Aodhan’s response to emotional pain was to withdraw.
Illium had watched him do that two hundred years ago, Aodhan’s spirit more badly shattered than his brutalized body, and Illium had never given up. He’d known Aodhan needed him to persevere, needed his help to haul himself out of his personal hell.
But now? When he knew Aodhan did call Ellie to talk, that he stayed in regular touch with Illium’s mother, and with others in the Tower?
Illium had received the message.
Normally, he wasn’t one to assume anything. Illium’s way was to ask the question to people’s faces. He and Aodhan, they’d never not spoken about things . . . except for the one terrible act that had forever marked Aodhan. About that, he spoke to no one. Not even Illium.
Perhaps that had been the first sign that Illium shouldn’t have ignored.
But even a man who always asked questions, always confronted life head-on couldn’t be expected to put himself out there without any shields when he had been so quietly and thoroughly rebuffed.
There was no need for questions or conversations.
The best course of action was collegial distance. The last thing he ever wanted to do was make Aodhan feel obligated to stay his friend—or worse, to make him feel coerced, caged. The thought of it was a physical blow that made him want to curl over his stomach.
Forcing himself to move away from the door, he took off his pack and threw it on a flimsy-looking white chair with curved legs and a velvet seat cushion, then headed straight through a door he assumed led to the bathing chamber.
He was right.
Ignoring the empty and cold bath, he stripped, then stepped into the baroque shower with its ornate gold showerheads. The tiles were pink marble, the abandoned shower brush fluffy white with a pink handle. A laugh bubbled out of him at the ridiculousness of it all, but it was a laugh without humor.
At least the shower area was open, clearly designed so it could be utilized by angels as well as vampires and mortals. Or perhaps it had been meant for orgies. There were multiple showerheads from every direction. He turned them all on, then stood there under the pounding spray.
He had to get a handle on his responses.
His and Aodhan’s friendship might be dead and buried, but Aodhan was still one of the Seven, and Raphael had sent Illium to support him—including in his decision about becoming Suyin’s second, no matter if that decision led to him leaving the Tower.
Illium would not fall down in that task, would back Aodhan every step of the way. When it came to their lost friendship . . . time would fix the bleeding wound inside him. It might take an eon, but it would.
His shoulders knotted, his jaw clenching hard enough to hurt as water pummeled his bare skin. He. Was. Done.
5
Yesterday
Sharine’s heart bloomed at seeing Aegaeon bend down to grab their son, who was toddling toward him as fast as his little legs could carry. He was a big man, Aegaeon, with wide shoulders and muscled arms, his hair a vivid blue-green and his eyes the same vibrant shade.
His wings were a darker green interrupted by streaks of wild blue.
It was from his father that Illium had inherited the blue that tipped his hair. The same blue had begun to color the fluffy yellow-white of his baby feathers.
Now, Illium laughed in delight as his father picked him up and swung him around. Aegaeon laughed, too, open in his pride in his son, and in his happiness at being with him.
Sharine knew Aegaeon didn’t love her, not in the way that Raan had loved her. Aegaeon kept a harem at his court. He had lovers aplenty. But Sharine was content. Because he’d given her Illium, the greatest joy of her life. And he loved Illium. That was what mattered.
They’d already spoken about when Illium grew older and could be taken to Aegaeon’s court for visits. Sharine would go with him, of course. That had never been in question. Aegaeon was a good father, but he didn’t know how to look after a rambunctious little boy—he’d admitted that himself.
She hated the court, but Aegaeon had promised her that she and Illium would have an entire wing away from the venomous menagerie of his harem. “Even should your paths cross, they won’t dare touch you, whether by voice or by act,” Aegaeon had promised. “You are the mother of my son.”
Regardless, Sharine wasn’t looking forward to that part of things, but she was glad for Illium. Right now, at so young an age, he was happy to live with her, and to see his father only when Aegaeon came to visit the Refuge, but there would come a time when her boy needed his father’s guidance.
She’d seen that with Nadiel and Caliane’s boy.
Her heart ached at the thought of the new archangel who’d once been a youth devastated by the execution of his father. But Raphael had never blamed his mother for her actions, old enough to understand that his father was no longer who he’d once been, and needed to be stopped.
Still, she knew he missed Nadiel.
Boys and their fathers, it was a different bond than the one they had with their mothers.
Today, her boy sat proudly in his father’s arms as Aegaeon closed the rest of the distance to Sharine’s cottage. Aegaeon was shirtless, as was his predilection, and the swirl on his chest shone silver in the sunlight. He was a handsome man, and once, he’d taken her breath away.
That first flush of love had passed, but she still turned her face into his palm when he cupped her cheek, her heart sighing at his return. “Welcome home.”
“It is good to be here,” Aegaeon said, his voice a deep pulse she felt in her bones, and his smile blinding. “What a treat you are for my eyes, Sharine.” A low rumble. “My court is a place of constant battle, but here, there is peace. I would live always in the Refuge were I able.”
Sweet, sweet words that fell like nourishing rain on a heart that had never again thought to fall in love. “We have missed you.” Before him, she’d believed she was content in her aloneness, in her small circle of friendship and art.
Then he’d swept into her life, made his way into her heart, woken her up again. “I wish you could be here always, too,” she said, pushing aside the knowledge of his harem, and of his life in a far-off land kissed by another ocean.
None of that mattered as long as he loved their son.
Freedom and love are entwined.
—Lady Sharine
6
Today
Aodhan hadn’t slept. He was old enough that he didn’t need sleep as a mortal did, but he still usually got a few hours a night. That had been impossible last night, with Illium behind a closed door across from him.
At any other time in their history, he’d have thought nothing of just opening that door and walking in, sprawling himself down in a chair and talking to the other man while Illium wound down from the stress of the long flight.