Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Illium’s entire body went rigid at the first contact of Aodhan’s skin against his aroused flesh, his breath locked in his chest.

“Look at me, Blue.” Only at Aodhan’s murmuring order did Illium realize he’d thrown back his head and clamped his eyes shut, his hands curled into bloodless fists at his sides.

It took conscious effort to return his gaze back to Aodhan, the intimacy of it blinding.noveldrama

His breath kicked in, rapid and shallow.

“Those eyes,” Aodhan murmured, his knuckles yet grazing Illium in a butterfly caress that might as well have been a hot poker for what it was doing to him. “Those eyelashes. That skin. All mine.”

Illium could barely think, every cell of his being focused on Aodhan. Except for in his days as an impetuous youth with his first lovers, he’d always been able to maintain a degree of control in intimate relationships. Never in a way that put him above his partner—that wasn’t how Illium functioned. He didn’t use people so cynically. When he shared his body, he did so with generosity and sincerity.

He’d just…never become lost in those past lovers.

Today, he was so lost that he felt unmoored.

Then Aodhan brushed the bunched muscles of his thigh with the fingers of his other hand. “Breathe, darling.” A dazzling smile. “Or you’ll give me the ego to end all egos.”

Illium muttered a curse from their childhood, in a language no longer spoken even by those who’d grown up with it—but its creative curses lingered. This one had no direct translation into English.

Aodhan’s laughter was full-bodied and so unrestrained, it made Illium’s very being ache.

And his hands…they were those of an artist.

Today, Illium was his clay.

To be shaped with caressing strokes, to be squeezed just so for the right response, to be handled, until every nerve and pleasure cell in Illium’s body was focused only on that point of contact. “Adi.” A groan, a demand, his fingers digging into the taut muscle of Aodhan’s shoulder without his conscious volition.

Aodhan didn’t even seem to notice, his attention on shaping his living clay with a precision unbounded. “Let go,” he commanded in a low growl. “It’s my turn to look after you.”

The words, that fucking low voice…Illium’s world fractured into stars as bright as Aodhan, his tendons tense enough to snap. All while Aodhan stroked his thigh with his free hand in a touch so tender, it took this far beyond the primal and sexual.

Illium’s knees threatened to buckle in the aftermath. As it was, he barely managed to stumble sideways onto the bed, somehow managing to avoid the tray of food; then he just lay on his back, his chest heaving and his wings limp. He was aware of Aodhan moving, stepping into the bathing chamber.

He was back moments later—with a kiss and a warm damp cloth, which Illium grabbed off him, his face flushed. After he took care of himself, he threw the cloth in the direction of the bathing chamber and had the satisfaction of hearing cloth hit tile.

Aodhan chuckled as he came down beside him after moving the food back to the table. “My Blue.” He brushed his fingers over Illium’s cheekbones. “I never thought you’d be shy.”

“Neither did I,” Illium muttered, because despite his flaming cheeks, this, just lying here with Aodhan’s wing over his body while the other man touched his shoulders and chest as if discovering him for the first time, it felt good.

Felt right.

Felt like exactly where he was meant to be.

Aodhan wondered what it said about him that Illium’s befuddlement restored something fractured inside him. He’d been off-balance since he’d frozen that first night, had felt as if no matter how far he came, he’d always be the one at a loss.

When he’d reached for Illium, it hadn’t been with any conscious forethought. He’d just wanted to touch him, love him in the physical way that he knew was important to his Blue. Illium would never say it, never push Aodhan, but where Aodhan had become so familiar with physical aloneness that it had become a way of life, Illium had always been a creature of touch. The boy who’d hugged his friends and who’d cuddled into his mother’s side, then Raphael’s, while they read him stories.

“What are you thinking?” Illium asked, the aged gold of his eyes searching Aodhan’s face. “I can almost see the gears turning.”

Aodhan could’ve obfuscated it, hidden what must surely be a selfishness, but that wasn’t who he and Illium were to each other—who they’d ever been to each other. So he told him. “Not with intent,” he said afterward. “My only intent was to touch you, pleasure you, possess you.”

Because it turned out that Aodhan had a deep streak of possessiveness when it came to Illium, this angel who had a thousand people—more—who all adored him and thought they had some private relationship with him.

