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)
Yes, he thought, his hunter knew how to love—and how to hold her people close. “She holds the fort for me while I deal with the situation here.” It was a deliberate choice not to mention the situation with Jeffrey—Elena would share that when she was ready. “I’ll tell her we spoke.”
“I would appreciate that, Archangel Raphael.” There was a hitch in her voice when she next spoke. “You have my eternal gratitude for looking out for the lands my own beloved archangel so cherished.”
Call ended, Raphael attempted to track down Aegaeon. The older archangel refused to carry a phone, so it took three hours. When they spoke at last, it was on a phone that belonged to the wingleader who’d located the Archangel of the Deep.
“I’m discovering the situation is worse than we were led to believe,” Raphael told the other archangel, having spent the ensuing time checking into multiple other situations. “Atu may well have allowed his loyalty to blind him to harsh reality.”
Loyalty that unquestioning was a negative asset, not a positive. Any being in power needed someone at their side who’d speak the blunt truth. Dmitri had done so with Raphael even when Raphael was at his coldest and worst—his second had called him out, made him confront his arrogance.
“I’m finding the same,” Aegaeon said in what was a mutter for him. “Qin seems to have faded away from active governance two years prior. Astaad’s network of senior vampires and angels have managed to hold things together, but their numbers were cratered by the war and without archangelic assistance . . .”
“Yes, we have a problem.” The fact of the matter was that there were just fewer strong and trained people to go around.
Lijuan’s megalomania had cost countless lives.
It’d take at least two centuries before the numbers stabilized, as younger angels and vampires turned into seasoned warriors who could help hold a territory. “Do you have anyone who can be seconded from your territory?”
Aegaeon hissed out a breath. “No, but I’ll have to find someone. As will you. If all eight of us do, we can patch up the holes in the interim.”
“What a fucking mess.” He rubbed his forehead, what sympathy he had for Qin having long since drained away.
“What about my son?” Aegaeon demanded. “When will he ascend?”
Raphael didn’t talk about Illium to Aegaeon. So he left it at, “You know there is no answer to that.” Had Raphael his own way, Illium wouldn’t ascend for at least another millennium.
Raphael had ascended at a thousand years of age and he’d barely survived the cataclysmic forces of it. He wouldn’t wish that for the young angel. And Illium wasn’t ready, even if the world needed him to be ready.
An early ascension would destroy their bright, beautiful Bluebell.
“We’ll talk again tomorrow after I’ve met the most powerful angels and vampires in this part of the territory,” he said to Aegaeon.
“I will do the same.”
They hung up.
Raphael already knew who he’d second here: Andreas. He’d intended for the warrior angel to take over one of his own cities that had lost its ruling angel, but that part of his land was surrounded by multiple other cities with strong hands at the helm. It’d survive without its own senior lead. Andreas was also the kind of angel this territory needed: intelligent, calm, and not afraid to be hard when needed.
Elena had always thought Andreas’s harsh hand a cruelty, but even his hunter had come to understand that for some immortal crimes, cruel punishment was the only kind that left a mark. The promise of eternal life made many immortals and almost-immortals jaded to the point of not caring about pain, imprisonment, or other “normal” rebukes.
Raphael took no pleasure in being cruel—and crucially, neither did Andreas. The warrior wasn’t one to find gratification in such actions. To him, they were simply a tool.
Raphael could trust him in this land wounded by neglect.
23
Interlude
Bloodborn
“Bloodborn? You are certain?”
“Yes. Uram is no longer an archangel but a creature out of our worst nightmares.”
“No, I do not believe it. I must see for myself.”
“There are images . . . from his palace. Of bodies defleshed and organs displayed. And worse.”
“This should not be.”
“Yet it is. Now, we must come to a decision about what to do about it.”
24
Elena walked into the ICU four days after her return home, her mind tense with the news of another major quake at the Refuge. No more buildings down, no further casualties, but the instability was close to constant at this point, with the earth trembling more often than not.
She’d also spoken to her archangel, and the news he had was only slightly better.
“The Cadre has agreed to second a number of their own people to Qin’s territory to hold it together in the interim,” he’d told her, his face drawn and the midnight of his hair tumbled from the winds through which he’d flown. She’d wanted only to hold him, give him a place to rest, a person with whom he could lower his shields.