Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
The response was so long in coming that her blood seized, her heart cold.
Dmitri’s belated reply told her she’d been right to worry: He stopped breathing during emergency surgery. They’ve got him back, but no one will know his full status until he comes out of the operating room.
Her fingers clenched on her phone.
A crack of sound, the damage a faint spiderweb across the screen.
7
Elena didn’t know how she made it through the flight.
Exhaustion alone should’ve put her under, but the throbbing pain in her shoulder paired with the nausea in her gut kept her up. She knew she shouldn’t further stress Raphael, but he was the only one to whom she wanted to speak.
Picking up her phone with its fractured screen, she made the call. But the connection failed over and over again, until at last they were at points on their separate journeys where they both had reception.
She almost broke down at hearing his voice.
After managing to tell him what had happened, she said, “I just thought he’d go on forever.” Her voice came out rough, her throat scraped raw. “I never thought about a time when he might be gone.” Jeffrey had always been there—and some part of her wanted to believe he always would be. “We’re still so broken—and now I might never get the chance to fix us.”
“No, hbeebti, do not walk that road in your thoughts.” Raphael’s voice brooked no argument. “You and your father are in a far different place than when we first met. A large part of that has to do with you. You have no reason to dance with regret.”
She talked to him until the connection began to stutter. And as much as she wanted him with her, she didn’t ask him to come to New York. Because he was an archangel and that meant a duty heavy and demanding. The reason he was on this journey was because another archangel had put his personal needs before that duty—she would never put Raphael in the position to make a choice between it and her.
Whichever decision he made, it would hurt him.
“Elena.” A wrench in his voice as they got ready to say goodbye.
“You need to go, find out about Qin.” She made her voice strong even if it rasped. “I know you’ll be with me as soon as you can. Love you, Archangel.”
The connection failed before he could respond. But it was all right. She knew she was loved—loved in a way she’d never experienced before she stepped onto a Tower roof with her stomach clenched against a fear bone-chilling . . . and walked into her destiny.
The susurration of wings, the kiss of a power that was the turbulent ocean in her mind, the way he laughed until those eyes of impossible blue glowed, it was home to her now.
Today, she clutched that feeling close, and tried to pretend she was falling asleep on Raphael’s chest, his wings wrapped around her. But her mind couldn’t stop going in circles, couldn’t stop imagining a homecoming where she stepped off the plane to the news that Jeffrey was dead.
The hours passed with excruciating slowness amid mere snatches of sleep, and her eyes were gritty and dry by the time she walked into the hospital in the very early morning hours, the world outside pitch black. Crossed time zones on top of her lack of sleep after the disaster meant she’d been going for far too long—but adrenaline powered by fear continued to pump through her system.
She saw Gwendolyn first.
The other woman was just walking out of an ICU room, her face worn and her rich black hair pulled haphazardly off her face into a bun at her nape. But even now, with her shoulders bowed and the fine bones of her face stark against the cream of her skin, there remained an ineffable elegance to Gwendolyn Deveraux, a sense of grace that went beyond flesh and bone.
“Gwendolyn.”
Glancing up, Gwendolyn stared for a minute before she jolted forward into Elena’s arms. Jeffrey’s second wife had never before made such intimate contact with Elena, but Elena wrapped her arms around Gwendolyn without hesitation, held her as she sobbed. Gwendolyn had always been slender, but today she felt fragile, a bird with bones delicate.
“Shh,” Elena murmured as she rocked the other woman, her chest tight with tears she couldn’t shed and her muscles locked into knots. “It’s okay. I’m here now. We’ll handle this.”
8
Drawing back on a gulping sob several minutes later, Gwendolyn wiped at her tears with the tissues she’d stuffed into the pockets of her navy blue dress with a wide skirt and fitted bodice. It was belted in the middle with a fabric belt, the waist-length cardigan Gwendolyn wore over it a crisp white.
Elena didn’t take anything from Gwendolyn’s smart clothing except that this was her normal. As Elena’s knives were hers. She had at least ten on her even though she knew that was overkill for a hospital in her own city. The comfort of the familiar to fight back the panic—Gwendolyn wore her clothing with the same too-precise attention to detail.