Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(103)

He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “I’m not lying. I am Aegaeon! I don’t lie!”

No, he simply used and threw away people when he was done. Do you think he actually believes what he’s saying to me? She had to ask for an outside opinion, she was so flummoxed by this strange turn of events.

Titus’s answer wasn’t the disgust she’d expected. Instead, after a long pause, he said, I think, Shari, some part of you did scare him, for you are a woman with a rare light within. I don’t believe Aegaeon can love anyone but himself, not in truth, but there was something about you that made him want to be other than he was . . . and instead of taking that risk, he chose cowardice and cruelty.

Sharine heard an unmasked depth of feeling in Titus’s words, but she also heard a painful clarity. “What was the trigger?” she asked Aegaeon with conscious gentleness, not to be kind, but because she needed him to stop blustering and give her an answer.

His jaw worked before he turned away and strode to the end of the roof then back. “I began to think what it would be like to have another child and soon I started to want it,” he admitted. “Where before, I could imagine siring that child on any one of my harem, then I saw only you.”

All artifice and vanity stripped from his face, he bunched his hands, flexed them open. Once. Twice. “Our son was a delight, courageous and wild and curious, because of you. You were the reason for my joy.”

Sharine believed him. He’d orchestrated an act of inexplicable cruelty because he’d been running from his own emotions. “Yes,” she said at last, her voice soft. “You were a coward.”

He flinched, as if she’d landed a physical blow, and she knew that to Aegaeon, her words were more vicious and wounding than any cut from a blade. But she wasn’t done. “I feel no anger toward you any longer,” she said, “but neither do I feel any sense of love or affection or even interest.”

Her world was now far bigger than he would ever be; she’d outgrown Aegaeon for all that he was an Ancient. There was an incredible sense of finality in that knowledge.

“But,” she added before he could respond, “if you do anything to hurt our son, I will find a way to end you.” Absolute calm in her words because they were the truth. “I know archangels can only be killed by other archangels, but should I come after you, I won’t meet you face-to-face in battle.

“I’ll be cunning and stealthy in my vengeance, and I’ll find you when you believe yourself safe. Then I’ll cut off your head and put that head in a dark cavern where no one can hear you scream, and I’ll come back every so often to chop off any parts that have regenerated.”

Titus’s stifled laughter inside her head was nothing in comparison to the naked horror on Aegaeon’s face.

“You are yet mad,” he whispered. “I thought you were recovered, but . . .”

Sharine smiled.

One of the most powerful beings in the world took a step back from her.

“I’m quite sane,” she said in the same gentle tone filled with serene resolve. “I also have the respect of people from members of the Cadre to the most junior servant in your court. My threat isn’t an empty one. Cross me, and you’ll spend eternity screaming into the void.”

Aegaeon’s face flushed, his wings beginning to glow. “I can end you here and now.”

Shari, I’m flying to you.

“Yes.” Sharine looked at Aegaeon without fear, knowing she had to end this soon—she had no desire to embroil Titus in another battle. “If you wish to be an outcast shunned by our people for all eternity.” She was no longer the needy woman who’d fallen for his blandishments; she knew her own worth and she understood that kindness reverberated through time.

“This isn’t about violence or power, Aegaeon.” This time her smile held an edge of sadness. “It’s about two people who once could’ve been something, but will never again have that chance.”

A shifting in his expression, a hint of the man she’d seen at times during their relationship. The man who’d played for hours with their little boy and who’d looked at her with eyes full of wonder. “So, this is to be my penance. To see you glow and know I will never again be in your orbit.”

Then, to her absolute astonishment, he bent at the waist in a bow an archangel gave no one. It swayed nothing in her, but she accepted that the gesture was one with meaning.

“Good-bye, Sharine.”

“Good-bye, Aegaeon.”

I want to drive my fist into his face, came a deep male voice in her head.

He’ll enjoy it, Sharine said. It’ll reignite his belief that I foster lingering emotions for him, causing you to act out in jealousy. She watched Aegaeon’s wings disappear into the night-dark sky. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

An ominous silence.

Sharine said nothing further. Titus had to make this decision for himself. When he landed on the roof a good hour later, she was ready to strip off his skin with her tongue. She’d handled the situation, and in a way that she knew would bite at Aegaeon for eons to come.

Rejection and disinterest were two things her former lover couldn’t take.

First, she looked Titus up and down. He appeared none the worse for wear. Folding her arms, she tapped her foot. “What did you do?”