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)
I always knew that, Archangel, said the woman who was the reason for his eternity. Tell Jason to spy extra hard on him until we know he’s all right, that he has good people around him.
Jason won’t need my instruction, Elena-mine. If I know him, he’s already putting the pieces in play.
Soft laughter wet with tears.
He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat a raw chunk of pure emotion.
Illium sucked the light back into himself with a sonic boom of sound, and when he landed, it was in front of Raphael. Cracks went out in every direction on the roof, as they stood, archangel to archangel.
That was how it always was when an angel ascended in the territory of another. They came face-to-face once the ascension was complete. Right after the war, it had been slender Suyin who’d stood shell shocked in front of not just him, but the rest of the Cadre, too—for the others had been near him at the time of her ascension. The white of her hair had been electric with a dark power that glittered like shattered gemstones and made her eyes glow from within.
“Raphael,” she’d said once they were alone, an echo of the power of ascension in her voice, “I am changed. I am become not what I once was. There is a violence within me that never before existed, and it is focused on you.”
At times, Raphael thought the enforced dynamic between archangels a thing perverse, one that wanted to urge them to war, but if that was what the voracious beast wanted today, it would be disappointed.
Raphael would not war with this boy become a man over whom Raphael had watched for centuries. A man who had stood with unshakable fidelity beside Raphael his entire adult life.
“Sire,” Illium said, his eyes shining with a power that would take time to settle, and the blue-tipped black of his hair crackling with fine threads of gold.
Raphael shook his head. “No longer that, Illium.”
A jerk toward him before Illium stopped himself—but then Raphel saw the stubborn set to his jaw with which he was intimately familiar, and the angel with blue wings was hugging him with a tightness that would allow no retreat.
Having already thrown up glamour around them the instant Illium landed, so that no one could spy on this moment between an archangel new and his sire past, Raphael clenched his own arms as tight. “My pride in you is boundless,” he said, his voice rough. “You will be the best of archangels and I will be proud to call you my ally and friend.”
Illium’s arms tightened even further around Raphael, and there were tears in his voice when he said, “I will be your ally till the day my end comes, sire. This I promise on my blood.”
There was that stubbornness he’d first seen in the bright, intelligent boy who’d called him Rafa. “Never call me ‘sire’ in front of the others, Illium,” he said roughly after they pulled back and were face-to-face again. “Archangels are predators and you must be a predator among them.” He cupped the other angel’s face as he had when Illium was a child. “I know in my heart what you are to me, and what I am to you.”
A shuddering breath, before Illium inclined his head. “The glamour is up?”
Raphael nodded. “I can drop it—”
“No, let me do this one last time.” Then Illium went down on one knee after drawing his sword from the scabbard on his back and laying it across his knee. His wings were draped with precision for a formal bow, his head lowered, and his fist at his heart. “For all that you have done for me, for all that you have been to me, for all that you have taught me, there are no words enough to thank you, but thank you I do, sire.”
Raphael didn’t fight his own tears. “I will always be there for you, Illium. Never will I raise my hand or my sword against you, come what may. This is my promise.” Perhaps a rash one, but Raphael knew himself—if he ever hurt Illium, he would no longer be the man Elena was proud to call her consort; he’d have become a monster.
Eyes shining wet, Illium raised his head. “Never will you have to fear me as an enemy. This bond between us, it is forever. I will come to your aid should anyone dare raise their hand or sword against you.”
Raphael held out a hand.
When Illium took it and rose to his feet, they both knew it was the last time he’d ever call Raphael “sire” out loud. And the last time he would ever bow to another archangel. That was as it should be, his growth a thing of destiny.
“No tears,” Raphael said, and used his forearm to wipe off his own as Illium did the same. “You must now wear the face of an archangel to everyone but those you trust to the core of your heart.” He hated that he had to teach Illium to create a facade, when Illium was the most openhearted of them all.