Chapter 24
Feather
Iprobably shouldn’t have tried to open that last lock, I thought to myself. I think I burned out my final battery. No batteries in Sanctuary now. How are they gonna keep the lights on?
A rough voice answered my dream question. “I’ve done fine without light for a long time.”
Rumple? Is that you? I flailed with my arms and legs in the darkness, but didn’t feel anything. Rumple, I repeated, when waves of sadness from somewhere outside my mind washed over me. What’s wrong?
“Why are you here, Feather? Why are you so tired?”
He sounded lost. Empty, almost. I didn’t want to tell him about all the Guides, and the problems in Sanctuary. I settled for, I needed a nap. And your lap was always my favorite place to sleep.
The sadness diminished a bit. “Well, let’s see if I can help out one more time.”
I did not like the way the last three words sounded: final, defeated. But I felt strong legs appearing underneath me, and then arms wrapping around my shoulders. I let it go, for now.
After a few minutes, I sighed. Rumple, I missed you. You’re more tired than I am, though. I feel like I should hold you so you can sleep instead.
“I can’t sleep. It’s hard work keeping the Abyss from encroaching on your safe haven, Little Sacrifice. The shadows are getting more desperate. Why are you here?” he repeated. “Your spirit is so diminished. Fragile, almost.”
I used up too much of myself to keep Sanctuary going, I think. Gav and Mik are on Earth. There’s a, um, a demon baby thing down there. Do you know anything about that?
“A demon… baby?” A tiny flicker of curiosity lit up the void, and I saw it gleam in one weary eye before it went out.
“It’s not from the Abyss, I don’t think.
We don’t get children here. Ever. The shadows have been fighting my hold, though.
I’ve been reinforcing the Sanctuary gate, but I can’t do that and keep them from slipping to Earth. I hope Gav has a handle on that.”
I hummed noncommittally. I’m the only High Angelus in Sanctuary, Rumple. It’s exhausting. It keeps taking my energy, and I’m not big, you know.
“No, you are not. Have you asked Sanctuary to stop?”
I blinked. What?
“Have you asked Sanctuary to stop taking your energy, Feather? It won’t damage it as long as you don’t cut it off entirely.”
You think I can talk to a place? To a realm?
I sighed. And they say I’m the one with the scrambled brain.
The lap I was sitting in rumbled slightly.
Don’t laugh at me, I thought, feeling inexplicably grumpy.
Just tell me. I mean, no one has explained much of anything.
Except Sunny, who told me about different ways to merge, which was super interesting.
The thing with the earlobes and the pinky toes? Unexpected.
“Hmm, I’d love to chat about that, little one.” Rumple’s voice vibrated against my back like an expensive massage chair I’d once sat on at a shopping mall on Earth, making my wings send shivers of pleasure to my core.
You gave me clit wings, Rumple, I groused when I could think again. Clit. Wings.
He laughed out loud at that, and the world around us lit up for a split second, long enough for me to see that the hand I’d thought was resting on my thigh was a tail. A long, dark gray, slightly ridged tail that was the same width around as a back-door sex toy.
A rush of lust swept through me as I immediately pictured all the ways a tail could be used in conjunction with my more pedestrian body parts.
I swear, I felt a mini-orgasm from the thought alone.
That’s what I got for reading monster smut on fanfiction sites for so long. Only the weirdest kinks for this angel.
“All Angeli have sensitive wings,” Rumple purred into my ear, and I melted deeper into his lap. “And I wish I had time to explore the limits of that sensitivity with you, but I must return to the gate before my shadows break through.”
Your shadows, Rumple? I asked, pulling away.
The tail twisted around my thigh, tiny spikes of discomfort spiraling through me.
The hands on my shoulders gripped slightly too hard.
For the first time, I felt frightened of the soul I’d loved my whole life.
I fought to control my reaction; struggling wouldn’t help.
He was far stronger than I could ever hope to become. And this was a dream, right?
He hissed. “Not my shadows. Not in truth. It’s just…
they’ve been my only company all these years.
But I love Sanctuary. I don’t want it to fall, especially with you in it.
To be like this place. I vowed to protect it when I became the leader.
Nothing has changed since then—not in my soul.
Though the rest of me is ruined and twisted.
” A silent keening filled my soul. “I taste your fear, little one, and it breaks a part of my heart I didn’t know was still warm.
