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)
Grinning without remorse at all he’d put their teacher through during his time at the Refuge School, Illium broke the handhold to wrap Jessamy up in his arms and lift her off her feet. She laughed, the sound as warm as her heart. There was more laughter in the time that followed, more conversation, and so much food.
Montgomery and Sivya had been told not to serve others at this gathering of friends, but they hovered over the food anyway, wanting to make sure everyone had what they needed. Raphael finally physically pulled his butler and cook away from the banquet table, then he poured them drinks.
It took time, but the two did relax at last and give up their duties for the night. And when Venom started up the music, Aodhan saw Montgomery draw Sivya into his arms in a shadowy corner of the rooftop, his hands at her waist beneath the drape of her wings. She placed her hands around his nape in turn, her fingers playing with the dark of his hair and her expression one Aodhan had never before seen, because it was for Montgomery alone.
He glanced away, loath to invade the privacy of their love.
Three songs later, Venom switched up the slow and easy tones to a pounding beat that had Naasir hauling Andi onto the center of the roof and spinning her around in a dance so fast and energetic that only Naasir could pull it off with a winged partner.
Afterward, Illium slammed down his tankard of mead in laughing challenge. “I refuse to be out-danced by our resident tiger-creature.” Even as Elena shook her fist at him for taunting her about her continued lack of knowledge of Naasir’s exact “species,” he took off into the sky.
The others whooped and yelled, Naasir loudest of them all.
Illium was a firefly in the darkness, his speed dizzying, and his acrobatic moves dazzling. As Aodhan gloried in his skill and power, Illium’s mind touched his own, the contact so familiar, it was a well-worn groove in his senses. Do you remember, Adi?
Putting down his drink, Aodhan stepped quietly to the edge of the roof while the others were preoccupied watching Illium. I’m ready.
Illium dived as if about to crash into the roof, and Aodhan took off at speed.
Two seconds later, Illium had reversed his dive in a maneuver very few angels could pull off, and they were “braiding” the air in quick-fire symmetry. Aodhan had never had Illium’s ability to make hairpin turns, but this was a pattern they’d practiced and practiced again until they could predict each other’s movements—and that Illium had designed to take Aodhan’s range of winged motion into account.
It was music in the air, fast, beautiful music that sang through his bones and made him laugh in exhilaration.
When the two of them landed as one on the roof to rapturous applause, he couldn’t help grinning and wrapping an arm around Illium’s neck to hug him close. Illium didn’t resist, their wings tangled as they waved off accolades on their performance…before Illium raised his hands playfully at the others to continue with said accolades.
Heart a rapid pulse and skin hot, his Blue by his side, Aodhan had never been happier.
Illium looked up, laughter bright in the aged gold of his eyes, and for a moment, the world seemed to freeze.
They didn’t have much of a height difference—an inch or two. But at this angle, and how they were standing, it would’ve been so easy for Aodhan to lower his head and kiss Illium without thought, simply because he was there and he was Aodhan’s everything.
Illium’s pupils flared, his breath catching.
5
Raphael stood at the edge of the roof, his consort by his side.
They’d ended up just beyond the spill of golden light that was the party, the city a bejeweled dazzle at their backs.
Elena leaned into him, her arm around his waist as his arm was around her shoulders, their wings in intimate contact. “Did you see that?” A whisper, as Aodhan turned from Illium to reply to a comment from one of the others…yet the two stayed close, their wings overlapping at the edges.
“I wondered,” he murmured. “When they returned home.” He’d sensed an electric tension in the air that he might’ve put down to an argument if both hadn’t been glowing with happiness.
“Do you think…”
Taking in the pair as they separated, with Illium pulling a laughing Holly into a dance, and Aodhan being waved over by Dmitri and Andreja, he said, “No, not yet. Neither is the kind to conceal a bond that’s settled and firm.”
He looked down at his hunter, the near-white strands of her hair shimmering against the dark gold of her skin—as a random bolt of wildfire danced slyly through her feathers. A lingering mark of the Cascade and all that had come with it.