Chapter 26
Righteous
We lay for countless hours in each other’s arms, our hands learning each other’s shapes and mapping our favorite destinations.
She spoke softly about what had been happening in Sanctuary after my incarceration.
I tried not to rage, and we ended up comforting each other, falling asleep as we mourned for our realm.
I woke, sitting up abruptly, when the dim wall sconces near the ceiling of the cell flashed twice as if in warning. They sputtered, then finally relit, but were so dim as to be almost useless. What was going on with our realm?
Knowing Feather’s penchant for being at the heart of the biggest messes in Sanctuary, she had something to do with it.
I turned to the woman in my arms to ask, brushing her sleep-mussed hair away from her forehead, and froze.
On my forearm, in the same place where Feather had pressed a feather to mark her second mating with Mikhail, I could barely make out a small silver feather.
Hers.
I felt a thrill of deep satisfaction, and no small amount of fear. How had this happened? Valor had taken the soul knife from me before I was thrown in this cell. The kind of feathers it took to claim a mate didn’t just fall out.
My mind flashed to the tiny one I had grabbed before Feather walked into the gate.
I had lost it weeks ago—was this that one?
But when I inspected it, I knew it wasn’t.
That one had been small, and pure silver.
This one had the new, intriguing swirl of silver, gray, and gold that now lay under Feather’s skin.
“Feather,” I murmured as she blinked, her naked body still glowing with the aftereffects of our merge. “Did you… Do you know how…?” I wasn’t certain how to say what I needed to. How to show her what had somehow inadvertently happened.
“Ry?” Her blush was adorable as she rubbed her eyes. “Is everything okay?” A flicker of something passed over her face as I thought of my hand. Her eyes dropped to it, and she whispered, “Oh shizz.”
“You didn’t mean to, then?” I asked, fighting to keep the disappointment out of my tone.
She shook her head. “I would never have done that without asking.” The horror in her face hurt almost as badly as when Valor had broken my hand.
My wings had started fluttering in agitation, and I fought to still them.
Hers were doing the same thing, and she leaned forward to squint at the mark in the near-darkness, her eyes locked on the feather that had somehow made its way onto me. Into me. Without asking Mikhail.
It was one thing to merge with the Maker’s small mate. It would be entirely another thing when he returned to Sanctuary to find me wearing her feather, the same as he did. Unmaking might be the least painful and permanent response he could have.
“I’m sure Mikhail will understand,” I began. “I know I’m not what you would want for a mate. I don’t know how it happened. I wished for it, Tili. I’m sure it’s my fault. I wanted it, and somehow… Oh, Great Singer, I pray I didn’t somehow steal this from y—”
She leaped into my arms, tackling me so hard I almost fell. “You idiot! You didn’t steal it. I gave it to you, I’m sure. I was sort of cum-drunk, I think, but I remember pulling some threads from Sanctuary after my fourth or fifth orgasm, and a feather coming loose.”
Pulling some threads from Sanctuary? What did that mean? My mind flashed to the ribbons of power. She was connected to Sanctuary itself? But not giving her power to the realm, instead… No. She wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t believe it.
“Yep, that’s what I did. Got drunk, got a tattoo, woke up with no clue.” She arched her neck and flared out her wings, examining them for a missing feather. “Just like that time in Mexico. Except it’s on you now. And it’s not misspelled.”
Oof. I hadn’t thought I could feel worse. “It was a mistake?”
Her eyes went warm. “No, Ry. I mean, I wasn’t thinking clearly, or I would have asked you. I know I should have talked to Mikhail about it first. But I would have. I wanted this. Wanted you.” She scowled. “Don’t get any ideas. I still want the chocolates.”
It took everything I had not to dissolve into tears of relief and joy. She wanted me. She had mated me. Chosen me. Sure, she’d been out of her mind with lust at the time, but for some reason, that thought made me preen slightly.
“Hi, Trouser Snake.” Feather’s whisper interrupted my musings.
In the semi-darkness, I couldn’t see her expression, but when she blew a soft puff of breath across my groin, my cock jolted at the sudden attention.
“You’re a friendly fella, aren’t you?” She reached out and stroked the sides of it with her fingertips, giggling as it seemed to move on its own.
I stifled a laugh. “Are you talking to my cock, Scrap?”
She hummed an affirmative. “Who’d a thunk I’d be dickmatized so easily?
That thing you’re carrying down there—and I’m not sure how you haven’t thrown out your back hauling it around all these years—must be some sort of snake-charming monster.
