Chapter 28 Feather #2
The whole room was still, listening. Only Righteous’s raspy pants broke the silence.
“I could never lie to the Light of Truth,” Mikhail said calmly, one hand brushing over my hair.
His eyes, molten and deep, moved over my mostly clean form and I fought back a smile.
I had never been told I was beautiful without words before, but his movement now said it more plainly than speech.
“Can we go?” I asked, blushing harder as I felt the entire room memorizing every move Mikhail and I made. He didn’t answer, just lifted me into his arms and vaulted upward, his great wings beating almost as hard as my heart.
In three seconds, we were out of The Merge.
In a few more heartbeats, we were winging down the wide, vaulted hallway, the shrieking of the Great Gate battering my ears.
Mikhail’s brow furrowed, and I craned my neck to see what was happening on that side of the Hall.
Hope, one of the eldest Protectors, stood at the gate, her jaw dropped and eyes wide as she watched Mikhail carry me past. I peered up at Mikhail’s craggy face, and dared to reach to touch his stubbly chin with one hand.
His eyes fluttered shut the tiniest bit, and he wobbled in the air.
“Better not, my sweet soul,” he said. “I haven’t fallen from the air since I was a Novice myself, but your touch could be what distracts me enough to make me tumble.”
“You’d fall because of me?” I whispered, but he heard me.
His eyes met mine and seared my soul as he murmured back, “I’ve already fallen.” I pinched my arm, just to check if I was dreaming. So many of my recent dreams had included him, and he’d said things almost as romantic, though not quite.
As we approached the Maker Hall, he drifted closer to the floor so smoothly, it seemed we were flying in one breath and on the ground in the next.
He was carrying me bridal-style, but we wouldn’t fit through the small door that way, so he let me down at the doorway.
His eyes flickered to the great door that hadn’t been used in four centuries, though, and I remembered what Sunny had said about High Angeli using it to carry their created mates out to meet the rest of Sanctuary.
Mates. The thought shimmered in my mind, and I put one hand up to the feather that had made Righteous lose his shizz in The Merge.
Sunny’s reaction had been bad enough—I knew that this feather wasn’t innocent, like my birthmark.
I put my hand to that one now, suddenly wondering if I’d been wrong about it for my entire life as well.
When Mikhail tilted his head at me, gesturing toward the door, I made sure to pull up my bikini top to hide that one.
If it had upset Ry, who knows what Mikhail would think. Although…
I put a pin in the thought, and followed him inside the Maker Hall, watching as he waved a hand at the fireplace, lighting it up with a word, and did a quick inspection of the tables. “Gavriel sent the Novices down to Earth?” he murmured, but seemed shocked when I answered.
“Yes, the day after you left.” His head swung around, and I tried not to fidget, still remembering my unfortunate moment with the glitter clean up. Maybe he wouldn’t ask; I sure wouldn’t tell him. “I missed you,” I blurted out.
“You did?” He shuffled his feet slightly, his wings folding up tightly behind him as he fidgeted. My heart pounded at his reaction.
I stepped closer. “Yes. You kissed me, and then you were gone. You didn’t say goodbye.”
His lip curled. “Gavriel pulled rank.” He stepped closer, and reached out for my hand. “I’m sorry, dear one. I didn’t mean to leave you.”
“Where did you go?” The firelight played across his features, drawing long shadows that made him look even more brooding and romantic than usual. “On Earth, I mean. Did you have a mission?”
“Hmph,” he said, his eyes shimmering. “Gavriel sent me to a hellish place. Las Vegas. Hot, dry, women wearing feathers and paste, jumping on my lap and trying to take off my clothi— Oof!”
I blinked and looked down. My fist had somehow found its way to his gut. “Did I punch you?” I took a moment to be glad my hands were now so clean that no smut had rubbed off onto his robe at all. I rubbed my knuckles over the ridges of muscles just beneath the cloth.
“You did,” he answered, his lips twitching.
“Sweet one, I did not touch those women. I would not. Not ever before, and especially now that…” He broke off, and a strange, panicked expression flitted over his face before he masked it.
I unfolded my fist and stroked his abs in apology for punching him, and then again in appreciation, and one more time because the spot on my nape gave me the most delicious feeling when I did it.
Then I folded my arms across my chest, and asked the question that couldn’t wait.
“Growly, I need you to tell me the truth. I know you did something to save me, after I took Ry’s smut.
I know it was something dangerous… or forbidden.
” I took a breath, fighting my own rising sense of panic at the fear on Mikhail’s face.
I turned halfway, peering over my shoulder as I lifted my hair away, exposing the new feather that I knew lay there.
“Did you give me this feather, Mikhail?” I didn’t ask the rest of my question, which was, “If you did, do you regret it now?” I wasn’t that brave.
His eyes closed, his shoulders slumping in a way I’d never seen, in an unspoken answer to both of my questions.
I thought of taking it back, telling him I didn’t care, that we could keep it a secret.
Though quite a few people knew already, and after the whole of Sanctuary saw him carry me out of The Merge, I had a feeling the rest might put it together.
I raised my hand to the spot and rubbed it lightly, wondering why that part of my neck felt more like it belonged to me than any other piece of this body. It was no more prominent than a tattoo, and the nerves there were, if anything, more connected to the rest of me. Especially certain parts.
Maybe the feather had been his. But it was mine now, and I wasn’t giving it back.