Chapter 9
Feather
The room exploded in a shower of blankets, t-shirts, and feathers as Mikhail flung himself from the bed. “Feather!” His turquoise and black eyes were wild, his chest heaving as he fought to breathe.
My own chest felt as if I’d piled a thousand stones on it. He was emaciated, so much thinner than when I’d left. Had it really been only six weeks?
“Growly Bear, what happened?”
His hands twitched, as if he would reach for me. His leather trousers hung loose, a belt with new notches securing the waist. He wore the t-shirt I’d made that said Property of Feather, and his wings fluttered like he might fly across the few feet between us.
“Are you real?” he murmured, his gaze darting from my feet to my stubby wings, to my face again. “Is this another dream?”
I shook my head, swallowing the lump that rose again.
“No, Growly, it’s not. I’m back. I came back.
And… I’m so—” My apology was lost as he let out a terrifying cry, leaped over the space between us and folded me in his arms, pressing my face into his chest. He smelled of leather and woodsmoke, and the tiniest bit funky, like he hadn’t had a bath since I’d left.
“Mine,” he growled, sounding like a bear for real. “My Feather. My love.” He rocked us back and forth for a few minutes. Or hours. I wasn’t sure. Time had no place in this reunion; there was no need to mark its passage. We were together. We were home.
Or mostly.
Finally, his grip loosened, and his lips were in my hair. “I love you… I love you,” he whispered between kisses. “I love you. If this is a dream, don’t let me wake. Let me hold you forever.” His arms shook, and I realized he was weeping.
I blinked away my own tears and pulled back enough to speak. “You’re not dreaming. And if you want me back, I’ll stay. I’ll stay with you forever, Growly. I’ll never hurt you again.”
He’d just opened his mouth to reply when a soft knocking at the hidden doorway interrupted us. Sunny called out, “Need a hand here.”
Mikhail stumbled slightly as I pulled away. “No!” he said, his voice panicked. “Don’t leave.”
“I won’t,” I promised, my heart aching at how feeble he was, and how desperate. I had done this to him. “Just getting the door.” I backed away, feeling his eyes boring into me as I walked the few yards and pushed the narrow door open.
Sunny nodded curtly at me, then bustled past, carrying a tray piled high with cloths, a steaming bowl, and a plate overflowing with fruit and cheese.
“Right, now that you’re back, maybe you can convince this fellow to take a bath and eat more than two bites, hm?
” She clucked her tongue, and I marveled again at how much she had changed.
She literally glowed as she cleared away an old tray on a low table, replacing it with the new one.
Her golden-brown glow illuminated everything, including the food he hadn’t eaten from the last time she’d done this.
“If anyone can get him to eat, it would be his mate,” she said gently, nudging me toward the table.
.. and him. I smiled at her, grateful for her support.
“She’s not my mate.” Mikhail’s words hit me in the gut like a fist, and I gasped aloud. I reached behind my neck, feeling for the feather that I knew was gone. He said he loved me… but would he choose me again, after what I’d done? After I’d almost destroyed him, abandoned him?
Sunny clucked her tongue again before murmuring, “Maybe not now. Not yet. You two should talk.” She set the tray down and left, shooting me a look I couldn’t interpret before pulling the narrow door shut behind her.
I turned to Mikhail, but he had settled on the edge of the bed again, and was watching the fire. Very pointedly not looking at me. “Would you like to eat first?” I asked, when the silence in the room grew so heavy, I felt I might crumple.
“Have you eaten?” he replied, his voice strangely formal.
I walked around to the side of the bed and pulled the small table closer.
I peeked up at his face—even seated, he was still taller than me—and saw something in his eyes that worried me more than his physical state.
He looked wounded, as if there were some jagged tear inside him that was still bleeding, that no bandage could ever reach.
“I haven’t,” I answered, sitting next to him and handing him a few grapes. “Can we eat together?” He nodded, and we ate in silence for a few moments.
“I know why you left,” he said suddenly.
“Gavriel came to me, the night you…” He cleared his throat.
“He told me he found you in Arabella’s room.
He admitted what he said. That he called you…
trash. Said I didn’t need you.” He huffed a small, soundless laugh and lifted a trembling hand. “Look how wrong he was.”
