Chapter 14 Feather #2
Gavriel interrupted. “We spoke of this. I trust Tradition, Righteous. I’ve looked into their mind.
They’re hidebound, but Sanctuary’s wellbeing is always foremost in their thoughts.
And the Guides can wait. They’ve been going on about rule changes since the Well was sealed. They don’t have enough to keep busy.”
Righteous hummed in disagreement. “We have a corporeal demon on our hands. Maybe a few of them should lose the robes and try their hands at a mission.”
“Not a bad idea,” Mikhail said. “I don’t like leaving Sanctuary with no High Angelus. Officially, that is.” I blushed as I felt the tips of his wings brush against my calves under the table.
“It’s stronger than it’s been in a long while right now,” Gavriel snapped, taking a huge gulp of wine.
“I’ll speak to Tradition again about making certain the Guides are in line, and when we return, I’ll handle it myself.
I think a few purifying group sessions are needed for some of the senior Guides. ”
I snorted at the thought of the sanctimonious prigs being forced to share their faults in group therapy. Maybe I could watch. Or sell tickets: Guides Gone Wild, the Secret Sins Come Out When Daddy Gavriel Leaves Town.
Mikhail stroked my cheek. “We should only be gone for a few days at most.”
“I still don’t see why you need to go, Growly,” I grumbled. “You’ve been injured.”
Gavriel frowned at me. “I sent thirty Protectors to bring this demon down, and they all failed. One came back so covered with smut, I almost thought she was you.” Righteous started coughing.
Mikhail growled. I just stuck my tongue out.
The smut I’d gotten from saving Growly wasn’t that bad now; whole sheets of it came off every time I showered.
Gavriel ignored me, turning to speak to Righteous. “I have faith you can keep the Guides in line for a few days. I’ve been chasing this thing on my own around the clock, and I can’t get close. It senses me coming, somehow, though it’s every bit as hidden as Feather was in her years on Earth.”
“I was hidden?”
Gavriel laughed once. “Do you believe we would have let you run around down there for centuries, without guidance or protection, if we’d known?” I didn’t answer, and Gavriel went silent, his face flushed.
Mikhail explained, “Novices are camouflaged as humans in their first lives, as a way to keep them safe from the Abyss. They don’t even know who, or what, they are when they’re first born.
Not until their Protector nature awakens.
You awakened, but didn’t present as a Protector.
We believe your angelic signature was somehow concealed under the smut you bore. It was pure chance we found you.”
“And this demon—it’s hidden in the same way I was?” I did not like the sound of that. I’d been so smut-covered, Gavriel really had thought I was from the Abyss.
No wonder he cut me up with the soul knife when he met me.
I looked up abruptly when I heard noises that reminded me of growling dogs. Ry and Mik were baring their teeth at Gavriel, and realized I’d said that last part out loud. “It’s okay. It’s not like I was anything to him then. I was nothing. Literally.”
Gavriel made a soft noise, like I’d punched him in the gut, then set his face in stone again and went on.
“No Guides on this mission. There’s something about the traces of power this demon leaves.
I don’t want a Guide—who won’t have fought a shadow creature in centuries—protecting my flank when the battle begins.
” Mikhail had tried to get Gavriel to elaborate before, but Gav had been unable to explain what was so different about this shadow creature.
“Some of the tabloids are calling it The Perfect Devil, and others call it Glitter Baby. If that many humans see a creature from the Abyss… well, you know how they are. They’ll panic. There could be riots.”
I frowned, worried about Earth, sure. But also wondering why those names sounded so familiar.
Mikhail chuckled. “Maybe not. Remember before we kept the Flight Hall locked, when that Protector got sex-drunk at The Merge, wandered around in Florida a few decades back, and someone took a picture? Bat Boy, they called him.”
Righteous snorted. “That was Dignity. Not his finest hour.”
Gavriel’s eyes landed on me. “You were in America during your last life. You saw tabloids, I’m sure. Were they still reporting on those sorts of made-up creatures?”
But my mind was still whirling. “G-Glitter Baby?” I mumbled, remembering exactly where I’d heard those words.
