Chapter 21
Feather
Isat on the floor with Righteous’s head on my lap, my hands pressed against the wound that would not stop bleeding, though the flow was more sluggish now. Which worried me even more.
I was terrified. I did this. My smut had gotten onto him and started whatever caused him to grow so weighted down with evil… and now that taint was inside him. He was dying; I could feel his energy slipping away.
“I’m so sorry, Righteous,” I whispered. “I’d take it back if I could.” My breath hitched as I realized what I’d said. A soft, chilly breeze blew past my ear, and I heard an echo of the gate’s song. And then, a sense of someone watching. Wings rustling silently all around me.
“Rumple?” I closed my eyes and concentrated on that presence. “Can I take it back?”
I waited for an answer, but none came. On Earth, Rumple had always told me when I had to do one of the difficult things. When to protect. Then when the moment had come where the only choice was to take the smut, the evil, into myself. But he wasn’t here; he wasn’t speaking now.
Righteous twitched and seized in my arms as I considered what to do now, with no guidance.
No help was coming. Gavriel had been gone for too long, and there was still no sign of Mikhail.
Even if they got back in time, the look in Gavriel’s eyes, the sour note in his voice as he’d lied about what Mikhail could do, told me the truth. It was up to me.
Righteous’s breathing was growing erratic, his heart thumping, almost stopping. I could see the greasy sludge moving through his veins. He didn’t have long.
I’d done this almost a hundred times on Earth for my charges. But I wasn’t sure it would work here. I could make him worse. “Rumple,” I called out in less than a whisper. A breath. “I need you.”
Feather? The voice moved through my mind as if from far away. I might have been imagining it.
“What should I do?”
When the word I expected came, it was whispered once, quietly. Strangely, it wasn’t a demand, as it always had been on Earth. It asked the word, framed it as a choice. Protect?
It had never been my choice before, not since Dina. Not since I made the vow to protect whenever I was called, no matter what the cost to myself. “Rumple?”
Still nothing. No one forcing me to do this. No vow holding me to fix what I’d broken. Only my own conscience.
Why wouldn’t he command me to protect? Possibly because this time, it would be too much. I glanced at the thick smut coating Righteous’s powerful body. It was at least as much as I’d managed to cut off since the first day I started up here, and I had been at my breaking point back then.
I sighed. I was pretty sure I was about to unmake myself, or whatever.
But I couldn’t live with the shame of it, the guilt, if I didn’t try.
“Ugh, and to think it all started with a kiss. Never gonna do that again,” I grumbled as I situated Righteous lower on my lap.
“Might as well end it that way, too.” I laid my hands on either side of his face, lifting him up to my mouth.
“I hope you can forgive me for stealing another kiss. It’s probably the last one I’ll ever get, and to be fair, if what Gavriel said is true, not all this smut was mine to begin with…
so pucker up, Buttercup.” I squeezed his cheeks together, and pressed my lips delicately on top of his, relishing the short moment of sweetness that was the final beat before the agony I knew was coming.
And, boy, did it come.
It was like kissing razors. My lips, my face, my throat, all felt shredded and scissored into ribbons.
My esophagus next, then lungs, heart, and stomach.
I held him close, hot tears running down my face, salt slicing into the wounds that seared my skin there.
I forced myself to hold on, to keep my lips on his, as I opened myself up to the evil. Called it into me.
I was responsible. I was the rightful bearer of this pain.
I was the sacrifice.
I kept kissing as I was drawn into unconsciousness, accepting the oily filth that coated my face and hands and arms and feet, and the final gout that rushed from Righteous’s mouth to fill mine, then my lungs.
The instant before I fell into the void, I felt the lips beneath mine move. Heard a voice, calling out, begging me not to die.
Begging me not to leave him.
But I couldn’t stay. This was too much pain to bear and live. So when the silence came, I welcomed it. It wrapped me in a blanket of darkness that didn’t etch my skin with blades. A darkness that caressed and comforted, that held me like a lover.
I floated for an eternity. I was alone, but I always had been until recently. And at least the pain was gone.
