“In the end, he forced her to execute him.” It had broken Caliane in ways Raphael didn’t think would ever heal. “The woman you know, that’s not all of her. Parts are missing.” Would always be missing.
“I saw it in the portraits.” Elena’s eyes were more gray than silver today, her mortal heart right out in the open. “She had a candle inside her that’s dimmer now, quieter.”
“She was so old when they met. Old enough to be considering an endless Sleep. He brought her to life—that’s what she always told me.”
Sliding her arms around him, Elena held him tight as the wind wove around them, bringing with it a chill that promised snow not too far in the distant future. “I wish I could’ve met them when they were together and happy. I wish you could’ve met Jeffrey and Marguerite when they were the same.”
But the past was gone, leaving only broken shards at their feet. All they had were memories and a perilous future in which everything was shifting. Including the turbulent power inside Raphael that had become fused into his cells.
* * *
• • •
HUNTER ANGEL RETURNS TRIUMPHANT!
Elena glared at Demarco when he waved his tablet in front of her face a week later, that headline blaring across it. “Take that away or I’ll use it for target practice.”
Her fellow hunters had freaked out at first sight of her stormfire wings, but by now it was old news. Alas, the same could not be said for the local papers and magazines. They were obsessed with her wings. A new article every damn day. It wasn’t a security threat since they mostly printed photos snapped by citizens along with gushing headlines like today’s, but she was starting to feel like New York’s prize poodle.
Demarco, dressed in his now-faded Hunter Angel T-shirt and worn blue jeans—and smart-ass smile—began to read out the article while Elena, Ransom, Ashwini, Honor, Kenji, and Rose lounged around the table in the Guild HQ break room. “Elena Deveraux,” he intoned, “has returned from the dead not once but twice!”
“I wasn’t dead either time,” Elena muttered. “I was just mostly dead.”
Kenji snickered, and Demarco read on. “In this incarnation, she’s made the city proud with her retractable stormfire wings—”
“Wait a minute!” Having been leaning back in her chair, Elena slammed it to the floor now. “Those are highly specific words.” Words she’d used to describe her wings. “Is there a mysterious anonymous source in this article?”
Demarco blinked innocent eyes at her. “Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
Balling up a paper napkin, she threw it at his tousled head of streaky blond hair, while the others cracked up.
“Where was I before I was attacked?” He ostentatiously found his place again. “To those who doubted her, it’s a slap in the face. But to New Yorkers, it is confirmation of what we already knew: our hunter angel is unstoppable.”
Elena groaned, her head in her hands. “End this torture. Please, I beg you.”
But Demarco was relentless and her other friends egged him on. At least Ashwini threw her a chocolate bar as a consolation prize and she soothed herself with sugar and cocoa until the entire excruciating exercise was over—complete with the mysterious anonymous source who gave nothing away but added to the legend of the hunter angel.
Her favorite quote was: “I’ve seen her wings zap people stone-dead.”
“I guess I should thank you for that.” She threw another balled-up napkin at his head. “Hopefully it’ll stop the ones who can’t resist attempting a touch.” Unwanted touch had been uncomfortable on her old wings and it was the same now.
“I have no idea why you’d thank me,” Demarco said piously. “Thank the anonymous source.”
“Did I show you guys my new Hunter Angel T-shirt?” Kenji unzipped his jacket to reveal a cobalt-blue tee with Elena’s silhouette in black . . . with glitter for wings.
“I got the pink one,” Ashwini said, her booted feet up on the table and big silver hoops dangling from her ears. “Bright pink with the Hunter Angel in gold and gold glitter for the wings.”
“Honor and I went for yellow.” Rose bumped fists with Honor.
“Mine’s black with white. Classic. No fucking glitter in sight.” Ransom’s phone beeped before Elena could threaten to murder the whole lot of them. Her hardass friend went sheet white under his coppery skin. “Now?” he blurted out. “I’m on my way.”
He got up so abruptly that his chair clattered to the floor. “Where’s my helmet?” Manic expression, head swiveling this way and that.
“Right behind you.” Elena frowned. “But I don’t think you should be driving in that state. What’s wrong?”
Everyone but Ransom had gone quiet and watchful, a group of lethal hunters waiting to spring into action for a friend.
Ransom stared at her before throwing out his hands as if it should be obvious. “Nyree’s having our baby!”
A collective intake of breath, then they moved like a well-oiled machine. Demarco took charge of Ransom, shoving him into a Guild vehicle; Kenji and Rose piled in the back. Ashwini got on Ransom’s bike, Honor behind her, and they roared off in the wake of the vehicle, while Elena took to the air.
Nyree was already in the maternity suite by the time they arrived at the hospital and they made sure they got Ransom to the right place. Elena had never seen him so shell-shocked—but his shoulders straightened as he went through the doors of the suite, his expression shimmering to pure calm.
The rest of them waited like anxious parents themselves. Elena drew a bit of attention, but all the weapons bristling on their bodies kept the curious at bay. Or maybe it was the whole group that was drawing attention. Demarco was wearing a sword in a spine sheath, while Ashwini’s gun hung at her hip; she played throwing stars around her fingers—the light glinted off the viciously sharp edges.
Kenji had taken a seat and begun to snap a garrote between his fisted hands, while Rose was practicing throwing a pretend knife. A passing doctor ducked as she sent one invisible missile flying. Honor, meanwhile, was “catching” Rose’s throws and sending them back.
“Did he spill yet if it was a girl or a boy?” Demarco wrapped one arm around Elena’s waist, careful to keep his forearm away from her wings.
Elena shook her head. “Said they don’t know. Wanted it to be a surprise.”
“I’m going to kill all of you.” Sara rushed into the waiting room on black high heels, her outfit today a fitted dress in deep plum and her hair swinging glossily across her shoulders.