“Perfect Devil.” My gaze flew to a table across the room, one Mikhail had dedicated to his new Novices, when he was creating them from his own soul energy.
There had been one covered with glitter.
I’d been trying to clean it, and I’d said a lot of things. Things like glitter baby and little devil and…
“Feather, what’s wrong?”
Oh, shipwrecked motherfudgers. I didn’t… It couldn’t have been me.
I blurted out, “Naming new Protectors is a power only you have, right? Like, there’s no way anyone besides you could name a new one?”
Mikhail brushed a piece of silver hair out of my face and tilted his head. “Of course not.”
“Not even Gavriel? None of the Guides? And especially not a Protector… like I was?”
Righteous’s eyes narrowed as I spoke, and I batted my eyelashes across the table at him, thinking innocent thoughts. It only made him squint more. “What do you mean, Feather?”
“Nothing. I was just curious. I know High Angeli have powers that the others don’t. I was wondering if Gavriel could also, you know, name things. Do Mikhail’s jobs.”
Gavriel immediately shook his head, but Mikhail snorted. “Well, sweet soul, when you wore my feather, you could open my door, remember? It’s possible if you wore one now, you’d be able to apprentice in my Hall, if that’s what you want to do.”
“No, nope! No touching the stuff in here. Could be a bad idea. Better to keep to my glitter and hot glue,” I said, trying for casual, but sounding slightly constipated.
I needed to change the subject; Ry was squinting and Gavriel glaring, their faces painted with concern and suspicion.
“I’m running short on supplies, Growly. Would you share some more from your closet? ”
“Everything I have is yours. I’ll share whatever you need, or want.” He whispered in my ear, “I’m good at sharing.”
I shivered, thoroughly distracted by Mikhail’s unsubtle sexy talk.
I felt three pairs of eyes on me as I covered the spot on my nape where Mikhail had put his feather all those months ago.
“So will I be able to open your door, even without your feather in me?” When he shrugged, I fought back a small wave of panic.
“We’re still really mated, though, right?
Mine’s enough? I don’t want you to cut out another one; you just got strong again! ”
Gavriel cleared his throat. “Your souls are bound. Shared, in a sense. You don’t have to exchange feathers to share souls. To be truly mated.”
“You don’t? Oh, crapola. Do people ever get mated accidentally?”
Righteous rolled his eyes, but Mikhail winked. “What he means is, one feather is enough, love. But two, especially if I placed it on your—”
Gavriel interrupted whatever perverted thing Mik was about to say.
“An exchange of feathers is highly unusual. It would do more than connect… Mikhail, she needs to go to classes, maybe some sort of individual tutoring. It feels wrong to explain the basics of mating and merging with a Novice. Indecent.”
“She’s not a Novice, and she knows all she needs to about merging, Gav,” Mikhail said, popping a grape in his mouth and staring at me with heat. “I can promise you that.”
“Don’t kiss and tell, honey bear,” I growled out, as Righteous drew a sharp breath.
Gavriel got the runaway conversation back on track with a comment that surprised us all. “Speaking of knowing, it’s time for you to ascend, Righteous. We need to get that stain off you, so that when Mikhail and I are gone, you’ll have full authority.”
“Oh, did you figure out how to get it off?” I beamed at Righteous, who looked flustered. “I thought it was stuck forever.”
Gavriel scowled. “Haven’t you told her yet?”
“Told me what?”
Righteous fidgeted, which made me suspicious.
“This isn’t the time. You’re right, I can hold the Guides off for a few more days.
We’ll plan the formal ceremony and I’ll ascend when you get back,” he said to Gavriel, ignoring me.
“I’ll… I’ll talk to Feather about the, um, incident, which should clear up the…
thing. And I’ll make certain she gets the individual tutoring she needs in… the ins and outs of merging.”
I was going to die of embarrassment. “Sunny can tell me,” I blurted out. “She’s a real merger. Merges all the time, with all sorts of groups. She’s known for her inventive merging.”
Mikhail reached across the table and covered my mouth with one hand. “Righteous is Head Protector. I’m sure he’ll take care of it.” I gave him a weak thumbs up.
