Archangel's Heart

7

Elena spoke the words of love in her grandmother’s language, felt Raphael’s response in the look he gave her. It was blue fire and it was furious tenderness.

When she turned back to face Illium and Aodhan, she caught the sorrow in Illium’s eyes. It was old, that sorrow, came from the loss of the mortal he’d once loved, a woman for whom he’d lost his feathers in punishment and whom he mourned to this day.

Then Aodhan leaned in to murmur something against his ear. Face lighting up at whatever it was his best friend had said, Illium chuckled.

“Sire,” the light-shattered angel said afterward, his profile a purity of clean lines. “I have been doing further research on the Luminata.”

Intrigued, Elena focused on the angel who was more luminous than any of these Luminata could possibly be.

“Their leader, Gian,” Aodhan continued, “has held his position for four centuries—this is unusual among the Luminata. They are meant to rotate the leadership through their membership every five decades to ensure that politics and power do not distract from or corrupt a member’s search for luminescence.”

Raphael, who had gone motionless beside Elena, now said, “How do you know this, Aodhan?”

“Yes.” Illium’s tone was as hard as stone. “The Luminata don’t exactly advertise their internal workings.”

Elena realized she was missing something, so much withheld aggression in the air that she could’ve cut it with a knife.

Aodhan broke eye contact with Raphael to meet Illium’s gaze. The words he spoke were edgier than she’d ever heard Aodhan sound. “I’m no longer a broken doll who needs to be protected from those who might play roughly with me.”

Flinching as if he’d been slapped, Illium shoved back his chair and left the library through the doors that stood open to the lawn.

Elena.

She was already moving. I’ve got it. If she hadn’t heard that tone in Aodhan’s voice before, she hadn’t seen that expression on Illium’s face, either. So furiously angry and yet hurt. Deeply hurt.

Following the angel outside, she hoped he hadn’t taken off—because if Illium wanted to outpace her, she had no chance in hell of catching up to him. But he was standing on the very edge of the property, on the cliffs that looked down on the dark waters of the Hudson, the Manhattan skyline in the distance. Angels landed on Tower balconies as she watched, but today, even that sight didn’t have the power to hold her attention.

Walking to stand beside Illium, she very deliberately slid her wing over his tightly held ones; a touch that told him he wasn’t alone but that made no demands. Words weren’t always easy when things mattered.

The wind was quiet against her face tonight. It pushed Illium’s hair back gently from his face, those black strands dipped in blue that simply grew that way, to reveal the lines of a face that held a pure masculine beauty. But beautiful though he was, it hadn’t been his looks but the playful wickedness in Illium that had drawn Elena—that light in him, it was a bright, joyful candle against the dark.

Today, the light was snuffed out, his golden eyes strangely flat—as if he was holding himself in such fierce check that he’d buried the best part of himself. Elena couldn’t stand it. She took his hand, wove her fingers through his. He didn’t respond for a second, two . . . then, at last, his fingers curled around hers.

His skin grew warm in the minutes that followed, the horrible flatness retreating from his gaze.

“Do you know how badly hurt Aodhan was when we found him?” The words trembled. “His wings were all but rotted away, mere strings of tendons, and bone as soft as unfired clay all that remained. All his beautiful feathers gone, the webbing in shreds, his strength stolen and his body encrusted in dirt.”

Horror clawed Elena’s gut at the grim recitation. She knew something terrible had happened to Aodhan, bad enough that it had made him retreat from life for two hundred years. He’d imprisoned himself in the Refuge, had refused physical contact with anyone, hadn’t laughed, hadn’t interacted with the people who loved him.

It was Illium who’d reached him, Illium who was his best and closest friend.

“He was so hurt, Ellie,” Illium continued without waiting for an answer. “Not just on the outside.” He slapped his free hand against his heart. “This, the part that makes Aodhan who he is, it was so badly damaged that I thought I’d lost my friend forever.” Tears glittered in his eyes.

Glancing away, he stared at Manhattan with such harsh focus that she knew he was fighting those tears. His throat moved, his jaw a brutal line.