Or Feather-charming. Thoroughly dickmatized.
” She flopped back, resting on my torso.
“Dickmatized?” I repeated. That didn’t sound like a bad thing.
She nodded solemnly. “One hundred percent lured to the dick side by your Jurassic peen. I mean, no one will blame me. The others are all gagging for it. Heck, just about every guy and gal in Sanctuary wants to put the devil into hell with you.”
“What?” Was she talking about the Abyss?
She snorted. “You know, depending on what they got under the togas. Take the skin boat to tuna town, or maybe play a few friendly games of cornhole. Stash the wand in the chamber of secrets. Bake the potato, butter the biscuit, toss a hot dog down the hallway. Ugh. Now I’m hungry, and not for peen.
You know, never mind. But there is going to be some tricky explaining to do when Growly Bear gets back.
” Her face tilted toward the ceiling, and I heard a heartfelt sigh.
“Do you think a blow job might help fix it?”
I shook my head, still trying to piece together the games, and fish, and dogs, and… I blushed when the meaning of “skin boat” finally registered.
“You’re right, a blow job’s not going to be enough,” she muttered.
“Mated you and broke the realm apparently. Hmmm. Well, I’ve been wanting to try anal with Mik anyway.
I guess this’ll be as good a time as any…
” Her voice trailed off at the choking sounds that emerged from my throat.
Her giggle was half-panic, half-mischief.
She’d said all that to distract me from my concerns.
“Feather, it will be fine. He loves you. How could anyone not?”
“You don’t mind being my mate?” she asked softly. “You really love me?”
“It’s every dream I never dared would come true,” I said. “And if Mikhail kills me for it, it will have been worth it. I’ll bear your mark with pride, even if I have no idea how it came to rest there. Now, you mentioned breaking the realm—”
She scrambled to her feet in the dark room, and I noticed her hair and wings were gleaming ever so slightly. “Oh fudge. The Guides. They made it illegal to mate. You can’t let anyone see that feather, Ry.”
“Illegal? What are you talking about?”
“Just a few days ago, the head Guide, Tradition? They made a huge announcement, and dragged Perception off when he protested.” She raised her voice slightly.
“Percy, you still there?” I sucked in a breath when I realized we hadn’t truly been alone for the past few hours.
Well, technically. The door had been left open a crack.
Percy? I didn’t recognize the name or the exhausted, annoyed voice that answered. “I am. I’m trying to pretend I didn’t hear everything you two did. If anyone asks, I’m going to tell them you were doing metaphysical meditation.”
“That’s it,” Feather said, pacing the floor, more energetic than she’d been since before she vanished through the gate.
She almost tripped over the blanket and our discarded clothing.
“Plausible deniability. You were trapped in here, with no access to the soul knife, and didn’t know about the rule change. So they can’t cut the feather out—”
I stood, amazed at how strong I felt. “Cut it out? That’s revolting.”
“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” She stopped pacing. “You might want to sit back down for this.”
I didn’t sit down. I fell to the floor in a horrified daze at the tale she wove.
Glory and Heart, two of our brightest souls, both soon to be lost if what Feather said was true.
“Curfews, strip searches? Valor’s lost his mind.
No one knows what he did when he came back down here. He was supposed to bring me food…”
“It’s not just Valor,” she said gently. “He’s acting as a puppet for at least some of the Guides. And they’re very careful not to get caught breaking rules. They’ve twisted some of the Protectors. It’s easy to tell who—I hear their thoughts, and they’re awful. But anyone can smell them.”
“Smut?” I asked. “It should show, if they’re that corrupted.”
She wobbled her hand back and forth. “It’s internalized, somehow. The Guides’ arms—probably their whole bodies, not that I want to check—are perfectly shiny to look at. But there’s an odor. They cover it up.”
“I smelled it,” I agreed. “Valor is bad, though he looks fine. He smells like—”
“Brimstone? Yeah.” She hesitated. “Ry, do you think Gavriel knows?”
I let out a hissing breath. “I don’t think so. I hope not. He’s been distracted, grieving. I’m not sure about the Head Guide, Tradition—he’s the one Gav meets with. He smells stale, but otherwise fine to me.”
She hummed in agreement. “His thoughts are clear, too. He believes everything he’s doing is right.
He believes in Sanctuary. If he’s the only one Gavriel meets with when he pops into Sanctuary, Gav might never have even known about Prosperity’s greed, or Valor’s evil, or so many of the others’ growing imbalance. ”