Archangel's Heart

Elena wasn’t familiar with how Xander’s father had treated the people in his region, but she knew Titus was beloved. Not just by the women he took to his bed, but by all his people—mortal and immortal alike. Elena could well understand why. The big warrior archangel was one of her favorite people in the Cadre. He believed in honor on the deepest level. “Titus never harms the weak, doesn’t consider it honorable.”

“Yes—and this lesson, Xander has learned from all three of the defining men in his life. I, too, seek to show him the same.” Valerius’s tone held a deep pride, but the anger remained. “As such, he has never been faced with fear in a child’s eyes or had a woman lose all color when he smiles at her. Like most pups, he is more used to smiles and flirtation in return.” A harsh exhale. “This town . . .”

“Yes,” Elena said though he hadn’t finished his sentence.

Together, the two of them stood watch over Xander. Valerius missed nothing. Neither did Elena. So she noticed that, around them, the hatred was morphing into confusion as the boys chatted with Xander, while she and Valerius stood nearby but didn’t interfere.

When Xander pulled out the short sword he wore at his waist, horror crept back into those faces with the suddenness of a bloody strike . . . only to fade into open bewilderment when he gave the sword to the awed teens to handle, even going so far as to show them the correct way to hold it.

Then a little girl maybe three years of age, dressed in an orange-red dress trimmed with thin gold rope, her black hair in two neat braids and her feet in pretty golden slippers, escaped her mother to run straight for Elena and grab at the edge of her wing.

Elena caught the look of primal terror on the mother’s face as she bent down to pick up the little girl. “What are you doing, azeeztee?” she said in a chiding tone that she totally spoiled with her smile. “Your mama is worried.”

Having gone to that pale-faced woman to ease her concern, Elena blinked in shock when the woman, who was maybe in her late twenties, dropped to her knees and, head bowed, began to speak very fast. Elena couldn’t understand her, reacted on instinct, dropping to one knee herself, her wings spread on the earth behind her. “Here,” she said, holding out the child. “She’s safe.”

The woman snatched at her daughter, kissing her face over and over again as tears streaked down her own cheeks. The child whimpered, scared by her mother’s fear. Again, Elena didn’t think—she reacted. Reaching for a feather she could feel was about to come loose anyway, she tugged it off and held it out.

It happened to be one of the shimmering pale feathers near the edge of her wings, the color most often described as dawn. “Here, azeeztee.”

The mother froze again, but the child gave a wobbly smile and closed tiny fingers gently around the feather. “Shokran.” It was a shy whisper.

Elena smiled. “You are welcome.” Rising to her feet, she held out a hand to the mother.

The woman remained distraught, but she took Elena’s hand with a shaky one of her own and allowed Elena to help her up. Then, swallowing, she met Elena’s gaze and said something in her native tongue.

Gesturing for her to wait, Elena looked over her shoulder to see Xander and the teens frozen in place, their attention on the small drama. “Riad!” she called out. “I need a translator.”

The teenager ran over at once, a redness in his cheeks that spoke of a fearful rush of blood only moments earlier. “What do you want to ask her for?”

Ask her for.

Again, a very telling construction.

“Nothing,” Elena said. “She spoke something to me. I didn’t understand it.”

Riad spoke. The woman replied.

“First, she says thank you for not hurting her baby.” A pause. “Then she says why you use this word, azeeztee?”

Respect bloomed inside Elena for the woman in front of her; she’d been terrified, was still scared, but she was asking a question. “My mother used it with me and my sisters,” she said, her voice growing thick as memory hit out of nowhere of her mother’s soft hands and sparkly eyes, the way Marguerite spoke in an accent all her own.

Looking away, she breathed deep while Riad translated.

When she glanced back at the woman, her dark eyes were soft with understanding, the words she spoke as soft. Riad sucked in a breath, but he translated. “She says when you first became Raphael’s and she saw pictures, her grandmother told her that you—” A deep frown, a sudden snap of his fingers. “That you put her in memory of a woman who lived here once. You understand? This is right word?”

Throat dry, she nodded. “What was her name?” she asked not Riad but the woman who still held her child in her arms, the little girl stroking her finger over Elena’s feather.

Dark eyes met her own. “Majda,” she said, and Elena’s heart turned to thunder.

27

“Almost white hair and this skin but more dark.” Riad pointed to his own arm, his voice penetrating the cacophony inside her skull. “The family had light hair many times in daughters, but she says Majda was first daughter with so light hair.” Pointing at Elena this time. “But her father knew Majda was his daughter. She had mark here.” Pressing his hand to the left of his abdomen. “Like father.”

Elena could barely breathe, her mind filled with a day long, long ago when she’d watched her mother dress for a night out with her father.

“Maman, why do you have a map on your skin?”