Though if you were to see me, you would truly fear me.
You are right to distance yourself, Little Sacrifice. ”
I twisted around, my face directly in front of his, and I grabbed hold of his shoulders now. No, Rumple. You would never hurt me. You are not ruined. You are everything. I couldn’t find the words to tell him how I felt, so I pressed my lips to his instead.
His breath was heavy and dark, and the kiss felt at first like kissing thorns. Tasted foul, like I was stuffing my mouth with cold, sour ashes. It burned.
Then, as I opened my mouth wider, accepting the discomfort, it changed. Where mine touched, his lips began to glow, and though I had my eyes closed, I could see an outline, as if a great fire were blazing behind him. As if his wings were flaming, and lighting him up.
Still kissing, I cracked my eyelids open the tiniest amount, and almost choked.
He was stunningly beautiful and entirely monstrous.
His face was perfection destroyed. The most glorious sculpted features, but burned to ash.
Spirals of tattooed words and screaming figures moved ceaselessly under his skin.
I ignored them, and stared into his eyes.
Sparks ran from them like tears as he pulled back. “Look upon me, Feather. I am ruined. See for yourself.”
I lifted one hand and traced the lines of his face, watching as my dream flesh left a trail of cool, silver fire behind. He leaned into my touch as if it eased some excruciating pain.
Horns rose in graceful, twin arcs away from his forehead, and I reached for them, feeling every inch of their ridged surface, from the thick base to the spiraled tops. They throbbed and warmed under my hands, almost like flesh.
Giving me ideas, Rumple, I crooned into his ear. Making a naughty girl wonder just how sensitive these horns are. Just what you can do with them.
His laugh was desperate, unhinged, as he raised his own hands and pulled mine away. “Can’t have the leader of the Abyss coming undone from a touch, temptress,” he said, his voice every bit as glorious as his form was bestial.
The leader of the Abyss, I asked carefully. Is that who you are now? Not the leader of Sanctuary?
“No, little one. Not that anymore.” His sigh was an exhalation that moved nebulae, and changed the pathway of starlight.
“I have no right to Sanctuary now. In fact, if it weren’t for you, I would have let the gate fall and laughed while my shadows trampled the wreckage of what I built.
What was once worth saving.” His hands were moving on me—no, not his hands.
They were shadows, finger-like strands of the Abyss.
“Look at what they’ve done to you. They don’t deserve my protection.
If you weren’t in Sanctuary, I would have—”
But Mikhail? I interrupted. Rumple, you wouldn’t hurt him.
“If he doesn’t do a better job of protecting you, Little Sacrifice, I’ll make no promises.”
The silence stretched between us, and I wondered if I knew Rumple anymore. Something in him had changed. The joyful side of his nature had withered and been replaced with rage.
Before I could ask what had happened, he went on. “But you do live in Sanctuary, so I hold the Abyss back. For you. And I have enough knowledge to help you heal what’s happening to your physical form now.”
You do?
He tapped my nose. “Lucky for you, I wasn’t just the leader of Sanctuary.” His voice dropped. “I helped create it. I know a few things. Secrets.”
Like what?
“Like how to keep from leaking power when you’re there. And how to ask Sanctuary nicely for more.” His lips curled up, and I saw the scrolling tattoos were even on the underside of his lips, though his teeth sparkled white when they flashed in the darkness. “How to draw its power into you.”
You can do that? I gasped.
“I’m the only one who would know how,” he admitted after a long moment.
“Other than Gavriel. I showed him, before I left, how to read all the currents of energy, and how to draw it out, on both realms he would guard. But he swore never to pull its power. Worried about taking too much, weakening Sanctuary for his own ends. He’s not wrong; Gavriel was never subtle in his energy manipulations.
He’d probably pull a small thread and end up unraveling the realm.
” He huffed a laugh, and his voice was almost inaudible as he said something that sounded like, “He’ll never believe why you can also influence the threads that belong only in his hands.
” I had no idea what he meant, so I put the thought away.
Show me, I begged. When I wake up, I’ll need to know how to keep from growing weaker. So I can save Righteous.
“I almost wish I could meet him,” Rumple said, his voice filled with mischief. “I thought he was a prat. Sounds like you’ve forgiven him? Very like you, of course. You forgive far too easily.”
He was Ashtad. All along, he was Ashtad, Rumple!