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)
But that wasn’t who she was; and it wasn’t who this territory needed her to be. She was Elena Parker Deveraux, Guild Hunter and Consort to the Archangel of New York. Who had given her a birthday gift in a small box tied with a filigree of ribbon.
Snuggling against the warmth of Raphael’s chest as he stroked her hair off her face with the love of a man who had been with her through all the seasons of her long life, she undid the ribbon, lifted off the top half of the box…and smiled so hard that it felt as if her cheeks would crack.
It was a single crystalline bead about the size of a large pea, inside which grew the tiniest jacaranda tree in existence. A living tree. “I’ve heard of these!” Sitting up, uncaring of the sheet that slid off her breasts, she picked it up with careful fingers. “But I thought they were still in the lab!”
Living trees encased in glass wouldn’t excite her, but these crystal trees could be grown. These were effectively seeds.
“Does it work?” she asked her archangel, who was looking up at her with a grin that said he was delighted with himself for this gifting home run. “We put the bead in the earth with a certain mix of fertilizer—and a miniature living tree, blooms included, will emerge from it within the month, growing to its full natural height in a year?”
Raphael shrugged. “I have no idea, Elena-mine. But I had to sacrifice an archangelic kidney to acquire one of the prototypes so you could find out.”
“I love you, I love you!” Bead held with utmost care, she leaned down to pepper his face with kisses, her mood spiking from sorrow to a buzzy happiness. “Let’s go plant it! Come on!”
* * *
* * *
Two days later, Raphael landed on their Enclave lawn at the crack of dawn, the dew a shimmer on the grass and the light yet gray with the fading night, to find his consort sitting beside where they’d planted the bead.
She was sobbing out her heart.
“Elena!” He went to his knees beside her. “What has happened?” His hunter rarely ever cried this way—the last time had been the night after the day she’d laid her best friend to rest.
She’d managed better with Beth, perhaps because Sara had gone first, the path of grief already carved on Elena’s heart. “Talk to me,” he demanded, even as his wings glowed, his power surging in response to her distress.
“It’s just…s-so-so beautiful,” Elena said, her face awash in tears as she pointed to the currently barren patch of dirt encircled by rocks. “Life held in a bead.” She sobbed again.
Raphael’s brain short-circuited, an impossible prospect thrusting itself to the forefront without warning. No, he thought, surely not. Only Elena—his tough hunter who hadn’t cried even when she lay bleeding and broken in his arms as they fell to the earth—was sobbing over literally nothing.
The last time he’d seen a woman do that…
Fuck.
3
You are always my most interesting patient.
—Healer of Healers, Keir (After the Chrysalis)
His own brain on the fritz—because surely this was just some strange hormonal imbalance that had struck Elena as part of her struggle with having lived a millennium—Raphael just held his consort while she cried over the buried seed of a tree, then he took her inside and got her warmed up.
All the while, however, he thought of the last woman he’d seen sobbing over something so nonsensical: a senior scholar in his mother’s long-ago court. A woman of great intellect and poise who was not known for being emotional.
As a youth of only a hundred or so, Raphael had walked around a corner one morning…and discovered her crying hysterically over the beauty of a shattered vase. The vase hadn’t been an irreplaceable piece of art. It hadn’t, in fact, been in any way different from literally hundreds of other vases of fired clay used to hold candles for passage through the stronghold.
Not understanding, he’d grabbed and attempted to give her another such vase.
Her look of betrayal had been a spear through his gut.
So he’d alerted his mother using the mental bond they’d shared since he was a child, then lingered awkwardly until her arrival. Caliane, meanwhile, had taken one look at her distraught scholar and smiled. “Ah, my son. We will be celebrating some good news soon, I think.”
He wondered if he should bring up the possibility with Elena, unlikely though it was.
At present, his consort—wrapped up in a soft robe—sat at the sunlit table in their library happily eating breakfast. She even did a little seat dance after finishing off a triangle of buttered toast.
Not a tear in sight. It was probably safe to bring up the topic.
He’d already closed the doors to the library to alert Montgomery that they were not to be disturbed, and now took a seat next to the woman who had forever altered the trajectory of his existence.