Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)(59)

“Sorry,” Aodhan had muttered. “I can’t predict when someone will be idiotic enough to set off that part of me.” Because it took a lot.

Illium had grinned and thrown an arm around his shoulders. “If only your legions of admirers knew the things you think in that pretty, sparkling head.”

Today, there was no laughter, no gentle ribbing, no sound at all from the friend who usually spoke a hundred words to every one of Aodhan’s.

Aodhan had never seen Illium so broken—and it broke him. His heart hurt. He’d do anything to fix this, make Illium smile again, but he couldn’t bring back Illium and Kaia’s love.

“She’s fine,” he said, hoping it wasn’t the worst possible thing to say. “I flew over the village to check on her.” Aodhan had spotted her in the act of taking the washing out to the cold, clear waters of a nearby stream, laughter in her pretty and lively face as she spoke to another young woman.

Illium stirred at last, eyes dark with anguish looking at Aodhan. “She is?”

Aodhan’s lungs expanded on a rush of air. “You know she feels no pain.” That was the sting in the tail of Illium’s punishment—his lover would feel no torment, suffer no loss. Because her mind had been erased of all memories of Illium, as had the minds of everyone else in the village.

To them, he wasn’t even a ghost; he’d simply never existed.

Illium’s voice shook as he said, “I’m glad.” Brokenhearted love in his words. “It was my fault. I told her something I shouldn’t have.”

The secrets of angels were not for mortal ears. A truth—a law—drummed into them from childhood. To tell a mortal such secrets was a crime that could lead to execution for all involved—but Kaia’s life had never been in danger. “You know Raphael—”

“I know.” Shuddering, Illium leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs. “He never threatened her life. Not once. ‘All I’ll take are her memories of you,’ that’s what he said.” Illium’s body hunched in on itself. “The look on his face, Aodhan. I hurt him by making him do that, making him punish me.”

Aodhan stroked his hand down Illium’s back and wings. It was a good sign that his friend was already thinking about Raphael’s reaction to his transgression rather than the fact he’d lost the lover with whom he’d been obsessed. Illium had courted Kaia with gifts and acts of romance, run to her every day that he could, dreamed of her when he slept.

Aodhan had never said anything against her, but he hadn’t liked how she made Illium act, how she’d pushed him and pushed him and pushed him for more and still more. Never had she been satisfied with the gift of him. Illium, who was so beloved of so many, hadn’t been good enough for her without all the gifts and the romantic gestures, and the public devotion.

She’d treated Aodhan’s friend like a trophy—the angel who was in thrall to her.

Aodhan’s reticence had been for more than one reason. The first was that while he’d had small romances, he hadn’t yet fallen in love himself. As such, he was aware he had no real experience to inform his opinions. He’d also received advice from an unexpected source: Dmitri.

Raphael’s second was so much older than Illium and Aodhan that, most of the time, he treated them like awkward, fumbling pups. But, on that one occasion, Dmitri had seen something in Aodhan and pulled him aside. “He won’t listen to you right now,” the vampire had murmured.

“That first love is a small madness.” Haunted echoes in his voice. “For some, it leads to a bond indestructible. For others, it ignites fast and fades as quickly. This shows all the hallmarks of the latter. Leave him be to make that discovery himself rather than turning yourself into an enemy of his love. Be there for him when his heart breaks.”

Aodhan had followed Dmitri’s advice, gritting his teeth and staying quiet whenever Illium mooned over Kaia. What he’d never expected was that he’d have to be there for Illium because he’d breached such a fundamental law that it gave Raphael no choice but to punish him with utmost harshness.

“Are you grounded, too?” To not be permitted to fly, to miss his squadron training, it would hit Illium where it hurt him the most.

A sharp bark of laughter. “He’s taking my feathers. It’s what I deserve.”

Aodhan swallowed hard. The taking of an angel’s feathers by an archangel was just one step below total excision of healthy wings. The impact of the process would leave Illium with translucent wings that, unlike an infant’s, could be spread and stretched—and that were hauntingly beautiful when opened in the light, a shimmering mirage of flight.

Only a member of the Cadre was capable of doling out the punishment—which, despite the visual impact and painful surface burns, caused no serious damage to the underlying wing structure. So it was another mercy that Raphael was doing Illium. But an angel wasn’t designed for featherless flight; to lose your feathers was to lose your wings.

Aodhan didn’t know how long it’d take for Illium’s extraordinary feathers to return, how long his friend would be tied to the earth. Despite his question, however, part of him had known this was coming; he’d just hoped for leniency. But Raphael had already shown the greatest possible leniency by allowing Illium’s lover to live.

Not many of the Cadre would have been that kind.