I had never seen anything more perfect in my long life.
Rafe rolled his eyes, dipping out of my thoughts. I hadn’t even noticed him in there, which concerned me more than a little. I didn’t want the void gaining even more knowledge of Sanctuary and its treasures. I watched him rise, taking a cloth diaper to hand to her.
“What?” she asked.
He gestured to her face with one clawed hand. “You have some drool on your cheek.”
She just blinked, still half asleep. “Where?”
“There.” He pointed at his own cheek.
“I’m still not sure where,” she said, pouting. “You do it.”
He went down on one knee, then both. The cloth held between two fingers, he wiped at her cheek while she sat trustingly, her eyes shut. “There,” he murmured and began to sit back, but she caught his arm, bringing the cloth back to her face.
“There’s still more,” she said. “Smut, too.” While he cleaned her gently, I watched, my heart almost bursting. But not with envy or jealousy.
It was filled with love. Seeing the man who had been my closest friend in the universe being coaxed into physical touch, both tending to and being tended so subtly by the woman he loved? It was heartrendingly beautiful.
A vision I’d had only days before echoed in my mind.Hold fast. Be true. Let her show you how to love.I had been almost certain it was the Singer’s voice in that vision, speaking of Feather. Of the way she loved without reservation.
Feather didn’t even glance at me, but I heard her whispered thought in my mind.I know we’re all stuck in here together,Gavriel. I know we have to leave soon, or try to. And I know there’s a chance… there’s a chance we won’t make it. A tear slid down her face, and Rafe caught it, murmuring low as he used it to wipe all the smut on her face away, moving the cloth to her shoulders, then her arms and hands. He was exceedingly careful with his claws, though the tip of his forked tongue crept out as he worked, and he caught it between his fangs in concentration.
I would never…she began, then blushed.I shouldn’t ask now. But I had an idea.She sent me an image of a sleeping princess in a tower being woken with a kiss. Then Rafe was the princess, and Feather was the one leaning over him. Naked, of course.When I was with Mikhail and Righteous, after I took on the smut of Sanctuary,she thought, her inner voice a mere thread,the smut changed to glitter. It just… fell away. And it happened today as well, once.
She wanted to try and turn his armor into glitter by the application of… naked kisses? I bit my lip to keep from smiling.It might work.She sent a mental shrug. Rafe continued to clean her, and I did feel him in my mind then, almost timid. Unsure.
You’ve loved him your whole life,I replied, knowing he was listening.If this is what you want, what you need…I sent her a memory of when I made my vow. I had kneeled before her in the Maker Hall and promised,“I vow on my wings to be a friend to you. To be a better Angelus, one worthy of that friendship. Never to be cruel to you again, little one.”
It would be more than cruel to deny you this moment, Feather. Even if I may never be your lover, I am your friend.Her shaky smile was a bloom more lovely than any rose I’d ever seen, and I knew what I had to say. And do.You do not need my blessing, but I will not hesitate to give it, if doing so will ease your concern. Your love is the only reason he still exists. He needs you now, and deserves your affection. Love each other; I would not stand in the way.
I did stand then, picking up two of the largest sofa cushions and walking over to the door. “I’m going to sleep here. It’s darker, and I need the rest.” Then I folded my tattered wings around me, closed my eyes, and pretended to sleep.
Chapter 22
Feather
Ididn’t speak the words aloud. It seemed disrespectful of Gavriel, who was in no way actually sleeping on the floor. But I said them clearly in my mind, and I knew he might have heard them anyway.Make love with me, Rumple.
Rumple dropped his hands, and then the cloth, hanging his head.I can’t remove this armor, my beloved. I can’t do as you ask.His horns spiraled up and over his skull, and I reached outto explore them as I’d wanted to since I’d first seen them in the lightning of the void. “They’re sensitive,” he said, shivering like a racehorse, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath.
“Clit horns,” I agreed. “Or I guess dick horns for you? I had horns after I redeemed Sanctuary. They came off in the Celestial Realm. No, they didn’t cut them off,” I quickly explained when his eyes flew to my head in horror.
“Oh.” He huffed a small laugh. “You called them clit horns? Only you.”
That’s what I want. I want to be your only one. For now, and forever. Will you love me? I think if you let me, I can help. I showed him what I’d done with Mikhail and Righteous. Hope flared in his eyes.Please, Rumple?
You would want to?He held up one smut-coated arm.You see this, and you truly feel desire?
Let me show you.Slowly, I pulled my stained toga the rest of the way off, revealing my skin. Prisms danced on all the walls, and I heard a soft sigh from Gavriel.
Rumple was entranced. He traced the patterns of the gray on my shoulders with one hand, and the strange faces that resided in his own skin subsided, sinking beneath the surface. His face and hands were a shining, shimmering hematite gray now.
“You’re beautiful,” I said. “I love you, and I love everything about you. What you look like on the outside has nothing to do with my feelings for you. In any life, if we were born again and again, no matter what you looked like, I would see you and want you. I would chase you across a thousand galaxies, Rumple. You’remine.I will never give you up. And I will never give up on you.”
As I spoke, I kneeled on the bed in front of him, and began stroking him lightly all over with my fingertips. I leaned forward, using my tongue to trace what I knew in my mind were angelicsigils, holy words of love and grace, though I had never read them or learned them. They were a part of who I was.
The armor began to soften, and I whispered a prayer as I learned his new textures, his shapes. His eyes were closed, and thick, sludgy tears fell in constant streams down his face, then to the breastplate as I praised him. I murmured all the things I wanted to do with him. All my dreams and fantasies, always with him in them.
