Page 69 of Lost Feather
Sunny shook her head. “Not to completion. Mikhail is such a powerful High Angelus, he wouldn’t even be able to fully merge with any Protectors, or even Guides.”
“Wait. Growly Bear’s a virgin?” This thought terrified me, right down to my clitoris. I was almost positive that was terror I was feeling. A very strong, very pleasurable pulse of fear.
“Don’t be silly. He’s thousands of years old. He was a real player back in his day, I’ve heard. When there were other High Angeli to merge with.” She chewed at her lip. “I heard a rumor he did some purely physical merging with some Guides a couple of centuries ago. But he accidentally spoke in High Angelic when he came, and sort of ruined the moment.” When I lifted an eyebrow, she explained, “It’s a language of power. Really hurts us younger ones if the olds get too loud.”
“Poor Mikhail,” I whispered. “Talk about a mood killer.”
Sunny groaned. “I can’t think about him like that. It’s just… ew!”
That was fine; I’d think about him like that for both of us. Wait. I had a thought, a terrible, intriguing one. “But there haven’t been High Angeli other than Gavriel around for centuries. Do you think he and Mikhail—” I tried to picture Gavriel and Mikhail merging, and made some gestures with my hands to show Sunny what I meant without saying it out loud.
I grinned, remembering Sunny’s pretend death on the floor at the thought of the two remaining High Angeli knocking boots. If Protectors could pee, we both would have, we’d laughed so hard.
The fire popped and crackled, drawing my focus back to my knife work. My lower back was much better now. I held up the mirror, my arm trembling with the effort to angle it so I could inspect that spot. It was probably time to stop. Find Sunny, go to dinner, quietly freak out that other Protectors actually talked to me now. Try not to show how much I missed Mikhail already.
Sunny was intent on finding me a nice, slightly dirty Protector or Novice to merge with the first few times. How could I tell her the only beings in Sanctuary I would even consider merging with were Mikhail, Righteous—if he had a personality transplant, and I had some duct tape—and a gate?
I might even have included Gavriel on that list before today. The knife slipped as I remembered his cold gaze and harsh words.Ouch.I stared at the upwelling of red and silvery-gold blood that came from my finger, grabbing a clean cloth to staunch it. It flowed really fast, but I could feel it closing as I kept pressure on it. By the time I stopped it, the cloth was soaked, and my hand hurt almost as much as my heart.
I closed my eyes, slipping into one of my newer, more effective pain-control fantasies: I was swimming in an Olympic-sized pool of chocolate custard, and the lifeguards watching were Righteous and Mikhail. Something pulled me under slightly, and I felt a nibbling on my thighs—
A pounding at the door tore me from my fantasy. “Feather! Come out, it’s dinner!”
“Coming,” I answered Sunny, and ran to the main door, not thinking about the fact that it was still locked. But when I put my hand on the great bronze handle, it turned under my fingers, like it had been waiting to open.Weird.“Mikhail!” I called, thinking he was on the other side of the door with Sunny. But she stood alone, blinking at me in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, then sucked in a breath, her mouth doing a goldfish impression for a few seconds. “Feather—you’re beautiful. Your face… Your eyes…”
“Uhh, thanks.” I was still trying to process what had just happened. Only the Maker could open this door. And me, apparently.
Had Mikhail somehow changed the door to open for me before he left on his mission? That seemed unlikely, since he hadn’t even had time to leave a note. I was suddenly extremely grateful Gavriel hadn’t seen me open the door. He would have unmade me for being a spy in a heartbeat.
I linked my arm in Sunny’s and forced a smile on my face. “Let’s talk some more about merging.”
* * *
The days flew by as I worked on removing all the smut I’d built up over the years. The pattern to the days was monotonous and painful. After three weeks, as I got down to the lower levels of smut, it seemed harder, like it had somehow embedded itself into my muscles. To be fair, I’d been carrying it around for a long time.
The evenings were better, hanging out with Sunny in my room. She’d finally agreed to learn to play the kazoo, and I’d taught her a couple of the tunes Rumple had sung for me, but she tended to stick to the ones she’d heard on her last Earth mission, which were mostly Alanis Morissette and Coldplay. Super depressing, but the mood in Sanctuary was grim anyway. Sunny said the Guides were having constant meetings, and she was worried about the ideas some of them were coming up with for how to fix the Great Gate.
The screaming of the gate had gotten so loud and pervasive, it made it hard to sleep. I was desperate to check on it, but Sunny had warned me it was being guarded at all times by higher-level Protectors, and anyone seen approaching it was assumed to have bad intentions. So I just listened, and cried, and wished I could help it.
Every night, I called out for Rumple in my dreams. I had a new idea of a name to try in our game, thanks to Gavriel. And I missed him, my only friend from my time on Earth. Had he gotten so angry that he’d left me for good? Even the thought of it made my heart ache.
Most of my hours were spent in the workshop. I kept finding glitter everywhere, and I spent a lot of time cleaning it up. The main box was full, though, so I kept it in my room in a jar.
Every day, I got to know more of the Protectors in Sanctuary. The few small-winged Novices I encountered almost seemed afraid of me, or at least they kept their distance. I didn’t blame them. As far as they knew, I was a worst-case scenario of how a first mission could go wrong.
But Righteous was the strangest one of them all. He had been assigned to help Gavriel out, so he wasn’t around a lot. When I’d see him in the hallways heading for the purification chambers between missions, or flying to his guard duty at the Great Gate, he didn’t cross the corridor or fly down to say hello. But he nodded every time, acknowledging my presence even when he was talking to other Protectors or Guides.
At first, I just nodded back, but eventually his distance bugged me, so I began blowing kisses, giving him thumbs up, and doing the tiger growl I’d done the first day I’d met him. He always blushed and made a face like he might be sick when I did that. So I did it a lot.
Sunny hung out with me inside the workshop when she could, but things were going wrong in Sanctuary and on Earth, according to her. With Mikhail gone, and Gavriel doing almost constant short-term fly-arounds of the world to keep an eye on the balance, there was no one to turn to when some strange things started happening.
At first, it was more cold wind and tremors. They came almost daily now, the shaking strong enough to knock things off tables in the workshop. Everyone was wearing more than one toga or robe now. Many of the Protectors began layering regular clothes underneath too, including me, which meant the only parts of me showing were my now-clean hands and face. It wasn’t a sexy look for most of the others, but since it hid the dirtiest parts of my body, I suppose it was an improvement.
“Don’t look, Feather, but Valor is checking you out,” Sunny whispered in the cafeteria, ducking her head.
“Checking what?” I glanced at Valor, who did that weird thing guys did, jerking his chin up once, like they were bidding at some high-end auction. It was one of the things spoiled, egotistical men did, and I was not there for it. “Whatever. Sunny, why isn’t there more food?” I stared down at the serving table. There were only a few handfuls of berries, and a dozen cheese cubes left. “Did everyone else already eat?”