“You’ve always worried too much,” Illium said with a lazy smile. “It’s fine. I had the same thought before—that between us, power has always ebbed and flowed. Sometimes one stronger, sometimes the other. It all equalizes in the end.”

Aodhan shifted to lean on his elbow, his wing lying even more heavily against Illium—who began to play his fingers through the feathers as candlelight glittered on the blue tips of his eyelashes. And Aodhan knew he’d paint his lover this way, boneless and pleasured and with a smile flirting with his lips.

He fell asleep while planning out the brushstrokes, his head tucked against the side of Illium’s neck, and his arm over Illium’s chest, the two of them still crosswise on the bed, which was just big enough to provide them a comfortable sleep in even that position.

He didn’t feel the kiss Illium pressed to his hair, or hear the emotion-drenched words the other man whispered in the candlelit glow. “I’m so glad you’ve come back to me.”

They spent the entirety of the next day going through Marco’s belongings.

Illium had already managed to access and read through the files on Marco’s laptop—with no useful results. They’d set today aside for examining the other items, hoping for a better outcome.

The task was as grim as Aodhan had mentally predicted, but he felt more centered today than he had the entire time since the beginning of this investigation…the beginning of his decision to consciously confront the phantoms of his past. He’d woken up warm and rested, with his wing thrown over Illium as the other man lay flat on his front. Somehow, they’d moved ninety degrees on the bed during the night—probably due to Illium.

The other man had a gift for movement in his sleep.

But Aodhan hadn’t woken at any point before morning, had apparently just gone with him—much as he’d done when they’d been children who’d fallen asleep together.

“Flying together even in sleep,” Eh-ma used to say when she woke them of a morning after Aodhan had stayed over. “My two peas in a pod.”

This morning, he’d woken with his face tucked into the crook of Illium’s neck, his hand on his lover’s rib cage, and his breath full of the scent of Illium. A scent that was home to him in ways beyond explanation; he just knew he could spend countless immortal lifetimes waking with his face nuzzled against Illium.

The other man had been over his shyness by the morning, had grinned and kissed Aodhan, called him “my adorable cuddle bug,” then told him that, at one point, he’d had to “snake shimmy” his way out from under Aodhan to douse the candles and put away the food. “Then I slid back into bed, and you threw your wing right over me, and mumbled something about ‘perfect shade of blue’ and went back to sleep.”

A smug grin. “Of course, then I knew you were dreaming about me.”

No one else in existence would dare call Aodhan a cuddle bug, but from Illium when he was so happy and vibrant and full of unbounded affection…Aodhan kind of liked it.

He wanted to smile even now at the memory of Illium’s infectious joy, but he’d just picked up a photo frame that held an image of Marco with his mother. The smile whispered away before it could form.

It was one of those images mortals got in their malls. A few of the angels and vampires in the Tower had them as fun souvenirs…but this was no joking souvenir. It was an artifact of love: a teenage Marco in his high school graduation cap and gown, his mother in what had to be her best clothes.

Giulia had her arm around Marco as she looked up to her taller son with an expression of utmost love, while he clasped his rolled-up diploma, a huge grin on his face. His hair had been longer at the time, two dark curves that brushed his clean-shaven jaw.

It was a more formal pair to the candid graduation photo Giulia had on her sideboard. Had she chosen to display that one because it felt more real, more like her boy? How hard it must be for a mother to choose photos of her child from a lifetime of them.

“Giulia will like having that, even if she has her own copy,” Illium murmured.

“Because he kept it,” Aodhan said with a nod. “Long after he went from boy to man, he kept this photo of a moment of celebration with his mother.”

“We can put things like that in one box,” Illium said. “Good things for when she’s ready to remember the happy times with her son. She can ignore the rest of his belongings until she’s ready.”

Aodhan set the frame aside—but only after opening up the back to ensure Marco hadn’t tucked anything in there. There should’ve been no reason for the young vampire to hide items—it appeared he’d been up front about his stalker to his lover, family, and angel, but people also hid things as insurance or to spare a loved one from hurt.

The frame proved empty.

“I’ve gone through this small notebook.” Illium held up the simple book with its cardboard cover that featured a low-slung car, its lines reminiscent of a jungle cat’s. “Looks like he used it to remind himself of things on a daily basis.”

