Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)(37)

It was an excellent theory, the fog an extension of Lijuan’s power.

“More?” Li Wei asked after he was done, and had chased it all down with a tall glass of water.

“No.” He grinned and bowed over her hand. “I thank you for the sustenance, my beauteous Li Wei.”

“Ha! Off you go, you scamp.”

He left with a light salute for her, and a soft smile aimed Kai’s way. While he was assisting with the sentries so they could take more breaks, he had no official assigned area. He decided to use that freedom to check on Aodhan, having not seen his friend for the past hour.

This place . . .

He shivered, just not liking the feel of it. Especially now that they had a survivor who’d come out of nowhere and who spoke about Lijuan walking the earth.



* * *




*

Aodhan stood underneath a sky smudged a charcoal gray that said night hadn’t yet released its grasp on the world. Having flown to the highest point in the area—the forested tip of one of Zhangjiajie’s unearthly pillars—Aodhan waited for the light, his intent to search for any signs of unusual movement or activity.

Lijuan’s monstrous creatures weren’t the smartest when they were hungry or injured.

“Why are you lurking in the dark like a bloodborn vampire out of one of your horror movies?”

Aodhan didn’t startle; he’d heard the snap of Illium’s wings as he landed behind him, felt the wind it generated. “Since when do you know anything about horror movies?” he said, light bursting inside him in tiny bubbles at the fact Illium had hunted him down.

“I know many things, young grasshopper.” The other man came to stand beside him. “Oh, I see. This is the best vantage point in the area. You’re waiting for the dawn?”

Aodhan nodded, his throat dry without warning and his face hot. It happened like this sometimes, a sudden flashback to the endless darkness that had been his world once upon a time.

He’d learned to live in the night again, learned to accept that the sun and the moon couldn’t always be his companions—but right then, he came to understand that part of why he so loved New York was that Raphael’s city was never truly dark.

A brush of a wing across his own.

His heart twisted, clenched, clung. He said nothing. Nothing needed to be said. Illium knew his nightmares, had seen him at his most broken, when his wings had been nothing but tendons held together by rotted webbing, and his spirit a thing splintered. Illium understood the horrors the dark held for Aodhan, understood that as long as the night existed, Aodhan could never truly forget.

He didn’t know how long they stood there in a silence that wasn’t comfortable or uncomfortable. It was . . . It had no words. No description. It was a thing formed out of time and friendship and loyalty.

Only when a sliver of light lit the horizon on fire did Aodhan take his first real breath in what felt like hours. Air stabbed into his lungs, filled his nostrils, made his skin ignite with life.

When he felt Illium begin to slide away his wing, he reached out and grabbed the other man’s wrist. Solid bone and warmth, the contact made his world shift the right way up for the first time in more than a year.

Then Illium’s muscles went rigid under his touch, his arm unmoving.

“Let go.” Illium’s voice was a harsh thing full of ground-up rocks as he gave an order he’d never before used on Aodhan. Not for this.

Aodhan never disregarded such requests. Never. But he had to force himself to lift his fingers from around Illium’s wrist one by one. And the words that should’ve come, they stuck in his chest, the silence between them a spiked mine that stabbed and cut.

The image was enough to smash an anvil into his chest, release his words. “What is wrong between us?” It came out almost angry.

Illium’s eyes were aglow when he looked at Aodhan, a sign of the violent power that shadowed him, and haunted all those who loved him. He was far too young for it, needed time yet to be part of Raphael’s Seven, to be a senior squadron commander, to be everyone’s playful Bluebell.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Illium said, his shoulders set as hard as his jaw, and his voice that of the senior squadron commander. Mature. Remote. Professional. It was a face that he’d never before turned toward Aodhan.

“Blue.” The old nickname was torn out of him.

Illium didn’t budge. “We’re just different people now,” he said.

It was a truth, but only a truth. They’d grown as people throughout their lives, yet always remained bonded in blood, their friendship so deep that nothing and no one could shake it. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“You told me you needed freedom.” Illium’s words were rough shards that sliced into them both, the distance exploding in a million deadly pieces. “That night during and after the dinner at Elena and Raphael’s Enclave home, you told me you wanted freedom. As if I was a cage.” He thumped a fisted hand against his chest. “So go, be free, Aodhan. This cage will never again hold you.”

Spreading wings of wild blue and silver in a violent snap, he rose up into the air before Aodhan could respond. He could’ve flown up after him, but no one could catch Illium when he didn’t want to be caught. Aodhan would wait, be patient. They’d be alone soon enough, and then they’d have this out.