Archangel's War

Aftermath

Elena took to wearing capes to protect her sensitive stubs. Illium—still so angry underneath his joie de vivre—thought it a grand idea and bought a rhinestone-covered silver one that threatened to turn them all blind. He just laughed and swirled it around like a B-movie villain.

Elena stuck with hunter black.

Capes were suddenly all the rage in their battered city.

The itching made her want to crawl the walls, but there was too much to do. Raphael rubbed in the oil and they carried on. Life carried on. They’d been lucky, so fucking lucky. All of their closest friends and family had made it out alive. In honor of their victory and because it was a name from Nyree’s family, Ransom and Nyree finally settled on a middle name for their son: Viktor.

Hudson Viktor Winterwolf.

Big name for a little dude, but Elena had a feeling the kid would grow into it. As for the other newborn in their world, Riker told them Michaela had named her son Gavriel, after her father. Little Gavriel was safe with Keir, loved and protected, his parentage hidden. So many angels had died in battle that no one questioned it when Keir said he was raising a war orphan.

In other news, Galen and Naasir had returned to the Refuge, while Aodhan was with Suyin as her temporary second.

“I must give him this chance to spread his wings,” Raphael had said.

Every so often, as time passed, a kind of dawn-colored lightning would arc through Elena’s growing wings, far weaker than the Cascade power, but lightning all the same.

No one had any idea what that meant, though Keir had a theory. “You are the only living angel whose heart is formed of archangelic cells. A piece of you is an archangel. And when it ended, the Cascade left behind gifts in all of the archangels who were not already Ancients.”

Elena truly didn’t care as long as her wings kept growing. Illium outpaced her, but she’d expected that. Bluebell might not have ascended at the end of the Cascade, but his power was growing so strong that it frightened her for what it augured for his future.

When it came to her, Lucius told her that her cells were “almost” back to angel-normal. “Except for the odd glowing one. But Raphael has a few, too, so you’re still compatible.”

The meaning of his words didn’t really penetrate until Nisia called them into her office a month later, after Raphael had returned from helping Titus deal with the reborn problem in his massive territory. It wasn’t an issue that would be solved quickly, but all of the Cadre who were up and functional were helping each other out.

“Do you remember what I said about the super-parasite?” the healer asked.

Elena’s hand flew to her abdomen, all thoughts of wings momentarily forgotten. “Don’t even mention that.”

“Super-parasite? What horrors have you been amusing yourself with this time, Nisia?”

Poker-faced, the healer said, “Fetuses, sire.”

“I see.” Her archangel’s lips twitched. “You have such maternal ways.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Elena muttered. “She told me that the child of an archangel would be a super-parasite. But we don’t have to worry about any of that for a loooong time. I’m too young.”

Nisia coughed into her hand. “Yes, about that . . .”

Elena swallowed. Hard. “No more parasite fetus jokes.”

“The chrysalis changed you.” Nisia’s gaze was steady. “You heal faster, are more resilient, with stronger bones. No longer a newborn.” She smiled an evil smile. “I tested compatibility. It’s perfect. You could conceivably fall pregnant to Raphael.”

A strangled eek of sound escaped Elena’s throat. Raphael, the fiend, gave her a sad look. “Are you so terrified of our adorable little parasite?”

“Don’t make me stab you.” Folding her arms across her chest, she stared at Nisia. “Do I need to, you know, take birth control?”

It turned out most angels didn’t bother because their birth rate was so miniscule, but as it had been proven that angelic fertility rose in the aftermath of a catastrophic loss of life—such as had occurred in the war—Nisia hooked her up with a small pot of dried leaves of a vivid green striped with blue that came from a plant that only grew in the Refuge.

A leaf a day would keep the baby away.

It was only once the two of them were alone in the humid warmth of the Legion building, Elena’s hands in the soil as she tidied up, that she looked at Raphael and said, “You don’t mind? That I’m not ready for a child?”

A browned bloom unfurled to new life in Raphael’s hand. “I never expected you, Elena.” Crouching down beside her, his wings spread on the grass and flowers, he tucked the bloom behind her ear. “A child of my own was such a distant matter that it never crossed my mind. We have eternity, hbeebti. There is no rush.”

Sitting back, she hooked her dirt-covered hands over her knees and admitted the dark truth that was a knot in her chest. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. Every time I even imagine a baby, I think of Belle, of Ari.” Her eyes burned, a brush fire that scalded her from the inside out. “Our parents loved them so much, but they couldn’t protect them.”

Seated opposite her, his booted feet on either side of her hips, Raphael placed one hand on her calf. “I understood terror when I loved you.” His grip tightened. “I cannot imagine the depth of that terror should I have a child.”

Elena shuddered out a breath, changed the topic of conversation because this one was too scary, hit too deep. “It looks like the dawn lightning in my wings isn’t going away.”

“Wings of midnight and dawn with lightning arcing through them. Your Bluebell will be jealous.”

Laughing softly, she shifted position so that she was kneeling beside the garden plot again. “Pass me that seedling.” She’d found a stock of them ready for planting. The Legion had grown them for her greenhouse, but she would plant them here.

The construction of her and Raphael’s Enclave home was no longer a priority, not when so much of the city had been destroyed. For now, they’d live in the Tower and this place full of memories of the Legion would be her greenhouse. “I miss them hanging about just watching,” she said as she gently removed the seedling from the pot.

“Do you think we have solved their riddle? Do we know the full meaning of aeclari?”

Seedling freed from the pot, Elena held it cupped in her hands as she thought. Of the Legion’s age. Of their innocence. Of their knowledge. Of how they were of life, of growing green things and—

Her mouth dropped open.

Tilting back her head, she stared . . . at the seedling that was shooting up and up. Raphael had to remove it from her hands and put it in the ground. The two of them sat there in silence, as the seedling turned into a tall rose bush filled with glorious blooms the color of fresh blood.

Petals floated down from above, heavy with scent and soft as velvet.

And in Elena’s nascent wings arced the dawnlight lightning.

Closing her eyes, she fell back on the grass and let the petals fall over her. When they stopped, it was because an archangel with eyes as blue as Arctic ice was leaning over her, his wing spread in a magnificence of white gold, and there, around the gunshot scar on the underside, a burst of midnight and dawn. The rest of his feathers had returned to their usual shade, but the kiss of mortality remained around that one spot.

She brushed her fingers over it.

Hair darker than the heart of night fell over his forehead as he lowered his lips to her own. They kissed under a soft rain of petals that was a thing of life, of growth, of beauty in terrible darkness. The world was badly wounded, bleeding in many places, vampires had begun to stir in bloodlust, and the Cadre had two Ancients who didn’t wish to be awake, as well as a new archangel wholly untrained for her duties.

It was one hell of a mess.

And yet . . . “Architects, builders, growers,” she whispered against Raphael’s lips. “We can snatch life out of the horror.”

His mouth curved into a sinful, youthful smile he gave no one else. “Careful, Elena-mine. You do not wish to tempt the super-parasite.”

Slapping her hands on his chest, she glared. “I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap.”

He laughed, her archangel strong and beautiful and deadly . . . and a little bit mortal, the laughter yet in his taste when he kissed her again. The last thing she saw before she fell into him, into love, were petals the color of fresh blood lying on his wing . . . and the glitter of life in the Legion mark on his temple.

Aeclari.