Page 90 of Archangel’s Lineage

Jolting at the sound of Marduk’s voice, she scrambled back—and looked up. There he sat like a gargoyle above the balcony. “Eavesdropping is rude!” she yelled, while her heart fought to slow down.

Marduk dropped down to the balcony. “Yes,” he said. “That I find you the most interesting being of all in this world is no excuse. My apologies.” He bent low at the waist.

Elena didn’t care about the apology—what she was more worried about was that he found her interesting. She didn’t want to be found interesting by Marduk. “Even archangels shouldn’t have that kind of power,” she said, wanting the conversation off her. “The kind that flows through endless time.”

“The old ones agreed with you,” was Marduk’s startling response. “There’s a point at which power becomes only destruction.”

“Good thing the Ancestors are safely Sleeping, then. Else they’d probably see us as food.”

No laughter from Marduk, just that gleaming gaze landing on Illium. “Your energies are unstable. Fine veins of serrated gold.”

Elena’s mind filled with the image of Illium’s body riven with veins of gold, his back arched as light poured out of his mouth, his scream silent and of agony. Before she could ask Marduk more about what he saw—and most importantly, whether he could stabilize Illium more than Raphael had already done—the archangel took off in the eerie silence effected by his wings.

He’d aimed himself at the Legion building.

“He never sleeps in the suite we assigned him,” she told Illium as both of them glared after Marduk. “I’m pretty sure he sleeps in the Legion building.”

“Well, there’s definitely no getting past the resemblance.” Illium’s wing overlapped hers. “Though, you know, sometimes he reminds me of Naasir.”

“Yes, but there’s something else there. A cold consciousness buried beneath the beauty of his skin.” Because Marduk’s skin was beautiful, the iridescent scales soft to the touch and carrying colors from darkest green to rich blues to onyx.

She narrowed her eyes as Marduk flew past the Legion building. “Will you tell Raphael I’m going to see my father for an hour? I’ll rejoin him in the search afterward.” Her archangel had gone inside to take a call from one of the Cadre just before Marduk made his appearance.

Illium brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Fathers complicate lives, don’t they, Ellie?”

Elena hugged him with one arm, his body hard with muscle under his white T-shirt, the warm scent of him familiar. “Yes, they do.”

“Helps that mine is one hundred percent asshole.” He rubbed his chin over her hair. “No mixed feelings for him on my end. With you...”

“Yeah.” She didn’t say she wished he’d have a chance to build bridges with Aegaeon as she had with Jeffrey. Aegaeon had abandoned his son while Illium was just a little boy; Elena, by contrast, had had a father who cared for her for much of her childhood—and even when Jeffrey turned cold and hard, he’d stayed.

Stayed to fight with her. Stayed to be an asshole. Stayed to raise Beth.

He might have let her down in many ways, but he’d never abandoned his family. It was a fragile foundation on which to rebuild their relationship, but it might just be enough.

“Good luck, Ellie.” Eyes of aged gold awash in hope for her as she swept off the balcony—into the cold afternoon air barely lit by the sun. When she glanced back, he raised a hand to her in a wave, the funny and smart blue-winged angel who’d become one of her closest friends and who deserved a life lived free of the shadow of murderous power.

Fine veins of serrated gold.

Her hand fisted, her stomach in free fall.

51

Elena tightened her abdomen in readiness for her arrival at the hospital. She hated the antiseptic smell of the place even more now than she had before Jeffrey’s stay, but she’d learned to grin and bear it. She also knew her father waited for her to visit.

Conflicting with her desire to continue rebuilding their bond was the relentless urgency of the search for Raphael’s part of the Compass, the countdown having narrowed to a matter of days now. But she knew an hour wouldn’t make much difference. Not when she and her archangel had already exhausted every possible option and would be retracing their steps.

The rain crashed into her mind moments later, kissed by the salt of the ocean.

Aegaeon has recovered his subcomponent. It was in the palace he currently occupies, set into a display of decorative blades. That leaves Suyin and I alone who have yet to find anything—Suyin has the challenge of a vast territory, while I have the challenge of a territory so new there are no old places to search.

She could hear the frustration and exhaustion in his voice. While no new disasters had hit the wider world, the Refuge had suffered so many quakes over the past twenty-four hours that the senior team there—created of angels and vampires from across the Cadre’s people—had made the call to evacuate everyone but those who needed to remain.

Included in the latter were people like Keir and Jessamy.

The healer needed to be close to his charges, because a few of the patients in the Medica couldn’t be moved without catastrophic risk, and Jessamy because she was doing everything she could to preserve angelic history.

So far at least, the Medica had remained undamaged.

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