Her father didn’t cry. The child in her confused and shaky, she just held on until his breathing evened out, his hand stroking over her hair with a gentleness she’d never again expected to experience from her father.
“I will always be your father . . . and I wish to God I wasn’t.”
The hateful words no longer hurt, not when she heard the fear she’d been too angry to hear the first time. Her father, this man who held her with such fierce tenderness, was afraid to watch his daughter die the same horrific death as his mother. It altered the bedrock of their relationship, left her without a mooring.
Dead certain the brittle moment would end the instant she stepped back, the wall of pain and loss that divided them once more in place, she held on for just a little while longer. So did he. In silence, their words locked down where they couldn’t hurt and cut and make the other bleed.
The world, however, continued to spin, the sound of a chopper passing overhead breaking the fragment out of time in two. They drew apart without a word, her father turning to walk to his desk, pick up his spectacles, while Elena backed out of the doorway. Heading around the side of the house, she gritted her teeth and made a vertical takeoff into the cold air, bringing herself to a hover in front of Eve’s window.
Her sister, the skin around her left eye purplish black, was waiting for her, came into her arms without hesitation. Elena saw Amy’s forlorn face in the window next door as they left, her hand pressed to the glass. It’s all right, Elena wanted to say. I’ll bring her back. Gwendolyn would accept nothing else. All Elena had to do was keep Eve away from Jeffrey until Gwendolyn returned. Her father, she’d realized at last, would never be rational when it came to hunters and hunting, the brutal wounds inflicted too young, the scars too aged.
Chest aching, she concentrated only on flying slow and steady toward the Enclave, the flash of blue that appeared in her vision an unexpected brilliance. “Ellie? Which beautiful maiden do you have there?” A wink directed at her youngest sister. “Hello, Evenstar.”
Eve poked out her tongue at Illium, having met the other angel on visits to the Tower to see Elena, but shifted into his hold when he offered. “I’m heavy,” she said, before Elena could protest.
“You’re a feather.” Illium held Eve’s sturdy little body as if it weighed nothing. “But Elena isn’t yet strong enough to carry another more than a short distance. I, on the other hand, can do this.” With that, he shot up into the sky, Eve’s delighted scream rippling through the air.
Hearing it, Elena shut the door on the questions roiling in her mind, because her first priority had to be the emotional health of her sister, and continued on toward the Enclave. Illium would make sure Eve got home safe, and the excitement of the blue-winged angel’s daredevil tricks would help ameliorate the stress of Eve’s last few hours.
Landing at the house, she tracked Montgomery to the kitchens, where he was discussing the dinner menu with Sivya. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, rubbing a hand over her face. “But Eve will be staying with us tonight, possibly tomorrow, too. Could you have a room made up for her?”
“Of course, Guild Hunter.” The vampire’s eyes searched hers. “Is she well?”
Elena knew the question was meant for her, too, but she wasn’t ready to go there yet, wasn’t ready to think about how she felt. “Cookies or some cake wouldn’t go amiss,” she said instead.
“I’ll make certain Miss Evelyn has everything she needs.”
“Thank you.” Leaving the butler to organize things, she made an important call and returned outside just in time to see Illium land. The sunlight at his back made the blue of his wings glow, his hair wind-wild and his grin as open as the gold of his gaze.
It was a sight gorgeous and infrequent.
As she’d seen so clearly that night at the blood café, behind Illium’s playful personality lay a terrible sadness that cast shadows on his soul. As behind her father’s anger lay a horrific loss.
Had Marguerite known?
Yes. She’d been Jeffrey’s heartbeat, his lover in every way, the trust between them absolute. For Marguerite to then do what she had, to leave him when he had to have been grappling with the nightmare repeat of his childhood . . .
Elena rubbed a fisted hand over her heart, forcing another smile as Eve ran over, cheeks flushed and hair as wild as Illium’s. At eleven years of age, her sister had a child’s spirit, but her face could turn as solemn as an adult’s without warning. As it did now.
“Thanks for coming.” Big gray eyes holding her own. “I knew you would.”
“You need to thank Amy when you see her,” Elena said, bending to hug her close. “She called me.”
“Amy always takes care of me.” Stepping back from the hug after squeezing her tight, Eve said, “This is going to make Mom and Father fight, isn’t it?”
Elena wanted to lie, tell Eve it would be all right, but her sister was too smart and oddly wise for that. “Yes. I think this is going to cause a very big fight.”
“Could you get Amy?” Eve looked at Illium, not Elena. “It wouldn’t be hard for you to carry her. She’s—”
Elena touched Eve’s shoulder to get her attention. “I rang her. Amy wants to stay at home.”
Unhidden distress. “But Father will punish her for calling you.”
“No, I don’t think he will.” Jeffrey’s mind was on the distant blood-soaked past, not the petty infringements of today. “Here.” She handed Eve her phone. “Why don’t you talk to Amy yourself?”
Walking a small distance away, Eve made the call. When Illium went as if to speak, Elena shook her head. She couldn’t talk about what was wrong. Not now. But when he raised an arm, she allowed herself to lean against him, to accept the undemanding warmth of his friendship, his wing heavy against her own.
“Amy’s being dumb,” was Eve’s blunt appraisal when she walked back to them, her face set in pugnacious lines. “She says Father shouldn’t be alone, even after he was so mean to me. I hate him.” Arms folded, jaw set, she glared at the grass.
“I hate you!”
“Don’t say that.” Elena crouched down in front of her sister even as her skull rang with the words she’d spoken the day she walked out of the Big House, never to return. “He might have crossed a line today, but whatever Jeffrey’s done, he’s done it out of love for you.” It was a love twisted by tragedy until it threatened to become a stifling cage, but it was love nonetheless. “I think it’s too late for me and him, but not for you.”
Eve’s glare didn’t fade, but her response held an uncertainty that made her youth and innocence clear. “I thought you hated him, too. Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure what I feel for Jeffrey. I do know that you love him.”
Scuffing at the ground, Eve bit down on her lower lip. “He’s a good father except about the Guild.”
“Everyone has blind spots.”
“I guess.”
A half hour later, Elena left Eve in Montgomery’s capable hands, knowing the elegant vampire was lethal, would protect her with his life, as would the rest of the staff. She wouldn’t have made the same decision had Eve appeared the least scared or intimidated, but her youngest sister had settled in without a hitch. Having borrowed Elena’s laptop, she’d set herself up at the kitchen table and logged into her school account to do homework, was chatting to Sivya about her science problems when Elena left after receiving a hunt order from the Guild.
She could’ve asked to be replaced, but she needed some way to release the tension coiled up inside her, get her brain clear again. Checking the hunt details on her phone one more time, she took off at a run over the snow-dusted cliffs, the water glittering under the afternoon sunlight, as if a dip wouldn’t give you hypothermia within seconds. The hunt order was relatively simple: she was to retrieve a thirty-year-old vamp who thought he was too good to bow and scrape to the angel who was his master.