Page 28 of Archangel’s Lineage

Sara put both hands on her hips. “You’re eating if I have to hand-feed you. I haven’t forgotten the whole burning-energy-at-crazy-speed-while-flying thing.”

“My wing is injured,” Elena grumbled. “Also, you’re using your mom voice.”

“Good. It works.” Sara winked. “Speaking of being a mom, the demon child will be happy with the unexpected goodies for breakfast.”

Elena took a seat on one of the stools at the counter. “Pancakes, and don’t call my goddaughter a demon child. Zoe Elena is the epitome of an elegant and refined young lady.”

Sara snorted as she began to whip up the pancakes. “She’s an only child, that’s what she is. Expects restaurant service when she comes to visit.” A lift of her eyebrows. “So?”

“Bad.” Her hand clenched on the mug Sara had just filled. “ICU.” She wanted to tell Sara about her conversation with Jeffrey, couldn’t quite get it out. It was too soon, her mind and heart unable to process it. “Shit, Sara. I thought he’d live forever.”

“Bastards usually do, so I’d say he has a good shot.”

17

Elena almost spit out her single careful sip of hot coffee. Then she began to laugh, and it was a little hysterical. Sara came around to hold her through it, small but strong and capable of love intense and unswerving.

Afterward, Elena said, “Really?” She dared another sip. “That’s your idea of a bedside manner?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Her best friend and the respected director of the Hunters Guild was unrepentant. “I’ll never forgive him for how he treated you”—she returned to the stove—“but I also know he’s your father, so I hope he puts that bastard stubbornness to good use and gets better soon.”

Elena grinned, Sara’s blunt honesty far more effective than coddling. “I love you.”

“As you should.” Sara flipped out the first pancake. “Talk to me, babe.”

So Elena did. Because this was Sara, who’d been there for her after Jeffrey threw her out, who’d talked through the night with her when they were roommates and Elena was too afraid to close her eyes, who’d been there from the first day of her relationship with Raphael. Their life paths might’ve diverged, but never had they diverged from their friendship.

“He’s the last one other than me who really remembers my mom.” Her words came out a whisper.

“Oh, honey.” Sara’s face looked like it was about to crumple.

“Don’t you cry or I’ll lose it.”

Sniffing, Sara focused on using chocolate chips to make a smiley face on a pancake. “No tears. I’m tough. I’m the director of the fucking Hunters Guild. I just spent two hours helping a greenhorn hunter bag a dumbass vampire even though my knees hurt and I’m sure I have arthritis in my joints. Still got the shot right into his ass.”

Elena’s shoulders shook. “You’re in your forties, not seventy,” she said. “And his ass?”

“Dumbass deserved it.” Sara flipped the smiley pancake out, poured in the next batch. “You know where he tried to hide after running out on his Contract? In his brother’s warehouse.”

She slid a plate of pancakes in front of Elena while she made more, and put on the bacon in a separate pan. “Even his brother slapped him upside the head and called him a numbskull who deserved to get caught.”

Elena laughed and it was needed, so needed. Then, as she drank coffee and ate, she spoke to her best friend about the other jumbled thoughts in her head, about the panic and the pain and the confusion. The one thing she still didn’t mention was that conversation. She couldn’t. Not even to Sara. It was too huge, threatened to change the very fulcrum of her world.

A thumping sound above their heads.

“Hear that?” Sara’s voice was affectionate. “My gazelle of a child has smelled the bacon if she’s up of her own accord.”

Zoe, lanky and long-legged and an explosion of wild curls atop a body clad in shortie baby pink pajamas with swords on them, ran down the stairs, a devoted Slayer at her heels. “Auntie Ellie!” For a moment, as she jumped into Elena’s arms, she was a little girl again instead of an independent young woman on the precipice of her twenty-first birthday.

Squeezing her close, Elena shook her from side to side, causing her goddaughter to giggle. “What’s my Zoe bean doing up so early? Also, when did you grow cheekbones that could cut glass? Where are the chubby cheeks I kissed last week?”

Zoe grinned and struck a pose after they broke the hug. “I have a good sense of smell.” She sniffed ostentatiously in the air before filching a piece of bacon off the plate Sara had put on the counter. “And you should see my cheekbones with contouring,” she said after disappearing it into her mouth. “Fi-re.”

Elena fought not to grin.

Zoe, however, wasn’t finished. “Did Mom tell you about my decision to get a belly piercing? Guild Director Sara Haziz is not in support.”

Elena’s eyebrows rose into her hair. “You want to poke a hole in your belly button?”

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