tilted it back, and sighed softly. There was an intimacy in having another touch your wings, especially when the other was an angel as dangerous as Mikhail. A spike of fear tried to trip his thought, but he snuffed it out. This was the new them. A place where fear did not belong.
“They have angel musculature but demon skin. I…” His hand stroked some more. “I hope you know how beautiful they are.”
His hand roamed the left wing now, fingertips trailing, the touch beginning to meander and tease in a way that had moved on from the practical to something more sensual, and Severn’s body was waking accordingly. Mikhail circled all the way around, not easy in the long grass and given the generous expanse of the wings. He faced Severn, his expression hungry.
Heat still touched Severn’s cheeks. He maybe breathed a bit fast too. And he was as hard as a fucking stair rod. But besides all that, all of this—Mikhail admiring his demon wings—was perfectly normal.
Mikhail’s deep blue eyes looked down and lingered. His lips parted. His gaze flicked back up. Questioning. Delaying. Like he knew this long, quiet, pause between moments was slowly killing Severn. Severn desperately wanted to kiss him, and taste him, and fuck him, and remember what it had been like before Tower Bridge, when they’d spent nights together. But it would be better now because the secrets were all gone. Would Mikhail cry the name Konstantin as he came?
Gods, his cock twitched at the thought, and Mikhail’s eyebrow arched.
“You’re killing me here,” Severn grumbled.
“I can see that.”
But he still didn’t move, and now his mouth was tilting sideways, adopting a sly smile rarely seen on Mikhail’s face. Bastard. Two could play that game.
“I’m going to rip that pineapple shirt off you and lick every inch of your body… Your Grace.”
Mikhail leaned to one side and narrowed his eyes. “Then why haven’t you begun?”
“Because of what I am, it has to be you who begins, or…”
“Or you fear I’ll think I’m being manipulated?” His voice. Had it always held such a delicious cadence?
“Yes.”
Mikhail considered it as Severn squirmed some more. “What if I want you to make the first move?” He sauntered closer, and Severn’s heart thumped harder, driving hot blood through his veins. “What if…” Mikhail was close now, his body and wings filling Severn’s vision. “I want you to hold me against that wall, grip my wings and,” he leaned in, his mouth a tease against Severn’s, “fuck me so hard I’ll be feeling your touch for days?”
“Sounds fucking delightful!” a familiar but sudden female voice piped up.
Mikhail sprang back, wings thrown open, snarl on his lips. But his snarl quickly died.
“But you two aren’t finished, and there’s much to be done, isn’t there, Jasper?”
“Caw!”
The crone hobbled down the cottage path, a hand on her back like it troubled her, her rayvern on her shoulder. The rayvern locked gazes with Mikhail and squawked. Mikhail stood still, wings balanced, caught between attack and surprise.
Severn let the old demon wander into the cottage and sighed. Honestly, he was not surprised to see them but had hoped Amii would give them a little time. Still, they had arrived, as he’d suspected they might, and no doubt they knew a great deal more than they’d previously let on. “Just... try not to kill Amii?” he told Mikhail and reluctantly folded his wings away to follow Amii inside the cottage, hoping Mikhail would follow.
Amii found a threadbare armchair by the cold fireplace and eased their old bones into it, making Severn roll his eyes. He hung back, taking up a spot leaning against the wall, and glanced at Mikhail as the angel joined them—wings gone, but his face was guarded again.
“Before you pass judgment,” Severn said to Mikhail, “Amii used us both.”
“Why is the crone here?” He didn’t sound angry, more carefully curious.
“Aye!” Amii exclaimed. “Why am I here, interrupting your”—she waved a hand—“testosterone-fueled fuck-fest? Nice shirt, angel. Pineapples. Very you.”
Oh gods. Severn thumped his head back against the cottage wall. This wasn’t going to go well. Mikhail would lose his shit, which was totally understandable given his past experience with lying demons, but Severn would have to protect Amii because they clearly needed answers, and Mikhail would read that as Severn protecting a demon, and—
Mikhail casually poured himself into the armchair opposite Amii’s and leaned forward. “Seraphim and the Rayvern King, Aerius,” he said. “You told me a story about them. Why?”
They leveled their glare at