I bit my lip so hard, I felt blood well up. “It wasn’t just that—” I began, but he shook his head, his long hair falling over his face so I couldn’t see his expression.
“I know. It’s who you are, Feather. You were sacrificing yourself to save all of us. I know your heart. But if Gavriel hadn’t said those things, you would have spoken to me. I had a plan.” He sighed, his broad shoulders slumping. “One that didn’t mean your unmaking, or my death.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry I believed him when he told me you didn’t need me.”
“It was my fault. I should have told you I loved you before,” he replied calmly.
“If you’d been more secure, you would have come to me.
” He took a drink, then set the cup down, his grip growing steadier by the second.
“Will you tell me where you’ve been?” His eyes darted up cautiously to meet mine. “And how… how you’ve returned.”
“I will,” I said, drawing the word out. “But you have to let me do something while I talk.” He tilted his head, and I grabbed some of the cloths from the table. “You have to let me wash you. You stink almost as much as I did when I first came to Sanctuary, Growly. Like an actual bear.”
Our combined laughter rose to the rafters, and for the first time since I’d entered the Hall, I felt like maybe there was a chance I could repair what I’d done.
Maybe he would want me to be his mate again. If it was possible.
“Ready for your bath time with a stern, firm-handed angel mistress?” I teased. “This may or may not have been a recurrent fantasy of mine for the past few months.”
“I’m afraid you’ve got me at a disadvantage,” he grumbled.
“I’m not what I was before.” He pulled his shirt off, revealing his sunken chest, and the scars that stood out even more prominently on his skin.
I fought to keep my expression serene, dipping the towel into the warm, glowing water—obviously it had been mixed with some sort of purifying gel—before using it to wipe my tears, then rubbing it in broad strokes on his chest.
“Lie back and listen,” I said quietly. “I’ll tell you everything that happened.”
An hour passed while I spoke. Then two. I’d washed him twice by then, and his skin was clean, even if he still wore an alarming amount of smut, and was lacking the glow that had marked him as a High Angelus.
When I told him about Seraphiel and how he’d been trapped in the Abyss, how he’d tried to communicate through the gate, I used the tears that streamed from his eyes to help loosen more of the smut and grime from his body.
My smut, which he’d taken on when he mated me.
“He remade you,” Mikhail said at last when my story was done. “He renamed you?”
“Well, I chose the name,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to be useless anymore.” His hand caught mine, and he pulled me into his embrace, one arm wrapping behind me.
“You were never useless. You were always necessary. And beloved. My beloved.”
Across the room, the naming chime, the small silver bell that he’d used to find my former name, rang out merrily.
His eyes grew wide with wonder, and his cheeks darkened. Was he blushing? I put my hand to my own face. I knew I was. “You renamed yourself my beloved?” The bell hummed again.
“Well, that was part of it,” I confessed, meeting his eyes. “Rumple—Seraphiel—said to pick my own name, that I could make it whatever I wanted. I may have gotten slightly carried away.” I covered my eyes when Mikhail laughed again.
“What did you pick?” He waited, and when I didn’t answer, his hands landed on my waist, and he hauled me onto his lap.
Mikhail might have been much weaker than he was before, but he was still one of the oldest and strongest beings in Sanctuary.
I let my body melt into his, and shivered when his hand stroked the place on my nape where his mating feather had been.
I wanted to be his mate again so badly, I could taste it.
I wasn’t going to admit my whole name right now—to be honest, I had a feeling my brain had still been sort of wobbly when Rumple had pressed the name into me before sending me back, and it was embarrassing.
But sitting here, staring into the fire, I found the courage to ask a question of my own. “Do you still want me?” I asked softly. “If you would choose me to be your mate again, I won’t leave you, I promise.”
He sighed and pulled me closer to his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head.
“More than anything,” he said. “But I can’t.
” I held my breath, afraid that if I let it out, it would be on a sob.
Then he continued. “I’m too weak. If I cut away one of my feathers now, it could be my death.
When I’m stronger… when I’m myself again, nothing will keep me from asking you formally to be mine.
” He turned me in his arms, pulling my chin up with one finger so I was staring directly into his beautiful, swirling turquoise eyes.
“We have so much to do. Someone will need to find Gavriel and tell him about Rafe. I don’t accept that he’s lost to us.
If he’s alive, in whatever form, Gav will find a way to rescue him. ”