Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Yesterday

(Seven Hundred Years Ago)

Wet and bedraggled from the storm that raged around them, the sky roiling black and the ocean below full of turbulent white caps, but with joy and a nervous excitement emanating from his pores, Illium flew into New York side by side with Aodhan. And realized that they hadn’t discussed a critical question in their time alone—how they’d tell the people closest to them of the fundamental change in their relationship.

Now it was too late. Illium could see Raphael on the Tower roof, waiting for them to come in. The rain beat down on the midnight of Raphael’s hair, dripped off the white-gold of wings held with warrior perfection, and carved runnels of water down his well-worn and sleeveless black leathers, but he stood as if he noticed none of it, an archangel strong.

Illium landed in a wash of wind, his heart a huge ache as his feet hit home ground at last.

The sire embraced him with the arms of a warrior welcoming one of his own home…and the care of a man who had known Illium since he was a child. A man who had been more father to Illium than the waste of cells who was his biological male parent.

Theirs would never only be the relationship of warrior and liege, would never be the same as the relationship Raphael had with others of his Seven. Raphael was too young to hold the position of father…or he should’ve been. Inside Illium’s heart, however, that was where he stood—as the man who had taught the boy Illium had been how to be a good man, a trusted angel, a loyal battle mate.

He’d also taught a brokenhearted little boy that his father’s actions had nothing to do with him. He’d rocked Illium in his strong arms while telling him that he was a good boy, a good son, and the best kind of friend to Aodhan. “Any man would be proud to call you his son, Illium. Never ever forget that. I would be proud to call you my son.”

It had taken Illium time to internalize those words, to accept that his father’s abandonment said nothing about him as a person, but Raphael was the one who’d started him on the journey. As Raphael was the one who’d given him his first sword and taught him how to hold it.

He’d been an archangel with countless calls on his attention, but he’d made time for a shattered little boy until that boy saw nothing wrong with dropping by an archangel’s Refuge stronghold to send word to his beloved “Rafa” of his latest accomplishment. It was also a testament to the people Raphael chose to surround himself with that his steward and other Refuge staff had solemnly recorded Illium’s news, promising to send it with the next courier to Raphael’s territory.

Raphael had replied every single time.

Now, the archangel broke the embrace to slap him lightly against the side of his neck in welcome. “Of course you had to choose to fly into a storm.” Laughter and affection in the intense blue of his eyes, his archangelic power a vibration in the air that Illium could almost hear. Water dripped off the black of his lashes, both of them grinning at a homecoming too long in the making.

“Where’s Ellie?” Illium asked, his nerves jumping even in the midst of his happiness.

A gust of wind hit his back just then, Elena coming in to land. “Bluebell!” She jumped into his arms, and he spun her around, neither one of them in the least fear of Raphael’s wrath for Illium’s handling of his consort.

Raphael understood what Elena was to Illium.

When he put her down, she laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. “Look at you. All wet.” A glance at Aodhan out of pale gray eyes with an edge of true silver that hadn’t retreated after the Cascade but instead bled into the gray in a seamless flow. “You too, Sparkle.”

Aodhan scowled at the nickname, but stepped close enough that Elena’s wing brushed his in a gentle hello. The other man was healing, but Illium didn’t yet see a future where Aodhan would be as comfortable with touch as he had been before his capture by the monsters who’d scarred his soul.

The other man had never been as easy with touch as Illium, but with the people he loved and trusted? He’d not only been happy with it, he’d often initiated it. A small hand sliding into Naasir’s as they walked in the Refuge while Aodhan was a child, the forearm clasp of warriors with his training mates as they grinned at each other in friendly challenge, the easy brush of wing against wing with friends as they sprawled on a mountain plateau sharing food and mead, his body languid.

Today, Aodhan didn’t break the link with Elena’s wing as they stood in a small circle in the rain. The water saturated their hair but ran off their wings to crash onto the roof in tiny splashes; with angelic bodies designed for flight at altitude, the cold mattered little to anyone but Elena. She was still too young—but even she seemed disinclined to break up this impromptu gathering in the rain.

His own body flushed with heat, Illium touched the belt buckle Aodhan had made for him, then took a deep breath. “Sire,” he began, only to freeze.

