Aethan half turned toward him. “Ourmaterididn’t know she was pregnant with me when she stepped into the unforgiving, undying whitefire that took her wings. Those flames imbued me with this…er, gift. I didn’t know about it until I tried to save my mate after she was shot by a human obsessed with her.”
Aerén nodded, dragging his fingers through his limp hair. Hell, it seemed their family always had to pay some unknown debt before achieving any happiness. “How did you come to learn your mate would be immortal? It’s not like you knew?”
“No.” Aethan rubbed his unshaven jaw. “The angel, Marmaroth, came to see me while Echo lay in a healing sleep and tried to bribe me to let her go. Let my mate die and go to the Celestial Realm since she is the Healer of the Veils. I wanted to kill him. Anyway, he revealed something else that day, said there was a price to be paid when ourmateriFell from grace…”
The intensity in Aethan’s steel-gray eyes had Aerén frowning. “What?”
“Ariana… She lives.”
“What?” Aerén’s knees caved. His back hit the window, and he remained there, not daring to take another breath, to move.
“She’s taken ourmateri’splace in Heaven.”
His lungs compressed, only to reboot again as Aethan’s words sank in. “She lives?” he rasped.
“Yes.”
His emotions were all over the place at nearly losing Leya then hearing that his sister lived. He might never see her, but she lived. Aerén shut his eyes in gratitude. Then he pushed away from the window. “We found our sire. Actually, Leya did. It’s how she got hurt.”
Aethan nodded. Several seconds of silence passed, then, “Ourmateri?”
Aerén shook his head. “The bastard wouldn’t keep the two of them together and make rescuing them easy for us. I’m going to find where the fucker is hiding, find ourmateri, then destroy him and his fucking realm,” Aerén promised, his tone chips of ice. “He’s got the rebels causing destruction and mayhem every chance they get. And Daén, if not seeing to court matters, goes after the rebels, looking for a way to end this war. Our world cannot take any more negativity. I destroyed the bastard’s subterranean volcano for what he did to my mate and our sire.”
“They deserve nothing less,” Aethan agreed. “There’s something else you should know. While this healing sleep allows your mate to shed her humanity and become like one of us, it takes time. In my mate’s case, it was five months.”
Fivemonths? Without Leya’s laughter, her smiles, her teasing and taunting of him…
“But you will have eternity, Ren.”
Yes, there was that.
“Downside,” Aethan said, casting him a wry grimace. “She might not retain her new memories. I mean those of you.”
Aerén’s brow lowered, not liking this news at all. “Why?”
“While her body is recalibrating to its immortal self, newer memories usually are not deeply embedded and can be lost. If it happens, just remain who she knows you to be, the male she fell for. She’ll come back to you.”
Fuck. “That’s going to be like climbing the Angempion Mounts again without powers,” he muttered, glancing back at the open door to his room. “She had me running in circles before she relented.”
Aethan laughed. “I know. Echo, my mate? Same.”
Smiling, Aerén shoved back his dirty, stringy hair. Hell, he needed a shower to get the gore and grit off him. “Come, ourpateriis in the guest chambers.”
Aethan hesitated.
“I know he didn’t intervene when the banishment happened,” Aerén said quietly. “But he missed you.”
“He didn’t speak to me at all, Ren. Not he, nor ourmateri…it was like I no longer existed.”
“Grief will do that to a person.”
They headed for the guest room, a quiet descending between them. They entered the silent place, heavy with the smell of healing balms, herbs, and incense.
Zior stepped aside as they stopped at the bedside.
Aethan froze, shock leeching the color from his tan features. He stared at the skeletal figure on the bed.
“The bastard tortured him,” Aerén said. “Leya had dreams. She saw him locked in a cage, saw some of his torture…” He explained what happened.
