“Ice in Alexander’s sun-filled lands?” The Legion mark burned almost too bright on Raphael’s temple.
“Not only ice. An ice storm in Qatar.”
Elena sucked in a breath. “Those poor people won’t have the clothes, the heating . . .” She knew parts of Alexander’s territory could get frigid, but Qatar was warm even in the winter months. “Are Naasir and Andi safe?”
“Yes. I’ve told Naasir to assist if asked but to return to the Refuge otherwise.” Dmitri’s features were grim. “There is little we can do quickly.”
“I will speak to Alexander.” Eyes of deep Prussian blue held Elena’s. Go to your sister, hbeebti, I will tell you the outcome.
Filled with a raw need for him at this moment when life drew them in different directions, she blew him a mental kiss, but his eyes didn’t lighten, his features set in lines so perfect they were brutal.
Drink, Elena. A hard order. You must not get any weaker.
Elena stopped in the corridor to rub her fingers over the spot under her heart, her wings slumping for a moment. I’m a fighter, Raphael. A reminder to herself as much as him. Even if the weapon involved is some weird healer mixture that tastes like chocolate blueberries and ripe apples.
Raphael’s response was a sea storm inside her mind, the lightning flashes within it incandescent. Letting the searing power of him sweep through her, she finished the drink she had in the bottle then detoured to refill it. That done, she ate three energy bars . . . while considering the new cut on her left arm.
She’d absently shoved up her sleeve while mixing up more of the drink and there it was. Higher up than the first, the cut was a fine line she could’ve gotten anywhere.
The problem was that it was paper-cut thin but an angry red. She checked both arms then pushed down her sleeves. She’d examine it again in a couple of hours. Right now, her priority was Beth. Elena had sat with her after Nisia finished the tests on Elena’s wings, only leaving her to attend the meeting. Holly had arrived at the same time to return a book she’d borrowed from Laric and somehow ended up chatting to Beth.
Elena’s sister had immediately warmed up to her. Maybe because Holly looked so very young and human, with her playful hair and bright clothes. Beth could have no idea of the murderous alien power that had once run through Holly’s veins.
Holly would never be an ordinary vampire. Her reaction times were dangerously fast, as fast as Venom’s—and he was hundreds of years older. She also had the ability to turn liquid in a way that was difficult to describe, but that meant she could avoid broken bones even if thrown against a wall at great force.
Elena could’ve never predicted that the two women would hit it off so well. Holly was as tough as Beth was soft . . . but Holly did love fashion as much as Beth, and Holly, too, had once been a far softer creature.
However, when Elena walked into the infirmary, it was to find Beth alone. She sat beside Harrison’s bed with a steaming mug in her hands and a fashion magazine on her lap. A small plate of cakes lay on the side table, the plate itself decorated with gold foil and hand-painted feathers.
“I see we’re looking after you.” Elena leaned down to press a kiss to her sister’s hair, her chest squeezing; some part of her would always see in Beth the lost little girl who’d clung to Elena’s hand beside far too many fresh graves.
“The magazine’s Holly’s,” Beth confided. “And she just raided a kitchen somewhere and brought me the tea and cake. She had to leave to do her shift at the sinkhole, but I knew you were in the Tower.”
“You two spent a lot of time talking.”
“I like her. We’re going to go shopping at that new mall after Harrison is better.” Smile fading, Beth put down the tea. Her fingers trembled as she brushed her husband’s hair off his forehead.
Harrison’s face remained too pale, his throat swathed in bandages. Elena knew Laric had stitched up the wound to hold it together. It wasn’t the standard procedure with vampires, but with Harrison being so young and his throat so badly cut, Nisia had made the unusual call and supervised Laric in its implementation. There was zero risk of Harrison healing around the stitches.
He was recovering too slowly for that.
“The senior healer was here a few minutes ago.” Beth tugged the finely woven blanket higher up Harrison’s body. “She said it’s going to take time, but that Harrison will wake up. I just have to be patient.” She leaned her head against Elena’s thigh. “I can be patient, Ellie. I waited all that time while Harrison was being Made. I trusted that he’d come back to me.”
Elena ran her fingers through the rough silk of her sister’s hair. “I know you can be patient, Beth. I see how you are with Maggie.” Beth never yelled at her daughter, always spoke with a sweet gentleness. It was at those moments that Elena most saw pieces of their mother in Beth. Marguerite had never yelled at her children, either, and yet even rebellious Belle had listened when she’d spoken.
Maggie minded Beth the same way, a piercing echo of memory and family.
Beth looked up with a smile before putting her head back against Elena. “I’ll have to work out certain times when I can come see Harrison. I can’t sit with him twenty-four hours a day, no matter how much it hurts to leave him here. I have to look after Maggie’s heart.”
“Harrison would agree with you. You’re the two most important people in his life.” That, too, was true; regret was an emotion with which Harrison Ling had plenty of familiarity.
As if she’d read Elena’s thoughts, Beth said, “I know you think he was selfish in being Made, Ellie. So did I for a while, but then . . . it gives me such comfort to know that he’ll be around to look after Maggie after I’m gone.” A quiet pause filled only with the subtle sounds of the machines that monitored Harrison. “I never considered that he might go first one day.”
Elena squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, her jaw clenched.
She’d had nearly the same conversation with Sara. And she’d thought more than once that she’d have to watch her baby sister grow older and older while she stayed ageless. But her body was running backward, and she had wounds she couldn’t explain that wouldn’t heal. Beth might outlive both her and Harrison.
If that happened, Elena knew her sister would deal. She might be heartbroken beyond repair, but she’d deal. Because no matter her pain, she would not abandon her child as Marguerite had abandoned them.
“We have to live in today,” she said, speaking to herself as much as to Beth. “Worrying about the future just steals the now from us.”
“So does living in the past, doesn’t it, Ellie?”
Swallowing hard, Elena put her hand on Beth’s shoulder. “Yes. I’m glad you never did that.”
“Father’s still back there, with Mama and Ari and Belle.” Such terrible sadness in Beth’s voice, so much compassion for a man who’d died when Marguerite chose to leave him behind rather than trust him to help her navigate the darkness. That old Jeffrey was buried with his wife in a cold grave she’d never wanted to inhabit.
Elena would always be angry with her father for that, for burying Marguerite in the unforgiving earth when her mother had wanted to be cremated and scattered to the winds, so she could be part of the wind itself.
That had been her mother, brilliant and light and always in motion.
Yet even in her anger, she remembered the empty bottle of whiskey and a man who’d cried heartbroken sobs in the dark of the night. “I don’t think we can pull him back to the present,” she said, her voice rough. “He has to make that choice himself.”