Chapter 2
Feather
Ifloated through layers of unconsciousness, my mind as clouded as a winter sky.
I knew that once I emerged from the final layer of sleep, the pain would begin.
Every old life ended, and each new life began, with suffering.
The thought of the familiar torment ignited a panicky wobble in my chest, like my heart was trying to leap away before the white-hot searing started.
It always hurt. Every time I took the weight of evil from someone into myself—the silver-gray shadows that somehow I could see swirling inside the people around me—I suffered burning agony.
Bearing it grew easier after a while, or maybe I grew stronger underneath the load.
But in between my lives, while I grew accustomed to the new burden on my soul, I suffered indescribable pain.
The only thing that helped was remembering why I did it.
I thought my way through another layer of memory, keeping my eyes closed. Wondering where I'd find myself this time, this life.
Dang! Wherever it was, they had some seriously high thread count sheets.
I ran a hand underneath me. Had I finally come back as a princess, the daughter of some rich family?
Aw, yeah…. Wait. Something was wrong. This wasn’t how it worked.
For one thing, I wasn’t an infant. And I only ever got pain, not softness.
A disappointingly familiar voice intruded on my confusion. “Purify her.”
Ah, nice. Mr. Sexy Voice was back. No, not sexy. Don’t think sexy. He can hear me.
But he obviously wasn’t listening now, since he kept talking to the lower, grumbling voice.
“I have tried. This is as clean as she’ll get without more severe measures.
” A new voice. Equally as sexy sounding, but in a lumberjack, construction worker, chain-smoker sort of way.
Growly Bear. That’s what I’d call him. “Where did you find her? Is she even a Protector, Gavriel? She doesn’t feel like one of mine. ”
Sexy Voice—no, Gavriel—made a frustrated noise. Then he answered, “I’m not sure. I was following a flux in the balance. The area over the city where I found her was falling to the Abyss. An entire region.”
“So many choices for evil, all at once? It’s that bad now?”
“Yes. They’re determined to worsen the imbalance and tear down the gate. But then, right after I arrived, there was a flare.”
Growly Bear echoed him. “A flare? Of what?”
“If I didn’t know the current Protectors we have on Earth are all too weak, I would have said it was a Great Sacrifice. A flare of pure soul energy. I arrived to find this fouled thing covered in stains and blood, a knife in her hand. A man dead at her feet. She’s a murderer; she admitted it.”
Growly Bear muttered something in a language I didn’t know that kind of hurt my ears. Then he asked, “What caused the flare? Was there another Protector there?”
“No. And when I looked back in the minds of humans around her, they all remembered it the same way. This thing took the knife from a child’s hand and turned it on the man, killing him.”
“Then she’s…” Growly Bear sounded so sad, I wanted to leap up and hug him.
But then Gavriel went on, “Yes. She must be unmade.”
Unmade. Did he mean they might kill me?
Growly Bear said another string of words that literally hurt, like needles poking my eardrums. “We don’t have enough Protectors as it is.”
“I know. But can we afford to expose the others to the evil she carries? It could spread…”
It felt as if someone was pounding across a floor toward me. Was unmade the same as extracted? It sounded bad, anyway. Maybe permanently bad. I held everything, even my eyeballs, completely still.
Growly Bear spoke again, nearer this time. “Why didn’t you take care of this before now? You brought her here. What else happened, Gav?”
Gavriel sighed. I could almost feel his indecision. “When she took the knife, she prevented the child from committing murder.”
“She saved the child?”
His next words sounded like they were being forced out of him. “Yes. She saved the girl and kept her from killing. Then, after this Protector murdered the man, she took his soul smut as well.” A long pause. “She cleansed his soul. Redeemed him before he died.”
Growly Bear grumbled two words. “Aw, hell.”
“Exactly,” Gavriel answered. “She may be an agent of the Abyss, but she changed the balance in Chicago. For the first time in a century, it’s more light than shadow.”
“She shifted the balance that much? Be that as it may, if she murdered…”
“You see the challenge. Don’t worry, I know how attached you are to your creations. If she cannot be cleansed, I’ll unmake her myself.”
The silence was almost unbearably heavy. I was almost positive now that unmaking meant killing. The H E double hockey sticks with that! I am out of here. I opened my eyes a tiny crack, although everything still looked dim.
