He kept talking, and it was as if each word was an action. A word of power. Each syllable did the thing he described, as my body was buffeted by sensations: tongues lapping at my nipples, covering every inch of my skin with wet heat. Hands gently, firmly holding me down, pinching, stroking, plunging into me… everywhere.
Oh, holy back door, Rumple!I felt his imaginary fingers teasing at my ass at the same time his other hand worked my pussy, a thumb on my clit, circling faster than any human man could move, and two, then three fingers plunging inside me.
I began to crest, and felt what had to be his cock, teasing me, moving the smallest fraction of the way inside my slick walls, then pulling back out. All the while, his words never stopped… and I knew that his body, his physical form, wasn’t what was making love to me.
It was his soul. We were merging, and I never, ever wanted him to stop.
“Rumple?” I squeaked, rubbing my new thighs together and pushing my neck into his face. “Are you trying to make me come with words, because I think I’m about to.” He gasped, and I felt a flicker of a finger—a real one this time—at the apex of my thighs.It circled my clit once, twice. Then about a hundred times in the space of the next minute.
“You understood me, Little Sacrifice?” His voice was intense and almost sinister, and felt like a rough tongue swiping over my most sensitive parts.
“Yes,” I cried out, as the tongue bathed me again and again, flickering around the opening to my core until I exploded into a shower of sparks. The orgasm—if it was one, it felt more like a soulgasm—carried me on wings of bliss and energy, and it was almost as if I could see us from a distance. See him, crouched over me, with flickering red and black star-filled eyes, and almost-transparent wings, great horns rising above his head, his skin a swirling mass of charcoal gray tattoos that writhed ceaselessly over the surface. The feather on my chest burned with a strange fire that matched his eyes, and cast a reddish glow all around me, illuminating more of the scrolling tattoos.
They were beautiful, and terrible, and hypnotic. Time stopped for a heartbeat, and I stared helplessly at the being I’d loved since the moment we’d met… and possibly before. The way the figures on his skin moved, with screaming faces and toppling mountains tumbling over each other, reminded me of the Great Gate.
Was Seraphiel somehow merged with the gate? I closed my eyes as his heavy head and his enormous wings rose. He didn’t want me to see him, so I wouldn’t let him know I had.
He’d said he was monstrous. If he was, then he wasmymonster. And I would burn down all the realms if I had to, to save him. To save him and everyone else I loved.
Suddenly, Rumple and I were moving faster than light, faster than thought. “What’s happening?” I shouted into the screaming wind.
“Something’s happening at the gate. Someone is singing, one of the old songs. It’s our best chance.” Who could be singing?Could it be Gavriel? Before I could ask, I saw a golden, glowing speck in the distance.
Rumple spoke quickly. “It will take all my power to break the seal you put on the gate. I’ll have to hold it in place so the Abyss doesn’t rush in and… well, you promised to strengthen it with music. Sing or play one of the songs I taught you, if you can—then your side will hold. I’ll do my best over here.”
“Come with me,” I begged. “I can’t leave you here.”
“I would give almost anything to stay by your side. But I won’t sacrifice you.” I felt his anguish, and almost told him I wouldn’t go, when he said, “Music was once our greatest weapon as well as pleasure. They’ve forgotten. You must remind them. Save them all, but tell them not to try and retrieve me now. It’s too late. I’ll be content knowing you’re with Mikhail.”
“They’re going to want to find you, Rumple,” I protested. “They’ll save you somehow.”
“I’m beyond saving, little one. I’m a part of the Abyss now. Tell Gavriel I will forgive him. I can’t yet, but… if he listens to you, if he does this, I will forgive him for all the years.”
I understood then that he was making this sacrifice not just for me, but for his best friends. I had to honor that sacrifice.Protect?I thought at him.
“Protect,” he answered.
“Tell me your name,” I demanded as the heat from the gate that was suddenly in front of me scalded my skin. The light from it would be enough to see Rumple, and I knew that would hurt him. So I closed my eyes. I felt his lips press on each lid, as gently as a feather drifting to rest. “Rumple… Rafe… Seraphiel… I won’t go unless you tell me your full name.”
His laugh was full of pain. “Ask your friend Gavriel. He knows it… or most of it.”
I felt lips on mine, and then Rumple did speak again. “It’s your name that I must create now. I’ve remade you. You’rewhat you were, more or less, but… changed. What name do you want?”
“I get to choose it?”
“Yes, but quickly.” He sounded as if the gate was burning him more than me. Of course he was protecting me from it. Of course.
Though my heart ached to leave him, I smiled as wide as I could and spoke. Rumple—no, Seraphiel—choked, and asked me if I was certain that was what I wanted my full name to be, but finally repeated what I said. Then he gathered my soul energy all around me, and spoke a single word that made my head feel as if it might explode. It meant something like creation, but also re-creation. It meant grace and redemption and sacrifice. And it had a directive embedded in it.
I was to find the rest of myself.
The rest of me? What does that mean?I didn’t have time to think about it. I felt my body being pushed through something that felt simultaneously like a cheese grater and a warm block of melting butter. Then all of a sudden, with an enormous pop, like pressure stabilizing, I stepped out into the same place I’d been standing when I’d left Sanctuary five million years before. Or five days. After all, I wasn’t certain how long I’d been Atom Girl.
And Righteous, who apparently had been singing until I popped out, was there to meet me. He didn’t speak, but his eyes practically burned me as he stared in disbelief. I tried to fold my wings around myself since I was buck naked, but they wouldn’t reach for some reason.
So instead of hiding, I cocked my hip, put one hand on my waist and shot a finger gun at him with the other, then winked. “Hey, Anaconda Pants. What’s hanging?”
Chapter 8