He flipped open a page to show a crossed-out list. “Marco went to the effort of splitting it into months, had future notes about various important events including when Tanika’s favorite band was going to be in town, and his mother’s birthday—he planned to order her a special cake.”

Illium traced Marco’s scrawled handwriting with a careful finger even as his body grew taut, his voice harsh with anger at a life stolen. “He was a good son, a good man. The kind of man who remembered to pick up groceries for his girlfriend even though he only needed a bottle of blood, and who made a note to remind her of her parents’ upcoming anniversary.”

Aodhan’s own fingers curled into his palm, his back rigid. “Someone took that man, and the woman he loved, away from everyone because he wouldn’t agree to be her toy.” Rage was a cauldron inside him. “I want to hurt them.”

Illium’s chest pounded at the open rage on Aodhan’s face. His best friend hadn’t allowed himself to feel rage for a long time. He’d been too badly wounded after he was first rescued, and later, he’d pushed it all down so deep that it had turned into a bone-scarring poison.

Illium knew the other man had spoken to Keir, had always hoped with every ounce of his being that the healer had lanced the poison in private, but he wasn’t so sure any longer. Because Aodhan was the more stubborn of the two of them—he was quieter and less inclined to temper, but he held things deeper and longer.

“So do I,” he said, not sure if it was the right thing to say, but wanting Aodhan to know that his anger wasn’t a response to be judged, that he had a right to rage, a right to be furious at the kind of narcissism that had led to the loss of two innocent lives. “Sometimes, rage is the only possible response. Rage fuels us.”

Aodhan’s eyes glittered with the heat of that rage as he picked up a pair of leather gloves from among Marco’s belongings. Illium had already bypassed them, but Aodhan frowned, stared. “These are too fine.” He flipped the top of one glove to reveal a furred interior. “The leather’s as soft as butter, and I think that’s real rabbit fur.”

He glanced around. “Look at the rest of Marco’s clothing.”

Now that Aodhan had pointed it out, Illium saw at once what he meant: while Marco’d had a polished wardrobe, all the items were in line with the kind of income he would’ve had as a young mortal only a few years into his working life. The same kind of income he’d probably had as a junior vampire with a good angel—above the baseline requirement, but not by much. It would’ve increased as he rose in seniority, but at the point where he’d died? No, he wouldn’t have had money to burn on fancy gloves.

“A gift from Tanika?” Illium suggested, then shook his head. “No, remember what her mother said—she was a lover of animals, didn’t eat flesh in any form.” The two of them had privately wondered how she’d made her peace with Marco’s need for blood, but it wasn’t a question they could ask those who’d loved her.

“I agree. She would’ve never gifted an item that utilized both tanned hide and fur.” Aodhan stared at the gloves. “Marco doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to keep a gift from another woman, but perhaps he was tempted by the luxury of the item?”

Taking the gloves, Illium examined them with care. “I don’t see any scratches or other marks that say these have been worn, but we wouldn’t see that if he took care of them.”

“Is there a maker’s mark?”

Illium flipped both gloves halfway inside out, found no silken tag.

Frowning, Aodhan considered the luxurious materials and what looked to be painstaking hand-stitching. Not a mass-produced object. An artisanal creation. And no artist would mar their work with what they’d see as an unsightly label. “There.” He tapped the inner part of the wrist edging, which, unlike the glove itself, was a deep, almost black-green; the thread used was a contrasting pale green. “That’s the mark.”

“Really?”

“I can’t believe you’re questioning me on the subject of gloves. You, the man who refuses to countenance wearing them.” His chiding words were soft. “Even if you’re in danger of frostbite.”

“I’m a warrior angel. I’ll wear gauntlets and wrist guards, but I draw the line at gloves.” Illium turned the gloves the right way out again. “You know who it is? The maker?”

“Céline,” Aodhan said, having placed that particular mark in the interim. “An angel of around six thousand, if I’m recalling correctly. Last I knew, she was based in Bordeaux.”

Illium already had his phone out. “Two boutiques in the city stock her gloves. It’s a place to start. We strike out, we go wider.”

Aodhan agreed. “Unless she has changed her method since I last heard, Céline makes each pair by her own hand, has no assistants in the work itself. So even if we have to trace every pair of gloves made just prior to and during the time since the stalker began to importune Marco, it won’t be a high number.”

