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)
“He’ll be a good father.”
“Yeah.” Of that, Elena had no doubts; her ovaries melted at the idea of seeing him holding their child. “So, another round?”
“You want to do the flexibility training instead?” Honor held up her hands when Elena scowled. “No, not because you’re pregnant—though seriously, Ellie, why do you still have abs as a pregnant woman?”
She poked with zero force at Elena’s abdomen with the privilege of a friend who was welcome to make such contact. “Honestly, where is all that food going? Also, don’t show those abs to other pregnant women unless you want to get murdered. Pregnancy hormones don’t have time for that shit.”
Elena would’ve snorted the sports drink out of her nose if she hadn’t already finished the bottle. “Hey! They’re not abs!” She lifted up her tank top again. “See? It’s more kind of a faint outline of where muscle used to be.
“Nisia says the spark is fine, and that she’s seen other warriors carry this way before.” She rubbed her belly again, a goofy smile on her face. “Wow, I’m growing a kid in there. Wild.”
Honor was laughing when Elena looked back up. “Those are definitely abs, and yes, it’s wild.” A faraway expression in her eyes, an eerie weight to the air that made the hairs rise on Elena’s arms…but not in fear.
“I had children once,” Honor murmured. “In another life.”
Elena was startled only by the plain statement of a truth she’d already figured out a few centuries back—at least on the other life part. Even as a mortal, Honor had had a sense of age to her, a sense of maturity that didn’t align with her actual years.
As if she’d lived a whole other life and come out of it wiser and better. “Boys? Girls?”
“One of each.” Honor’s expression shifted, returned to the sharpness of today. “Why aren’t you calling me a weirdo for believing in past lives?”
“I pretty much died and woke up an angel,” Elena pointed out. “Then I got wrapped up in a cocoon like I was captured by a giant spider and came out of that like a newborn baby with fresh new skin and no wings at all. Trust me when I say I have great respect for all the things I don’t know about the energies that power our world.”
Honor’s lips curved, the sorrow in the deep green of her eyes softened by humor. “Yeah, I guess after all that, a soul returning to this world doesn’t seem like a big deal.”
Elena could’ve let it go at that, let the moment die in humor, but she said, “I like to think people get second chances.” Her chest was tight as she admitted that. “I like to think my sisters, Ari and Belle, got a second chance after they died so young.”
That Belle got to dance again, be all limbs and grace on a stage.
And Ari, with her camera and her wit, that she’d had the chance to travel the world, capture image after astonishing image.
“Me too, Ellie.” Honor’s voice was husky. “I’ve always thought my babies must’ve been given a second chance—I was, after all, and they were far more innocent.”
“Will you tell me about them?” Elena asked. “One day, when you want to.”
Honor nodded slowly. “Maybe one night while your little one sleeps safe and sound, and we’re having a beer on the balcony as we watch the city come alive in all its color and energy—because they were that to us, two bright stars that lit up our lives.”
Us.
The word made Elena wonder.
The training room door swung inward right then, a tall, broad-shouldered warrior in the opening. “Don’t kill me,” Izzy said in a tone that had deepened over the centuries. “I’ve been sent down by the sire to make sure you’re not overexerting yourself.”
He ducked the knife Elena threw at his head. It slammed quivering into the doorjamb above—where she’d actually aimed.
“Just the messenger!” he yelled before backing away, his golden curls shining in the overhead light—as if he weren’t one of the deadliest warriors in the Tower these days.
“I want danger pay!” he yelled before making a hasty retreat.
Elena glared at the doorway. “Excuse me, Honor. I need to go deal with a situation.”
“Strangling your consort might seem like a good idea,” Honor said through her very badly hidden laughter, “but remember, you love him.” She grabbed her communications device as Elena strode out of the room. “I’m going to call Dmitri and share the gossip that Raphael is about to be the victim of a homicide.”
Where are you? Elena demanded of her archangel.
Hiding from your wrath. The sea crashed into her mind. Why do you think I sent one of your favorites?
Elena would not laugh. But her lips twitched. I’m stopping by the armory to get more knives.
I restocked it with a set from the maker in Queens.