Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Yesterday

A hundred years on from the amber revel that had birthed an enduring tradition among angelkind, Aodhan found himself heading back to Titus’s territory. While he’d departed for this gathering from New York, Illium was coming from the Refuge, having been drafted to handle a delicate issue there. That Illium had resolved the problem without bloodshed was a testament to his way with people, as well as his growing ease in matters of angelic politics.

Aodhan’s wild, courageous, brilliant Blue was growing into the skin of the general he would soon become—there was a reason Raphael had sent him on this task, and he didn’t think Illium realized it. It wasn’t a test. No, it was a final tempering before Illium stepped into his new role.

Another century, perhaps two, and Aodhan had no doubt he’d be not only a general, but Raphael’s first general.

“Do you care?” a curious Izak had asked him not long ago. “That his battle rank will be higher than yours?” Because the writing was on the wall; Illium was just the best fighter anyone had ever seen. But even more, he was good at getting his people to give their best, too.

Aodhan had shaken his head. “I always knew he’d end up a general.” It was Illium’s dream, one he’d worked toward since childhood. Aodhan loved seeing him shine in his chosen field. Illium felt the same about Aodhan and his art—the boy who’d never been able to sit still had nonetheless had endless patience with a best friend who could sit in place for hours while doing a sketch.

Illium would practice sword drills or do push-ups but he’d never stray far. These days, he cleaned his weapons or worked on strategic security plans in Aodhan’s studio while Aodhan made art.

Never had one envied the other; they were simply too different in their pursuits. That was part of what made them so good together. Illium had learned patience and the art of quiet from Aodhan, as Aodhan had learned to step outside his comfort zone and allow his wildness out from Illium.

Smiling at the memory of Illium racing back and forth across a short distance to build up his endurance, while Aodhan painted in an alpine grassland that overlooked a young mountain range, he waved at the scout who raised his hand in greeting from afar. Having been granted carte blanche to come and go from Titus’s lands, Aodhan powered on, once again on a flight to Narja, the city that continued to thrive without ever losing its border heart.

Eh-ma was waiting for him on the roof, not in her warrior guise today, but in a gown of air and silk that made her skin glow, the gold-tipped black of her hair free to tumble down her back. “Aodhan.” Her embrace was warm and as fierce as always—Eh-ma didn’t ever hug her “boys” lightly.

“Where’s my stepson?” boomed a familiar voice. “Late again? His step-grandmother will have a word or seventeen to say about that!”

Chuckling at Titus’s ominous tone as Lady Sharine laughed—the sound initiating a cascade of happy childhood memories—Aodhan reached out his forearm to greet the Archangel of Southern Africa. But the big archangel hauled him into an embrace. Once, that would’ve been unwanted, and once, Titus wouldn’t have done it. But it was Aodhan who’d initiated the first embrace, when he and Illium hosted Titus and Eh-ma in their home.

These days, Titus was one of Aodhan’s people through Illium and Eh-ma.

“Does the first general know you’re calling her a step-grandmother?” he asked after they stepped apart, for despite the fact that Avelina stood as Alexander’s second now, she remained the first general to her children.

“She’s the boss of us,” one of Titus’s sisters had said with a shrug. “I mean, those are the facts.”

Today, one arm around Lady Sharine’s shoulders, Titus rubbed his jaw. “My mother loves nothing more than to talk about the grand dynasty she founded. At least I am not Charo or Phenie—according to the first general, they have been partnered more than long enough to have given her grandchildren by now.”

He threw up his free hand. “My stalwart Phenie was so traumatized by our mother offering her advice on how to couple for the best fertility that she ran to hide in my southernmost citadel. As if I have any power over the first general!”

Lady Sharine’s shoulders were shaking, her efforts not to laugh clearly unsuccessful. A snort escaped her at that moment, and then it was all over. “You make your mother sound an ogre!” She poked Titus in the hard slab of his abdomen. “Avelina is perfectly lovely and Phenie was not traumatized but scandalized at the thought of her mother having relations!”