“Good, she’s waking. I’ll leave her with you. Find out her name,” Gavriel said, his voice growing faint. “But be careful. If she’s truly as foul-spirited as she smells, then her smut might not only be dangerous to her own soul. It could spread to the others.”
“Did you say I stink?” Oh good, my mouth was working now.
The dimly lit room swam as I whipped my head around.
“What a judgmental jerk you are, you big buttmunching—” I blinked and rubbed at my crusty eyes, bringing someone into focus.
But to my dismay, it wasn’t Sexy Voice—er, Gavriel.
There was only one person in the room with me.
It was Growly Bear. And he was pissed.
“You dare,” the giant man said, too calmly. “You dare to call a High Angelus such degrading names?” He loomed over me in a sort of long, golden toga robe that gaped open, revealing a torso covered with dark whorls of hair and silvered scars. A lot of scars. And even more muscles. Abs.
So many abs.
The giant had muscles on top of the muscles most guys had.
Like tiny little muscles in the cracks between the big bulgy ones.
Was this my Greek bodybuilder fantasy? I glanced at his huge, scarred hands.
Nope, no grapes. They always fed me chocolate-dipped grapes in that dream.
And they were naked. Growly Bear would probably put them all to shame though…
Wait. I was getting distracted. But when I scooted back and focused, I decided I had good reason to be.
The guy had to be six foot six, and who knew how many feet across.
My original thought that he was a bear wasn’t too far off the mark—there definitely could be some Kodiak back in his family tree.
He must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, all of it brawn.
I swallowed hard as his forearms swam into view.
Why was I suddenly so desperately thirsty?
Maybe I should stop staring at Growly’s arm muscles.
I succeeded, but only because I caught sight of something behind the massive arms… Feathers. Long, sweeping, feathery appendages.
Holy swizzle sticks. Wings. Made of luminous, tawny bronze feathers that were just the slightest bit darker than Growly’s shining, golden brown skin.
The feathers touched the marble floor and went all the way up over his shoulders.
His deep chestnut hair was wavy and shining, sweeping over his forehead, then down almost to his cheekbones.
What I could see of his face was strangely textured, the skin on his neck and along his jawline rough, but not with stubble.
With marks. Were they more scars, burns of some kind?
Like a rug that had lain too close to a fire, covered and scattered with popping embers.
Whatever had happened, it had marred what had obviously once been a perfect canvas.
Perfection was overrated, I decided, as my fingers itched to feel that texture, to see if his skin was as rough as I imagined.
But that would be a very bad idea. Growly Bear pushed back the hair from his face, and I gasped.
His eyes were glittering, twin raging whirlpools of fury, sparking black and then a brilliant turquoise.
I held so still, I forgot to breathe. Forgot how to breathe, or talk, but not how to lick my lips slowly and imagine licking his neck like an ice cream co— Wait. He said something.
“Could you repeat that?” My voice was all breathy and sexy; I liked it. I asked my question again, lower. “Could you… repeat that, gorgeous?”
He didn’t speak. But words were unnecessary. Growly Bear’s jaw—clenched like he was trying to crush his own teeth—mirrored his eyes, very clearly indicating that I should not have called him that. He looked like he was still considering the unmaking thing.
Not today, buster. I’m not leaving this world, wherever I am, until I have a few more hours of shut-eye on these sheets.
I made a quick decision. A guy this big would be hard to get a killing strike on anyway, and I didn’t even know where my blade was. I’d have to fight with my least honorable weapons. Tears.
“I-I’m so sorry,” I murmured, blubbering just the smallest amount. “I was frightened, and I had no idea he was a Hiyan Gelatin, or whatever you said.”
The air crackled with invisible lightning. Oh, crap. I’d made it worse.
His jaw flexed even harder, revealing cheek muscles I had never seen on any other creature. “A Hiyan… Gelatin?”
“Um, yeah. What Deep Sexy Voice—I mean, Gavriel, I think you called him. You said—” I paused, worried about the strange shade of plum Growly Bear’s face was turning. “You said he was a Hiyan… Maybe it was ‘Hi, I’m Jelly?’” My ears were pretty stuffed up. “Heigel Jelly?”
He held a hand over his eyes, and I thought for a split second that he was fighting not to laugh. But when he pulled his hand down again, his expression was all business. “A High Angelus. Right, no more of that. Gavriel indicated you do not have a name.”