And yet Dmitri had held off all challengers for the three months that Raphael lay in a healing coma. The first month, he'd gone so deep that he'd descended below anshara. Had Dmitri-or any of the six others-wanted to end his immortal life, they could've struck a deal with another archangel and betrayed his place of rest. Instead, they had protected him; more than that, they had protected his heart.
The young children playing in the New Jersey park looked up with open mouths as he flew over them. Their awe turned into screams of delight as he landed on the grassy verge that surrounded the playground equipment. He watched as mothers, and a few fathers, tried to contain their children's excitement, afraid of giving offense to an archangel. Fear whispered in their eyes and he knew it would always be so. To rule, he could not appear weak.
Small hands touched his wing. He glanced down to see a tiny child with tightly curled black hair and skin that spoke of distant lands of sunshine and warmth. As he bent to lift the child in his arms, he heard a woman's cry of panic. But the child looked at him with innocent eyes. "Angel," he said.
"Yes." Raphael felt the warm beat of the boy's humanity and it gave him solace. "Where is your mother?"
The boy pointed to a terrified-looking young female. Walking across, Raphael handed over her child. "Your son has courage. He'll grow up into a strong man."
The woman's panic disappeared under a wave of burgeoning pride.
As Raphael walked through the children, several others dared pat his wings. And when their tiny, soft hands came away shimmering with angel dust, they laughed in innocent joy. Sara raised an eyebrow when he reached her. "Showing off, Archangel?" Her hands squeezed the handles of the baby carriage in which a small girl-child slept, peaceful, unaware of monsters and blood.
"Uram never walked among humans," he said instead of answering.
She began to push the carriage along a narrow path powdered with the barest layer of snow, the first caress of winter. No one interrupted them, though four intrepid children dared follow a few feet behind-until their parents called them back. In Sara's carriage, her child raised fisted hands, fighting dream battles. It was fitting, he thought. After all, Zoe Elena bore the name of a warrior.
"Did Dmitri lie?" she asked after several minutes of silence. "Is Ellie dead?"
"No," he said, "Elena lives."
Sara's hands tightened until her bones pushed white against skin the color of smooth, dark honey. "It doesn't take this long for the transition from human to vampire. Once you do whatever it is you do, most vamps are up and functioning-well, walking around at least-within a couple of months at most."
Raphael chose his words carefully. "Most vampires don't start off with broken backs."
Sara nodded jerkily. "Yeah, you're right. I'm just-I miss her, damn it!"
Zoe woke at the sound of her mother's distress, her forehead beginning to crinkle with angry lines.
"Sleep, little one," Raphael said, "sleep."
The child smiled, her lashes closing to create half-moon crescents against plump cheeks.
"What did you do?" Sara asked, shooting him a suspicious look.
Raphael shook his head. "Nothing. Children have always liked my voice." Once, at the dawn of his existence, he'd guarded the nursery, guarded their most precious treasures. Angelic births were rare, so rare. It was logical, their healers and learned ones said. A race of immortals didn't need a very high replacement rate. But being immortal didn't shield one from the need to create a child.
Sara's face softened. "I can see that. When you spoke to her . . . it was different from how you usually sound."
He shrugged, sensing the world begin to sigh with the coming of night. "Sara, Elena wouldn't want you worrying."
"Then why the hell won't she even give me a call?" Sara demanded. "We all know something's wrong! Look, if she's paralyzed"-she swallowed-"it doesn't matter to us! Tell her to stop being a prideful bitch and give me a call." A sob caught in her throat but she refused to shed it. Another warrior. Kin to his own.
"She cannot speak to you," he told her. "She sleeps."
Sara's eyes were wild with grief when she looked at him. "She's still in a coma?"
"In a sense." He stopped, held her gaze. "Trust me to care for her."
"You're an archangel," she said, as if that explained everything. "Don't you dare keep Ellie alive on machines. She'd hate that."
"Do you think I don't know that?" Stepping back, he flared out his wings. "Trust me."
The Guild Director shook her head. "Not until I see Elena with my own eyes."
"I'm sorry, Sara, but no."
"I'm her best friend, her sister in every sense of the word bar one." She reached down to tuck Zoe's blanket more firmly before turning her head. "What right do you have to keep her from me?"
"She's mine, too." He tensed his muscles in readiness for flight. "Take care of yourself and those you call your own, Director. Elena will not be happy if she wakes to find you a worn shadow of yourself."
Then he flew, and the silence was so huge, it crushed him. Wake up, Elena.
Still, she slept.
Chapter 40
Wake up, Elena.
Elena frowned, batting away the sound. Every time she tried to sleep, he told her to wake. Dratted man. Didn't he know she needed to rest?
Elena, Sara has set her hunters on me.
As if he had anything to worry about from even the toughest vampire hunter.
She's threatening to tell the media I'm doing unnatural things with your body.
A smile in her mind, in her soul. The archangel had a sense of humor. Who knew?
Ellie?
He never called her Ellie, she thought, yawning. The first thing she saw when she blinked open her eyes was blue. Endless, fathomless, brilliant blue. Raphael's eyes. And that quickly, she remembered. The blood, the pain, the shattered bones. "Damn it, Raphael. If I have to drink blood, I'm going to suck your gorgeous body dry." Her voice was husky, her anger absolute.
The archangel smiled and it held such fierce joy that she wanted to grab on to him and never let go. "You're very welcome to suck any part of my body you wish."
She wouldn't laugh, wouldn't surrender to the hunger she saw in those immortal eyes. "I told you I didn't want to be a vampire."
He fed her chips of ice, cooling her parched throat. "Are you not at least a little glad to be alive?"
She was a lot glad. Being with Raphael . . . oh, well, how bad could blood taste? But-"I'm not doing any vampire lackey stuff."