Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(64)

A slow smile that turned into a growl that made her skin go tight and her blood turn to honey. “That stupid Grimoire book.” Gripping her chin, he bared his teeth at her. “I haven’t forgotten your promise. I get to do anything I want to you after I find it.”

Andromeda couldn’t breathe. “Anything you want,” she whispered, her voice husky and her breasts so swollen they ached. “Touching, licking, biting . . . anything.”

The smile returned and this time it was so primal she knew that should he ever take her, he’d own her. Every inch, every drop, everything.





26


Illium flew over New York with a buoyant spirit. Jason and Naasir were both out of harm’s way at present, and he’d spoken to his mother. Thanks to Raphael’s call on the heels of his own, the Hummingbird had accepted an invitation to come to New York.

He was determined the anniversary wouldn’t be so bad this year. He’d keep her too busy to think about what she’d left behind in the Refuge. Busy and happy enough that she wouldn’t want to return quickly to her painful, soul-shredding vigil.

Seeing the shattered light of Aodhan’s wings not far off in the afternoon sky, he smiled and angled up toward his friend. His mother loved Aodhan, and Illium knew Aodhan returned the affection. He’d spend hours with her if that was what she needed.

“Your mother has a great capacity to love,” Aodhan had said to him once.

It was true—and it was also the Hummingbird’s greatest weakness.

Putting two fingers between his teeth as he reached Aodhan’s altitude, he whistled.

Aodhan glanced over, the faint smile on his face deeply welcome after two painful centuries when Illium hadn’t been able to reach his friend, no matter how hard he tried. Aodhan’s psychic scars might never fade, but he was rising past them in a show of grit and strength no one who didn’t know what had been done to him could fully understand.

The twenty-three months Aodhan had been missing had been the most horrific period of Illium’s life . . . worse than when he’d lost his mortal lover. He’d survived losing her. He didn’t know if he could survive losing Aodhan.

Never before had he seen that truth so clearly and it shook him.

“What’s wrong?” Aodhan called out from his position on Illium’s left, their wingtips almost touching.

Illium went to shake his head, staggered by his realization and not ready to discuss it, when it felt as if his heart literally exploded from the inside out. The pain was excruciating.

Wings crumpling, he felt himself fall.

He’d played this trick a thousand times, pretending to plummet out-of-control from the sky, his wings tangled. Aodhan had stopped falling for it centuries ago, and, mind red with pain, Illium had no way to signal to him that this wasn’t a trick. The high-rises of Manhattan rushed up at him at terminal velocity. Should the impact separate his head from his spine, his brain and internal organs pulverized, he wouldn’t survive.

Not ready to die, and piercingly conscious the wound of his death would permanently break both his mother and Aodhan, he tried to stretch out his wings. A new blast of agonizing pain flooded his mouth with blood . . . and switched off the light on his consciousness.


*



Aodhan saw Illium’s expression change right before his wings crumpled. So many times Illium had tricked him, but his instincts screamed this was no trick. Not stopping to think, he folded in his own wings and dropped like a stone toward Illium’s rapidly diminishing form, those beautiful wings of silver-blue hanging uselessly as Illium tumbled toward metal and glass and concrete at deadly speed.

Sire! Illium is falling!

Even as he alerted Raphael, Aodhan knew his archangel wasn’t close enough. He’d spotted Raphael’s wings on the other side of the city not long before Illium whistled at him. Heart screaming as he willed himself to drop faster, he searched the air for any other help, but everything was moving by too fast, the wind burning his skin. His only advantage was that he was an aerodynamic bullet, while Illium’s wings were causing drag, slowing his descent a minute fraction.

Aodhan didn’t take his eyes from that falling blue form . . . and then he was passing it. He snapped out his wings less than two hundred meters from the roof of a high-rise and, back facing Illium, braced for impact.

It slammed through his bones, rattled his teeth, and sent him spiraling down in an uncontrollable fall. He could feel Illium sliding off his back, couldn’t slow it down.

They were going to hit the roof at bone-breaking speed.

Aodhan wasn’t sure either one of them would survive. No, he thought. No.

Managing to grab hold of Illium’s wrist as his friend tumbled off him, he felt his arm wrench out of its socket. He refused to release his grip. And then he was seeing white fire in his vision, Raphael rising up from below and scooping Illium into his arms bare meters from the roof. I have him.

Aodhan let go.

Too close to the roof himself and with too much momentum to stop the collision, Aodhan braced himself for another hard landing when he’d only just recovered from the last one.

Having closed his eyes instinctively, he didn’t know at first what hit him. He just knew he’d been rammed hard enough to crack several ribs. Eyes snapping open, he saw he’d been pushed into clear air.

Spreading his wings, he spiraled out of control a couple more times before finding his aerial balance. Sweat-soaked and with his heart racing what felt like a thousand beats a minute, he looked up to see Elena and the Primary flying toward him.