Aodhan loved the dynamic of Titus’s tight-knit family—including the afeared and utterly loved First General Avelina. All of Avelina’s children would battle the world for her, and Aodhan had understood why the instant he met her.

“My mother is like that with you because she’s intimidated by you.” Titus looked at Eh-ma’s tiny form with a beaming smile before picking her up and kissing her with loud enthusiasm. “I’m so glad I have you to protect me.” His dark eyes held all the love and adoration Aodhan could’ve wished for, for Eh-ma.

When she touched the archangel’s face with one hand, Aodhan decided it was a politic time to cough into his hand and shrug his travel pack from his back. In it was his and Illium’s gift to First General Avelina—for tonight, the family gathered to celebrate the day of her birth. And that family included Titus’s “stepson” and his beloved.

Having missed Illium like a limb torn from his body, Aodhan swept him into his arms when he arrived close to sundown. They could’ve kissed for eons, but Illium was almost late. So after satisfying himself with the barest taste of his lover, Aodhan pushed the other man to the bathing chamber. “Quick. I already laid out your clothes.”

They had a permanent suite at all of Titus’s main residences, complete with clothes and any necessities. But instead of hurrying in to freshen up, Illium hauled him down with a fist clenched in his tunic and nipped at his lower lip. “Hi, beautiful.”

Aodhan blushed.

A scalding wave of molten heat.

As if this warrior with his firm lips and muscled arms, his forearms ridged with veins and his jaw a defined line, hadn’t been calling him beautiful for centuries. Because it hit him the same every single time—deep inside the softest, most vulnerable core of him.

“Hi,” he whispered, his voice husky. “You cut your hair.” He ran the strands through his fingers.

“Only a trim.” A suckling kiss of his lower lip, a tug. “Come scrub my back.”

Aodhan knew he should say no, knew it was a bad idea…but he’d been following Illium into bad ideas for a lifetime. So it was that he found himself naked in the shower with the only man who had ever made him feel safe in a way that wasn’t about outward threats but about the heart.

“You’re going to get us into trouble,” he murmured as he kissed Illium’s back from behind while undertaking his scrubbing duties.

Water ran over both their bodies, steam rising to curl in the air.

Illium’s wicked smile was visible in the curve of his cheek as he angled his head to one side to glance back. “You like trouble, Adi. That’s why you love me.”

Throwing down the washcloth, Aodhan gripped the other man’s jaw with one hand and his hip with the other as he claimed the kiss he’d wanted from the start. The one that was open and raw and of a warrior who’d missed the other part of his heart for too many days. He could taste Illium’s own need in that kiss, feel it in the tension of his body, all that taut muscle and sinew under his hands, against his aroused flesh.

Their breath was the steam now, their bodies coming flush as Illium turned…only for Aodhan to pin his hands to the tile of the shower wall with his own. Those beautiful, ridiculous eyelashes dripped beads of water, Illium’s lips swollen from the force of Aodhan’s kiss. “It’s a good thing you heal fast,” he murmured as he moved against Illium with teasing precision. “Or we’ll never hear the end of why we were late.”

“We won’t be late.” A glint in those pretty eyes right before he twisted with a muscular fluidity that had Aodhan pinned to the wall by Illium’s body, Illium’s strong hand between them moving in a rhythm that turned both their breathing harsh. “We’ll. Be. On. Time.”

Passion unbridled burned between them, their bodies going rigid as Aodhan’s playful, powerful lover took them over the edge hard and fast with knowledge born of centuries of loving.

“Told you so,” Illium whispered huskily in the aftermath, pressing a kiss to Aodhan’s jaw. “This wing commander gets the job done.”

Aodhan cuddled him close, his smile affectionate and heart tender. “I missed you.” Illium was the light in his world—his life always lost color when his Blue was gone, his paintings never as vibrant.

Illium, a man who Aodhan knew would one day be a first general akin to Avelina, put his head on Aodhan’s shoulder, his body lax against Aodhan’s, but his wings held with warrior perfection because it was second instinct. Aodhan stroked his back, got kisses on the neck for his trouble, and wanted nothing more in life.

