A noise in the background before Eve said, “I better go. There’re so many wounded—the healers and doctors need all of us who can run and grab necessary stuff and do errands, so they can focus on their work.” A pause. “Ellie, don’t get hurt okay?” The tremor was back. “I can’t lose my biggest big sister.”
Elena pressed her palm to her abdomen, blinked away the heat in her eyes. “I have plans to kick Lijuan’s butt,” she said . . . but she made no promises that she’d end this alive. She couldn’t.
After Eve hung up, she took a couple of seconds to find her feet again, then called Beth. It turned out that she was with Gwendolyn and Amy at the supply warehouse. Also with them was Majda.
Elena knew Beth’s husband Harrison was acting as a gofer in the Tower. That was harder than it sounded. He’d been running nonstop for days and, to his credit, hadn’t complained once. As for Jean-Baptiste, she’d spoken to him only a couple of hours earlier.
“Grandfather’s fine,” she told her grandmother when Majda came on the line. “Just tired.” As a highly experienced vampire, he was in charge of one of the ground teams under Venom’s overall command.
“And you, heart of my heart?” Soft words, infinite care. “How are you?”
“I currently have on new boots because some asshole angel stabbed a hole through my favorite ones and I’m annoyed.” It was such a petty thing to be irritated over that she clung to it. She needed petty right now, needed something that felt normal and not a matter of life or death. “I’ll probably get a blister.”
Majda’s tone held a smile when she replied. “May that be your biggest worry today, azeeztee.”
Elena clenched her stomach against the slamming wave of memory. Soft hands on her face. A laughing woman in the sunlight. The scent of gardenias. Lips pressed to her brow. “Maggie?” she managed to get out.
Last Elena had heard, Beth had decided to keep her daughter with her rather than send her away deeper into the territory. “You know Sara’s parents are still happy to take her until this is over.” They already had charge of Zoe; with both Sara and Deacon in combat and little Zoe familiar with her flighty, kooky, but loving grandparents, it had been the best choice.
“Our little Maggie is with us,” Majda confirmed. “I think for us, for Beth, it’s the right choice. Whatever happens, this child will always know what it is to be loved by her mother.” In her voice lived a thickness of memory, cherished pieces of the little girl she’d left behind in order to keep her safe.
“Maman lived a joyous life for many years,” Elena reminded her grandmother. “And she remembered you with love all her life.” Never once had Marguerite said anything negative about the mother who’d left her to wake alone in an old Parisian church. “I think she always knew you would’ve come back if you could have.”
“Take care of yourself, Elena,” Majda whispered. “I could not bear it if I were to survive you as I have survived my daughter and two granddaughters.”
Elena hung up the conversation with a heavy lump in her chest that she had to quickly breathe past when she saw a young warrior heading toward her. The female angel had a bandaged-up arm, which meant she’d sustained a fairly significant injury. Young by Tower standards, she was still two hundred and fifty years old.
“Deep sword wound?” Elena nodded at the injury.
“No, Consort. Even worse. One of the dead-eyes got me with a knife.” A flare of her nostrils, her lips pressed flat. “I can’t believe I allowed him to get that close. But I did manage to slice off a piece of his wing, so I salvaged my honor that much at least.”
“We take the ones we can get, Ahayl. Personally, I’m most proud of taking out an eye with a grenade launcher.” She’d actually taken out the entire side of an angel’s face, but the fucker had been so strong he’d survived it and flown off toward Lijuan’s territory.
Not that it would do him much good—Lijuan seemed to have only one solution for her injured: she ate them. Then again, that particular angel had been old and experienced. Could be Lijuan would shove him full of power to accelerate his healing. She was certainly doing something to keep her generals in the game even after they took grievous injuries, and they’d all seen that she could share power.
Elena wondered that the generals weren’t sickened by knowing the source of that power. Did the dead scream in their heads as they screamed in Lijuan’s voice?
Ahayl nodded. “That is a good win.” Then she was gone, their conversation having fulfilled its purpose—contact with the consort. The troops knew Raphael couldn’t be on the ground much, but that was all right because Elena was his heart and she was with them.
Pushing aside the pain of the past, Elena carried on. She fixed a vampire’s scabbard so it’d hang properly on his back. She helped sharpen the knives of an older angel who didn’t speak much. And she told warrior after warrior that they were doing well, that their archangel was proud of their spirit and courage.
Andreas was also in the park, dirtier and more rough-edged than she’d ever seen him. Twin swords curved like scythes crisscrossed his back under the amber gray of his wings—she could just see the hilts over his shoulders, but she’d seen him working those gleaming blades in battle.
As she’d seen him use the hunting knives he wore in thigh sheaths. As with most of the angels in the park, his leather tunic was sleeveless regardless of the snow and cold. “We will battle to the death for Raphael,” he said to her when their paths crossed, the pale greenish hazel of his eyes unflinching. “Better to die with honor in his service than be a slave in Lijuan’s.”
It was a feeling she heard articulated a hundred different ways that day. The same song sang in her soul. She would die in freedom beside her archangel a thousand times over than trade it for even an extra day on Lijuan’s leash.
If death is our destiny, Archangel, she thought, then I’ll see you on the other side.
64
Raphael managed to bring all of his Seven into the discussion after Elijah and his people left to go prepare for their part in what was to come. Only Galen and Dmitri stood with him in the war room, the others all voices on the speakers.
“I did not want you all back in the city in such a way,” he said to them after they’d talked through tactics and strategy, conscious that it wasn’t only his Seven in the line of fire but their women. Holly—liquid fast and with significant training under her belt—was behind enemy lines, while Honor—a honed hunter under her preference for scholarly pursuits—fought beside Venom.
Naasir’s Andromeda had stayed in the Refuge with Galen’s Jessamy. Both women would die before allowing harm to come to their charges—the precious children of all the warriors who’d flown to fight in the various battles going on around the world. Should the enemy turn their eyes toward the Refuge, Naasir and Galen would be far from the women they so fiercely loved.