Chapter 11 Feather #2
“What are we decorating first?” I asked.
“The t-shirts? Oh! We could make glittery sticks for all the big-winged Protectors like Righteous and Valor, with their names on the sides.” She frowned, so I explained.
“Then they’ll have a spare. All the older ones I’ve met already have huge sticks up their butts. We can at least make them pretty ones.”
“Feather, you’re going to get in so much trouble,” Sunny gasped. “You’re not supposed to make things for the Protectors.”
“Didn’t Growly give you the supplies for me to use? He won’t care what I make.”
“You don’t really call him that.” She looked around, like someone could be listening in. For all I knew, someone was.
“To his ruggedly handsome face,” I said, smirking. “I think he likes it.”
She winced. “I think you might be the most reckless Protector in history. He’ll unmake you by the end of the day at this rate.
To be honest, I’m not sure he knew what was in the closet he let me gather from.
They stopped arts lessons the same time they did music.
You might want to keep the crafts in here. ”
“Nuh-uh. I’m gonna make him a thank you shirt,” I announced, tamping down my anger at whoever had decided art and music was unnecessary. At least Mikhail knew the value of making stuff. “I need a double extra-large. My Growly Bear is all muscle.”
Sunny rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d call him that to his face. Wait. Feather, you don’t like him in a romantic way, do you?”
“The guy that’s about to make me shave off smut and cry acid tears all day?
That’s a super obvious red flag for a potential boyfriend, Sunny.
” Despite my denial, I could feel my cheeks heating up.
I poured a pile of pink and silver glitter onto a piece of paper and tried not to think of Mikhail’s muscles.
Sunny and I worked for a couple of hours, and I discovered two things. One, crafting with a friend is way more fun than doing it alone. Two, glitter is even harder to get off than smut. And when glitter touches smut, it makes Superglue look like kindergarten paste.
She dragged me into the purification chamber to try to remove it before my scheduled morning knife playdate with Mikhail.
I got distracted, admiring myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
I had no clue what my actual body looked like—which was weird, having no idea what might be under all this gross grease.
But for now, I looked like a contestant in a back-to-back mud run and color run. It was kind of cool.
Sunny got agitated when I told her I wanted to keep the glitter on, so I made a show of wiping it off, pretend-frowning when it didn’t work. “Come on, birch. You know this makes me look sexy.”
No one else was in the purification room. In fact, we hadn’t seen anyone else all morning. I was starting to suspect there was a coordinated effort to keep me away from the other Protectors.
“Sunny, admit it—I look hot. I could totally score in this outfit. Mud, glitter, toga? They have whole festivals where this is practically the uniform, and I’ve heard they’re pretty much orgies.”
Sunny snorted, picking glitter off her nose. “You talk about sex a lot. Your physical form only looks about eighteen, though. Did you have sex on Earth? Orgies?” Her gaze dropped to my smut, and I could almost hear her thinking that might explain some things.
I pulled on my greasy toga while I considered my answer, wondering for the thousandth time why I’d never had a life longer than twenty years or so.
In the early days, I’d been killed or fallen asleep and woken in a new body—usually as an infant, but every once in a while as a young girl.
I’d had more than one pervert try to get handsy with me as a child, but I’d fought them all off.
I didn’t even mind wearing the smut for killing those bassholes.
In my middle centuries, I’d lived longer and had enjoyed having sex, mainly for the snuggling after.
Most of the men I’d been with had been gentle lovers—I could never be attracted to the ones with the shadowed souls, anyway.
But every one of them had popped like a champagne cork within seconds of actual penetration, none of them able to keep it going for long enough for me to even glimpse the proverbial stars.
More than a few had said touching my body intimately felt like dying and going to Heaven and Hell at the same time.
After one poor man had experienced an actual heart attack a century ago when I tried to give him a blow job, I’d mostly stopped experimenting.
But an immortal girl had needs.
I sighed. “Yeah, so not really. I messed around with some guys, did the deed with a few. The last time was with a really cute cowboy I had a crush on. But it was a colossal failure. He lasted maybe two thrusts. I haven’t had the big O with a person not myself for…
well, ever, come to think of it.” I wiggled my fingers.
“I know my own way around the old strawberry patch, but I’ve heard it’s not nearly as fun to pluck the berry alone. ”
Her jaw dropped as she put it together. “You haven’t, um, felt pleasure with a partner?”
