Chapter 17 Feather
Feather
Afew days later, I could hear Sunny’s mind whirling with high-decibel thoughts while she worked on her latest craft project, a second macramé owl towel hanger.
I’d been too busy to see her much for the past few days, what with trying to clean off my new smut from re-mating Mikhail, going to my horrible Purity seminar, another boring class on Sacrifice and Redemption, and spending evenings with Righteous.
He’d been treating me like a queen, but I hadn’t had nearly enough time with my best birch.
Sunny was too quiet. But her thoughts were another matter. Her fingers tied knots in the thick, yellow polyester craft yarn while her inner monologue tied knots in my emotions.
Feather looks nervous. Like she’s got a secret.
And she keeps touching that feather on her chest. Somebody needs to tell her that’s not a birthmark.
Why hasn’t Mikhail said anything? He’s the one who should…
but maybe he’s nervous about it? He must have seen it before the first mating…
No, he did that to save her life. Who’s her other mate?
Could it be that Rumple guy? Not sure if he’s really Seraphiel.
I wish I’d met him. We sure need Seraphiel here now, or someone.
Sanctuary with no High Angeli—well, Feather is one, sort of.
Can’t believe I’m best friends with the most beautiful soul ever created in Sanctuary.
Even with that smut on her, and inside her…
Wait. Inside? Did she merge with Rafe when she was in the Abyss?
Maybe that’s why she looks so guilty. Or was it Righteous?
He couldn’t even look at her yesterday after she came back to the room.
She wouldn’t be unfaithful to Mikhail. But that feather on her chest…
It’s not his. Is it Righteous’s from her first life?
That would make sense. He looks at her like she’s got his heart in her hand.
Or her hand on his dick. Now if Mikhail would let it happen, that’s a three-way I could get behind, even if it is way too much dick for my personal merging preferences.
Righteous is hung like a fucking monster, according to Feather.
Oh, my stars, her name! She’s gonna regret that for millennia.
She began humming a very familiar song about an anaconda and his deep love for buns.
“I should probably tell you I can hear your thoughts some of the time,” I blurted out. Sunny stopped halfway through a row she was tying off, and shot me the finger.
“No, you can’t.” She glared when I only shrugged, then snarked, “Okay, what was I thinking, Madame Psychic?”
“You were singing a classic Earth song,” I said softly. “About Righteous.” Her eyes narrowed, and I rapped out the final words of the line from “Baby Got Back.”
“Oh, stars and suns,” she gasped, dropping the macramé on the floor. The plastic circular towel holder part cracked on impact. “You read my mind? You birch!”
“Not on purpose!” I explained as she began throwing scraps of yarn and sequins at me. “It just started happening after I came back from the Abyss!”
“What have you heard?” she hissed, circling the room like she was going to attack. I backed away, hopping over the bed in an effort to keep something between us.
“Not much. I mean, mostly I can tune it out. Especially when there’s a lot of others around. But when we’re alone—”
“What. Did. You. Hear?” she shrieked.
“Nothing!” I yelled back, angry now. “You’re the Light of Truth. You don’t have terrible secrets. Your thoughts are all wonderful, and caring. You’re worried about me, but you think I’m pretty, even with all my smut. And you want to watch a three-way with me, Mikhail, and Righteous.”
“For purely scientific purposes!” she shouted back.
We both stopped, our faces frozen. “For science!” I yelled.
“Just to see how it would even work!” she agreed, her lips twitching.
She stepped forward, and I grabbed her hands, staring deeply into her sparkling dark eyes. “I know. I want it for the same reasons.”
She hugged me too tightly. “You know it hurts me when you lie, you thirsty, dirty birch.”
“Sorry,” I managed to wheeze.
She pulled me back to the bed, and when we were sitting cross-legged, face to face, she ordered, “Try to read my mind.” She closed her eyes, screwing her face up. It looked like she was holding her breath.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Clearing my thoughts.”
“Well, it worked. Now think of something. Something good.”
All of a sudden, an image of the Protector Hope popped into my mind.
She was stroking Sunny’s arm and leaning close, whispering, “I’m telling the truth, lovely Sunny.
It feels like you were made for me. Made to be mine.
” She tapped Sunny’s cheek. “I’d put my feather right here if they’d let me.
Claim you so that every soul would know. ”
“Fudgesicles,” I breathed. “Sunny, Hope asked you to be her mate?”
Her eyes popped open, and she nodded breathlessly. “When you were gone. I told her it was too soon… Mikhail was so weak, and I had to take care of him. There wasn’t time for the traditional seven-day merging celebration when she asked me.”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly annoyed. “You mean to tell me there’s a party?
” I waved off her sputtered reply, but in her thoughts, I could see the interior of The Merge, with everyone watching a smiling couple exchange feathers, then fuck like deranged rabbits on a stage under a disco ball.
Ew. “Of course there is. We’re talking Sanctuary—any excuse for an orgy.
But why didn’t Mikhail say anything? Was he ashamed of me? ”
Sunny shook her head. “No, Feather. You have to remember, he thought you were a Novice. It was… unorthodox. I’m sure he planned to tell the world.”
Something in her tone alarmed me. “Sunny, he hasn’t made any big public statement yet. And we had days together. He kept me in his Hall—”
“I didn’t hear any complaints about that,” she interrupted.
“Yes, but… what if he just didn’t want others to know?” The way she chewed her lip made me think there was something she didn’t want to tell me. “Don’t make me read your mind, Sunny. Spill.”
