Chapter 9 #2
“What will I do?” I glanced down at my arms. Whatever smut I had worn on my skin before was gone, though I had a feeling it might be the weird gray stuff that swam under my skin with the gold and silver. Inextricable, now.
“You’ll go to Protector classes, I assume. And you’ll need to sing to the gate.” He lay back, his face paler than it had been only seconds before. “I’ll try to recover my strength. I have a reason to now.”
“Does that mean we can’t… you know?” I waggled my eyebrows. “Merge? I could stay on top, and do all the work.” He laughed so hard the bed shook, and my heart soared. If he was laughing, he couldn’t be dying, could he?
But then his laughter turned into coughing. I grabbed a cloth and held it to his mouth, my insides freezing as I saw the blood and golden ichor that came away when I lowered it.
“Growly, what’s this? Is this new?”
He drew a breath as if to speak, but his lungs rattled, and his eyes went wide with shock and alarm. “Get Sunny. Too late,” he wheezed.
With my arms still around him, he slumped to one side on the bed. “Mikhail?” I patted his cheek. Was he asleep, or had he fainted? Crapola, was he breathing? I leaned down, feeling the faintest shiver of a breath on my ear. “Sunny!” I shouted when nothing I did would wake him. “Sunny, come quick!”
The door slammed wide, and she was at my side in an instant. “What happened?” She helped me set him onto his back, and examined him. He lay as still as death, not breathing for long moments, then gasping. My heart felt like someone had replaced it with a boulder.
“What’s wrong? Did I do something?”
Sunny shook her head. “Bring me the bell,” she said. I knew which one, and I ran to grab the naming chime. She took it, held it over his head, and said clearly, “Mikhail the Great-Souled, Maker of Sanctuary, Beloved of Feather.”
The chime let out a soft, sad clink, then fell silent.
After a second, Sunny muffled a sob with her fist. “Get the cauldron down, Feather. The one by the wall. We don’t have long.”
“What do you mean?” I shrieked. “You’re not going to unmake him!”
She chewed at her lip, silent tears streaking down her face. “I can’t save him. He’s been growing weaker every day. I thought if you two were mates again, he might recover. You would lend him your strength.”
“Like jump-starting a car?” I asked, leaping away from the bed. “He would give me a feather, and we’d be linked? But he said he was too weak to lose one. That he’d die.”
“Of course,” she whispered. “I promised… Feather, I vowed on my wings to unmake him in the cauldron if he… if he couldn’t heal.”
I refused to look at her, knowing I’d start crying, too. And I was not going to lose my Growly Bear. Not after everything Rumple and I had gone through to get me back here. I rummaged around on the closest table, then went looking on the others.
“What about me?” I mumbled, wondering at the disorganization the Maker Hall had fallen into. “What if I give him a feather?”
She shook her head. “Normally, yes. If two Protectors mated, they would share their energy—it’s an even exchange. But only a strong High Angelus could bond with Mikhail and survive. His need is so great. Feather, you can’t be thinking—”
“Aha!” I found the soul knife, tucked into a leather case I’d never seen before. I held it up and ran back to the bed, stopping only when Sunny grabbed me.
“What are you doing?” Her wings flared out behind her, hiding Mikhail from me, and sending bursts of glittering sparkles all the way to the rafters.
She really was ready to ascend; she shone almost as much as Gavriel had.
“Feather, I told you. There’s no hope. I have to prepare the cauldron so his energy can be used to power Sanctuary.
I’ll lose my wings if I don’t follow through with my promise! ”
I took a deep breath, reining in my temper. “Sunny, I love you. But if you don’t let me save my Growly Bear right now, your wings will be the last thing you need to worry about.” I smiled. “I vow on my little wings that I can save him. Just let me.”
She released my arms, and stepped back, doubt in every line of her face. “I suppose, if he dies, I won’t need my wings, will I? Sanctuary won’t have a High Angelus in it, unless Gavriel gives up on Earth and stays here. So it will fall.”
“No pressure,” I muttered under my breath as she folded her wings. “Now, how do you think Growly will feel about a hand tattoo?” I sent a prayer up to the Great Maker of All Things, and lifted Growly’s wasted hand, terrified at how cold his flesh had become in mere minutes.
Sunny sniffled. “He’ll see it every time he makes anything. He’ll never be able to hide it. The Guides will go apeshirt. Do it.”
I glanced at her with gratitude. She had obviously decided to help, and her optimism—even though she might be faking it—gave me the courage to do what I had to do next.
Reaching behind me, I pulled one of my wings forward. “This is gonna hurt like fudge,” I muttered, and set the soul knife to the base of the most beautiful, perfectly formed feather I had.
And then I cut it out.