickled” Eve back with his plump fingers against her face.
Eve laughed as loudly, which set him off again, a perfect circle of joy.
Affection twined with a thread of old sorrow wove through her, because of the five sisters Elena had had in her life, only this single precious one remained.
Eve might be adamant that she’d decided to become a vampire because she had so much more she wanted to explore of the world, so much more she wanted to do, but Elena knew that Elena’s immortality had played a pivotal role in her decision.
Always empathic, Eve had understood without it ever being discussed that Elena would be without family once they were all gone.
“I love you, Evie.”
A startled smile. “Love you, too, but I love this gorgeous nugget more.” She kissed Phoenix’s belly, to further baby giggles. “Yes I do, you snuggle bug.”
“Do you ever regret becoming a vampire?” Elena had never asked, protecting both of them, but that seemed a cowardice today.
“Nope,” was the immediate response. “I didn’t exactly have it hard, Ellie.
You made sure of that. I was Made by Jason, who is about the coolest angel in existence—therefore adding to my own badassery—and I spent my mandated century in the Tower beside people I already knew and liked.
” She made faces at Phoenix, who thought it was the most hilarious thing ever.
Laughing with her baby and her sister, Elena took a photo to add to her vast hoard.
“After completing my Contract doing work I found challenging and fascinating, I traveled the world,” Eve said when she could speak again.
“I’ve had endless adventures—including being in on the ground floor of a new archangel’s reign.
I’ve had a huge, colorful life. No regrets, Ellie.
” The mist gray of her eyes meeting Elena’s gaze.
“Never, ever worry about that, big sis.”
It was impossible to disbelieve the blunt sincerity of her.
Exhaling quietly, Elena allowed her worry to whisper away and focused on the moment.
On her gorgeous, happy, healthy baby, and on her sister, as happy and healthy.
Eve was—unusually for her—wearing an elegant ankle-length sundress of deep blue linen that had a fitted bodice and a flared skirt, her hair in a fancy braid rather than her go-to ponytail.
Her face, too, Elena realized, showed signs of cosmetics.
“Do you have a date?” A gasp of a question—not because of the date, but because Eve had dressed up for it.
Elena’s sister wasn’t one to soften herself for anyone; in fact, she took fierce independence to the extreme, partly due to personality and partly due to the fuckwit who’d been her first relationship in immortality.
It had turned Eve off relationships for a good, long time.
“He’ll always be around,” she’d muttered to Elena during a wine-fueled night after the breakup. “Hundreds of years I’ll have to suffer him.” She’d shuddered. “No thanks. I’d rather stay single than risk another immortal ex.”
Today, Eve’s cheeks colored. “It’s just a drink.”
“Oh puh-leeze.” Elena shook a rattle at Nixie to amuse him. He immediately grabbed the item that Dmitri had carved by hand, a gift from one father to another.
Talking a mile a minute, even if only one word in twenty was comprehensible, her son shook the rattle with gusto.
“That’s my boy,” Elena said with a huge smile, her hand on his plump little leg. “Soon it’ll be a sword.”
“Or a kukri,” Eve said of the weapon she’d come to love.
Abandoning the rattle with another burst of chatter, the baby turned himself over and took off on a race-crawl over soft green grass colored purple by the jacaranda’s floral bounty.
Nix’s wings were still small enough not to bother him, and they remained folded in against his spine.
However, they’d become less translucent and were now covered by white feathers that were tinier than tiny.
As with baby teeth, he’d molt those feathers at a certain point and start to grow in his adult coloring and feathers.
Sitting up so she could keep an eye on Nixie while allowing him to explore, Elena said, “Who’s the lucky date?”
“Ugh.” Making a face, Eve flopped over onto her back. “I feel like I’m cradle robbing. It’s embarrassing.”
“I’m truly intrigued now.” She admired a bug Nix was pointing toward, his face solemn as he told her all about it. “That’s a very nice bug, sweetheart.”
Happy, her son left the bug to its business and crawled on.
