“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.
“When are we going to fetch him home?” she demanded. “New York doesn’t feel the same without him.”
Raphael shook his head, no more humor to him, his face an unearthly creation of stark lines and cold power. “I don’t think the time is right for him to make such a momentous move, nor that Suyin is the right archangel for him, but he must make the choice, Elena-mine. Freedom is the one thing I will never take from Aodhan.”
Seeing the echoes of old rage in his eyes, hearing it in his tone—so frigid, the anger an old, old one—Elena stroked his nape, his hair heavy black silk against her fingertips. “Part of me wants to tell him to take the promotion and not look back.” He was magnificent, their Aodhan, more than worthy of the position he’d been offered. “The rest of me wants to drag him home.” A kiss pressed to Raphael’s lips. “I’ll keep it under control, though. I won’t be anything but supportive.”
“As will I,” Raphael said. “But I also plan to fight dirty.” A dangerous spark in the blue. “I have told Suyin I am sending her more help. I am a kind fellow archangel.”
Elena whooped, her grin huge. “You’re sending Illium.”
“Of course I’m sending, Illium, hbeebti. Now, we watch, and we wait.”
Life changes us. To wish otherwise is pointless.
—Nimra, Angel of New Orleans
3
Today
Aodhan was tired.
Not the tired of the body. He was a powerful angel, and tonight, he flew patrol over Suyin’s interim stronghold without any real drain on his resources. Young in the grand scheme of things at just over five centuries of age, but with veins bursting with an energy that made him suitable to be second to an archangel.
It was why Raphael had accepted his offer to assist Suyin as her temporary second.
It was why, three weeks earlier, Suyin had extended him a formal offer to make the position permanent.
Aodhan’s first call had been to Raphael. His sire had told Aodhan that he wouldn’t stand in his way should Aodhan wish to take up the position. “You are the only one who can make that call,” Raphael had said. “Whatever you decide, know that you will forever be part of my Seven.”
Aodhan’s immediate instinct had been to turn down the position. “It is Raphael I call sire—and I do so of my own free will,” he’d said to Suyin at the time. “It is a bond I will not break.”
“You will never be second to Raphael,” Suyin had said in her gentle way, her night-dark eyes vivid against the white foil of her skin and hair. “Dmitri has been too long in that position and is too good at what he does.”