He, a man known for his charm and ability to talk about anything with anyone, couldn’t find the words to tell Raphael that he and Aodhan were more than the best of friends now, that they’d taken the first steps into a partnership far more intimate.

But Raphael interrupted. “Go get dry, both of you. We can talk more later—a few of us would like to gather tonight to welcome you home if you’re feeling up to it?”

Relief flooded Illium’s bones, because he still had no idea how to put the shift in his and Aodhan’s relationship into words. Not even to himself. “I’m always up for a party,” he said with a grin. “It’ll be good to see everyone.”

An indignant meow sounded from behind Raphael. When the archangel shifted, Illium saw a drenched Smoke scowling up at him. The stray kitten he’d adopted had grown into a sleek and healthy cat with fur like dark smoke, and eyes that seemed almost sentient in their directness. Right now, she was most displeased at having had to venture out in this weather to see him.

“Smoke!” Going down on one knee, he gathered her into his arms and against his chest. Where, despite her annoyance at the rain and at him, she began to purr, a happy little engine.

“I left her safe and warm in your quarters, but she clearly found a way out,” Aodhan said with a shake of his head. “She watched for you every day.”

Illium rose back up, Smoke cradled against him.

It felt natural to step beside Aodhan, overlap his wing with the other man’s, and just be under the rain of their city while the sire and his consort stood with them. The rain, the wet, the cold, none of it mattered. He was home.

Aodhan and Illium both had suites in the level of the Tower dedicated to the Seven’s private quarters, and today, when they exited the elevator, Aodhan sensed the emptiness in the air. None of the others were in their own suites.

When he glanced at Illium, it was to see that the other man remained shaken from the emotional shock of their decision to surrender to the love between them that was far beyond friendship. His fingers were in Smoke’s fur, his expression pensive as his wet hair dripped water into those stunning eyes.

It would’ve been easy to push him, tell him they’d already made this decision in the storm over the ocean, but if the past had been about Aodhan, the present was about Illium—an angel with a heart so huge that he kept on forgiving those who hurt him, and who would give Aodhan anything he wanted if he asked.

Because Illium’s love for Aodhan was as huge as that damn heart of his.

But Aodhan had hurt Illium by freezing him out for centuries. However long his Blue needed to trust him again the way he’d once done, Aodhan was willing to wait.

He cupped Illium’s cheek. “Get dry, then have a rest before the gathering.” He ran his thumb over Illium’s cheekbone. “We have all the time in the world, Blue.”

Illium swallowed hard and looked up to meet Aodhan’s gaze with a familiar directness. Below the playful games and delightful charm, Illium was built of honor. “I don’t know why…” He exhaled. “I’ve been counting down the days until I could come home to you, and now that I’m here, I’m so afraid, Adi.”

Blue and Adi.

Names from a lifetime ago that somehow fit their new relationship.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Aodhan said, his entire being heavy with the terrible realization he’d had in Amanat.

All but one of the people Illium loved—or had loved—had abandoned him in one way or another.

His father.

His mother.

Aodhan.

Raphael alone had never faltered.

Even Kaia, the mortal he’d loved as a youth, had left him. Her loss of memory hadn’t been by choice, but it had been a terrible loss nonetheless.

Illium might never understand the wound in his heart, but Aodhan did, and he planned to do whatever it took to help it heal—even if that meant waiting another eon for Illium to believe in Aodhan’s promise to never again leave him.

Turning his face into Aodhan’s hand, Illium released another breath before giving a small nod and walking into his apartment with a purring Smoke in his arms. The cat had shadowed Aodhan since she’d arrived in New York on the cargo plane that had also ferried home Illium’s few belongings—but Aodhan had known he’d be invisible to her the instant her beloved Illium returned home.

In this, he and Smoke were well aligned: Illium was Aodhan’s lodestar, too.

His heart ached to see the other man’s wings lowered as he walked through the door, his head downbent. Poor Blue. He didn’t understand what was going on in that bruised heart of his, didn’t know why he was acting with what—to him—would seem like a lack of logic.

