Chapter 16 Righteous #3
I shrugged. “I suppose. She never seemed complete to me.” Feather’s gaze speared me, a silent demand in her eyes.
“When she was created, she came out into the Assembly Hall with Gavriel. I watched him try to kiss her. She turned away, and her eyes were so sad. Conflicted, I thought. As if she didn’t see Gavriel as a mate. ”
For some reason, her questions about mates and merging had my soul pulsing with hidden fire. Why was she asking about this? She couldn’t want to… No. It wasn’t possible.
Dizzy, I sat on the end of the bed, my now-clean arm racing with fire, as my soul continued to expand inside me, like an enormous, infinite sheet being unrolled. Was I ascending? This was what all my reading had said it felt like.
A sudden, strange pull on my blossoming soul had me losing my balance for a moment. I closed my eyes, wondering if it was Sanctuary itself, remembering Gavriel’s words about the need for another High Angelus. It felt as if Sanctuary was reaching out for me, but not quite connecting.
I tuned back into Feather’s words. “…don’t see what she would be conflicted about? Everybody knows Gav’s perfect.”
Hmmm. I would never have expected the Feather I knew to say that.
“Well, the Feather you knew has a lot of hidden depths,” she groused, crossing the room and climbing up on the bed, folding her legs underneath her. “She’s not just an excellent t-shirt decorator and smut expert, you know.”
Feather? I thought at her, keeping my face turned away. Would you like to take some of these roses back to your room?
“I would love that!” she answered aloud.
“My room is gorgeous. Not as fancy as yours, of course. You’d probably hate it.
It’s got glitter everywhere—oh, look, there’s a piece on your bed.
" She stopped speaking when I threw myself back onto the bed, lying on my side with my head supported with one hand.
“So, is there anything that’s… changed about you, since you came back from the gate? Besides the gorgeous patterns in your skin.”
She scoffed. “Gorgeous. I’m pretty sure when Rumple smooshed me back together, he got some of his smut inside me.” Her lips curled up in a mischievous smile. “That sounded kinky.”
“His smut?” I asked, trying for calm. Seraphiel had been the brightest, purest soul Sanctuary had ever known. “Tell me about it?”
“Hmmm. Not sure I should. Gav will freak.” Her eyes were on my pecs, and I loosened the neck of my shirt, undoing two more buttons, and flexed them. She didn’t even blink. “You might believe me, but Gavriel still thinks I’m a useless nothing.”
“Was Seraphiel covered in smut like you?” I flexed my pecs twice in a row, amused at how she watched them like a cat hunting a mouse.
“Horny,” she muttered. I almost laughed, but she went on, her voice low. “He was super horny.”
“Horny for you?” She shivered, not answering. Had she even heard me? I flexed my pecs again, first one, then the other, in a steady rhythm. “Hey, Scrap?” I said after at least a minute. “You’ve got a little drool… right there.” I reached for her face, and she batted my hand away.
“You hypnotized me with your man breasts,” she accused, her mouth drawn down in disapproval.
“My whats?” I peeked down. “I don’t have breasts!”
“Look, Ry,” she said, rolling her eyes as she scooted closer. “See this curve on the bottom of your boob—”
“Not a boob,” I growled, unbuttoning my shirt the rest of the way, and pulling it wide. Her eyes went bigger as she took in my bare skin.
“Whatever. This curve, under your pectoral,” she drawled, reaching underneath the muscle. “You are definitely a B cup.” She hefted it in her hand. Then hefted it again. “Maybe a C.”
“You just wanted to touch it,” I teased, trying not to reveal how much I loved having her hands on me.
“Admit it.” I trailed my fingers over her silky, gleaming hair that cascaded down my sheets.
For an instant, I had a vision of her lying back on those sheets, naked, her eyes closed and her mouth open in a cry of bliss, her legs drawn up and my tongue delving—
“Um, so I should probably go,” she squeaked, and I smiled internally.
The little trickster could read every thought I had, apparently.
I let myself stand and helped her off the bed, allowing the lewd scene to play out in my mind as we walked toward the door.
By the time we reached it, she was biting her lip so hard, I was afraid it might bleed.
She muttered, “Mated, Feather. You’re mated,” like she was in danger of forgetting.
I stopped imagining her naked, but instead, brought the Tili I had known back to the forefront of my mind. Her hands offering me roses. My surprise and the soft affection I’d felt for her. The need to protect her, no matter what.
“I loved you then,” I said to her, as I opened the door. “And I will make up for my abhorrent behavior somehow.”
And maybe you’ll learn to love me, too.
A flash of pain crossed her face as she heard my errant thought, and I shook my head. “Feather, I don’t need any more than this: to know that you are safe and well, and to look upon your face from time to time. It’s more than I deserve, more than I ever thought I’d have.”
It’s enough for me, I thought.
“But maybe not for me,” Feather whispered to herself.
I hid my smile. As soon as Gavriel got back to Sanctuary, and we could plan the ceremony, it was time for me to fully ascend. And then maybe I could begin the hard work of becoming a man worthy of the woman I’d foolishly spurned.