Nisia turned on the lights.
The bright light threw Elena’s emaciated form into sharp relief, too many shadows and hollows in her. Gut clenching and shoulders knotted, Raphael had to fight to keep his voice steady. “Ready?”
“They’ve both already seen all there is to see, so yeah, let’s do it.” The pragmatic words of a warrior, but her gaze was soft when it met his—vulnerable in a way she showed no one else in the world. “Come here first.”
Her hand was warm on his cheek, her kiss fierce. “I know I look like a bag of bones, but I’m me and we’re together.” Words that dared him to do anything but believe. In her. In them. “We’ll write our next chapter the way we want it—and we’ll keep on kicking destiny’s ass.”
He took another kiss, his hand fisted in her hair and his tongue aggressive. But when they parted, he was the one who felt owned. Branded.
Rising, his hair falling over his forehead, he said, “Not one chapter. Many.”
A quick grin. “A freaking tome,” she vowed. “Oh, and can you find me a phone? If I don’t call Sara, she’ll scalp me. Beth, Eve, my grandparents . . . Raphael, I have so many people in my family now.”
“Not one of whom will begrudge you the time it takes to have this consultation.” With that, he stepped back and dropped the glamour.
Keir and Nisia were seasoned healers who had seen much over the millennia of their existence, but both sucked in an audible breath at first sight of Elena and Raphael. Keir, his dusky face ageless, pressed his lush lips together and bent to kiss Elena gently on the forehead. The golden brown of his wings shimmered under the overhead lights.
Nisia, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t been drinking my potion, I see.”
“I dunno.” Elena shrugged. “Maybe it’s internal parasites.”
Snorting, the healer shook her head. “It is good to see that being encased in a chrysalis hasn’t done anything to dent your winning personality.”
“Well, Elena.” Keir sat down on the bed on one side, the black silk of his hair cut in layers that brushed his jaw. “You are always my most interesting patient.”
“Hey, Raphael’s glowing like a lightbulb and his eyes are gold lightning.”
“In archangels, such strange things are expected.”
A gentle knock came on the door then, and Raphael realized Dmitri had told another person of their return. Opening that door without exposing Elena, he took in the tray in Montgomery’s hands. The vampire wore a black suit over a crisp white shirt, was as cool and collected as always . . . and the tray, it trembled.
“Thank you, Montgomery.” Raphael accepted the tray piled with food and drink. “My apologies for blowing up the house you kept so beautifully.” Neither Elena nor Raphael were of the kind to infuse a house with small domestic touches that turned it into a home—that was Montgomery’s domain.
A shaky smile. “I have three warehouses full of treasures. Now I will have room to display them.”
Setting the tray aside on a table inside the door, Raphael stepped out and then—for the first time in an eon—wrapped his arms around Montgomery. The vampire who was his butler had been a contained man from the first, not one to give in to displays of emotion. But today, he wrapped his arms around Raphael in return and held on with strength that would’ve surprised those who saw only his elegant surface.
Neither one of them said anything, and when they drew apart, Montgomery’s features were set in their usual composed lines and his hands no longer trembled. “I didn’t know if food was needed, but you always eat after anshara and that is the closest thing to this I could imagine.”
“It is needed. Tell Sivya to prepare Elena’s favorites.”
“She has already begun.”
Stepping back into the bedroom, Raphael nodded at his butler before shutting the door. When he turned, it was to see that Elena had a healer on either side of her, the two frowning as they checked her over using both their healing abilities and medical instruments pulled out of large open cases on the floor.
“Oh man that smells good!”
Placing the tray on his consort’s lap, Raphael went to step outside to speak to Dmitri and Venom before he flew to Illium, but Elena glared at him. “You need to eat, too.”
To his shock, he realized he did. As long as an archangel ate now and then, he didn’t really feel hunger except in exigent circumstances; today, it gnawed at him. He sat down on the bed, and suddenly the huge span was full of wings. Keir and Nisia were being scrupulous about holding theirs close to their bodies, but there was only so much they could do.
“There is no need to waste your energy on proper etiquette,” he told them. “Neither Elena or I will consider it a trespass should you brush our bodies.”
Nisia gave a small nod of acknowledgment, while Keir allowed his wings to ease a fraction.
Leaving them to their work, Elena and Raphael ate with a determined focus that had the tray cleared within ten minutes. Raphael looked to Elena. “More?”
She patted the sheet over her dangerously concave stomach. “Don’t know where it’s going, but yeah.”
He wasn’t the least surprised to open the bedroom door and find a fresh tray waiting. After the two of them had demolished the food on that, Raphael ran his eyes over his consort. “You’re not glowing as much.”
She examined the skin on the back of her hand. “I think you’re right.” Then it was his turn to be scrutinized. “Your eyes are beginning to show hints of blue.” She held out her arm when Nisia requested it. “Go, find out if Lijuan got dead while we were dozing.”
“You are an eternal optimist.” He rose off the bed, but didn’t leave. Hbeebti.
It’s all right, Raphael. Eyes that had settled into a luminous silver at the edges bleeding into gray, with the faintest hint of blue nearest the pupil, held his. Now that the first shock is past, I can handle the examination of my back, the tattoo.
No. Raphael would not budge on this. It happens now, while I am here.
His hunter gave him a lopsided smile. Yeah, fine, I’m freaked. “I need you to examine my back now,” she said to the healers. “I have a very strange tattoo.”
Neither Keir nor Nisia argued.
“Shift forward,” Keir said. “Just enough so we can see the entire mark.”
Having walked around to the back of the bed, Raphael stood watch as Elena did as instructed. Her tattoo was even more detailed than he’d realized. Each filament was defined with care, down to the small feather on her left wingtip that always liked to grow its filaments in the opposite direction to all other feathers.