“Not even one happy tingle. I’ve been trying to climb that mountain with someone who is not a class one pervert for the past couple of years.” Centuries, I amended silently. “And now I’m here, so I missed my shot, I guess. Pretty much the story of my life.”
Sunny frowned. “Why don’t you think you’ll have the opportunity for intimacy?” She motioned to my glittery smut. “I mean, for obvious reasons, it won’t happen soon. But eventually? Who knows what’s under all that? You could be stunning.” She winked. “I’ll bet you’re a knockout.”
I swallowed hard, my senses flooded with risqué thoughts about rugged Mikhail, mysterious Gavriel, gorgeous Righteous and that smoking hot—wait, NOT the Great Gate. Stop thinking about it that way, Feather! Gates are not appropriate romantic partners!
I cleared my throat and tried to stop the runaway horndog train in my mind. “You mean to tell me you get to have sex here?”
“If you’re lucky.” Sunny dimpled, and motioned for me to follow her to the Maker Hall.
As we walked, I murmured, “So, who are you knocking sandals with? You said you like the ladies?”
Sunny blushed and walked faster, a darker flush peeking out between the freckles on her cheeks. “Um, no one. And I prefer feminine energy, but in Sanctuary, it’s not so cut and dried. I like someone, but… I’m not exactly considered the most attractive candidate for merging.”
I stopped walking. “First off, what the fark? You are smoking hot. If I hadn’t been dreaming of finding the perfect big D to provide the fabled big O for centuries, I would totally dip my toes into the lady pool with you.”
“Centuries?” Sunny rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Feather. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do so. But what’s this merging thing? Is that slang for bumping uglies?”
Sunny wrinkled her nose. “Ew. I guess so. But merging… It’s not just physical. Sometimes it’s not physical at all. It’s mental and spiritual. When two souls merge, they can experience all the physical gratification of sexual congress, but also delve into the realms of spiritual intercourse, and—”
I laughed so hard I almost fell over. “You… You’re quoting a textbook, aren’t you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her wings fluttering in agitation. “I might be.”
“So, you’ve never been intimate with anyone?”
Sunny sighed and started walking again. “Sadly, no. I had a chance to merge after my first few lives, when I was back in Sanctuary, before I did the mission that ended with me so”—she gestured at the muddy edges of her toga—“filthy. But I chickened out. It seemed too important to try with someone I didn’t care deeply for.
Now, almost no one will look at me. It’s not like the smut they might get from me is even that dangerous.
They would just have to take a long bath. Or two.”
“Yeah, Sunny? Sanctuary’s baths are the equivalent of a heavy course of spiritual antibiotics. So, smut apparently is sort of dangerous.” That thought stung. “I’m dangerous, aren’t I?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not hiding it. It’s not like germs on Earth….” Her voice trailed off, like she was reconsidering her statement. “At least, not precisely.”
I frowned, remembering her story about long-ago Protectors being unmade when they got too filthy.
I could see why the others weren’t offering me handshakes or high fives.
“Is that why the Guide said I wasn’t welcome in Assemblies?
Wait.” My face burned as I realized we hadn’t passed a single Protector in the halls so far.
“Everyone’s avoiding me. I thought the smell was the reason, but it is like germs, isn’t it? ”
She dropped her eyes. “To be honest, your appearance and your smell aren’t…
super attractive at the moment. But the other Protectors aren’t being mean to you, or to me, when they keep their distance.
Well, not all of them. You have to be careful who you spend a lot of time with.
After a while, even without physical contact, we can sort of…
share things. Especially if you have a spiritual wound. ”
I didn’t even want to ask what she meant by that. “So, I am spiritually contagious. Good to know.” I had moral mono. Heavenly herpes. Soul syphilis. I squinted at Sunny as she walked. “Aren’t you worried about it? Catching my smut germs?”
One corner of her mouth tipped up. “Maybe at first, but now I don’t care so much about it. You’re kind to me.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” I was sort of shocked. Of all the Protectors I’d met, Sunny was by far the most genuine.
“You’d be surprised,” she muttered, then changed the subject. “I hate to ask, but you said in Assembly that you, um, murdered a man. Was that really what happened?”
I winced. “Sort of. He was going to hurt my charge. And—maybe just as bad—she was going to kill him. I couldn’t let her live with that.”