Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Catalina spotted Illium the instant he landed outside the little bakery in Harlem.

Her face—far more lined now than when they’d first met, but still as beautiful—became a small sun. Her embrace was warm and strong and her. He hugged her as tight, wrapping her in his wings and wishing he could stop her body from aging, time from passing—but even if he could, she wouldn’t want it. No, Cat was ready to join Lorenzo when it was her time, her faith in a world beyond the veil unshakable.

Do angels have gods, Illium? Do you believe in a life after this existence?

One of many questions she’d asked him during those long nights they’d all spent together around the table in the back of the bakery, her curiosity opening his eyes to facets of existence he’d never considered.

“Go sit,” she said today after they drew apart. “I have a big order about to get picked up. We’ll talk after.”

As familiar in this place as he was at the Tower, he slipped through the swinging door to the kitchen. It was Lorenzo who’d installed that door soon after they first became friends, so it’d be wide enough for Illium to pass through with ease.

The kitchen was quiet and clean, all the cooking done for the day, the steel countertop spotless. Catalina’s granddaughter and baker-in-training was also gone, her after-school hours in the bakery limited by her grandmother’s decree. Soon as the clock hit five p.m., off went the apron.

“One day,” Catalina had told Illium, “our Adriana’ll do bigger things. She thinks she wants this bakery and her heart is in a good place, but that child has a bright mind and dreams big enough to power the moon. She’ll need more, and for that, she needs to focus on her studies.”

While Catalina finished out front, Illium set about making himself a coffee and Catalina her favorite fruit tisane doctored with a liberal dose of honey. He had both ready by the time he heard the ring of the bell over the shop door.

It sounded again a minute later, was followed by the click of the lock. He imagined he could almost hear the flick of the sign being switched to Closed.

Catalina was pressing a hand to her lower back when she walked in. “Why I do this, I don’t know.” She groaned. “I should be at home, watching Presa del Cazador, not on my feet all day.”

It gave Illium great delight that Elena’s most muttered-about show had not only been renewed again, but now had a Spanish spin-off, complete with a “hunter” who spent more time romancing vampire beauties than he did tracking.

He loved watching it with Catalina, so they could cackle together.

As for Catalina, he’d offered to fund his friend’s entire telenovela retirement—one as luxurious as she wanted. Cruises across the oceans, travels around the world, as much gentle adventure as she could take. Because while he didn’t have the wealth of those millennia of age, he was a senior member of an archangel’s team—and he’d been working since the day they’d let him. He had more money than he could ever imagine spending.

“Ah, Illium,” Catalina had said with a poignant smile, “I don’t need to work. Lorenzo did our investments, made sure I’d be all right. I work inside this bakery because I loved Lorenzo here. He’s in the walls, in the recipes we created together, in the memories at that old table.”

Recollections untold in the brown of her eyes, her once dark hair now liberally laced with threads of silver. “Mi corazón, he’d call me while wrapping his arms around me from behind while I was trying to knead dough. I’d scold him for the interruption, but I never minded—and he knew. How could I leave him?”

Today, however, seeing that she was walking more stiffly than before he’d gone to China, Illium said, “You should rest.”

He pulled out a chair for her at the small table tucked into the far-left corner, then placed her tea in front of her, his coffee on the other side. “Lorenzo wouldn’t want you here only because you built this place with him.”

He understood the true extent of her tiredness when she didn’t immediately shake her head. “I saved you a box of treats,” she said instead. “I knew you’d come today. It’s in that top cupboard.”

After retrieving the box, he put it between them, then selected a cookie dotted with sugar crystals. “I’m serious. You and Lorenzo always planned to travel. He wouldn’t want you to give that up—I’m sure his ghost will follow you wherever you go, regardless. He was always possessive.”

Throwing back her head at his scowl, Catalina laughed that husky laugh that was of the sensual young woman she’d once been. Illium saw that in her still, this friend of his whose outer self had softened and become more rounded—but what did the outside matter? Unlike her family, he knew that well before she’d been their mamá or tía or abuela, she’d been Lorenzo’s Cat.

To Illium, she always would be.

“Oh, Illium, he was, wasn’t he?” she said, her laugh lingering in the curve of the lush lips Lorenzo had so loved, a dance of light in her eyes. “So good-natured, but that man could turn dark when a customer dared flirt with me.” A playful shake of her head. “Never with you, though—and you were the worst flirt of all!”

“Because he knew that I knew you were madly in love with him. You didn’t even notice my beautiful eyelashes.” As she snorted, Illium nudged the box toward her. “Eat the one with dark chocolate. That’s your favorite.”

“No, today all I want is pasta.”

