Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)(83)

Aodhan could still remember the rage that had scalded him in the aftermath. “As if I was still that broken angel in the infirmary, unable to defend myself, my mind so wounded that I was nothing but prey.”

Illium swallowed, his gaze bruised—but the spark, it had reignited. “Do you know how hard it was for me to watch you fight your way back to yourself?” Raw emotion in every word. “Now you’re pissed at me for being protective?”

“Yes.” Aodhan wasn’t going to back off, not on this point. “If you want us to stay friends, you can’t pull the protective shit, Blue. I don’t have the capacity to deal with it anymore.” It was as if he’d woken out of a long sleep and any hint of being coddled or protected enraged him. “It reminds me of who I was for a long time—and I fucking hate that pathetic creature!”

Eyes afire, Illium stepped closer. “Don’t you dare talk about yourself that way!” He scowled, no longer in any way distant now that he was defending Aodhan. “You survived an evil that would’ve killed other angels!”

Aodhan had been told that over and over, and it made no difference. “I let those bastards scar me to the point that I put myself in a cage.” He slammed a fist against his chest, his anger a hot, hard thing that cut. “But I’ve broken free at last—and I won’t let anyone else put me back in a box. Any fucking kind of a box.”

Illium folded his arms, his biceps flexing. “Caring for you enough to look out for you isn’t trying to control you,” he argued, red slashes of color on his cheekbones. “It’s what normal people do for those they love.”

“Oh?” Aodhan rose to his full height, faced his friend. “When was the last time you allowed me to do anything protective for you?”

“When my asshole father decided to reappear like a bad smell,” Illium shot back. “Or was that another sparkling angel who dropped out of the sky onto my mother’s rooftop?”

“Listen to yourself. You had that on the tip of your tongue because it’s one of the very few times in two hundred years where I haven’t been taking but giving.”

Illium’s eyebrows lowered. “You’re not a taker, Aodhan. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that. You give away your art. You give away your time. You moved to the cauldron of death because Suyin needed a second!”

“Cauldron of death?”

A one-shoulder shrug. “It was all that came to me. But my point stands. You don’t take, Aodhan. You give.”

“Except when it comes to you,” Aodhan whispered, suddenly exhausted. Bracing both hands on the counter, he shook his head. “We’ve fallen into a pattern where you protect and shield me from the world, Blue, and I won’t have it.”

This time when he raised his hand and touched the side of Illium’s face, his friend didn’t push him away. “We were never unbalanced before I broke. That’s why we worked. Each as strong as the other.”

Illium’s throat moved. “Adi, I can’t help looking after my people.” A frustrated plea. “That’s who I am.”

“Is it? Or is it someone you’ve had to become?” Lady Sharine was now awake, but she’d been asleep for a long, long time, Illium her caretaker as much as her son. Then had come Aodhan.

Two of the most important pillars of Illium’s life had shattered, and he’d used his wide shoulders to prop them up. “It’s time for me and Eh-ma to stand on our own two feet.” He gripped Illium tighter. “It’s time for us to be your support rather than the other way around.”

“I never minded,” Illium said, raising his hand to grip Aodhan’s wrist with a strong hand callused from relentless sword work. “Not for a single instant. Not when it came to you, and not when it came to Ma.”

“I know.” That just made their crime all the worse. They’d corrupted Illium’s generous nature, exacerbating his tendency to give until he had nothing left for himself.

That it had been without intent didn’t alter the damage done.

“I know,” he repeated. “But my need for that kind of protection is in the past now. The man I am today? What I need is for you to treat me as an equal, as you did before Sachieri and Bathar.”

Illium sucked in a breath. “You really are ready to talk about that.” He made a face. “I guess I should stop sniping at Suyin and thank her.”

Illium’s protectiveness toward his people had always been laced with a big dose of possessiveness. If he had a flaw, it was that. And in the grand scheme of things, with his giving heart to balance it out, it was nothing.

“I haven’t said a word to Suyin about this.” Aodhan squeezed the side of the other man’s face. “If I was ever going to talk to anyone, it was always going to be you. Always.”

The simple, honest words lay between them, a peace offering.

Releasing his wrist, Illium turned back to his aborted meal. “Want a bowl of angry stew? We can sit by the fire and eat and you can talk if you want.”

Aodhan fought his urge to bristle, because there Illium went, taking care of him again . . . but they did have to talk about this. It was time.





Our memories make us. Even the darkest of them all.

    —Archangel Raphael