I had a sudden vision of Mikhail, naked and gleaming, holding a bunch of grapes, and pouring molten chocolate over my breasts. Then dark-haired Righteous and golden Gavriel, naked and bound, and me with a flogger in each hand. Then Rafe holding me as Mikhail thrust up into me, warm oil being smeared all over my back, and even lower… and Rafe slowly, gently entering me from behind while Mikhail filled me.
Yes, that was definitely my fantasy. And Mikhail had seen it.
His dark chuckle was an affirmation, and he fucked me harder as he rasped, “Every dream you have, sweet soul, is mine to give you now. Can you imagine how it will feel when we’re all together, and Rafe stretches your ass with his cock, while I’m filling you here? While we merge, all of us? Fuck you in every way possible, merge so fully with you, you’ll feel us all… inside you… every moment… of your life…”
At that thought, the climax that had been creeping up swamped me, and I screamed out my pleasure. “Mikhail!”
“Yes,” he groaned as he filled me with his come and his spirit simultaneously. “And who else? Tell me!”
To my horror, without meaning to, I yelled, “Rafe!” And then, when his soul net squeezed tighter around me just as his hand gripped my throat a bit more roughly, I whimpered, “Ry.” I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood as I refused to let any other name out.
Especially notthatone.
But then his voice, the last person I’d expected to hear—or wanted to—growled out a vicious curse. “Fucking hell.”
My eyes flew open, meeting Mikhail’s amused, slightly shocked ones. “Not hell. You’re always heaven to me,” he whispered as he let go of my throat, then winked and stretched his wings out, covering us both. Lazily, he rolled to one side and lifted an eyebrow. I could tell he was mostly pretending to be relaxed; the thoughts I could still sense through our fading merge were filled with protectiveness. “Welcome home, Gavriel. I’m afraid you caught me with my pants down.”
Gavriel made a choking noise, while I covered my face with my hands.
Mikhail let out the most satisfied chuckle I’d ever heard, then whispered in my ear, “You have nothing to be ashamed of. And remember, in Sanctuary, we merge in groups. This is all perfectly natural.”
I nodded, trying to channel someone who would proudly merge in public, and failing miserably. Instead, I pulled the sheet as far around my body as I could. “Hi, Gavriel,” I said, finally daring to look at him.
I shouldn’t have. At first, those bright blue and gold eyes that had always been so filled with anger and judgment were filled with something incomprehensible. If I hadn’t known better, I would have called it jealousy. It certainly couldn’t have been lust.
Before I could process what was on his face, he collapsed. “He’s hurt!” I cried, and tried to rise.
Mikhail held me back with one hand, his own expression stern. “Wait.”
Chapter 12
Gavriel
My thoughts were wild, almost uncontrollable, as I stared at the miracle before me. Feather had returned. Somehow, she had found a way back to Sanctuary.
She had merged with Mikhail, who was healed.
And in the middle of that merge, which I had watched in shock and amazement from the shadows for far longer than Iwanted to admit, far longer than wasdecent, she had called out for our long-vanished friend Rafe… and forRighteous.
But not for me.
That unworthy thought spun through my mind as I locked eyes with my friend who held his mate—and theyweremated again, from the look of the glowing silver feather that stretched from his hand and up his forearm. For a moment, I had a stray thought—that may prove to be an awkward place for an erogenous zone—but then my mind spun back to the incomprehensible words I had heard when I burst into the room through the hidden door.
Another man’s name on her lips as she surrendered to her orgasm, and Mikhail urging her on.Twomen’s names. No anger, no jealousy. He’d been pleased, and smug. I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting to look away from her sweat-dampened chest, her flushed face.
Why was I the one feeling those things? Unwarranted rage and a burning envy. Almost a sense of righteous anger, as if my best friend had stolen something from me.
I needed to ask what had happened, how she had returned, but her doubting expression, her vulnerability, her nakedness, made me drop my eyes. And then drop to my knees. The one thing I had prayed for, but known I would never receive, was in my grasp. The chance to seek forgiveness.
My knees ached, and I turned my palms upward, closing my eyes. “Forgive me, Feather. I don’t deserve it, but I beg you. Forgive me for what I said. For the harm I did you and Mikhail. For the hatred and suspicion I carried in my heart.”
She didn’t answer, though I heard a shifting of cloth as she moved. Then a small hand was there, pulling my face upward by my chin. I stared into bright green eyes that swam with uncertainty and distrust. Her face was stained with smut, but for some reason, I welcomed the familiarity of it. “Why?”
I didn’t need her to explain. I knew what she was asking. Why would the leader of Sanctuary, a High Angelus with power beyond anyone in the realm, stoop to verbally abusing a young Novice… No. Not a Novice. Her power was well hidden underneath a fresh coating of smut, and so others might not see her inner light. I was in tune with the currents of energy in Sanctuary, though, and I felt the way the realm reacted to her presence. No, she was definitely a High Angelus, a strangely petite one.
Small, and sweet, and I wanted to taste her pleasure the way Mikhail had more than anything else I could imagine, though I would not voice that thought now, or ever. Her scent—a sweet, honeyed musk—rose up as she stood there, the evidence of her pleasure and Mikhail’s staining the sheet that she’d wrapped around herself like an unwieldy toga.
“Why?” she repeated, her voice stronger, gaze shuttering.
