Archangel's Heart(11)

A secret light in her face that made Elena want to smile, too, this story one of her favorites to hear her mother tell. “He never ordered anything until I came to take his order, your papa. It used to annoy the other waitstaff until they decided to find it romantic, and then of course, it was all right. A man can be foolish in Paris if he is being romantic also.”

Elena didn’t quite understand all of what her mother was telling her, but she could feel the joy radiating through her mother’s words and that was enough. “What did Papa order?”

“Always the same.” Marguerite shook her head, putting Beth back down on the blanket when she started to wriggle. “A black coffee and toast.” She threw up her hands. “I started ignoring him and bringing him whatever I felt like. Croissants fresh from the oven, eggs so exquisitely flavored, bacon smoked with apples, special cereals that we created fresh every morning. And he ate each thing.”

Marguerite laughed. “Until one day, he ordered for two—black coffee and a frothy chocolat with hazelnut. My favorite, you see.”

Her mother cupped Elena’s face in her hands, her expression oddly solemn all at once. “I remember—in the photograph, my mother is holding me and I’m a bébé wrapped up in a soft blanket.” A sudden frown between her eyebrows. “There was a mark on one edge, azeeztee. A monogram it is called in English, I think: M.E.” A sudden smile. “So perhaps my last name was an E word.”




They’d had so much fun coming up with possible last names that started with E. At the time, Elena had thought it the best day ever, but there had been other days as wonderful.

Marguerite had been a dazzling butterfly who loved pretty clothes, coffee dates with friends, and going out to dance with her husband, but she’d also been an affectionate, loving mother. For all her interests and wide circle of friends, her husband and children had been the center of her existence.

“M.E.,” she murmured to Raphael, her heart trying to hold on to the echo of those bubbles of joy. “I have initials to explore as well as just the unique nature of my grandmother’s looks.”

“You may be in luck,” her archangel said. “The Luminata, when they aren’t engaged in the quest for luminescence, seek to gather wisdom, so you may discover something in their archives. And your bloodline does have a vampire in it somewhere. Perhaps it was in the time of your grandmother.”

It still sent a shiver up Elena’s spine to know she had a vampire relative; Raphael had scented power in the blood that had soaked into the quilt Marguerite had lovingly sewn for her daughter, the kind of power that wasn’t a mortal thing. That blood had been mere drops from where her mother had pricked herself while sewing, but it had carried enough strength to hum to Raphael’s senses.

“Weird to think that one of my ancestors might still be out there, living their life.”

Raphael shook his head. “A vampire strong enough to have sired a bloodline that carried a certain level of power through time wouldn’t normally drop all contact with those he sired. But of course, there are always exceptions.”

And vampires, Elena knew too well, weren’t true immortals. They could die. “I know my vamp great-grandma or -grandpops is probably long dead, but still, it’d satisfy my curiosity to unearth the truth.”

A sudden chill shook her, her skin pebbling.

“Elena?”

Shaking her head, she joined Raphael at the door, the two of them due at the Tower for a meeting with Dmitri. “Nothing. Just someone walking over my grave.”




She and Raphael flew to the Tower without playing in the sky today. When they landed on a high balcony, the wind lifted up Raphael’s hair like a lover that couldn’t stay away. She didn’t blame it. Some nights, she just lay there and played with the midnight silk of it, her wing draped over him with unhidden possessiveness.

“Come, hbeebti,” he said, folding back his wings. “Let us speak to Dmitri, then return home. Montgomery may stop feeding us if we keep sleeping in the Tower.”

They’d only done that the past week because Dmitri had been out of state, having taken Honor to their private cabin for a break. He’d returned today, ready once more to take up his responsibilities as Raphael’s second.

Slipping her hand into Raphael’s, Elena walked with him into the Tower. Her lips tugged up at the contact, the eerie chill having faded during the flight over the red-gold waters of the Hudson, the first edge of sunset spectacular today.

Raphael caught the change in her mood, glanced over. “What amuses you?”