“The reborn?” Elena whispered. “You’re the antidote to their poison.”
“The death took a different form then, but it was no less virulent or vicious. By the time we gained victory, angelkind was nearly destroyed, and our home hollow and dead. The Legion, too, was near death, for we are of the earth, of life. Our people, infected with the deadly toxin created by the power of an archangel of madness, made the decision to Sleep eons in the hope the poison would fade.
“When they woke, it was to find a new people had been born from the ashes of the old, and the toxin had bonded permanently to the blood of the survivors.” His eyes lingered on Elena. “Madness and death reigned, until the desperation of a single individual made angelkind understand the fragile new people were their salvation, a gift from their healed world.”
Raphael. Unhidden shock in his consort’s expression. I think he’s talking about the birth of humanity.
And of vampires. It was a knowledge so huge, he knew he had no hope of comprehending it in a single instant. “When,” he asked, the chill he’d felt ice in his bones, “is the time?”
“Cascades come and go, are not our business, for they are part of the cycle of the world. We listen and watch in our Sleep, but wake only when that cycle reaches a crescendo, the gifts spawned in the archangels that of life and death itself, ferocious enough to rip apart the fabric of the planet.” His unblinking eyes met Raphael’s. “We have not woken since the Cascade of Terror.”
“Oh, hell.”
“Sire,” the Primary said on the heels of Elena’s soft imprecation, “if you would give me leave—I would rejoin the Legion.”
“Fly free.”
As they watched him sweep off on those wings of silence, Raphael considered the putrid darkness that had almost taken the world only days past. Lijuan’s reborn had been eliminated in all affected territories, but they’d infected tens of thousands in the interim. Titus, meanwhile, continued to fight a constant trickle of disease bearers sent across by Charisemnon.
In comparison, Raphael’s own strength continued to intensify day by day, until he knew that one day soon, he’d be able to wield the power carried by the Legion. “We’ve won this war, hbeebti, but it is only the first. I’m afraid this means Lijuan has not been erased from existence, for she is the epitome of death.”
“Or,” Elena said, “one of the other archangels holds the potential to go whackjob on us. But yeah, my money is on the Queen of the Dead.”
“Lijuan won’t repeat her mistakes.” Raphael—the world—would have to be ready to handle a bloated monster ready to gorge herself on the life force of those she was meant to protect.
“We’ll stop her,” Elena said, then shot him an unexpected smile. “We’re aeclari, after all.”
“It’ll be most intriguing to ascertain the exact meaning of that term.” Though Raphael was in no doubt it had to do with the heartbond that tied him to his hunter.
“You mean you don’t know?” Wide eyes. “The Primary was crystal clear.”
“Yes, how very unintelligent of your consort not to comprehend him.”
Convulsing with laughter at the way Raphael had said that without cracking a smile, Elena shook her head but couldn’t get the words out. It made him smile, then throw back his head and laugh, the sight causing passing Legion fighters to pause, watch in what appeared to be shock, while the Tower troops grinned and continued on their way.
God, but he was beautiful. And he was hers.
Moving into his arms because she needed to be with him, unable to forget how close they’d come to never again touching, never again laughing with one another, she smiled and tucked her wings close as he enclosed her in his.
Cupping the side of her face with one strong hand, he held her gaze with eyes of wild, impossible blue. “I may not understand all of the Primary’s words, but I know this with everything in me—the Legion would not have woken for who I was before you.”
His thumb caressing her cheekbone, his face close to her own. “You have never, and will never, weaken me. You make me a better man and a better leader than I would’ve ever been without you.” He shook his head. “You said once that you couldn’t do this without me. Well, I can’t do this without you, Guild Hunter.”
Her eyes burned from the potent power of his words, so raw and honest and necessary. She hadn’t known it until he spoke, but she’d needed to hear that, hear that he didn’t blame her for the changes within him. “Did you know,” she confessed, as the snow began to fall again, soft flakes that caught on his eyelashes, “I wake up terrified some nights and just watch you sleep?”