"No." Raphael forced her to meet his gaze, the cobalt having overtaken his irises until it was all that remained. "If he made you drink your sister's blood" - he spoke through the cry she couldn't hold back - "then you carry a piece of her."
"How is that any better? I can taste her." Her hand went to her own throat. "It was thick, rich, full oflife ." The horror of it was a noose around her neck.
"Even my mother," Raphael said, one hand cupping her face, "no matter what she became at the end, never blamed me for that which couldn't be changed. Your sister, I think, was a far gentler creature - one who loved you."
"Yes. Belle loved me." She needed to say that, to hear it out loud. "She used to tell me all the time. She would've never called me a monster." It had been her father who'd done that.
"I will not have a child of mine become an abomination!" Hands shaking her, shaking her so hard she couldn't speak. "Don't ever bring up that scent nonsense again.
Understood?"
"Tell me something about your mother," she blurted out, her soul too brittle to handle the memories of the night her father had first hurt her with his words.
It had been a month after they buried her mother. Awash in a black wall of anguish, she'd brought up something she hadn't even whispered about for three long years. Her hunter sense had been the only constant in her life by then, and she'd thought Jeffrey would understand her need to cling to it. But his anger that night . . . "Something good,"
she added. "Tell me a good memory about your mother."
"Caliane had a voice like the heavens," he said. "Not even Jason can sing as beautifully as my mother."
"Jason - he sings?"
"His is perhaps the most magnificent voice in all angelkind, but he has not sung for centuries." He shook his head when she glanced up. "Those are his secrets, Elena.
They're not mine to tell."
It was easy to accept that - she understood about loyalty, about friendship. "Did he learn from your mother?"
"No. Caliane was long gone by the time Jason was born." He dropped his forehead to hers, their breaths mingling in the most tender of intimacies. "She used to sing to me when I was but a babe, a child who could barely walk. And her songs would bring the Refuge to a standstill as every heart ached, every soul soared. They all listened . . . but it was me she sang to.
"I was," he said, falling into memory, "so proud to know that I had that right, the right to her song. Not even my father fought me for it." Nadiel had already been losing pieces of himself by then, but there were a few joyful memories of the time before the madness stole him from Raphael, from his mate. "He used to say that my mother's song was so beautiful because it was formed of the purest love - the kind of love only a mother can feel for her child."
"I wish I could've heard her."
"One day," he said, "when our minds are able to truly merge, when you're old enough to hold your own, I will share my memories of her song." They were his most precious treasures, the biggest gift he had to give.
Her eyes shone even in the darkness, and he knew his hunter understood.One day.
They stayed that way, entangled in each other for the rest of the night. She turned to him more than once, and he willingly gave her the oblivion she sought.
The next morning found Elena glancing again and again at the angel who walked beside her, half certain he couldn't be real. His hair was the color of the mist, of the blinding heart of the sun. It was the most fair blond hair she'd ever seen, whiter than her own. If she had to, she'd label it white-gold, but even that spoke of color. This angel's hair had no color but it shimmered in the sunlight, as if each strand was coated with crushed diamonds.
His skin matched the hair. Pale, so, so pale - but with a golden sheen that turned him from stone to a living, breathing man. Alabaster touched with sunshine, she thought, that might possibly describe the color of his skin.
Then there were the eyes.
A black pupil, shattered outward in spikes of crystalline green and blue. You could look endlessly into those eyes and see nothing but your own image reflected back at you a thousand times over. They were beyond clear, beyond translucent, and yet they were impenetrable.
His wings were white. Absolute and with the same diamond shine as his hair. They glittered in the bright winter sunlight, until she almost wanted to look away. He should have been beautiful. And he was. An astonishing being, one who would never in a thousand years pass for human. But there was something so remote about him that it felt akin to admiring a statue or a great work of art.
As it was, this angel was the last member of Raphael's Seven. His name was Aodhan, and he wore two swords side by side in a vertical sheath on his back, their hilts unadorned except for a symbol similar to a Gaelic knot, but unique in a subtle fashion.
She'd have asked him about it, but he spoke so rarely, she hadn't yet learned the timbre of his voice. His silence felt strange after Illium's humor, Venom's barbs, even Dmitri's sensual taunts. But it did allow her to focus uninterrupted on their surroundings.
Her eye fell on a particular carving at the bottom of a small flight of steps. Walking down, she found herself on the same level as the main courtyard, a winter-bare tree to her left, the carved panel to her right. Ignoring the courtiers who were pretending to ignoreher , she turned her attention to the carving.
One touch and she knew it was old. She'd always been able to estimate the age of things, especially buildings. And this panel was at least a few centuries old. It had been carved with painstaking care, the scene one of a day in court life. Lijuan sat on a throne, while below her, courtiers danced and acrobats played. Nothing extraordinary . . . and yet. She frowned, examined it again.