A pause, his jaw tight, before he inclined his head. “Once was enough.”
And she knew he wasn’t talking about the painting but the real event. Sliding her wing over his, she said, “Hey, don’t go all Scary Raphael on me.”
“Scary Raphael?” His voice held an immortal power that had awakened the Legion, the mark on his temple pulsing with wildfire and his wings continuing to glow.
“Ice and danger and scariness.”
The ice began to thaw. “Your affection overwhelms me, hbeebti.”
Chest no longer so tight, she winked. “You can call me Scary Elena. I’d like it.”
Wings of white gold brushing against hers, the glow subsiding, Raphael nodded left. “There’s our turn, my terrifying consort.”
Elena grinned, but deep inside, she was cold, scared of what she’d find. “I don’t want any more murdered women in my family, Raphael.” It came out a painful rasp. “I’ve had enough.”
39
The murders of her sisters and the effective murder of her mother—Marguerite Deveraux had never truly left the room where Slater Patalis had tortured her—was why Elena was so deeply protective of Eve, Amy, Beth, and little Maggie.
It squeezed her heart each time she held her sister’s baby. Beth, sweet, sometimes feckless Beth, still carried hurt in her soul. But she’d named her baby not in sorrow, but in love. “So Mama, Ari, and Belle don’t get forgotten,” she’d whispered. “So they know we remember them. And Maggie, she’ll know all about her grandmama and older aunts.”
Marguerite Aribelle Deveraux-Ling.
Such a big name for such a tiny little girl. Elena would help her niece grow into that name, had already started teaching the two-year-old how to hold a weapon.
Those faux-weapons came courtesy of Sara and Deacon. Deacon had been building little Zoe baby-appropriate weapons for a while, and as Zoe outgrew them, they kept the painstakingly crafted pieces to pass on to friends.
Maggie was currently learning to bang things with a polystyrene hammer.
“I thought Beth would freak when I brought Maggie the first weapon, but she was so happy.” It had made her realize once again that her baby sister bore more scars beneath her sunny personality than most people would ever know. “She said she wants her baby girl to grow up to be like me. Strong. So no one can hurt her.”
“Your sister is a good mother.”
“Yes, she is.” Maggie was always full of smiles, a gorgeous little girl with a shock of silky black hair and sweet brown eyes who knew she was deeply loved. And who had been rocked to sleep in an archangel’s arms more than once.
The first time Beth had asked Elena to babysit, her sister’d almost had a heart attack when she came to the Enclave to pick Maggie up, only to find her baby snuggled up happily in Raphael’s arms. Beth was better about handling things now, but she still had trouble with the sheer amount of power that lived in Raphael.
Maggie, meanwhile, like all children, had no trouble at all.
Speaking of power . . . “Can you blast these walls open if we need to?”
“Yes, but if there is someone alive behind a wall, it could kill them.”
Elena nodded, muscles tight. “So that’s out.” Even if there was a slim chance the area wasn’t just a graveyard, she wouldn’t risk going in with violence—the Luminata could be keeping captives, or just hiding their peccadilloes. “Any groupies who came voluntarily could’ve still been trapped in Lumia by the storm, been hidden away until they could be snuck back out.”
“If the Luminata were indeed arrogant enough to bring these mortals here while the Cadre is in session,” Raphael said, “then the entire Cadre will be united in any punishment. There will be no debate.”
Elena needed no explanation as to why. It was all about respect and the chain of power. She wished immortals would simply treat mortal lives as important, but immortals had had millennia to build their prejudices; nothing was going to change that overnight, if ever. She was realistic enough to accept that and be satisfied that punishment would be meted out for any abuse.
“Did you hear that?” She froze, her head angled in the direction from which the noise had come. There it is again.
It sounded like wind whistling into the hallway from the outside—but they were deep inside Lumia. Communicating with a single glance, she and Raphael moved silently toward the sound . . . until it cut off with a clipped suddenness. As if the wind had been blocked. A door?
Possible, Raphael responded, the two of them continuing to move. The more interesting question is, who is moving about during the Luminata’s time of contemplation?