“I’ll make it for you.” Thanks to her and Lorenzo’s liking for the dish, it was one of the few at which he wasn’t only serviceable but excellent. “Give me a few minutes to get the ingredients from Levi.” The grocer down the street had started his shop not long after Catalina and Lorenzo, was familiar with Illium.

When Catalina said, “Fresh tomatoes and garlic,” instead of waving away his offer, he knew she was having one of those days when she missed her husband and didn’t want to do so in the company of her daughter’s family, who lived just above her apartment and would be expecting her for dinner. They adored her, and she loved them in turn.

Tonight, however, she wanted to spend time with a friend who had known Lorenzo as a young man, who had drunk mead late into the night with him and Catalina while they played cards and laughed and were young together.

“Call Sofia,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Tell her you’re having a date with me.”

Though her lips curved again, her eyes now held an old and worn grief.

Leaving her to inform her daughter that she wouldn’t be home for dinner, he ducked out to grab the supplies.

“Pasta today, huh?” the white-haired grocer said as he checked out the items. “I tell you what, I have fresh basil in my planter out back. I’ll give you a bit. Trust me, it’s delicious.”

While waiting for Levi to return, Illium reached out to Aodhan with his mind. I won’t be home for dinner, Adi—I’m eating with Catalina. She’s missing Lorenzo tonight. Will you look after Smoke?

Of course I will, Aodhan said at once. Ask her about the meal I cooked for her.

You never told me you cooked for her!

I decided to keep it a surprise.

It’s always the quiet ones, Illium said in a grim tone, but he was grinning. Are you staying in?

I just got a message from Demarco saying he’s back in the city and on his own as his beloved is at a mortal wedding function for women only. I’ll invite him for dinner.

Have fun. It made Illium’s heart overflow with happiness that Aodhan had allowed this friendship into his life, even though with it came the promise of future pain—for like Catalina, the irreverent Demarco had no desire to live for eternity. Don’t let him lead you astray into a tattoo.

I’m more interested in which part of his body he’s talked his mate into marking—she believes him a pristine canvas and, to date, has only ever agreed to tattoo him thrice. The first was her name on a part of his anatomy I have no desire to see, the second is the guild mark on his inner left forearm, and the third I’ll see tonight—he assures me it’s in safe visual territory.

As Illium chuckled, Aodhan said, Enjoy your time with Catalina, Blue. A caress in the words that was a kiss against Illium’s mind. Smoke and I will be here when you return.

“So,” he said to Catalina once he was back in her kitchen, “Aodhan says he cooked for you.”

Catalina put both hands to her heart with a gasp. “So beautiful he is, Illium. Like a star fallen to earth—and such compassion in that heart. It pours out of him brighter than his physical beauty. But”—a groan, her hands going to her face—“he cannot make a pasta!”

Illium snorted, his shoulders shaking so hard that he had to grip the counter to keep himself upright. “None of us are perfect, Catalina.”

“I ate it.” A whisper. “I couldn’t hurt his feelings, he was so proud of his gift to me.”

The idea of two people he loved being so thoughtful of each other warmed Illium to the very depths of his being. “I’ll only tell him the terrible truth after you’re with Lorenzo,” he promised with a wink. “Then I’ll teach him how to make proper pasta, like you taught me.”

“I never spoke to your friend before you were in China.” Catalina took a long sip of her tea, sighing with her eyes closed as the heat sank into her bones. “Then he started to come in for the alfajores for you, and what could I do but fall in love with him? He’s so distractingly beautiful that it’s easy to overlook the tender heart inside, but I see it. That man knows how to love.”

Her eyes drilled into Illium.

Who felt his cheeks begin to redden. Of all the people to figure this out, he hadn’t expected it to be Catalina.

“I knew it!” Catalina slapped her hand on the table. “The way he speaks about you, and now you, looking like a kitten that got its tail stuck in a door. Why are you trying to keep it a secret?”

“It’s new, Catalina.” Illium chopped up tomatoes for the sauce, having already pulled out the spices Catalina kept stocked for just this purpose. “We’ve been friends forever—he was my first true friend and he will always be my best friend. The rest…it’s…”

“You’re terrified of destroying your friendship,” Catalina said bluntly. “Don’t look so surprised. I’ve been around a long time.” Another burst of laughter. “For a mortal anyway.”

Illium found himself wondering once again at the wisdom of some mortals who’d lived such a short life in comparison to his own. Was it only that angels were designed to mature at a far slower rate, or was it that mortals were designed to do the opposite, their brain and heart cells conscious of the inexorable passage of time in a way that made every moment portentous?

“Do you want to go back to how it was?” Catalina asked with the forthrightness of a friend who’d known him for decades—though she hadn’t always spoken to him thus. She’d been a touch reticent at the start, though he’d never minded whatever she said to him, but it was as if she’d said to hell with filters after a certain birthday and he loved her all the more for it.