“Little one?” A deep voice, filled with concern, flooded my blank mind. A surge of energy from somewhere—my chest? Did I still have a chest?—forced a trickle of air into my lungs. Though I was fairly certain I didn’t have lungs wherever I was. “Little one, are you playing dead?”
“Rumple?” My voice was scratchy and feeble, like I’d been screaming for days. “Am I not dead?” Another surge of warmth radiated from my chest.
A feeling of amusement. It was always feelings, after the pain. When he came and held me, stitched my soul back together underneath the corrosive smut. There were often a few words, but mostly this was a world of thought, emotion. This part of the universe existed only in my deepest heart.
“Mostly dead, sweet sacrifice.” A hesitation, tinged with worry. “You chose to save that Protector.”
“You’re surprised?” I lifted a mental eyebrow. “It’s not my first rodeo, you know.”
“Rodeo?” A moment of curiosity.
“Not my first soul to cleanse.”
Understanding. “But… you chose to save this one.”
“Didn’t think I would, given the choice?”
“The pain. The cost. You could have avoided this.”
“Unlike all the other times, when you commanded me to take it in.” I felt the waves of regret underneath a firm sense of unyielding commitment.
“I haven’t had to command you in a long time, Little Sacrifice.”
I smiled into the feeling of a gentle hand on my face. “True. Well, in this case… I may have been responsible for his smut.”
“You?” Shock, consternation, more curiosity.
“I started it. I didn’t mean to, but I... kissed him. Pretty thoroughly. He was so pure before, and I dirtied him up a little. But he didn’t react well, and I guess it sort of snowballed.”
Silence. Hurt and confusion and a flash of something new. Was it desire? But a hint of jealousy as well. I held my mind as still as I could.
“Rumple?”
“You kissed him.” A too-empty pause. Something hidden. “You desired him?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, not at first. He was sort of a jerk, to be honest. But then, I don’t know. He’s so golden and perfect. You remember the cake I ran my finger through, back in Gascogne? The enormous one made by that bald baker who liked to touch little boys?”
Agreement. “You were beaten for it, but your prank saved little Jean-Claude from being hurt.”
“Yeah, that one.” I still wore the smut from that baker on my back, the same place he’d whipped me before his heart gave out during the beating. “He’s like that. So perfect I can’t stand it. I wanted to… mess him up.”
Disapproval, anger.
“No, not like that. I didn’t mean to hurt him, Rumple. I just… I wanted to see what it felt like. To hold someone like that. Someone beautiful and good.”
“Why that particular soul?” Deep consternation.
I shrugged mentally. “I don’t know. He sat at the gate with me once. He sang to it.” A mischievous thought worked its way into my mind. “But I also wouldn’t mind locking lips with Mikhail.”
“Mikhail?” True amazement, and… amusement?
“Hmmm, although I call him Growly Bear. He’s delicious, all muscles and creativity and caring, even though he likes to act gruff.” Delighted agreement. Wait. “Do you know him?”
A surge of affection, but all he said was, “Is that the whole list of who you want to kiss?”
I waited a moment. “Well, I’d kiss you, if you had lips.” The silence buffeted my ears, like great wings were beating all around me. I’d shocked Rumple? I held back a giggle.
“I have lips.” His voice wrapped around me like molten honey. “You’ve never mentioned wanting to kiss me before.” Something slid around my waist, and I leaned into it.
Oh holy what is this? I’d wondered about Rumple for centuries, but he’d never touched me in such a way before today.
Never even hinted that he saw me as attractive.
Of course, most of the time he’d known me, I’d been in a young body, so that was probably good.
But now, I was an adult. A grown, four-hundred-year-old, probably already dead woman.
Who could one hundred percent feel something stroking my hip and waist, and stopping right under my breast.
Was that his hand? Oh my bread and butter pickles, was it a tentacle? I’d read enough alien smut to know that they could do things to a girl with their tentacles that were almost terrifying. Almost.
“Rumple? Do you have a… body here?” I stifled a nervous laugh. “I thought this was my imagination.”
“It’s not entirely,” he purred, the pressure easing on my waist as his hand—I could feel the fingers now—moved to my shoulder. I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. I’d never been able to act in this place before. I’d only felt.