It hit her hard, because beauty and playfulness aside, Illium was one of the toughest fighters among Raphael’s people. He gave no quarter, was a warrior who’d fly headlong into an enemy squadron if a pitiless charge was what was required.

“Hey.” She flexed her fingers around his, tugging lightly until he turned to face her. “I can take it, Bluebell. Whatever you want to unload.” She smiled. “It can’t be any worse than Ransom’s love life before Nyree took pity on him.”

The bleak despair that gripped him seemed as if it would defeat the bonds of their friendship, but then his lips tugged up a little. Lifting their clasped hands, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. And he was her Bluebell again, beautiful and wild and with power humming in his veins. So much power.

She sucked in a breath, suddenly realizing she could see every vein in Illium’s body—on his neck, down his arms, across his face. They glowed, as if his blood was molten gold. Her heart slammed into her ribcage, propelled by memories of the blazing light that had shoved out of him two years ago.

He’d almost died that day.

“Illium.”

“It’s nothing dangerous. Comes and goes.” A shrug. “There’s no attendant surge of power.” A sudden grin. “I’m just glow-in-the-dark for a minute or two.” The smile faded as quickly as it had come, along with the golden light in his veins.

Consciously taking a deep breath, then another, Elena lifted a hand to brush his hair off his forehead. Her heart was a racehorse in her chest, but this wasn’t about her. “Aodhan hurt you.”

“It’s more that he’s hurting himself.” He looked out at Manhattan again, but he was no longer holding his wings to his back with unforgiving tightness. Opening them a fraction, he allowed his feathers to slide against hers.

Many people would see that and think it an intimacy. It was. One between friends. Raphael called Illium her favorite. That was true, too. But he wasn’t her lover, would never hold that position—that part of Elena belonged always to her archangel. That was why she could hold his hand, why she could slide her wing over his, why he could kiss her knuckles.

“During his recovery,” Illium said into the quiet, “right at the start, when Keir was basically trying to put him back together, Aodhan didn’t speak, didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.” Such pain in his voice. “He’d just stare at whatever nightmares existed in his mind, a broken doll.”

The use of those words, Elena grasped, had been deliberate on Aodhan’s part.

“The person who described him that way was an angel named Remus.” Illium’s hand clenched around Elena’s with such strength that her bones hurt.

She said nothing, just listened.

“Remus was Keir’s assistant at the time.” He released a breath, eased his grip. “I’m sorry, Ellie.”

“I’m hunter-born, Bluebell. A little squeeze won’t do me any harm.”

Chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm, Illium said, “Remus was a failed member of the Luminata.” He shifted to walk in the direction of her greenhouse, tugging her along with him.

She went, the glass structure a beacon of light on that side of the yard. It was the heat lamps within, the ones that nurtured her plans. “Did Remus get kicked out of Lumia?”

Illium’s satisfaction was in his voice when he answered. “I always thought he must’ve been kicked out, too, but Remus insisted he’d left because he realized he hadn’t finished living his life in the outside world yet. He implied that he’d be able to walk back into Lumia at any point in time.”

“This Remus guy, he’s not Keir’s assistant any longer.”

“No.” A word so razor-edged the air bled. “Remus had no business being in a healer’s employ.” Coming to a standstill beside the greenhouse, Illium looked back toward the open doors to the library. “He spent a lot of time with Aodhan while Aodhan was in the Medica. I was there, too, as were the others of us who were with Raphael at that time, as well as Raphael himself. My mother. His parents.”

He swallowed audibly. “I would’ve lived at the Medica had Keir allowed it—I couldn’t bear to have Aodhan out of my sight after what had happened.” Wings shifting restlessly, his fingers clenching down on hers again. “But every so often, Remus would tell us that as a healer’s apprentice, he could see Aodhan was growing strained at the constant companionship, that he needed a little time to find his own peace. We didn’t want to hurt him—we never wanted to hurt him—so we’d leave.”

Hairs rose on the back of Elena’s neck, an ugly feeling in her gut. “And this Remus dude would be alone with him?”

