Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,72
talk to Caliane. I can promise nothing—she will make her own decision.”
“So,” Elena murmured after Michaela ended the call.
“She’s manipulating us.”
“Of course she is—that’s status quo for Michaela.” Elena played a knife through her fingers. “But she is also super pregnant.”
“If Keir has confirmed all is well, then we do not have to fear this will be anything but a child.”
His consort shuddered at the reminder of Michaela’s last “birth.” “No argument that she loves her kid already, but all that ‘my redemption’ stuff rubs me up the wrong way.” She made a face. “Maybe it’s because I don’t like her—and jeez, now I feel like shit.”
“No, Elena. I feel the same.” Walking to their balcony with her by his side, he leaned on the railing and looked out over the night-blooming flowers of Amanat. “She is making this about her and not the child.”
“I guess it’s understandable since she once lost a child.”
His hunter’s soft heart was there in every word. And it was hers now. His own had never been that empathic; what compassion he had, what humanity, it came from her.
“Kid’s probably going to be overprotected all to hell,” Elena said, “but I don’t think Michaela would hurt her baby.”
“To my knowledge, Michaela has never caused harm to a child.” Raphael watched a firefly flicker in the lamplit dark. “She is not the threat that concerns me.”
Sliding away her weapon, Elena leaned against the railing next to him, her body brushing his. It was instinct to spread his wing to cover her. She ran her fingers over the sensitive inner surface. “You’re worried about Uram?”
“I’m certain we destroyed his lingering phantom.” The dead archangel had somehow managed to leave behind a “ghost,” an energy echo that had sought to possess Michaela. “I’m more worried about whether she sustained any permanent damage as a result.” He shook his head. “It’s a foolish worry—archangels aren’t so easy to scar.”
“Yeah, but the rotting meat ‘baby’ . . . Nothing about any of that was normal even for the Cadre.” Worry wove through the compassion. “Do you know what happened to her first child?”
“The babe simply stopped breathing one day. Such a thing is extremely rare among angelic infants—in my entire lifetime, I have heard of only two cases, and Michaela’s infant was the second.” Memories flowed through his mind, of a tiny flower-laden bier, of Michaela’s severe, silent beauty.
“It is the only time since I have known her that I remember Michaela as a creature of icy silence. She did not speak for a year after her babe’s death.”
“Man, that’s so sad.”
“Michaela’s lover at the time, the babe’s father, was found dead two days after the infant’s burial. He’d been flayed alive, then beheaded.”
Elena’s hands clenched on the railing. “Michaela?”
“No one knows, but she didn’t demand an investigation into the incident, showed no anger, didn’t appear to feel any grief. And though he’d been her lover for half a century, she didn’t attend the ceremonies we hold for our dead.”
Elena had the feeling she’d never figure out Michaela, not if she lived to be as old as Caliane. “An act of grief because he reminded her of her lost baby? Or a scapegoat for her anger at being unable to protect her child? Could also be that she didn’t do it but was too numb from the first loss to process a second.”
“Only Michaela knows the truth and she’s never spoken of it—I tell you this so you remember that even with child, Michaela remains Michaela.”
“I guess it’s hard for me to see her intense love for her baby and separate that from who she is the rest of the time.” She shrugged her shoulders in a sharp movement.
Folding back his wing, he ran his hand down her spine. “What is the matter?”
“Just this weird sensation.” Her energy wings exploded out. “That’s better. It felt as if the lightning was building up under my skin.”
Raphael played with the lightning in wings that now held all the hues of her. Midnight and dawn. “You’re becoming stronger.” She’d flown all day today and yet she had excess energy.
A smile so brilliant that Michaela’s could never compete. “Hot damn. I might not have to ration my hours in flight anymore.” She jumped into his arms, kissed him all over his face, her joy an irresistible lure.
Their lips met in the stormlight of her wings.
* * *
• • •
After a quick meal, Raphael left his consort in an enclosed external courtyard bathed in the