Maybe my imagination was the key. I concentrated on reaching out, touching whatever was wrapped around me.
“You have real arms,” I gasped, thrilled to feel firm, corded muscles.
I hadn’t known before now if Rumple was human-shaped.
I let my fingers trail up his forearms, then higher, taking in the smooth, strong shapes of his biceps and moving over his shoulders to his neck.
His skin had an interesting texture, as if it bore thousands of tiny lines and shapes.
Tattoos? The ends of his hair brushed my fingertips.
“Long hair?” I mused, wrapping a small piece around my fingers.
“It’s soft.” I took a moment to stroke it, wishing I had the courage to trace the lines of his face. I’d probably poke out his eye, though.
“Mmhm, you’re soft,” he hummed, and I felt a body wrapping around me as I floated. Arms, legs, and… a part that definitely wasn’t soft. I swallowed hard. If that was proportional, Rumple had to be eight feet tall.
“Good thing I like a challenge,” I said without thinking.
Rumple’s laugh filled the silence, falling on me like dark petals, brushing against the corners of my mind and the body I was fighting to believe might really exist here.
“Admit it, you made your body up.” I bumped my hips against him gently.
“I’m going to imagine me with bigger boobs, then we’ll be even. ”
“Little one, you are now and have always been perfect.” A hand stroked my face. “Perfectly formed in every way. Don’t change a thing.”
It was dark, and I was most likely imagining at least half of this, so I let myself rub my core against his Louisville slugger, my hands reaching over his shoulders to— “Wings,” I breathed.
“How come everyone gets wings except me?” He nuzzled my neck, and I moved my face so that his invisible breath stirred the darkness near my lips. “Kiss me, Rumple?”
“I can’t, dearest one,” he murmured, his voice filled with regret. “I would hurt you. You’re still healing.”
“Really?” I writhed against him, my hands tracing down the outer edges of his wings as far as I could reach. He shuddered under my touch. “Not even one kiss?” I let my lips rub his neck, and arched up suddenly, trying to get closer to his mouth.
“Isn’t stealing a kiss what landed you here?” he chided, the sweetness in his tone gone now. I felt an ache begin in my center.
“So it would be stealing one,” I said, pulling back slightly. “Good to know.” Dangit. I’d been friend zoned by my own imagination.
“Maybe I don’t want to be one on a long list of those you want to kiss,” he whispered, his hands cupping my cheeks as I felt his chin rest on top of my head. “Me, Righteous, Mikhail… Did I leave anyone out?”
I narrowed my mind’s eyes. “Just one. Gavriel’s pretty hot, even if he’s the biggest jerk I’ve ever met.
I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m repulsive, though, and he’d be more likely to unmake me than make out with— Hey, ow!
” Rage, blistering and sudden, swept through my mind.
“Rumple? Stop!” I pushed at the chest that was suddenly as hard as marble, and just as cold.
The pain ceased, and the arms disappeared.
I floated for a while, the pain thrumming through me. A pinch of sorrow intruded on my suffering. And another whisper, so soft: “Forgive me.”
Then he was gone.
“Rumple?” I waited. “Are you... mad at me?” No response.
I floated, alone, for a while longer before the agony in my limbs began to return.
This was a familiar process; I’d wake up soon and face the consequences of my choice to save Righteous.
The pain, but also the heaviness of carrying it.
The weight had almost begun to feel bearable, after the weeks of carving myself free of it.
The only unfamiliar part was that Rumple wasn’t there, singing to me. He always sang me back to my next life. My heart ached. What had I said? Was it teasing him about Gavriel?
Rumple was the only one I could count on for forever, I knew.
And even if he did command me to take on bucketloads of evil, at least he’d always stayed to help me through those moments.
He’d held me until I could open my eyes, and given me something to think about besides wanting to die.
Normally, it was our guessing game—a silly, small thing that had become the very best part of my existence.
Maybe I had offended him when I tried to kiss him. I must have read the whole imaginary situation wrong. I croaked out a few words before the pain got too intense to speak. “Mea culpa, Rumple. Mea maxima culpa. I’m sorry.”
For the first time ever, there was no answer.