They just barely stumbled into the dinner on time. Illium managed to close the front placket of his black suit as they reached the door to the formal dining chamber. That suit hugged his chest and thighs and everywhere else and was made of a thin material that acted as armor.

This one, however, had been embellished with silver scrollwork down one side to make it clear he wasn’t declaring battle, but being a respectful guest and wearing his best. Aodhan reached out to settle the other man’s hair with his fingers, while Illium made sure Aodhan’s traditional tunic-style suit, the color a pale gold, was sitting properly.

“Illium!” Charo, tiny and dazzling and a whirlwind, flew over from where she was talking to the twins, Nala and Zuri, to hug Illium so hard, it should’ve been impossible for such a small woman.

“You’ll break me, Charo!” Illium protested but he was lifting her off her feet even as he did so, and pressing a kiss to her rounded cheek. “So,” he whispered, “any signs of grandchildren yet?”

“I will murder you if you bring up that subject in front of my mother,” Charo threatened.

Aodhan didn’t hear the rest, because Isiel had come over to tell him all about a young artist whose work he thought Aodhan would appreciate. He felt it when Eh-ma and Titus walked in, caught their welcome of Illium out of the corner of his eye.

And he most definitely felt it when First General Avelina stepped into the room. Amber-eyed and not much shorter than Aodhan, the woman who’d birthed five of the people in the room—including an archangel—was a deadly warrior with skin of onyx, wings of rich cream swirled with honey, and a mass of curls that she usually wore in fine braids, often with bronze threads woven into them.noveldrama

She’d let her hair out for tonight, her precision-separated black curls a glory against the forest green of her simple ankle-length sheath. Simple, that is, until she moved and the material flowed around her like water, displaying a stunning black-on-white print from this region.

Aodhan was both fascinated by the fabric, and itching for his sketchpad.

He’d drawn the first general in her favored leathers, but never in this avatar—power unleashed in a way most unexpected in one of the most dangerous fighters in the world. He tried to memorize everything he could about her in this moment, but she moved with rapid fluidity to greet Eh-ma as Eh-ma did the same, and theirs was the greeting of two strong women who were both comfortable in their power and felt no need to flex it.

Aodhan caught a breath. I’m going to paint this scene, he told Illium. The Hummingbird and First General Avelina, second to Archangel Alexander. They are extraordinary.

“Tito!” Avelina looked to her son, then turned her cheek, pressing a finger to one.

Titus—wearing armor similar to Illium’s but in bronze, with a hummingbird in flight detailed over his shoulder—bent to kiss her as directed, as if he wasn’t the archangel and she the angel. Because in this room, there were no titles except those of family. Here, Titus was “Tito,” Avelina’s youngest child and the petted and spoiled little brother of four strong-willed older sisters.

The conversation was joyful and chaotic over dinner, and despite their oft-avowed “fear” of the first general, her children weren’t afraid to speak their minds and push back against their powerhouse of a mother. Avelina had raised all five to be vibrant and unique personalities. Their lovers and partners were either as animated, or as tranquil as water, just flowing in and out.

It worked, the gathering a mix of people who just clicked.

That included Aodhan and Illium.

“Illium.” Avelina pinned Illium with her gaze. “I hear you are to be made a general. Why am I the last to know?”

Illium’s lips kicked up. “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed, First General. I am a wing commander and, being in only my seventh century of life, unlikely to be considered for the position of general for some time yet.”

A vee between Avelina’s eyes, the merest flicker in her gaze, before she reached for Aodhan’s mind. Every single senior warrior in the Refuge is saying this.

Raphael will be the one who decides was all Aodhan said, and Avelina left it at that. Because while they were family, they were also loyal to two different archangels—and in the court of a third. It was complicated and beautiful and Aodhan was delighted to be a part of it. But nothing delighted him more than having his Blue by his side, listening to him reply to Avelina with a charm and wit that made the first general’s eyes fill with humor, or Charo’s with warmth, Eh-ma’s with a pride echoed in Titus’s gaze.

Illium was extraordinary.

And he was Aodhan’s.