Frowning, Aodhan walked into his own suite and, after quickly drying off and changing into a more formal tunic and pants, made a call he’d never thought he’d make.

The member of Lady Caliane’s court who answered smiled at seeing his face on her screen. “Aodhan. Is all well in New York?”

“Yes,” Aodhan said. “I would request a moment of Lady Caliane’s time, if she is available.”

A curious look, but the maiden said, “I saw her just before. I will go and ask.”

The screen went into a holding pattern, and when it cleared a minute later, it was Raphael’s blue eyes that looked out at him from a face both feminine and of a warrior even though Lady Caliane’s black hair was unbound today and anchored with a circlet of silver, the clasps on her shoulders delicate silver leaves where they held up the white of her dress.

And though angels didn’t appear to age beyond a certain point in time, there was a weight to her presence, a vastness of memories—of grief and love and pain—in her gaze, that made it clear that she was eons older than Aodhan or Raphael or anyone else in the Tower.

“Young Aodhan,” she said with a smile that reached those ancient eyes. “I’m pleased to see you again, and looking more rested than when you visited Amanat.”

He’d had only one real conversation with Raphael’s mother the entire time since she’d woken from her more than a thousand years of Sleep. Prior to that, he’d dealt with her staff or—at most—exchanged only necessary words with her as part of his duties.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. Nothing so personal. She’d simply been an Ancient unknowable to him until he’d come to Amanat after ending his term as Suyin’s temporary second. A short break where he could rest and rejuvenate himself for the long flight home. Instead, Lady Caliane had altered his entire understanding of his relationship with Illium.

We often don’t see the hurt we put on those we love most. And he is so bright, Sharine’s son, so full of life and laughter. He hides his bruises well, I think, your Bluebell, using that joyous self as an impenetrable shield.

“Lady Caliane, I thank you for your time.” Then, though he wasn’t a man who trusted many with his innermost thoughts, he spoke to her. Because she understood in a way no one else could—both because her closest friend was Sharine, the Hummingbird, and because her own losses and grief had given her a wisdom profound.

“Illium is struggling with his emotions,” he told her. “He doesn’t understand that deep inside, even as he wants to hold on to me, he doesn’t trust me not to abandon him again.”

“Ah.” Lady Caliane’s expression softened. “You want to ask me if you should tell him? Expose his unknown scars to his eyes?”

Aodhan nodded.

“First, young Aodhan, tell me what your own choice would be?”noveldrama

He frowned, but shook his head. “I think it’ll damage him to know that he carries such wounds. Right now, he’s handling everything other than us without issue—Lady Sharine’s return to herself, his father’s awakening.”

He pressed a fist to his heart. “I feel it here that if I show him this wound, he’ll blame himself for not being able to get past it, for not being stronger. Lady, he has already been too strong for too many years—I don’t want him to just power through because he thinks it’s what I need. He gives and gives and gives, has dealt with blow after blow.”

His mother’s absence of the mind, her shattered psyche.

Aegaeon’s abandonment.

Aodhan’s abduction and long recovery…and his choice to immure himself in a world of silence and distance.

Just dealing with it. One blow after another.

All without losing his smile or his ability to love, his beautiful heart bruised but refusing to callus over.

“He has done enough.” Aodhan’s voice was firm.

“There, child, you have it.” A soft smile. “You know him better than himself in this—and perhaps for some things, that is as it should be. In time, he will be ready to see into these wounds, but not now. Not when he is in a phase of transition.” A pause. “We are fragile at such moments, more breakable than we understand. Protect Sharine’s son through this.”

“Always and forever.” Aodhan inclined his head on that vow. “Thank you for speaking with me. I know your time is valuable.”

“Not so valuable that I do not have it for those who have stood by my son’s side so valiantly all these years.” Eyes of endless blue darkened. “I wish you both well, Aodhan. I would see joy for you both—for in your joy, Sharine will find her joy, too. Perhaps it will ease a little of my friend’s guilt.”

Then she shook her head. “But that is not for you to consider. At this point in the turning of the hourglass of eternity, you must be selfish on Illium’s behalf. Sharine’s bright, beautiful child does not have it in him, I think, to be selfish for himself. He is too much his mother’s son.”