Page 38 of Archangel’s Lineage

She’d told him all of it, and now she walked into the ICU once more.

Though the antiseptic smell no longer made her nauseous, her stomach still clenched reflexively when she turned the corner toward Jeffrey’s room... and came face-to-face with Amy.

Amethyst Gwendolyn Deveraux was her mother’s daughter. Eyes of darkest blue, hair of raven black with a natural wave to it, and skin of such a rich cream as to be luxuriant. Not a freckle in sight.

Her eyes flared at seeing Elena, but she didn’t nod with stiff politeness and walk away as she’d always before done. “He still hasn’t woken again.” Shoulders tense, she glanced up at Elena, the height difference between them significant; Amy and Eve were as petite as Gwendolyn, while Elena carried Jeffrey in her long legs and bones.

“Did you two fight when he woke while you were here?” Amy demanded.

Elena didn’t blame her half sister for the suspicion. “No. The opposite.” Leaning one shoulder against the wall, her arms loosely folded, she gave Amy a tired smile. “We weren’t always like we became, Amy. The night he woke, he was the father who lifted me onto his shoulders and who gave me piggyback rides, the man who read me bedtime stories.”

A red flush on her half sister’s cheekbones, but her words weren’t angry. “He never did any of those things for us,” she said quietly.

Elena hadn’t meant to cause the other woman any hurt, felt sick that she had. But from what little she knew of Amy, her half sister wouldn’t accept apologies or platitudes. “If I had a piece of him that you never saw,” she said, “then you’ve experienced a part of him I never did.”

Jeffrey had been a different father to Amy and Eve, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “He’s been a firm presence through your entire life. I only really had him for ten years of my life.”

Amy’s shoulders dropped. Lifting a trembling hand to her lips, she whispered, “I can’t lose him.” Huge, wet eyes. “He’s the person I go to whenever I have a problem with no easy resolution, the person who knows the right things to say, the person who never lets me down.”

Elena didn’t begrudge Amy that connection with their shared father. “It’d destroy me if he goes before we’ve fixed this fight we’ve been having for decades.”

Their eyes met, Amy’s shimmering wet.

Elena hesitated before straightening and reaching out to take Amy’s hand. The other woman flinched, but instead of pulling back, she closed her fingers over Elena’s. They stood there in silent sympathy for a single long minute that forever changed the relationship between them before Amy took a deep breath and said, “Mom’s with him. Eve did the morning shift.”

Elena already knew that, having caught up with her youngest half sister earlier that day. She didn’t know when she’d stop seeing Eve as the round-cheeked eleven-year-old who—in the most down-to-earth manner—had told her that “I just want to be a bit less fat, but I really like cake,” but the truth was that Eve was now the age at which Elena had first met Raphael.

Eve still liked to wear her black hair in twin braids that reached her shoulders, but no one would ever mistake her for anything but a petite powerhouse of a hunter. Her dark gray eyes remained as beautiful, but age had added a maturity and knowledge to them that made Elena both proud of her and nostalgic for the little girl she’d once been.

“How are your babies doing with you here and their grandad sick?” Elena asked Amy after they broke their handclasp. “The twins must be, what, three years old now?”

Amy studied her. “Do you judge me for that? That I’m a homemaker?”

“My mom was a homemaker,” Elena said through the roughness of her throat. “She was the center of our world.”

Amy blinked rapidly, and then, to Elena’s surprise, reached out to squeeze her hand again. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine either one of my girls dealing with what happened to you and Beth. It gives me nightmares if I ever think about it.”

She exhaled, broke contact. “And they’re doing well. Maynard’s such a good dad to them, and his family is lovely. My sister-in-law’s stepped in to manage anything he can’t—you know he’s Father’s COO? He can’t take time off, given the current situation—Father would strip his hide for that.”

“That I can believe.” Jeffrey expected total dedication.

A faint smile from Amy before she glanced at her watch. “I better head off. If I hurry, I can get home in time to join the kiddos for dinner.”

“See you tomorrow,” Elena said, and they moved past each other.

It had been the longest conversation they’d ever had.

Gwendolyn was still with Jeffrey when Elena reached the room, so Elena stayed outside, her back against the wall next to the room’s open door. The nurses had proved to be good about overlooking two visitors in the room so long as no one got in their way, but Elena’s wings would get in the way. So she was in the hallway when her phone buzzed.

Glancing at the screen, she saw the symbol that indicated a news alert.

She frowned; she hadn’t signed up for a news alert service.

About to delete it and block the number, she saw a message pop up from Vivek: Ellie, shit’s going down. Dmitri’s trying to touch base with Raphael, but he’s in flight somewhere over Qin’s territory that doesn’t have reception.

A cold shiver rippling along her spine, Elena clicked open the link he’d forwarded her. A major quake had just devastated the southern part of Elijah’s territory, one big enough to topple smaller buildings and collapse bridges. Casualties were a given. “Damn it.”

Vivek forwarded her another alert before she’d completely processed the first. This one was about a small quake “cluster” in New Zealand. It hadn’t caused as much damage as the one in Elijah’s territory, but the time proximity of the two had seismologists making ominous references to the “Pacific Ring of Fire.”

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