The drive back from the hospital was quieter than the drive there.
Not uncomfortably so....just the natural quiet of people processing significant things. Margaret’s improvent had been remarkable enough that even the hospital nurses had done double-takes at her vitals during their afternoon check. The attending physician had been called in, had reviewed her charts with barely concealed bewildernt, and had used words like unexpected stabilization and remarkable response with the careful caution of soone whose dical training had not prepared them for miracles.
Raphael had sat through the doctor’s assessnt with perfect composure, contributing nothing to the conversation except a politely interested expression that revealed absolutely nothing.
Eve had sat beside Margaret’s bed and held her hand and tried not to let the relief overwhelm her completely. She mostly succeeded.
Maya had cried openly and without apology, which Margaret had accepted with the particular grace of soone who understood that so emotions required direct expression.
Now, in the SUV heading back to the estate, Maya was asleep against the window....the emotional weight of the day having apparently exhausted her thoroughly. Raphael sat in the back beside Eve, his eyes closed in sothing that wasn’t quite sleep but was clearly rest. Damian drove with his usual focused efficiency. Damon had stayed at the estate to manage pack business, and Silas sat in the front passenger seat, occasionally glancing back at Eve with checking eyes.
Eve looked out the window and let her mind wander.
Margaret was better. Not cured....Raphael had been honest about that and she’d accepted it. But better. More ti. More clarity. More chances to sit beside that hospital bed and just be her daughter without the shadow of imminent loss pressing down on every word.
It was more than she’d dared hope for a week ago.
She felt Raphael shift slightly beside her and glanced at him. His eyes were still closed, but the slight tension around his mouth suggested he wasn’t as rested as he appeared.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, keeping her voice low enough not to disturb Maya.
"Tired," Raphael admitted without opening his eyes. "The healing took more than I allocated for. I underestimated how much her body needed."
"Will you recover?"
"Yes." A pause. "I’ll need to feed properly tonight. But yes."
Eve nodded and turned back to the window, choosing not to examine too closely the complicated feelings that ca with knowing her uncle’s recovery plan involved Elena’s willing participation.
She was going to have to stop thinking about that.
Back at the estate, Maya was guided to her room by Lora to rest before dinner, still half-asleep and offering only token protests about not being tired. Raphael disappeared toward the east wing with the unhurried purpose of a man who knew exactly what awaited him there and was not displeased about it.
Damian pulled Eve aside in the main hallway, his hand gentle on her elbow. "How are you doing? Really?"
"Better than I expected," Eve said honestly. "Seeing her like that....actually like herself again...it helped."
"Good." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, his thumb tracing along her jaw. "Damon has pack business until this evening. Co find when you’re ready and I’ll feed you properly before your uncle destroys you in training tomorrow."
The promise in his voice made heat pool low in her stomach. "That’s an interesting phrasing."
"It was intended to be," he said, with that restrained three-percent smile that was sohow more devastating than a full one, and walked away.
Eve stood in the hallway and considered her options.
She could rest. She was tired....the hospital visit had been emotionally draining even without any supernatural exertion. She could find Silas, who was probably in the library, and just exist quietly in his company for a while.
Or.
She could satisfy the curiosity that had been nagging at her since yesterday morning when Damian had dropped his casual revelation about Elena and the brothers’ arrangent.
She’d t Maya. She’d t Raphael. She’d watched the two of them interact, had processed the reality of her uncle’s feeding requirents, had filed the whole situation under complicated supernatural family dynamics and moved on.
But she hadn’t t Elena.
And she wanted to.
Not for any dramatic reason. Not to confront her or interrogate her or do anything territorial....that would be absurd, Elena was nothing to do with Eve’s own bonds. But there was a genuine curiosity there that she couldn’t quite quiet. This woman had been specifically chosen by Raphael. Had been assigned to him by her mates as a strategic maneuver. Was apparently glowing with the evidence of an incubus’s thorough attention.
More than any of that....this woman was connected to her uncle in a way that felt significant, even if Eve couldn’t fully articulate why. If Raphael was going to be a permanent part of her life, then the people in his orbit mattered.
Eve found herself heading toward the kitchen before she’d fully decided to do so.
The Blackwood estate kitchen was always occupied at so level...a household this size required constant food preparation, and the staff rotated through in shifts throughout the day. But the mid-afternoon lull was typically quieter, the lunch service finished and dinner not yet begun.
Eve pushed open the kitchen door and found three pack mbers at the large central island...two she recognized by face but not na, and one she recognized imdiately.
Elena stood at the far counter, her back partially turned, organizing what looked like the afternoon’s herb preparations with the focused attention of soone who found comfort in thodical tasks. She was a slight woman, perhaps twenty-five, with dark hair pulled into a practical braid and the kind of quiet prettiness that didn’t announce itself loudly.
She was also....Eve noticed imdiately with her succubus perception....radiating a very specific quality of energy. Satisfied. Thoroughly, bone-deep satisfied, with an underlying contentnt that went beyond simple physical wellbeing. It was the energy signature of soone who had been exceptionally well fed, in the most complete sense.
That’s my uncle’s work, Eve thought, and then imdiately tried to un-think it.
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