Page 36 of Lost Feather
“Dismissed?” His expression revealed his shock at my inappropriate reaction. “I was in the middle of a… conversation with the Novice who ran into your workshop. Could you please send her out, Maker? I promise”—he cracked his knuckles—“I’ll make it a short one.”
“She is not yours to… converse with, Protector.” I let my disdain seep into my tone. “And you have work to do to purify yourself before Assembly, I would say. You’re a disgrace to your robes.”
Righteous clenched his jaw. “Sir, this Novice attacked me—”
I let my lip curl. “Attacked you? She’s the smallest soul in Sanctuary, and probably one of the youngest. Are you telling me you could not defend yourself against a tiny, defenseless Novice?”
“She’s not defenseless! She’s a tricky, sneaky, filthy little smut-covered—”
I was done. “Go, Protector. Take care of your own smut before concerning yourself with others’.”
I waited one beat, then two. Finally, Righteous turned away with a curt nod. He threw back a hissed “See you soon, Novice,” before storming off.
“Excellent! Looking forward to it!” The chit gave a perky thumbs up to his back as she scrambled out.
I waited a moment, then leveled a glare at her. She had scrambled on top of what she had blithely named her “Torture Table” the previous day, and was tossing the soul knife from one hand to the other. “Thanks for having my back, Growly Bear. I can call you my Growly Bear, yeah?” She winked at me, and I froze. Winked? For some reason, heat began to spread from my chest to my face. Was I blushing?
“That would be disrespectful and inappropriate,” I blustered, though some small part of me liked the way she’d emphasized the wordmy.
“Mikhail, then,” she practically purred. “It’s a good, strong name. It almost has abs of its own.”
“Abs? I need to check your mental wellness once more.” I turned away, fiddling with a chisel at my workbench. “You may call me Maker, or Master.”
I almost didn’t hear her raspy retort. “You’d like me to call you Master, huh?”
The damn blush spread to my ears. “I see you’ve been aggravating your superior Protectors,” I managed to say in a calm tone. “Might not be the best plan for a Novice like yourself. Righteous can make your time in Sanctuary very difficult. If I’m not mistaken, he’s one of the more advanced Protectors.”
“Yeah, he told me all about being Head Boy. Trust me, he earned the aggravation.” She grinned, even white teeth gleaming through her smut-covered lips. When had her teeth lost their smut? “And maybe I’ll just stay here from now on? We can hang out, watch Netflix. Chill.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and a flare of heat sparked in those impossibly green eyes.
I tugged my robe tighter around my chest where she was, for some inexplicable reason, staring. And licking her lips, just once. Her tongue was clean as well, I noticed.
“There will be no Netflixing, or chilling, whatever that means,” I said, making a mental note to ask one of the Guides about that expression later. It had been far too long since I’d been to Earth. I was definitely out of touch. I probably seemed ancient to Feather. Hell, Iwasancient. I shook my head. “Stop playing with that soul knife. If you break it, you’ll have no way to cleanse your soul, and I may have no choice but to unmake you.” I would never do such a thing, but she didn’t know that.
“Oof.” She gulped, setting the knife down carefully. “I’ll be careful.”
I picked up a sanding cloth and worked at polishing an enormous hinge. “Did you come to the workshop to hide, or to cleanse?”
Feather rolled her eyes. “I guess while I’m here…” She picked up the knife again, and set it to her pinky finger. “No time like the present.”
I held up a hand. “Slowly, remember? If you cut too quickly—”
“Yeah, I’ll bleed out. I remember. Thanks for caring about me.”
“It’s not blood,” I said, my voice strangely rough. “Blood heals. Stops flowing. Unlike soul, and it’s your soul that will flow out of that knife’s cuts.” I lifted a small bowl near my elbow. “But if you choose not to listen, and your soul ‘bleeds out’ as you say, don’t worry. I’ll collect your energy and, once you’re dead, use it to clean these hinges. It’s much more effective than a sanding cloth.”
Feather paled and sat cross-legged on the table. “Right. Slow it is.” She started cutting, though I heard her mutter “Someone’s in a mood,” before she settled down entirely.
It was agony to witness. I tried not to flinch every time I heard her gasp in pain, or sob. How could she keep up the cutting for so long? I checked my time piece, thinking it must have been two hours.
Ten minutes. She sobbed again.
Hellfire,I raged internally. It would be less painful to cut myself than listen to her suffer. I cleared my throat. “Had enough, little Novice?”
“Ha!” She gasped. “That was just my pinky nail. I’m going to clean my whole other hand today. That way I can keep my darling clean tonight once it’s dark. Don’t want to kill the mood by getting smut all over… Well, not this kind of smut.” She giggled. “I’ve never experienced anything like it. Who knew all I needed to be truly happy in bed was here in Sanctuary all along?”
“Your darling?” I shouted, causing her to drop the knife and stare at me. I turned away, livid. How in the hell had the Novice found another soul willing to…Righteous.It had to be him. That sick fuck.
I would find him and unmake him. To act as if her filth disgusted him, yet take advantage of her lack of experience… She wasn’t even qualified to merge; she had no wings. She’d only been to Sanctuary once. It was revolting.
