Illium had moved enough around the counter by then that Aodhan could see him, so he caught the sudden tightness of his jaw.
He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You look like you’re about to bite your tongue in half.”
A shrug, the fluid ripple of muscle. “Someone keeps biting off my head for daring to care, so zip.” He mimed zipping up his mouth—but those golden eyes were doing plenty of talking.
Provoked, Aodhan muttered, “Missing Kai, are you?”
“What?” Illium scowled. “Since she was up when we got home, she’s probably asleep now.”
Aodhan expected to see yearning on Illium’s face at the reminder of the mortal woman. All he saw was irritation. Aimed squarely at Aodhan. “I am not biting off your head,” he said as they gathered supplies for the huge sandwiches to which they were both partial.
Illium hummed a happy tune—and ignored him.
“Illium.”
His friend opened up a roll of salami that one of the mortals had prepared from hunted meat. “Do you want a piece of this?” He whacked at the salami like it had done him a personal insult.
Temper igniting, Aodhan clamped his hand around Illium’s wrist. It flexed under his touch, strong and with the tendons taut. But Illium didn’t make any violent gestures. He just said, “I need my hand to chop this.”
It was the second time Illium had rejected contact with him and he hated it as much as the first time. Regardless, he forced his fingers to open. “What is wrong with you?” he ground out as he tore a large loaf of sourdough bread in half. “I thought we were—”
“You’re standing too close.”
Aodhan was not a man inclined to a hot temper. Except with Illium. So fine, Blue wanted to fight? They’d fight until they had this out!
41
“You know what?” he said. “You’ve had a fucking burr up your butt since you landed in China and I’m over it!”
Illium slammed the knife point down in the wooden chopping block and spun to face Aodhan. “I’ve had a burr up my butt?” His eyes glowed in a way that should’ve been impossible for anyone who wasn’t an archangel.
It terrified Aodhan—not for himself, but for Illium. He was too young, far too young. And it was crystal clear that the Cascade hadn’t fully reclaimed the gifts it had tried to force on him. Power lingered in his veins—those veins glowed softly against his skin even now.
But Aodhan was too angry to be distracted by the eerily lovely sight. “You’ve been snarling at me since the fucking minute you landed.”
“I. Have. Not.” Illium poked his chest with a pointed finger. “I have been extremely polite, you big, sparkling asshole.” Then he turned back to the board, pulled out the knife and began to slice the salami with such speed that Aodhan didn’t dare interrupt him, lest he injure himself.
He did, however, throw up his hands. “That’s your version of picking a fight with me and you know it!” he pointed out. “The last time you were polite to me like that was when I was with Ylir.”
“That’s because Ylir was a prick who treated you like a shiny trophy.” Illium’s voice caught for a second. “He’s the fucking reason we fought and you flew off alone that day. I was off duty for a week, was supposed to go on that courier run with you.”
Aodhan blinked, having never thought of it that way. “They would’ve just waited till the next time I was alone, you idiot! They were stalkers!” Sachieri and Bathar had told him all their plans, all they’d done to prepare to take him. “Don’t you tell me you’ve been carrying guilt over that or I swear I’ll kick your blue ass!”
“My ass is not blue. Unlike yours, it doesn’t sparkle, either.”
“Oh, very mature. I see how you’re avoiding the subject.” He’d deal with Illium’s misplaced guilt before this was done—because it was all part and parcel of the same thing.
Having finished slicing the salami, Illium now began to chop the defenseless meat into tiny, precise squares. “You were all ‘Oh, Ylir is so handsome,’ ‘Oh, Illium, he only calls me cutie because he loves me.’？” A roll of the eyes. “You were a fucking blooded warrior and he was calling you cutie and patting you on the head!”
“He did not call me cutie!” Aodhan argued.
“Close enough.”
It was infuriating but Aodhan couldn’t actually argue with that. Because Illium was right. In the language they’d used at the time, it had been a “cute” sounding word. “Stop trying to distract me. We’re talking about you, not Ylir.”