“They’re my grandparents,” she whispered, trying to make sense of it all.
“Not a single doubt. And both appear to be sane.” Having already removed Jean-Baptiste’s chains, Raphael turned to Gian while Majda sobbed and kissed her husband at the same time, uncaring of the blood that smeared his lips.
Looking away to give them privacy as they embraced, Elena watched Raphael go to Gian, haul him up with a single hand fisted in his shirt. “Explain yourself.”
Gian opened his mouth but nothing came out. Too much damage from the feeding, Elena thought, then, when the Luminata clawed at his throat, she realized the blade star was still lodged in there somewhere. “He needs help to get that blade star out,” she said, her tone flat. “I have a hunting knife.”
“No, Elena, this we will do in front of the Cadre.” A glance at her grandparents. “You will follow us.”
It was the male who answered. “Yes, sir.” In the light silvery blue of his eyes was understanding of Raphael’s identity. And around him hung the same sense of raw power Elena sensed in Ashwini’s Janvier. Like Janvier, her grandfather might’ve been young in immortal terms, but he was strong—else his blood wouldn’t have held power enough to linger through his child.
When those eyes turned to Elena, they held incandescent joy. “Marguerite’s daughter?” he asked Majda in a chaos of intermingled disbelief and joy. “Our baby’s baby?”
Throat thick, Elena touched her hands to theirs. “We’ll have centuries to talk, an eternity.” She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that she was looking at her maternal grandparents, but one thing she knew: this woman of her family hadn’t been murdered. She’d survived. She lived. “But first, we need to take care of this asshole before the storm ends and the Cadre flies away.”
They had no context for her statement, but Majda and Jean-Baptiste were willing to follow her lead, their hands interlocked. Both had used the backs of their forearms to wipe the blood off their mouths.
While her grandmother wore a flowing gown of misty blue that looked strangely new, her grandfather was all but naked, the rags that clothed his body having fallen off as he healed. Elena tried not to look that way. It was clear he didn’t like being near-naked in front of his granddaughter—and wow, yeah, that was definitely a trip, that these two beautiful, ageless people were her family.
Following Raphael as he hauled Gian up the passageway by the neck, the Luminata’s feet and wings dragging on the floor, she asked him to wait when they reached the suite where the women had been kept. She entered with care lest another Luminata had somehow managed to come in, quickly cleared the area, then began to search the wardrobes, hoping some of the Luminata had forgotten clothing.
There was an edge to her grandfather’s stance that told her he was a man of quiet pride. She would not take that from him, would not let the Luminata gawk at him when they entered the main part of Lumia.
She found nothing suitable in what had been Josette’s room, but when she checked the room that wasn’t in use, it was to discover a stack of civilian male clothing. She tried not to think about the fact that some of these clothes could well have belonged to young males who’d been taken and who’d never gone home again. “I’ll get vengeance for you,” she whispered.
Stepping out, she found Raphael had sent her grandparents into the plush waiting area. Elena kept her eyes resolutely on her grandmother as she said, “I found male clothing in there.”
Majda and Jean-Baptiste slipped into the room without further discussion, their linked hands never breaking.
Dropping Gian in one corner after coming into the suite, Raphael brushed away strands of hair stuck to her cheek from perspiration she hadn’t even felt in the heat of the moment. “So, hbeebti.”
“Yeah.” Rubbing her cheek against his palm when he spread it open on her skin, she blew out a breath. “I’m the grandchild of a vampire.”
“Two vampires.”
She bit down on her lower lip, shook her head. “Majda wasn’t a vampire when she had my mother.” Riad’s great-grandparents had made it clear Jean-Baptiste couldn’t find an angel who’d fast-track her application. “I have a feeling she was Made after she left France.” As for the how of the latter, and where the bus crash fit in, she’d get the details from her grandmother later.
Raphael considered it, sliding his hand down her arm. When she caught his hand, he smiled, linked his fingers with hers. “You may be right.” A dangerously calm glance over at where Gian whimpered and gasped, his eyes bugging out of his head as he continued to dig at his throat. “Quiet.”