He considered it further. “Given the stalker’s obsession, I don’t think these would be hand-me-downs—they would’ve been bought specifically for Marco.”

“We visit the boutiques in person?”

“Yes. No clerk wishes to anger a wealthy client, but they won’t dare lie to the faces of two of Raphael’s senior people.” Aodhan scanned the other items laid out around the room. “We should go through the rest of this first; it’s possible we won’t need to rely on the gloves.”

Nodding, Illium continued on from where he’d stopped—and found a small box full of bejeweled men’s rings. He held one up to the light. The green glowed with a piercing luminescence. “Real, I’d wager.”

He picked up another ring inset with a stone that could’ve been yellow or orange, depending on the light, but held more clarity and depth than either color on its own, and showed it to Aodhan. “This is a sunset diamond; I’d stake my wings on it. So named because no one could agree on whether to call them orange or yellow—and because of how the hues turn changeable depending on the light. Priceless after that archangelic tantrum a millennium ago that destroyed the area where they were most often found.”

“Did you take up a new hobby and forget to tell me?” Aodhan raised an eyebrow; neither one of them had ever been the kind to bejewel themselves or to take much interest in such fashions.

The crease in Illium’s cheek made his breath catch, his chest swell. Because this man with his wicked smile and playful heart, this man strong and loyal and kind in ways most of the world would never understand, was his.

“An art enthusiast gifted a stone like this to Mother three centuries ago when she decided to create a portrait of his family of her own volition. The color is distinctive—there’s no other gemstone like it in the world.”

Family portraits by Eh-ma were even rarer than these stones; perhaps she’d taken commissions when young, but that time was so long in the past that no one remembered it. Today, the Hummingbird created only what she wished.

“She set the diamond into a chunk of stone and uses it as a paperweight to this day.” Illium’s shoulders shook. “My mother makes her own rules.”

Aodhan’s eyes widened. “I’ve seen that paperweight. Eh-ma told me she just liked the way the stone sparkled in the light. I never even considered it might be a diamond.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he fought back his own laugh, glad for this small moment of light in the darkness. “What’s a sunset diamond worth?”

“All I know for certain is that it’d have been well beyond Marco’s budget,” Illium said. “I think it’s out of our budgets, too. The person who gave it to Mother was eons older and wealthier than us, and even he treated the stone like a treasure equal to the value of a portrait by the Hummingbird.”

Illium’s mind flashed to the portrait that hung in his apartment of two small angels in jubilant if wonky flight over a field of bluebells, their faces wreathed in grins and their wings too big for their bodies.

It was one of his all-time favorites.

He and Aodhan had never had to worry about portraits; they had a collection of them through time, created by the most gifted artist among angelkind. An artist who loved them both. She’d painted an adolescent Aodhan at work on his easel, a frown line between his eyebrows, and she’d painted a “teenage” Illium practicing his sword drills, and those were just two examples of their solo portraits. She’d also sketched and painted countless images of their entwined lives.

But for a rare few exceptions, all of those pieces were either with her subjects or in her private collection. The exceptions were Raphael and Naasir for the most part, both of whom had received countless sketches over the years of Illium and Aodhan’s childhood, as part of the letters Illium’s mother had written to them while they were away from the Refuge.

“My favorite of Eh-ma’s portraits,” Aodhan said at that moment, “is that one of you in full battle mode, right after you were accepted into your first adult wing.”

Illium’s heart stopped, tight and hurting in a rush of emotion. “She was still lost in her mind then, but she found a way to see me.” The painting was both a testament to love…and a reminder of grief. “I love it, too, but I could never hang it in my home.”

Aodhan closed his hand over Illium’s nape. “I know. That’s why I never hung it up in your presence after she gave it to me.”

Illium blinked, stared. “When did she give it to you?”

“When I was lost, too,” Aodhan said, his voice husky. “Anytime you left the Refuge as part of your duties, she filled my home with portraits of you. Safety lines for when I began to fall into the abyss—I think that’s what she saw them to be…and she was right. How could I surrender to the yawning maw when I knew you’d dive in after me, you stubborn, beautiful fool?”

The last word was so tender, it hurt.