“He kept asking and he’s adorable and…” Groaning, Eve covered her face with her hands. “It’s Izzy.”
Elena’s mouth dropped open. “You are robbing the cradle!” she joked after that first shock, then poked her sister in the arm. “He’s only a thousand one hundred years old, you cougar!”
“Oh, shut up.” Eve sat up, grumpy as anything. “I knew him when he was barely even an adult.”
“Evie, I wasn’t so much as a twinkle in anyone’s eye when Raphael was born,” Elena said with a laugh, delighted for both her sister and for Izzy, who remained one of her favorite people in the Tower.
Eve did not look any less mortified. “I just remember when I saw him after my transition into vampirism, and he was so shy and blushed a lot. I was a full-grown adult at the time.”
“He hasn’t been that youth for a long time.” Elena got up to help Nix into the viper-green play car that sat on the lawn. A gift from Venom and Holly—complete with a personalized number plate—it was a bit too big for him, but he absolutely loved the thing and would grow into it soon enough.
He hit the buttons and laughed when the car made old-fashioned engine sounds. “Mama! Zoom!” he said, speaking two of the few words over which he’d gained full mastery, even if his pronunciation remained iffy.
His first word had been Papa, and Elena hadn’t even been able to be mad about it, not when she’d seen Raphael’s face melt in a way that she’d have believed impossible for an archangel.
He’d been undone, her lover.
“Mama! Zoom! Zoom!”
Yep, she had a future speed demon on her hands. “Ready or not, here we go! Let’s zoom!”
As Nix “drove” the car she was pushing, she said, “Izzy is the senior wing commander in charge of an entire sector of units, in case you hadn’t noticed. He also doesn’t blush anymore—though that grin of his has caused more than one broken heart.”
“I know, I know.” Sitting up, Eve clapped her hands at her nephew. “Woohoo! Go, Nixie, the speed master!”
“Zoom! Anny Ebi!”
Eve sucked in a breath, held it. “You heard that, right? He said Aunty Evie?”
Delighted with himself, Nix threw up his arms. “Anny Ebi!”
“Yep.” Elena grinned. “Illium is going to be mad you beat him to it.”
As her son beeped the horn at his ecstatic aunt, Elena said, “I’m happy for you, Evie. Even if it’s just a drink. He’s a wonderful boy who grew into an incredible man.” Kind and loyal and with a huge heart.
“Well, I mean, technically it’s not our first ‘just a drink,’ ” Eve admitted as she rose to steal pushing-Nixie privileges from Elena. “I was figuring it’d fizzle out, you know? Go poof.”
“Poof!” Nix smiled proudly as he repeated that word.
“That’s my smart boy.” Elena got out of the way of her speed demon as he turned the corner. “Another one to add to the vocabulary. His speech skills seem to have picked up speed this past month.”
Nothing, however, would beat the growl that Misha and a visiting Nasien had taught him.
Last night, he’d been growling in his crib as he played with this collection of handmade plushies.
Majda had sewn those, his great-grandmother a frequent presence in his life—an endless source of love and cuddles and lullabies.
“How many other ‘not dates’ are we talking?” Arms folded and feet set wide, she narrowed her eyes at her sister.
When Eve mumbled something that sounded suspiciously close to “seventeen,” Elena pressed a dramatic hand to her chest. “And you didn’t tell me? Shame on you, Evie!” She glared without heat. “Also, babe, I think you should come out and start calling it a relationship now.”
Eve wouldn’t meet her gaze. “He’s immortal. It’s not like it’s a rush.”
Elena knew her sister well enough not to push.
Instead, after Nix indicated that he wanted out of the car, she set him on the grass so he could play crawl-chase with a butterfly, then went to take Eve into her arms, cradle her close in a big-sister hug. “Take your time, little sister. Enjoy the dance.”
She crossed her fingers behind Eve’s back. The idea of Eve and Izzy together? It flat-out delighted her. He was the best kind of man, and her sister was perfect for him—tough where he was still a little too soft, as loving as him, and ready for Izzy’s brand of open affection.