Raphael smiled.....a genuine, surprised smile that transformed his face. "I see where Eve gets her stubbornness."
"Learned it from me," Margaret confirmed. "Now stop stalling and do what you came to do."
Raphael placed both hands on Margaret's chest.....one over her heart, one slightly lower, over the primary tumor site that the doctors had been unable to surgically address. He closed his eyes, and almost immediately, Eve felt the air in the room change.
It was the same quality of power she'd felt when Raphael had stabilized her after killing that assassin, ancient, deliberate, precise. But where that had been urgent and reactive, this was different. Careful. Painstaking. Like watching a master craftsman work with materials so delicate that the slightest error would shatter them.