Illium nodded. “I came back early one day. I planned to sit outside Aodhan’s room until Remus said it was okay to go in again.” He broke their handclasp to spin away, a sound of raw rage erupting from his throat. “But the door was partially open,” he said without turning back. “Because it was, I went closer in case Remus had cleared visitors . . . and I heard someone whispering in there. It was Remus. He was telling Aodhan he was a broken doll and that broken dolls needed masters.”

Elena’s eyes grew hot with fury. “Bastard.”

“I didn’t need to hear anything else. It was obvious Remus was using his position to abuse Aodhan, break down anything that remained inside him so Remus could ‘own’ him.” Rage and tears vied for space in Illium’s voice. “Everyone wants to own Aodhan. He’s a beautiful jewel and the world can’t bear just to look at him and wonder at his beauty. They want to break him, cage him.”

“What did you do to Remus?”

“I threw him out of the room then proceeded to attempt to beat him to death,” Illium responded in a tone so cold it caused goose bumps over her skin. “I would’ve succeeded if Aodhan hadn’t spoken at last. It was so quiet, so soft, but I heard him. He said, Bluebell.” Illium blew out a harsh breath. “It was like a gunshot going off inside my head. I dropped the bag of broken bones that was Remus and rushed into Aodhan’s room—”

He cut off his words, as if the memory of that moment was too much to bear.

Shifting to stand beside him once more, Elena ran her hand gently over his wing, his feathers silky and warm under her palm. In profile, against the light of the greenhouse, he was a granite statue, his jaw clenched with agonizing force.

When he spoke, each word was a jagged chip of flint. “Remus was lying bleeding and broken outside when Raphael came. He didn’t ask me anything at that time, just threw Remus in a treatment room and alerted Keir that one of his people needed his assistance.”

“He knew you must’ve had good reason.”

“When I was finally calm enough to speak, after Aodhan fell into a natural sleep, I told him what I’d overheard.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “To this day, I don’t know what Raphael said to Keir, but Remus was banished from the Medica for the duration of his immortal life. If he’s ever injured, he must wait outside and hope someone comes to assist him.”

Elena thought back to her time in the Refuge, came up blank. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s an outcast.” Harsh satisfaction ran through Illium’s voice. “People respect Keir no matter their political affiliation. That he banished Remus was enough for most to shun him; none of us ever spoke publicly about the reason he’d been banished.” Shoving back his hair again, his hand rough, he said, “We refused to give that bastard the satisfaction of having others look on Aodhan with pity. He survived hell, Ellie. He deserved nothing but accolades for his courage. Never pity.”

Elena connected the dots, hissed out a breath. “Shit. Aodhan’s obviously been speaking to him again.” She could see why both Illium and Raphael had reacted so badly to the idea. “You’re not worried that Remus was successful in brainwashing him, are you?”

An immediate shake of Illium’s head. “That day, when Aodhan first woke, he told me that Remus was nothing, a worm. Aodhan had blanked him out the same way he’d done the rest of the world until he heard me in a rage, beating Remus to death.”

Illium’s voice broke. “Aodhan was worried about me. He was shattered, his body and soul wounded to the breaking point, and he was worried about me. That’s what brought him back to us, his worry about me. And he kicks at me because I’m worried about him now?”

His hurt was so deep and so violent that Elena felt her own heart ache. “He’s waking up more and more,” she said, fighting her own angry response to the idea of Aodhan exposing himself to harm. “It’s been a long process for him.” The angel had been locked inside himself for an eternity before he decided to come to New York, spread his wings again. “He’s going to react badly to anyone questioning his ability to look after himself.”

Illium’s jaw worked. “So I’m not allowed to worry about my friend?” His wing sliding away as he turned to face her, he shook his head again. “Do you know what it did to me when we lost him? The nearly two years he was gone?”

Not saying another word, he spread his wings and took off in a harsh gust of wind that whipped Elena’s hair across her face. So fast and high that all she could do was watch him disappear into the stars.