His answer was instinctive. “No. I—I can feel who we can be, like this huge and glorious sunrise on the horizon, if we can only make it there.” The need to stand inside that sunrise hurt, it was so intense.

Instead of asking him what was stopping him, Catalina paused to sip her tea and to think over his words. He busied himself with reducing the sauce.

“I suppose,” she said at last, “in such a long life, my friend, this decision could impact a thousand years.”

“More,” he whispered. “All the eons of my existence, Catalina. He’s the only one I’ve ever loved or will ever love this way.” A simple, inevitable truth. “Our healer refers to him as my heart’s mirror, and I as his.”

Pressing a hand to her heart, the gold of her wedding band catching the light, Catalina blinked rapidly. “What a thing you say, and yes, I understand.” A roughness to her voice. “My Lorenzo was my heart’s mirror. I had a knowing with him that I’ve never experienced with any other my whole life. That comes only once, Illium. Only once. Even for an immortal, I think this must be true.”

“That’s why it’s so precious and so terrifying.” Pressing both hands to the edge of the counter, he pushed back, his spine rigid. “I freeze at times, not knowing what to do—and I’ve never been like that with us. If anything, I’ve been the one who takes chances, gets us into risky spots.” He wouldn’t speak of Aodhan’s past, wouldn’t share what his friend chose not to share with everyone.

But Catalina surprised him again. “That night he cooked the worst pasta in the history of pasta? He told me things. Enough to make me understand that he has no idea of courtship beyond that of light, youthful things.” Her eyes held his. “He hasn’t had small loves to prepare for this big love, and he never played the games youths play in matters of amore.”

Illium’s heart kicked.

Leaving the sauce to simmer and thicken, he dragged out a chair and spun it around to straddle it. “He told you?” Aodhan never told anyone his story, not really.

Catalina closed her hand with its strong baker’s fingers and fine mortal skin over his. “For you. He told me because he wanted my advice. He says I’m the oldest friend of yours that he knows—I don’t know if he meant that in time, for I’m sure you have far longer friendships.” A quick smile. “You’re like Lorenzo, constantly making friends.”

“But none like this,” he rasped, devastated to realize all over again that this friendship wouldn’t follow him into his next century of life. “None like you and Lorenzo.”

Her hand squeezed his with conscious gentleness, as if he was the more fragile of the two of them. “Living forever isn’t all roses, is it, Illium?” A tender smile, the age in her as vast as those of the Ancients he’d met, even though such was a thing impossible. “Aodhan told me so that we could talk without walls between us. He’s such a good man, compassion and a painfully deep ability to love woven inside the fabric of him, but a man bruised in ways I don’t think either of you understand.”

“I see the warrior, and I see his stubborn spirit, and I want to believe him healed,” Illium admitted. “It hurts me to think he might not be, that he’s still in pain.”

Catalina frowned. “I’m not sure it’s as conscious as that. He is strong and determined and I think he has conquered his demons—but only the ones he can see.”

Illium thought of Aodhan’s flinch at a loving touch, and at how appalled he’d been at his own inability to stride past that ugliness.

I conquered this.

Such anguish in that statement, but there’d been confusion, too, a sense of the ground becoming unstable under his feet.

“There are softer bruises that hide beneath the scars,” Catalina said. “I think the problem with the two of you is that you’re moving too fast. The touch on the hand comes first, Illium, not the passionate kiss. Those soft bruises hurt terribly—let them fade while you seduce him.”

I want this for us. The soft and the playful and the dance before the dance.

Illium decided then and there that he’d find a way to make their date happen while not taking Aodhan away from Marco and Tanika. Because this case, at this time, meant far more to Aodhan than anyone but those closest to him would ever understand.noveldrama

Illium would not get in the way of that.

Neither would he steal from Aodhan all the experiences his best friend had missed while locked in amber at a time when Illium was playing the games of a young angel with those who were inclined to play with him. However, he had no fear that Aodhan wanted to experience those things with anyone but Illium—he’d had myriad offers and approaches since his initial arrival in New York, and had no doubt fielded many more in China.

Truth was that his best friend had always been far more judicious in his relationships than Illium, no matter if it was friendship or a bond more intimate. He took time to make his decisions and stuck true to them—and got irritated if questioned over those choices.

Illium was the one he wanted; on that score he’d been clear.

The touch on the hand comes first, Illium, not the passionate kiss.

Lifting Catalina’s hand to his lips, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. And though it was his wont to make a joke, be playful, he held her gaze and said, “I have to get this right, Catalina.” Even if fear was a constant whisper at the back of his brain.

Catalina’s smile was gentle. “Oh, mi amor. Don’t you see? You don’t have to be perfect, don’t have to get everything right. Not with the person who is your heart’s mirror. All you have to do is love.”