Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(40)

“Why have you never resented me?” It was a question for which she’d needed an answer since the day she’d learned about his past. “Resented Raphael?”

Illium had been punished with the loss of his own mortal lover centuries ago, after he broke the greatest taboo of his race and spoke angelic secrets in her ear. Erasing the woman’s memories of the blue-winged angel and all he’d told her, Raphael had also stripped Illium of his feathers, grounding him until the wounds healed. Even when he could fly again, there was no surcease; he’d had to keep his distance, eventually watch his former lover fall for someone else, live her life without him.

Golden eyes shadowed with old sorrow, Illium withdrew a small metal pendant from the pocket of his jeans, the surface worn smooth by centuries of handling. “When did Raphael tell you our secrets?” he said, not having to explain to her that his lover had given him the pendant.

Her heart ached at the sadness he ordinarily hid beneath a stunning joie de vivre. “As we fell,” she whispered. “Raphael told me as we fell.” Everything within her rebelled against the agony linked to that fragment of time—not of the flesh, for her broken body had been beyond that, but of the soul, because Raphael was dying with her.

“On the eve of what he believed would be your death and his.” Putting away the pendant, Illium shook his head, the blue-tipped black strands of his hair kissing the sides of his face. “I had no such excuse. My lover was young and headstrong, and angry that I kept secrets from her. I couldn’t bear her remoteness . . . so I told.”

A sad, rueful smile that spoke of the besotted youth he’d been. “I’m certain other angels have told their mortal lovers over the centuries, the secrets going to the grave with those men and women, but I told a girl who could not keep her silence, who began to whisper hints to others in her village.”

This time it was Elena who touched his wing, the silken silver-blue a living piece of art beneath her fingertips. “I’m so sorry.”

“No angel can afford to break with such ease,” Illium continued, “and though I loved her with all of my being, I also knew her down to the soul, knew she didn’t have the will to hold secrets within. Raphael was right to punish me.”

When he spread his wing and lifted his arm, she went, hugging him with the embrace of a friend, was hugged in turn, his grip so fierce she knew he fought not to splinter under the deluge of memory.

“The Sire,” Illium said, his chest rising against her in a long, jagged breath, “was wounded at what he had to do. I could see it, feel it, and it is the greatest shame of my life that I drove him to the point where he had no other option.”

Of everything he’d said, that was the least expected, but Illium wasn’t done. “If only,” he said, “I’d come to him as soon as I realized my mistake in telling, he would’ve quietly erased her memory of angelic secrets, warned me not to make the same mistake again, and I would’ve been free to love her. But I didn’t and he could not help me once others learned of my transgression.”

Elena’s heart twisted as she understood at last. Ruthless he might be, but Raphael protected those who were his own. For him to not only be unable to do that, but to actually be forced to cause harm instead, would’ve exacted a terrible price. Especially when it had been Illium, son of an angel who had both Raphael’s respect and his love: the Hummingbird, someone he treated with heartbreaking gentleness.

“Whatever price I paid,” Illium said into the quiet, “he paid it twice over.”

Hurting for the loss that defined the blue-winged angel to this day, and the circumstances that had led to it, Elena leaned back, raised her hand to touch his face, and found herself hesitating.

“Be careful with Illium, Elena. He’s vulnerable to the humanity you carry within.”

The echo of Dmitri’s voice, sin and seduction and violence, the vampire’s expression unexpectedly serious as he cautioned her about Illium not long after her return to New York.

“It’s all right, Ellie.” A lopsided smile, Illium’s body heat pressing against her own. “You are the Sire’s and I would tear off my own wings before I would break that trust.”

Dropping her hand, she took a step away, putting more distance between them. “I don’t want to cause you pain,” she said, affection intertwined with worry. Her worry wasn’t only for how he reacted to her, but also the fact that he continued to mourn a woman who’d turned to dust centuries ago, having forgotten she’d ever been so unbearably loved.

When Elena had been human, she’d sometimes wondered how mortal-immortal couples handled the aging of one, while the other appeared as young as the day they’d first met. Never once had she considered that if the love was true, the pain would be endless for the one left behind. “You have enough hurt inside you already.”

“The only thing that’ll hurt is if you allow my mistakes to damage our friendship.” A slow smile that painted over the sadness, eyes of liquid gold backlit with wickedness. “Shall I tell you about my lovers so you don’t feel sorry for me?”

She cocked her head. “In the plural?”

“I wouldn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.” Tugging playfully on her braid, he headed for the door. “The blood pickup team has arrived.”