“Your mates and family wait for you at the threshold to the Celestial Realm. But you can’t join them. Not until you know your full name.”
“What the fudge? Iknowmy name. I named myself in the Abyss when Rumple—when Seraphiel remade me. I sang the whole thing to you! Now let me go. I need my Growly Bear, Ry, Sunny, and Precious…” I had a whole family now, and I wasn’t going to let some perverted gate keep me from the big reunion in the sky. I needed them.
The space around me pressed close. “And you shall have them.” He hesitated. “When you pass into the Celestial Realm, tell my family I miss them. Tell Mother.”
I knew who he meant, and the pain in his voice made my own heart ache.
Before I could answer, he spoke again. “Sing after me. Sing your entire name.” And then the voice sang my name back to me, but added a few more words.
Those words hurt worse than anything the Inquisitors had done to me. Worse than the centuries of violence and brutality, and all the deaths I suffered at the ends of my short lives. Worse than the months in Sanctuary where I was hated, scorned, and tormented, and the ages in the Abyss when I was unraveled from myself.
Those last few words taught me who I was.
And they broke me.
Revel vanished as I sang what was, indeed, a terrible name. The blue thread appeared again, but I was too weak, too heartsore, to follow it.
And maybe a little bit too pissed off.
My voice faltered. Then, when the last note I could bear to voice was still ringing in the space around me, a new presence appeared, like a bursting star. I felt a cleansing fire sear me, refining me. Healing me, though the blessed flames never touched the wound that I now carried in my heart. She spoke, three words filled with eternal compassion.
Oh, My Daughter.
I slept on the invisible shoulder of the One who could only be my Mother as She carried me the rest of the way across the void, and wished with all my heart that I hadn’t learned the rest of my fudging name.
Because even if I wasn’t only the Chief Antagonist and Adored Nemesis of Gavriel Lightbearer, but also his ForgottenSoulmate? There was still no way to get back to the basshole now.
No way for me to heal and be whole, ever again.
I fell into unconsciousness, my soul inconsolable. Mourning what had never been, and now would never be.
Chapter 2
Feather
“Sweet soul, wake up.” The low, growling voice reverberated through my body, but I kept my eyelids as tightly shut as possible. The last time I’d woken, shizz had gone down. There had been pain and even more painful revelations.
Nope, I was going to stay asleep, thank you very much, and hope that what I’d learned about myself was a nightmare.
Anyway, I’d been dreaming that I was the sole photographer for an Australian firefighter calendar, and I’d just instructed the big boys to get naked and oil up with a giant tub of melted butter next to a barbeque grill for the “summer sausage” spread.
“I’ll get naked and rub butter on myself if you’ll open your eyes, Scrap,” another voice said, as something long, hard, and probably not an actual summer sausage bumped me on the thigh.
I sat up, blinking. “Righteous?” He kissed the tip of my nose and pushed his dark hair away from his face. “Holy hand grenades, you look amazing,” I breathed. He was golden and glowing, his skin literally shimmering with hidden fire. His eyes were a brighter gold than ever, his wings blindingly white, and his body… “Ry. You’re naked.”
I took a long moment to make sure he was, indeed, fully naked. Yes. Every single finely honed inch of him was one hundred percent buck nakedly exposed. I licked my lips, so thirsty I almost couldn’t stand it. I’d only had time to explore the full glory of a nude Righteous twice, an error my sausage wallet was about to rectify.
“Sausage wallet? Did she just…?” Laughter rang out all around me, and I twisted my head. Mikhail had me in his arms, and he was also gloriously bare and equally shiny. His scars stood out all over his deep bronze skin, like silver hieroglyphs my fingers itched to trace.
He stared down at me, his turquoise and black eyes dancing. “You should know, sweet soul, your thoughts are as clear as speech—not just to your mates, but to the Celestial inhabitants. My fingers also itch to trace your beauty.” He leaned over and gave me a long, thorough tonsil inspection, then lifted his head and propped me up on my feet.
I felt woozy and incomplete, but the pain from before was muted. Less searing agony and more lethargy. I had enough energy to take in my surroundings, though.
The world around me was all in shades of white, but tinted with blues and pinks and yellows, like watercolors on clouds. There was some crazy light flickering everywhere, making prisms on the fluffy surfaces, almost like a laser light show.
A glowing face with dancing brown eyes and a curtain of straight dark hair leaned close to mine. “Feather, the Beautiful Sacrifice, welcome to the Limen.” When she said the word, a thousand others echoed in it: antechamber, vestibule, atrium, couloir, passageway, sacred space, waiting room, threshold.
“Haneul?” The last time I’d seen her, we’d been in… My mind shut down, not only because it was too painful to think about where I’d seen her, and who we’d been with—my birthmark throbbed like a birch when I even pictured his face—but also, she was stupidly, ridiculously, unfairly hot when she was unclothed.
