Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Sand, gritty and fine, against his teeth, on Aodhan’s skin, glimmers of silica against the faint brilliance of him, the only light out here from the stars. And in that radiance, Aodhan glowed like moonlight, lighting up his amber…and Illium’s, too.
An entanglement of hearts in perfect sync.
Today
34
Aodhan stared out across the Hudson from his position in the trees he and Illium had planted for privacy after they first purchased this house from an angel who’d decided to relocate permanently to the Refuge. He knew what was happening, understood that Illium would be drawn to land in front of Raphael first, and he knew, knew that there were no two archangels less likely to do violence to each other, but still he worried.
Power altered people. It had altered even Raphael at one time. The archangel he’d known as the indulgent Rafa, then as a strong but fair warrior, had become cold and distant, a remote being who could mete out the cruelest of punishments without emotion. He’d once broken a vampire’s bones with such methodical precision that the vampire had been nothing but stones in a bag of flesh.
Aodhan had been glad not to be in the city at the time, not to have to bear witness.
Raphael was no longer that man, hadn’t ever regressed after he met Elena, but he was also about to lose both his first general, and a second member of his Seven.
Archangels did not always react rationally. Dmitri, he said, reaching out with his mind, do you know what’s happening?
We can’t see them, came the immediate answer in a voice as taut as Aodhan’s muscles. Glamour.
Time slowed, became a river of molasses.
He’s on his way, Dmitri said at last, the tension replaced by emotions far more complex. You both remain ours, Aodhan. This territory will always be safe ground for you and Illium.
Aodhan knew the edict must’ve come from Raphael, but he still didn’t take a complete breath until he spotted Illium over the water after what felt like a lifetime.
It hurt going in.
And though he’d waited for this, he found himself stumbling his way back to his half-destroyed studio. Not for privacy, for the trees provided more than enough—and anyone who dared spy on a newly ascended archangel was an idiot who deserved to be blasted out of the sky—but because it was familiar.
While the man he loved beyond all reason was suddenly unfamiliar.
An archangel.
Illium had just become a being of such power that he could annihilate Aodhan in a heartbeat should it ever come to that.
He began to pick up broken and fallen items with mechanical numbness.
A gust of wind pulsed fine particles of debris into the air as Illium landed through the large hole in the roof and side wall that he’d created during his ascension. Falling fast, he came down on one knee, one hand braced on the floor, the dust he’d created from the speed of his landing drifting down to land on his hair and wings in a gritty coating.
He looked no different.
Then he raised his head, and in the aged gold burned the breathtaking power of an archangel.
“Does it hurt?” Aodhan asked in desperation, moving toward him in an instinctive jerk.
Illium’s grin was wild and of Aodhan’s Blue. “I feel high.” Laughing, he rose in a fluid movement and ran to clasp Aodhan’s face in his hands, haul him down for a kiss that hummed with an energy new and intense and violent in its voraciousness.
That unearthly power crackled over Aodhan’s skin, down his wings, into his mouth. It was a spark everywhere they touched, tiny shocks that caused no pain but were a constant reminder that the Illium he’d always known had changed forever. But his kiss, despite the new taste of archangelic power…that was familiar.
His lips so soft against Aodhan’s even when the kiss itself was hard and playful at the same time, his breath with its hidden whisper of sweetness, the way he liked to play with Aodhan’s hair while they kissed.
Illium’s eyes glowed as he broke the kiss. So did his wings. Archangels only usually did that when they were angry or powering up to strike, but Illium was afire with happiness. “Overflow,” he said, showing Aodhan his forearm; power crackled over his skin. “I wasn’t close enough to Suyin during the ascension to see this, but it makes sense that it takes a while for the new energy to settle.”
Aodhan touched his finger to a single spark of power. It jolted him.
Jerking back his hand, he shook it out. “At least you weren’t that electric when we kissed.” He was trying to make a joke of it, but fear was a stranglehold he couldn’t escape. They’d always said they were forever, but they hadn’t understood at the time what becoming an archangel actually meant.
Illium was no longer the same being.