“No,” he said, his face frozen in horror. “The demon wreaked havoc all night. When the board of the livestock show were giving a presentation?—”
“The ones who were going to rape the children?” I supplied. He screwed up his brow, and I added, “That’s what it’s called when grown men have sex with children. Rape. It doesn’t matter if they pay them. They’re not ‘underage prostitutes.’ They’revictims of child trafficking, or at the least, statutory rape. Language matters, Flappy.”
“I’m Philanthropy, not Flappy… Never mind.” He faced Righteous. “The demon set the bulls free from the holding pens, and incited them to stampede. The entire board was crushed. Then it went through the crowd, attacking some of the individuals without provocation.”
“Why didn’t you stop it?” Righteous demanded. “You’re a thousand years old. If a denizen of the Abyss was loose on Earth, you’ve been trained to fight these beings!”
“I tried! It didn’t react to my light at all! It didn’t flinch when I squeezed its neck. It just… laughed. This horrible, echoing laugh. And then after it spoke, it flew somehow. Flew away, on these odd, glittering wings.”
“Spoke? What did it say?” Righteous asked. “No one from the Abyss should even have the power of speech. They’re made of shadows and thought, not flesh.”
“This one was. It crawled on me. It asked me if I was its mother,” he whimpered. “It drooled on my robe.” He held up his stained sleeve, and I noted the smut did have a strange, glittering quality. But not bright flecks; these were dark, and seemed to eat the light that hit them. “And when I told it demons don’t have mothers, it spat on me and flew off.”
“I think the demon rabbit broke Flappy,” I whispered.
Flappy sneered. “What are you even doing here? Didn’t you walk into the gate? You shouldn’t be here.”
Righteous growled, an honest to goodness, Alpha male threat. Mikhail did something behind me that made Flappy’s face go pale, and even the air that was blowing from the gate dropped ten degrees.
Maybe Rumple really was in there, listening. I stepped next to Righteous, patting him on the arm lightly in appreciation. Then I began patting the arm slowly, since his muscles werepoking out as he made fists like he was going to give Flappy the beatdown, and I wanted him to know how much I liked the free forearm porn show. Righteous stopped growling, and I gave his arm another squeeze for positive reinforcement.Good boy.
“You must not have understood what it meant when my mate sacrificed herself for all of Sanctuary,” Mikhail said, too softly. “I’m certain you didn’t mean to be so disrespectful of our newest High Angelus.”
Flappy’s eyes bulged. “Her?”
“Well, not yet,” I said. I didn’t want Mikhail to start a rumor that I couldn’t live up to. “But I will be. I’m going to take classes and all. Right, Growly?” Flappy nearly choked at my casual nickname for Mikhail.
Mikhail sighed while Righteous pulled Flappy aside to ask more questions. “Indeed. I’ll ask Sunny to make sure you get into the right seminars.”
“College,” I whispered. “I never got to go on Earth.”
He smiled down at me, and for a moment, I lost myself in his swirling turquoise eyes. “You liked school?”
“I liked learning. I wasn’t much of a scholar, though. Or much of anything.” I rubbed absently at the place at my nape where I still missed feeling the feather.
His massive arms surrounded me as he lifted me up so his stubbly face was brushing against my neck and his grumble resounded in my ear. “You are the light that fills the skies of my heart. You are the darkness that folds itself around me as I sleep. You are the only creature in seven thousand years to move me, to teach me what it is to love another so wholly, that I would trade all of my days for one moment in your arms.” His lips were on mine then, and I let myself dissolve into his kiss. But then he stopped, frowning. The tiny voices were back, and I could hear Gavriel calling for him. “Let’s go back to the Maker Hall, sweetsoul. I have to speak with Gavriel, but I’m not ready to let you out of my arms just yet.”
He rubbed his face across my neck again, and I flashed to a dragon shifter story I’d read once, where the dragon scent-marked his mate, not just with his skin, but his tongue and his claws, and then jacked himself all over— “Whoa!”
While I was lost in imagining Growly as a dragon shifter bathing me in hot chocolate spunk, he’d taken off, and decided it was time to do tricks. “Want me to show you what you’ll be able to do once your wings grow in a bit?” He laughed, and did a loop-de-loop as I shrieked. When he leveled out, I caught glimpses of other Protectors and Guides flying past, staring.
I wasn’t sure if they were looking at me, or if it was the unusual sound of Mikhail’s laughter echoing across the roof of Sanctuary, but I didn’t care. I was back in the arms of my beloved Growly, and nothing was going to take him away from me.
Chapter 14
Feather
“Ishould have known,” I grumbled two days later. “I only have you for a scrap of time, and then Mr. Clam Jam himself, Gavriel the Goatfudger, has to come crying about needing you on stupid Earth.” I stuck my lower lip out and took a deep breath to make my boobs poke out a bit, hoping Mikhail would look up from where he was strapping all sortsof leather armor and weapons on, and appreciate just what he would be leaving behind on this so-called emergency mission.
I had worked myself into a full-blown panic attack two days before during Gavriel’s visit to the Maker Hall, wondering how much he’d heard when he’d caught Growly and mein flagrante delicto. Only forty-eight hours of merging with my mate in ways that made me blush to think about now had been enough to make me stop freaking out. Mikhail had put a sign on the door that kept anyone from interfering with our impromptu honeymoon, though someone had left trays of food and water outside twice a day. Since the notes next to the food had poorly drawn tantric positions and suggestions on how to incorporate the food into them, I assumed it was Sunny.
Then the cock-blocking, wet blanket leader of Sanctuary had pounded on the door, ignoring the note, and announced he needed help on Earth: Mikhail’s help. He’d flown out to grab Righteous, so they could have an important meeting of the head honchos of Heaven Lite about the Rodeo Demon.
“It sounds like the Abyss has sent a creature to Earth to wreak havoc. If Gavriel doesn’t think he can handle it alone, I’m sure it’s something terrible.” His brow furrowed. “I’ll ask Righteous to watch over you while I’m away. I’ll need to give him my soul knife as well,” he mumbled.
“Why wouldn’t you take it along?” If Growly was fighting Abyss demons, I wanted him to have every weapon he might need.
“Gavriel has the Celestial sword and his soul knife. This is the only other one; we leave one here in case of emergencies. Righteous is the acting head of Sanctuary, so he’s the right choice to guard it. I trust him.” His eyes swirled as he glanced at me with a smirk. “I’d trust him with more than my knife.”
