Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Isiel, Illium’s jeweler contact, came through the next morning. At least two of the pieces in the collection of images you sent belong to an angel named Lailah out of Northern Africa, he messaged. Last anyone saw them was on her at least. They’re of a caliber that word would’ve got out if they’d changed hands.

“Why do I know that name?” Aodhan murmured as they lay naked and warm in bed, Illium’s head pillowed on Aodhan’s shoulder as the blue-winged angel looked at the message while Smoke dozed curled up in a patch of sun lower down the bed.

Aodhan couldn’t imagine a more perfect moment.

“Lailah is Andi’s mother.”

Aodhan blew out a quiet breath. “I keep forgetting her bloodline.” He stroked the fingers of his free hand over Illium’s chest, his other arm folded behind his head. “She’s so unlike anyone I could imagine coming from Charisemnon in any form.”

“Lailah used to be part of Charisemnon’s court but I have no idea of her current whereabouts.” Frowning, Illium put his phone aside. “Titus doesn’t keep that style of court—and even if he did, I can’t see him trusting Charisemnon’s daughter.”

“No. Even without the problematic blood connection, she’s not the type of person Titus would consider for a position.”

Aodhan had enough memories of Lailah—now that he’d placed her—to know that she was a beautiful dissolute, an angel who’d been powerful and dangerous in defense of the part of the territory she’d once held on behalf of her father, but who’d otherwise lived a life of…nothingness. His memories brightened as he continued to focus, until Lailah emerged full-fledged, the images from the rare times he’d run across her.

Overtly sensual, with invitation in hauntingly lovely eyes of a near-translucent brown intermingled with gold, she’d oddly not repelled him—because Lailah looked that way at everyone. Aodhan had been no different. She’d have coupled with him if he’d shown an interest, but she’d had no particular desire to seduce or entrap him.

If anything, he’d felt sorry for her.

“I always had the feeling that Lailah didn’t care,” Aodhan said, his eyes on the ceiling of the suite and his mind on the last memory he had of Andromeda’s mother; it was from at least a century ago, when she’d visited the Refuge. “For all her dissolute ways, it seemed to me that she felt nothing. That she was just going through the motions.”

Illium lifted himself up on one arm—careful not to disturb Smoke—to look down at Aodhan. “When did you meet her?”

“The odd passing conversation in the Refuge during the time I was based there.” He spread his hand on the heat of Illium’s back. “She and Andi’s father, Cato, used to run Charisemnon’s Refuge stronghold for short periods and I dealt with them as part of my duties.”

Eyes of aged gold grew darker. “Have you ever noticed the pattern of Andi’s wings when open?”

Frowning, Aodhan thought back. “A dark brown with delicate gradations to a pale sunlight shade. I never really thought about it, but they’re not similar to Cato’s or Lailah’s. But Charisemnon had brown in his wings.”

Illium nodded. “That’s what I always thought—that she got his genes on the wing coloring. Only I saw Dahariel training with her when she first came to the Refuge. That remote training area on the western edge.”

“Ah.” Aodhan saw it now, what Illium’s quick mind had done at once; in flight, Dahariel’s and Andromeda’s wings would be all but identical. “Dahariel doesn’t do favors for baby angels.” The ruthless angel was an excellent warrior, but he had a vein of cruelty in him that meant Aodhan had always kept his distance.

“I’ve never mentioned it to anyone else,” Illium said. “None of my business.”

“I won’t, either,” Aodhan promised. “Our poor Andi didn’t have the best of luck, did she? In either the man she calls her father, or the one who may be her blood father?”

“I don’t know too much about either Cato or Lailah.”

“Cato is…faded, that’s the best word I can find to describe him, and it has nothing to do with the pale blue of his eyes, or the soft blond of his hair, even the mist gray of his wings. His presence simply doesn’t leave a mark. Lailah is different.”

Aodhan thought back to the single conversation he’d had with the other angel that had nothing to do with his duties as one of the Seven. “She looks like Andi and yet she doesn’t—that’s why I never quite link them together. Andi is…vibrant, alive, fascinated by the world.” Not only was Naasir’s mate a scholar intrigued by everything around her, she also had an inner wildness and a sense of unjaded wonder.

“I once ran across Lailah seated in a small grove near where Eh-ma used to live.” He had a vague memory of helping his mentor plant small bushes there, his hands flecked with dirt and his heart happy. “The morning fog was thick, and I was simply walking and there she was.”

A lovely creature seated on a stone bench, her curls sleek and glossy where they fell down her back after being pulled partially back by a diamond comb, and her airy gown a misty green that reached her ankles. Her wings—a rich cream with primaries of gold—had flowed with as much grace, while an emerald as deep a green as the forests of Tanzania sat between her breasts, aglow against the dark honey of her skin.

“My apologies, Lady Lailah,” he’d said. “I did not mean to disturb your contemplation.”

Lailah had looked at him with those eyes that had become even lovelier in her daughter, and said, “No, Aodhan, I am sorry for all the people that look at you like you are an object to contain and hold. They don’t understand that the best gifts are given, not taken.”

Then she’d glanced away, her gaze turning inward.

Today, he repeated to Illium the words Lailah had spoken in the haunting quiet of that morning. “It was so strange because we’d never had a conversation about anything but minor territorial matters until that day. I always thought of her as a touch vacant even if she was strong in terms of angelic power. But after that morning, I began to wonder what it was to grow up as Charisemnon’s child.”