She cradled her head in her hands. “Okay, so I missed a lot of what was going on while Mikhail was so sick. But Hope said the Guides got together after you left, while the Maker was sick and Gavriel was on Earth, and made a rule—it was unanimous, Feather. They have to approve any Protectors’ matings before they take place.
And Hope floated the idea about the two of us.
But Valor, who is apparently now the Head Guide’s right-hand douchenozzle, laughed in her face.
Told her if she wanted to mate with me, she’d have to get on board with his plan. ”
“What plan?”
“The plan to get out of Sanctuary and leave the Earth to rot.” We both uttered a few inventive curses before she went on. “I think he’s trying to get appointed the leader of Sanctuary.”
“But…” I closed my eyes, trying to think what it was Righteous had said the evening before. True to his word, he’d been taking me to and from my classes, and escorting me from my room to the Great Gate each evening so he could sing.
The first night, I’d just listened to him, made googly eyes at the gate whenever it shimmered extra brightly, and snacked on the cheese cubes and grapes Righteous brought for me.
We’d talked about Italy, and Dina, and I’d told him about the weird smells from my Purity prof.
The next night, Ry asked me to sing with him, and we’d both ended up pretending not to notice the tears on each other’s faces.
Even the gate had seemed subdued, barely sparkling, and I’d gone back to my room wondering what Ry wasn’t telling me.
But last night, something had changed.
“The zephyr blows from the stars at night, and stills at the break of day,” Righteous sang to the gate as I hummed a harmony an octave above, since I didn’t know the lyrics.
“But the strongest wind could never blow my soulmate’s love away.
” Righteous’s voice was always exquisite, but tonight there was a new depth of emotion in his singing. Pain.
“Are you all right?” I asked, taking his hand in mine. He stared down at our entwined fingers and shook his head.
“Something’s terribly wrong in the realm,” he said. “It’s been bad for weeks, maybe months, but it’s gotten much worse in the past days, since the High Angeli left. I’ve lost the confidence of the Guides. I think… Tomorrow, there’s a meeting. I’m not sure what they’ve got planned.”
I felt a surge of anger, and a strange skittering feeling on my skin, like static electricity all over my body. I ignored it. “What can they do? You’re the leader!”
He sighed. “In name only. Gavriel has let the Guides take over a lot of the real decision making. Before he left, he signed a new… Never mind. Let’s not talk about it. I brought you a surprise.”
The surprise was a fluffy, brilliant green blanket he laid out on the floor, and a small container of… “Chocolates?” I shrieked. “How did you get your hands on chocolate?” All I had really eaten since I got to this realm was cheese and fruit.
“The chefs in the Dining Hall still like me well enough,” he said, chuckling as he sat beside me on the knitted blanket. “They said they’d expected to run short on energy faster, with Mikhail away, but Sanctuary’s still humming with juice.”
“Mmhmm,” I said, stuffing a truffle almost the size of my fist into my mouth. Righteous rolled his eyes as I faked an orgasm.
It may not have been entirely fake. Food-related orgasms were a legitimate, medically documented form of sexual pleasure, and I told him just that.
The look he gave me then was heated enough to melt the rest of my chocolate.
I felt an answering surge of warmth from the Great Gate, and I fluttered my eyelashes at it.
“Stop flirting with the gate and move over here,” Righteous grumbled.
When I raised an eyebrow, he grabbed me by the waist and turned me so I was sitting in front of him, between his outstretched legs, my back to him.
His fingers began to knead and rub my shoulders, and I whimpered, clenching my thighs together as the orgasm idea moved closer and closer to a reality.
“Valor has built quite a case against me. And while you’re right about the hidden smut—some corners of that wing smell worse than cesspits—Tradition is as pure as any Guide we have.”
We argued a bit, ate the rest of the chocolate, and sang another two songs before Hope interrupted us to take her turn. It felt like a date. And it kind of was. Righteous imagined kissing me goodnight as he flew me back to my room, and I let myself sink into the dream of it.
Had I mentioned Righteous’s concerns about Tradition to Sunny? I knew he’d had a private meeting scheduled for this morning, with singing shifts at the gate for the rest of the day.
I tried to interrupt and ask, but she was pacing, her wings flaring, and her fists clenched.
“So, Hope went to the Guides directly to ask for permission to mate, and they said to come back again in a year. When we were ‘more committed.’ She threw a fit and got formally reprimanded. And Valor told her later we’d never be allowed to mate. ”
I was so mad, I jumped up and started pacing next to her. “What business is it of theirs? How can they stop you? They can’t forbid love.”
“No, but they can make it a crime to commit a feather to another Protector.” Her voice was subdued. “The punishment for mating without their permission is anything up to and including the loss of your wings.”
“Motherfudging ashholes!” I muttered. “When Righteous hears about this…”
“Don’t,” she said. “Listen, he’s already being investigated. Hope was beside herself, and asked me to apologize to Righteous for her.”
“For what?”
Sunny chewed at her lower lip. “She had to report to Tradition, the Head Guide, what she saw at the gate after you walked through. She wasn’t going to say anything, but Valor had seen it, too, and they forced her to submit a report as a secondary witness.”
“What do you mean, what she saw?” I half yelled.
Her dark eyes gleamed with sorrow. “What Righteous was doing, Feather. He was trying to cut off his wings.”