Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)(2)

As in front of them thrived the verdant green of the Legion building. “I kept my promise,” she said, a knot in her throat.

“You did, hbeebti.” A kiss pressed to the top of her head. “You have kept their home alive.”

Neither one of them spoke aloud the fear that haunted Elena: that the Legion’s green home would remain forever empty, an echoing cavern devoid of the beautifully eerie presence of the seven hundred and seventy-seven beings who’d called it home.

The Legion, however, weren’t the only ones Elena missed with feral desperation. “Tell me Aodhan will be coming home soon.” He’d stood by Suyin’s side as her second ever since her sudden ascension to an archangel on the far edge of the war.

Elena liked Suyin and didn’t envy her the job she’d taken on as Archangel of China, but she wanted Aodhan home, surrounded by those who loved him. Aodhan trusted so few people, leaned on an even smaller number—and that trust had been years in the making.

She hated the idea of him being so far from all of that small group.

“Not just yet,” Raphael said, his wing spreading in a caress behind her as the blazing rays of the sun set fire to the midnight strands of his hair. “That is why I’m out here. I’ve just had a meeting with Jason.”

Elena hadn’t realized the spymaster had returned from his latest trip. Hardly a surprise. The black-winged angel took pride slipping in and out of places. “He was in China?”

“He dropped by.” A faint smile in Raphael’s tone. “As Jason is wont to do now that one of our own calls it home.”

“Did he speak to Aodhan?” Shifting so she could see Raphael’s face, the sheer masculine beauty of him still a punch to the gut every single time, Elena resettled her own restless wings.

“Yes. He is strong, Aodhan, stronger than any of us realized. He does his duty.”

“That tells me exactly nothing,” Elena muttered with a scowl. “Is he okay? Homesick?”

“Jason found it difficult to judge—the two are blood-loyal to one another, but they don’t have the kind of relationship where such intimacies are discussed.”

Placing both hands on her hips, over the supple and well-fitted leather of her hunt-suitable pants, Elena snorted. “You mean they’d both rather slit their own throats than acknowledge they have the dreaded fee-fees?” Jason was the quietest and most reserved of the Seven, Aodhan not much better.

Raphael laughed, the sound a crash of joy in her veins. “Mahiya would disagree with that opinion.”

“We all know she’s the sole exception to the rule when it comes to Jason.” Elena was glad for the spymaster that he’d found a lover he trusted with all of himself. Aodhan, however . . . “Sparkle is far from home, with none of his people around him.”

“Yes, that concerns me, too.” Raphael paused before adding, “I think it has been good for him to be independent from all of us this past year. I also believe it’s time to remind him of home—I would not have him make the choice to come in a vacuum.”

Elena didn’t push for the why behind the first part of Raphael’s statement; she knew Aodhan’s past held a terrible darkness. Enough that he’d retreated from the world for a long, painful time.

He was so hurt, Ellie . . . the part that makes Aodhan who he is, it was so badly damaged that I thought I’d lost my friend forever.

Words Illium had spoken to her once, a wrenching agony to him.

The memory had helped her understand why Raphael had allowed it when Aodhan volunteered to stand as Suyin’s second—so that Aodhan, in his full power now, no longer wounded or secluded, would have options, and wouldn’t stay loyal to Raphael only because that was all he’d ever known.

Her archangel loved Aodhan enough to set him free.

“A choice?” Elena said, her stomach in knots. “So Suyin’s done it? Asked him to stay on permanently as her second?” All of them had expected it—Aodhan was too strong, too intelligent, and too good at the tasks required of a senior member of an archangel’s court for it to be otherwise.

To her surprise, Raphael shook his head. “She spoke to me of her desire to do so mere moments before Jason’s arrival. She didn’t wish to make Aodhan a formal offer behind my back.”

“Yeah, she’s not sneaky.” It was part of why Elena liked her—and why Aodhan did, too. He’d said as much to Elena when they’d spoken prior to his move to China. “She has honor, Ellie, a bone-deep well of it. There are no masks with Suyin, no lies. If anything, she’s too tied to behaving with integrity in all things. I can work with such an archangel.”

Elena had no need to ask Raphael what answer he’d given Suyin—he’d never hold Aodhan back from taking the prestigious position, even if it broke his archangel’s heart. “This is his time,” she agreed, her voice rough. “And being second, new court or not . . . even I know it’s a big fucking deal.”

“Exactly so.”

“But we’re going to fight for him, right?” Elena said, while the last rays of the sun played on the side of her face, a touch of warmth on this cold day as the world slid from fall into winter.

“That would be a possessive action, and I have never been known to be such.”

She grinned. “Of course not.” Leaping into his arms, she pressed her lips to his as he wrapped her up in his wings. The passion between them was a thing of wildfire heat that made the world shimmer, a desert mirage of need and love and devotion.