A snort of booming male laughter along the mental link from Titus.
Shh. I must concentrate, she chided even as the warmth of his laughter filled her blood. Quiet intimacy indeed! Aegaeon truly thought he could slip in sly insults about Titus and she’d permit it? Fool.
Aegaeon’s eyes narrowed before he dropped his hand and lowered his head in a slight bow. “I’m too eager, my love—I know I must earn your regard again. I can take nothing for granted.”
Sharine had no trouble seeing the truth he hid behind the pretty words. For whatever reason, Aegaeon had decided he wanted back the toys he’d thrown away as worthless. He wanted his son, who’d grown into a man any father would be proud to have by his side, and he wanted Sharine. Why?
For the simple reason that she was now desired by another?
Then he said, “You are astonishing.” Eyes as deep and evocative as the ocean held her own, the color so vibrant she could nearly hear the waves rolling to shore. “When I saw you on the screen, I fell all over again.”
I’m about to throw up.
Ignoring Titus’s sarcastic commentary, though it did make part of her want to laugh, she said, “I’m much the same as when you left.”
“No. You’re . . . awake and vibrant and dazzling in a way I can’t describe.” Opening out his arms, he stretched. “It’s been a long journey for me. Will you not offer me mead and bread?”
“No.”
Dark clouds thundered across his handsome features, all square-jawed and powerful, but then he gave a rueful tilt of the head. “You’re so angry with me, my pet.”
“No, I’m not.” Anger, she’d come to understand, tied her to him, and she’d much rather be free, the memory of him a venomous insect crushed under her heel. “But I do have a question.”
Forehead furrowed, Aegaeon said, “You wish to know why I went into Sleep as I did.” Shoving a hand through the thick fall of his hair, he swallowed hard. “Truly, my love, I raged at myself all my years of Sleep. You were the only one of whom I dreamed.”
His expression was torn and ragged, his shoulders taut. “I loved you too much,” he ground out. “Until it frightened me to the bone. So I chose the cruelest possible way to push you away.” Rough words, his face shredded with emotion. “It makes me a coward, but I hope, in time, you’ll find a way to forgive me and see the insanity of love that drove my actions.”
Sharine stared at Aegaeon. “That’s it? That’s the best excuse you could come up with for being such a colossal ass?”
Aegaeon’s jaw fell open. “My pet, what has gotten into you?”
“Tell me the truth.” A flat demand. “Why did you do it? Why did you seek to re-create the two most horrific moments of my existence? Why?”
He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “I’m not lying. I am Aegaeon! I don’t lie!”
No, he simply used and threw away people when he was done. Do you think he actually believes what he’s saying to me? She had to ask for an outside opinion, she was so flummoxed by this strange turn of events.
Titus’s answer wasn’t the disgust she’d expected. Instead, after a long pause, he said, I think, Shari, some part of you did scare him, for you are a woman with a rare light within. I don’t believe Aegaeon can love anyone but himself, not in truth, but there was something about you that made him want to be other than he was . . . and instead of taking that risk, he chose cowardice and cruelty.
Sharine heard an unmasked depth of feeling in Titus’s words, but she also heard a painful clarity. “What was the trigger?” she asked Aegaeon with conscious gentleness, not to be kind, but because she needed him to stop blustering and give her an answer.
His jaw worked before he turned away and strode to the end of the roof then back. “I began to think what it would be like to have another child and soon I started to want it,” he admitted. “Where before, I could imagine siring that child on any one of my harem, then I saw only you.”
All artifice and vanity stripped from his face, he bunched his hands, flexed them open. Once. Twice. “Our son was a delight, courageous and wild and curious, because of you. You were the reason for my joy.”
Sharine believed him. He’d orchestrated an act of inexplicable cruelty because he’d been running from his own emotions. “Yes,” she said at last, her voice soft. “You were a coward.”
He flinched, as if she’d landed a physical blow, and she knew that to Aegaeon, her words were more vicious and wounding than any cut from a blade. But she wasn’t done. “I feel no anger toward you any longer,” she said, “but neither do I feel any sense of love or affection or even interest.”
Her world was now far bigger than he would ever be; she’d outgrown Aegaeon for all that he was an Ancient. There was an incredible sense of finality in that knowledge.
“But,” she added before he could respond, “if you do anything to hurt our son, I will find a way to end you.” Absolute calm in her words because they were the truth. “I know archangels can only be killed by other archangels, but should I come after you, I won’t meet you face-to-face in battle.
“I’ll be cunning and stealthy in my vengeance, and I’ll find you when you believe yourself safe. Then I’ll cut off your head and put that head in a dark cavern where no one can hear you scream, and I’ll come back every so often to chop off any parts that have regenerated.”
Titus’s stifled laughter inside her head was nothing in comparison to the naked horror on Aegaeon’s face.
“You are yet mad,” he whispered. “I thought you were recovered, but . . .”
Sharine smiled.
One of the most powerful beings in the world took a step back from her.
“I’m quite sane,” she said in the same gentle tone filled with serene resolve. “I also have the respect of people from members of the Cadre to the most junior servant in your court. My threat isn’t an empty one. Cross me, and you’ll spend eternity screaming into the void.”
Aegaeon’s face flushed, his wings beginning to glow. “I can end you here and now.”
Shari, I’m flying to you.
“Yes.” Sharine looked at Aegaeon without fear, knowing she had to end this soon—she had no desire to embroil Titus in another battle. “If you wish to be an outcast shunned by our people for all eternity.” She was no longer the needy woman who’d fallen for his blandishments; she knew her own worth and she understood that kindness reverberated through time.
“This isn’t about violence or power, Aegaeon.” This time her smile held an edge of sadness. “It’s about two people who once could’ve been something, but will never again have that chance.”
A shifting in his expression, a hint of the man she’d seen at times during their relationship. The man who’d played for hours with their little boy and who’d looked at her with eyes full of wonder. “So, this is to be my penance. To see you glow and know I will never again be in your orbit.”
Then, to her absolute astonishment, he bent at the waist in a bow an archangel gave no one. It swayed nothing in her, but she accepted that the gesture was one with meaning.
“Good-bye, Sharine.”
“Good-bye, Aegaeon.”
I want to drive my fist into his face, came a deep male voice in her head.
He’ll enjoy it, Sharine said. It’ll reignite his belief that I foster lingering emotions for him, causing you to act out in jealousy. She watched Aegaeon’s wings disappear into the night-dark sky. Don’t give him the satisfaction.