“She’s your mother, Raphael. Of course you can’t destroy her without knowing if she has healed, become sane.” Turning to the vanity, she raised her hair off her neck and twisted it up into a sleek knot Sara had taught her. “Your laws exist for a reason—other angels must’ve come out of the Sleep in better condition than when they went in.”
Looking down to grab a hairpin, she wasn’t ready for the burn of an archangel’s kiss on her nape, the heavy weight of his hands on her hips. “Most of me is convinced she’l rise as viciously insane as when she went to ground. But—”
“She is your mother.” Elena, more than anyone, understood the opposing emotions that had to be tearing him apart.
“Yes.”
Teeth scraped over her skin, making her shiver. “We’l be late.”
Stroking up with his hands, he cupped her breasts. Squeezed. Another kiss on that sensitive spot along the curve of her neck before he drew back.
“You are right to remind me, Elena. I owe the Hummingbird my respect.”
Hair done, she put on some lipstick, then turned to watch Raphael as he picked up his shirt. A pure white, the fabric on either side of the wing slots embroidered with curling designs in black that echoed the pattern of his wings, it threw the harsh purity of his masculine beauty into cutting focus.
“I know the Hummingbird was the one who eventual y found you,” she said, heart twisting at the thought of him lying hurt and broken on that desolate field where his mother had left him. “But the ties between you ... there’s more to it, isn’t there?”
The evening sunlight turned his wings to amber as he answered. “She didn’t only save me, she mothered me as much as I would al ow.”
Elena walked over to finish buttoning his shirt. “You didn’t al ow her much did you?”
“No.”
The earth trembled at that instant, just enough to make her close her hand over his shoulder to steady herself.
“A minor quake,” Raphael said when it passed. “Reports indicate weather is calming across the world.”
She fel into the wild blue of his eyes when he lifted his head from his unhidden visual exploration of her skin, her body. “Is that good news or bad?”
“It means she is almost awake.”
23
Elena took one look at the Hummingbird as the angel stepped into the living room on Il ium’s arm and stopped breathing.
Michaela was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman who had ever lived, but this woman was . . . radiant. It was the only word Elena could come up with to describe her. Eyes of sparkling champagne, hair of purest black tipped with gold, skin stroked by the sun . . . and wings of a wild, unexpected indigo, each feather bearing streaks of shimmering gold so pale as to be sunlight.
When she smiled, her lashes came down for a second and Elena saw that they were black tipped with gold. “Hel o,” the angel said. “They cal me the Hummingbird, but you may cal me Sharine.”
Elena took the hands Sharine held out, unable to refuse. They were smal , delicate, in perfect proportion to the Hummingbird’s bare five feet of height.
“I’m Elena.”
“Oh, I know.” A laugh that was pure diamond sparkles glittering in the air. “My baby’s told me al about you.”
Looking up at Il ium, she expected to see a playful scowl, but the blue-winged angel watched his mother with a mute sadness that made Elena’s own laughter fade. “Your baby,” she said at last, “is very beautiful.”
“Yes, I have to have a care—the girls wil be after him once he grows up a little more.” Her gaze shifted to behind Elena. “Raphael.” Smiling with such love that it made Elena’s heart hurt, the Hummingbird walked into Raphael’s arms. “How’s my other boy? Never my baby, not you. But stil my son.”
Elena watched in fascination as Raphael dipped his head and let Sharine straighten first his hair, then his shirt. She’d never seen him bow his head before any other being, male or female, but he treated the Hummingbird with the greatest respect ... and care. Such care that it spoke of handling something broken.
When Elena glanced at Il ium again, she couldn’t stand what she saw on that face that was a dream of beauty. Closing the distance between them, she curled her hand around one muscled arm—as in the Refuge, his upper body was bare. Except tonight, his chest bore a painting of a huge bird in flight.
“That’s stunning.” It didn’t take more than a cursory study to realize the bird was a stylized version of Il ium.
“My mother,” he said, his voice more solemn than she’d ever heard it, “is the one who taught Aodhan to draw, to sculpt. To act as her canvas is considered a great honor among angelkind.”
As Elena watched, Sharine put her hand on Raphael’s chest, smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle. “We have not met for many days,” she said. “Five or six at least.”
Elena frowned. She knew Raphael hadn’t had physical contact with the Hummingbird for over a year, and yet Sharine’s words held nothing of humor, nothing that said she was gently chiding him for the time that had passed. Suddenly her earlier words, cal ing Il ium her “baby,” cast a far more somber shadow.