Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
It had taken her years to fully accept and absorb his advice, but she’d already been part of Beth’s—and Amy’s—families by the time of their passing. Their children and grandchildren had leaned on her, the eldest aunt, and she’d experienced firsthand what it was that Janvier had tried to share with her.
So as Janvier went to many a fais-dodo down in Louisiana, she’d been to many an event put on by her family. A week after Eve’s departure, she landed in a park in Queens.
The area was abuzz with descendants who still carried the Deveraux name, and many more who’d ended up with different surnames over the generations. Five picnic tables groaned with food, while someone had set up a brightly colored bounce castle in one corner—those things had never gone out of vogue, not since the day they’d been invented.
“Ellie!” A little girl with glittering barrettes in her black curls ran over to jump into her arms.
Elena snugged her against her hip. “Hello, Parisa,” she said to this little one with Beth’s eyes against skin as luxuriantly dark as the night sky. “Have you seen Grandma Majda?” Elena’s grandmother had chosen to remain Grandma to all the children who had come from Beth and then Beth’s children. As Elena’s grandfather, Jean-Baptiste, had chosen to remain Grandpa.
“Over there!” Parisa Beth Emmanuel pointed, kicking her feet as Elena wove through the crowd to greet the acknowledged matriarch of their family.
“Ellie!” Kisses on the cheek, hugs, small touches as she passed, all from adult family members who had known her since they were children, and so had no fear of her. Quite unlike their chosen partners—the more established ones had settled down from their instinctive wariness of an archangels’ consort, but the newer ones kept a wide-eyed distance.
Then she was being enfolded in her grandmother’s embrace, the wild-raspberry-and-cinnamon-spice scent of her the scent of home, of comfort.
Elena’s emotions surged, thick in her throat and hot in her eyes.
Majda with her hair of moonlight and eyes of clear turquoise had been younger than Elena when she’d been Made into a vampire, her features eternally of that innocent young woman. But in the years since Elena had first found her, she’d learned to see beyond Majda’s physical youth to the heart beneath—a heart that saw Elena as the beloved child of her own lost child. Their relationship had altered with that realization, becoming that of grandmother and grandchild in every way.
Today, she hugged Majda back as hard as she could with one arm, while a happy Parisa was squashed in between them.
Taking the little one’s face gently between her hands, Majda kissed her first on one cheek, then the other. “You have grown at least three inches since the last time I saw you.”
Parisa beamed, then asked to be put down, after which she made a beeline for the bounce castle.
Majda scanned Elena’s face the moment they were alone. “What is it, azeeztee? Your heart lives in your eyes today, and that I do not often see in Marguerite’s warrior child.”
Elena hadn’t intended to tell her grandparents yet, not wanting to cause them pain if she miscarried. Majda and Jean-Baptiste had already suffered too much pain. But right then, she knew without a doubt that she’d hurt them far worse if she didn’t tell. I’m pregnant.
Majda’s hands threatened to fly to her mouth, her eyes going huge.
Elena grabbed her hands. No one can know yet, she said quickly mind-to-mind. It’s too soon.
After an immediate nod, Majda, her eyes ashine, wrapped Elena up in her embrace. “We’ll be with you every step of the way, azeeztee, come what may.” She swallowed her tears as she drew back. “Now, go tell your grandfather before I give in to my emotions and make everyone curious.”
A squeeze of Elena’s hand. We will celebrate together privately, all of us. A kiss on Elena’s cheek, a warmth of cinnamon-spice-dipped raspberries.
* * *
* * *
Jean-Baptiste walked with Elena until they stood by a flower garden the children had been forbidden from playing near lest they damage it. Daisies and early-season dahlias bobbed their heads among what looked to be a blush variety of cosmos intermingled with deep blue cornflowers.
Spring was in full bloom in New York.
“What did you want to talk about, Ellie?” Jean-Baptiste asked, one arm around her shoulders as he cradled her against him in the way of the grandfather that he was—though his body was as ageless as Majda’s, his jaw square, his eyes a striking silvery blue, and his hair strands of gold.
To the Tower, he was a commander battle honed.
But to her, he had become Grandpa long ago, their relationship only settling deeper with time. Now, she looked up at him and said, You’re about to become a great-grandfather again.
Jean-Baptiste sucked in a breath, his eyes flicking to her abdomen before he turned his head to stare unseeing at the flowers. His breathing turned jagged, his body stiff as he held her tighter. I have loved every child of this sprawling family. I have been honored to cradle them in my hands, and to give them counsel as they age. But it wounds me each time we have to say goodbye to one of them.