Illium’s gaze turned distant. “Sometimes, I wonder who I would’ve been if I’d grown up as Aegaeon’s son. It gives me nightmares.” Quiet words; not a joke.

Aodhan reached up to squeeze Illium’s nape. “You didn’t,” he said. “You grew up as Sharine’s cherished son, as your adored Rafa’s little shadow, and as my best friend.”

A slow smile, but the darkness remained. “You’ve made me look at Lailah in a whole different way. I dismissed her, too—except for on the battlefield. There, she can fight. But otherwise, I’ve always thought of her as a useless courtier.”

He spread out his wings until all Aodhan saw was Illium-blue. “Do you think she’ll have done anything with her life after being freed of her father’s influence, or do you think it’s too late for some people?”

Aodhan stroked Illium’s nape. “I honestly have no answer to that. I haven’t lived long enough yet. But today, we speak to Lailah and find out the path she chose to take.”

First, however, they had to track down Lailah’s whereabouts. Which turned out to be far easier than Aodhan had expected.

“She’s still in her father’s former territory?” He raised an eyebrow at Dmitri. “I’d have expected Titus to eject her.” It wouldn’t have been malicious, just expected politics—Lailah was a reminder of the previous archangel, and while Titus didn’t want Charisemnon’s territory, the simple fact was that, with only nine archangels in the post-war world, there was no one else to take over that devastated land.

“I can see Titus’s reasoning on the point.” Dmitri took a sip from a black mug emblazoned with the emblem of the television show Hunter’s Prey. A gift from the youngest wing in the Tower, who were all, for whatever reason, addicted to the show, which bore no resemblance to reality whatsoever.

As for what was in the mug, it was either Dmitri’s breakfast or the single triple espresso his vampiric system could handle daily.

“Lailah never had any political power,” the second pointed out. “Charisemnon certainly never used her as his mouthpiece. She was seen as just another courtier for the most part. As far as I know, she’s in the same palace she occupied prior to the war.”

But when Aodhan made the call using a wall screen in the office set aside for the use of those of the Seven who didn’t need a permanent presence on this level, with Illium just out of visual range, it wasn’t the jaded and dissolute courtier who appeared on the screen.

This woman had the same bone structure, the same skin, but not only was she thin enough to have lost the curves of her face, her once-glossy curls were pulled back into a rough knot, and she wore not a drop of cosmetics. No jewels adorned her ears, dotted the side of her nose, or sat around her neck.

Neither was she wearing a gown, but what looked—oddly—like a gray T-shirt.

And was that a streak of dirt on her left cheekbone?

Her expression was…no expression. Not the jaded nothingness of their prior meetings but a whole different thing altogether. A wariness of showing herself?

“Aodhan.” A break in the wall, a smile that warmed her eyes until they were almost like Andi’s, her unembellished face suddenly startlingly young. “It has been many years.”

“Yes,” he said, not sure how to read this woman who was so unlike the one he’d once known. “Thank you for taking my call.”

“Of course. Is it to do with Andromeda?” A hard swallow, her gaze searching his. “Is she well?”noveldrama

Aodhan had the sudden thought that Lailah truly didn’t know. Which one of them had created the distance? Mother or child? “Yes,” he said. “I saw her not long ago. She told me of her work on translating a language long thought lost.” Even an immortal race couldn’t beat the inexorable march of time in such matters.

Lailah’s face lit up in a way resplendent. “She was always the cleverest of children. And her mate? That wild creature who loves her so? He is well, too?”

“He remains as wild and loves her as much—or even more.”

“Your words are the best gift anyone could give me.” Her thin face continued to glow; she was more beautiful in her guise as a proud mother, Aodhan thought, than she’d ever been as a bejeweled courtier. “Thank you.”

“Lady Lailah,” he began.

“Just Lailah,” she said firmly. “I don’t claim Charisemnon as kin any longer and am no high-ranking courtier, nor have I earned the appellation through my work or habits. I am Lailah…or I am trying to discover who Lailah is meant to be.” That last was spoken almost to herself.

“Lailah,” Aodhan said. “I wish to ask for your assistance in solving a mystery in my city.”

“Oh yes?”

Aodhan brought up images of the jewels on one half of the screen. “Do you recognize any of these?”

A frown, as she took her time examining the photos. “My memories from huge chunks of my past are blurry, but I do remember the sunset diamond. Charisemnon gifted it to me on my majority.” Flat words without tone or timbre. “I haven’t seen it for centuries.”

“An expensive piece to lose.”

“I hated it.” No equivocation, her eyes devoid of anything—so empty that Aodhan wondered at all the things she didn’t want to feel. “Shoved it in some corner and forgot about it. Likely several of the other jewels are mine, too, for I know they are gemstones found in this region, but I couldn’t tell you. I was…not well then, Aodhan.”

Tiredness now, her fingers rubbing at her forehead. “I didn’t want to remember, and so I made myself forget.”

Aodhan understood in a way that would escape most people—and he had no fear that she was prevaricating. This woman had stripped herself down to the bone, was rebuilding a person she didn’t even know yet. So he kept his voice gentle when he said, “Do you have any idea how it might’ve vanished from your home?”

“We hosted many people over the centuries.” Lailah looked around with an emptiness in her gaze, as if searching for memories of those guests. “I called them friends at one time but we were never friends. I don’t know if I have any friends aside from Cato.” No sorrow, no attempt to gain sympathy, nothing but an unvarnished statement of truth. “But wait…” Deep grooves formed in the center of her forehead. “There’s something I do remember.”