Gavriel stood. “Mik, meet me in the Flight Hall.” He shot me an odd look as he left, and practically ran to the door. Mikhail gathered me up into his arms for a hug and a long, passionate kiss.
While Righteous watched.
I sputtered against his lips, and Mikhail purred into my mouth.
“Remember, in Sanctuary we merge in public, sweetness. It’s almost considered deviant to do it alone.
A little kiss won’t shock a big boy like Righteous.
” He emphasized the words big boy, and I started plotting how I was going to punish him for embarrassing me.
“Gavriel needs me,” he said with one last, clit-tingling kiss. “I’ll be back soon, love.”
“You’d better be,” I said, trying to act like I wasn’t about to drop to my knees and do something.
Probably just beg him to stay. Yeah, I’d go with that.
“Righteous will get me up to speed. You go to work, and I’ll go to school.
When you come back to Sanctuary, we can play naughty schoolgirl and Daddy Bear. ”
“Little minx!” He pinched my butt as I skipped away. “Run along to your room now. Remember, if you get in trouble at school, I’ll have to punish you.” My mouth went dry at the stern expression on his craggy face.
Behind me, Righteous whispered, “Fuck me,” and I broke into nervous giggles when Mikhail muttered, “Not unless she asks you.”
Then he picked up the soul knife from the table and handed it to Righteous, before leaving the same way Gavriel had. The Hall echoed with awkwardness, and I fidgeted, looking anywhere but at Ry.
“What did he mean by that?” Righteous said at last. “Not unless you ask me?”
I didn’t have an answer—at least not one I was willing to say out loud—so I blew a raspberry and ran as fast as I could, my useless wings flapping behind me. “No idea, gotta go! I’ll catch up with you later!”
I sprinted for the hallway, glad Ry had decided to drop the subject, though I knew he could have caught up to me if he wanted to.
I was not ready to have that conversation with him, no matter how kinky my mate was turning out to be.
One dick at a time, Feather. Save the angel orgies for your second week back in Sanctuary.
And now I was thinking about orgies. And dicks.
I zipped down the hallways, as if I could outrun my memory of Ry’s massive trouser snake. I took a few wrong turns on my way to my room, but once I got close, I recognized the white on slightly-less-white walls, and the ecru floors that were only found on my hallway.
Everything inside was just the way I’d left it: a bed with a mattress straight out of a princess’s wildest fantasy; hand-painted, vibrantly colorful tables, chairs, and a chest of drawers; and endless expanses of white walls and floors, though there was an almost alarming amount of glitter in the corners.
And of course, Sunny was there, sitting in the middle of my bed, playing a solid gold kazoo.
I was pretty sure the song was a Frank Sinatra one, but she was very, very bad at the kazoo, so it was hard to tell.
“Hey, birch!” I threw myself onto the mattress, almost embarrassing myself by groaning at the softness of the sheets. “You hear I’m going to school now? I sort of can’t wait. Please tell me there’s a uniform with knee socks and a plaid miniskirt.”
“There is if we make one tonight.” She grinned like the Cheshire cat, tossed the kazoo away, and started unpacking the drawers full of sewing and crafting supplies.
“Oh, Feather. I can’t wait to see their faces when you fly in.
” I cocked an eyebrow. “Er, walk in,” she amended, flinging swaths of fabric on the floor.
Sure enough, she found a nice navy and forest green plaid, about enough for two handkerchiefs, or one miniskirt. “Though that might be a problem.”
“Why?” I asked, pulling my sheets around me. I cooed to them; I’d missed them so much when I was unmade.
“Because the classrooms are all on the third level.”
I sat up. “There’s a third level?” I knew about the bottom floor, where the biggest Halls were, and the second level, with the private rooms and The Merge, Sanctuary’s very own sex club/rave.
She nodded. “And a lower level.”
“A basement?”
She crinkled her nose. “Well, it’s more like a few rooms. Cells.”
“Cells,” I repeated, then burst out laughing. “Of course Sanctuary has a dungeon. I bet it’s for super-kinky sexy times.”
Sunny fell back on the bed. “They’re not going to know what to do with you.”
“No one ever has,” I agreed. “Not in any realm.”