“Gabriel,” Michael murmured, his body moving instinctively, arching toward Gabriel’s mouth and hands. “I want you. Please.”
“How do you want me?” Gabriel’s tongue licked between an ab and an oblique, tasting Michael’s skin, his power, his Grace.
“Any way you will have me,” Michael panted.
“Michael,” Gabriel murmured against warm skin. “Michael.” He said his lover’s name as if it were a prayer, a benediction, a blessing, a plea, and Michael trembled beneath him, rocking into him, his arousal obvious.
“Gabriel,” Michael breathed, and a moment later, Gabriel felt the soft whisper of power as Michael got rid of the rest of their clothes with a thought. As Michael’s hands roamed over his back, fingers sliding down the length of his spine and up again, Gabriel kissed and licked his way lower, nuzzling Michael’s stomach beneath his navel, and breathed deep of the scent of him once again.
Michael smelled like the sea: like salt and wind and sunshine. He smelled like purity, like Grace, like Heaven, of power and an unconquerable strength. He smelled of pine and ancient forests, of mountains that touched the sky and whose summits were shrouded in mist. And most of all, he smelled of primal masculinity, of heat, muskiness, and sweat, of sex and desire and blood.
Gabriel licked a wet stripe up the underside of Michael’s cock, opening his mouth to take Michael in as Michael gripped a handful of Gabriel’s hair and thrust shallowly. Head bobbing, Gabriel sucked and licked the straining hardness as Michael let out a low, keening moan, his russet-colored wings becoming visible and curling around to twine with Gabriel’s black and gray ones.
As their wings slid together, Gabriel gave Michael’s cock one last suck and crawled up Michael’s body to capture his mouth in a kiss. It was hard and passionate, two alpha males coming together as equals, neither seeking domination or submission, but delighting in their equality. Michael’s arms wrapped around Gabriel’s shoulders and Gabriel nipped Michael’s lower lip as Michael rolled them, pinning Gabriel down onto the bed.
“Take me,” Gabriel groaned between hot, hungry kisses. “Fuck me.”
“Are you certain?” Michael panted.
“Can’t you tell?” Gabriel grinned into the kiss as he bucked up into Michael, his hard cock pressing against Michael’s body.
Michael moaned in reply, his hands shifting down to Gabriel’s thighs, pushing his legs apart. Another whisper of power as Michael slicked himself, and Gabriel moaned, his head thrown back on the pillow as Michael pressed into him in one long, slow, hard thrust.
“Gabriel, Gabriel,” Michael gasped as he started to thrust.
Gabriel pulled Michael down for another kiss, his legs wrapping around Michael’s hips as their wings pressed more firmly together, their feathers rustling as they tangled in a mass of russet and gold, black and gray. Sparks of gold and silver light dotted their wings as Michael fucked him, and Gabriel clenched down on Michael’s cock when Michael was balls to ass inside him, making Michael cry out into the kiss.
They moved together, slowly at first, gradually speeding up as their desire grew. Gabriel forgot everything as he felt Michael’s body stiffen and his muscles tense, and heard the muffled cry of his name as Michael came deep inside him. Gabriel saw stars behind his eyelids as Michael wrapped a hand around Gabriel’s cock and stroked, his thumb teasing the slit.
“Michael,” Gabriel gasped, breaking the kiss and rocking into Michael’s hand. It only took a few strokes for Gabriel to come, and Michael was kissing him again, kissing him hard and hungrily, running his free hand down Gabriel’s body.
“I love you, da bao, and I am yours, if you will have me.” Michael’s mental voice was shy.
“It should be me asking if you’d have me, Mishka,” Gabriel thought in return.
“Mishka?”
“Aye. It’s the Russian diminutive of Michael. It fits you better than ‘Mike’, I reckon. And aye, I will have you. I want you as mine, only mine.”
“As you say, da bao.” There was a smile in Michael’s mental voice. He continued to rock slowly into Gabriel’s body, and Gabriel groaned quietly.
“You’re more of a sexual being than you give yourself credit for, by the way.” Gabriel flexed his muscles around Michael’s cock, causing Michael to gasp.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. It’s not important.” Gabriel ran his hands over Michael’s shoulders and down to his shoulder blades, then over to his wing joints.
“Very well.” The slow rocking gradually began to speed up.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around Michael and rolled them once more, breaking the kiss and sitting back, arching, every inch the proud, alpha male Archangel. He was aware that he was handsome—Gabriel was the first to admit that humility wasn’t his strong suit and that he was more than a little vain. The way Michael gazed at him, however, made Gabriel bite his lower lip, show off his body to its best advantage, the muscles in his chest and stomach stretching as he slowly rose and fell on Michael’s cock.
Michael’s hands moved over his hips as Michael’s gaze drank in Gabriel’s body almost worshipfully. It was a little humbling to be looked at like that, Gabriel thought, deep in his mind where Michael wouldn’t hear it.
“You are beautiful, da bao,” Michael said softly.
“Thank you.” Gabriel grinned, his hands going to Michael’s stomach, his fingers slowly mapping the obliques before moving up to caress Michael’s abs. “And it’ll sound twee and all, but it’s the truth—so are you.”
“Not like you,” Michael disagreed.
Gabriel lightly pinched a nipple, and Michael hissed. “You are beautiful, Michael. Your body is gorgeous. Muscled and fit, and these tattoos”—Gabriel reached up to touch the black inked designs on Michael’s left bicep—“only enhance it.”
“Flatterer.” Michael was blushing. “It is merely a body.”
“A fucking gorgeous one,” Gabriel asserted.
“Language,” Michael scolded.
Gabriel flexed his muscles around Michael’s cock again. “If you can still scold me, I must not be doing this right.”
“I am not certain that you can—” Whatever else Michael was going to say was cut off as Gabriel leaned down and kissed him.
“I haven’t seen your female shape yet,” Gabriel thought to Michael, “but I bet she’s gorgeous too.”
“You see me with bias, da bao,” Michael moaned into the kiss, reaching up to run his fingers through Gabriel’s blond hair.
“Is that not the way lovers should see each other, solnyshko moyo?”
“Solnyshko moyo?” His mental voice was puzzled, then gradually cleared as Michael continued. “Russian, correct? For… my sun?”
“Aye. To both.” Gabriel rocked back onto Michael’s cock, moaning as Michael slipped his hand between them to stroke Gabriel’s cock out of time with his thrusts.
“Thank you.” Michael’s wings pushed up into Gabriel’s.
“For what?”
“Everything.” Michael kissed Gabriel artlessly and talk ceased as they moved together, kissing, touching, fucking.
This time, Gabriel came first, breaking the kiss to arch, his wings snapping out to nearly their full span, the ends brushing the walls of the room. “Michael,” he gasped as he came, and he clenched down hard around Michael’s cock.
Michael sat up, arms moving to wrap around Gabriel as he continued to thrust, his mouth going to Gabriel’s shoulder. A few more hard thrusts was all it took for him to come as well.
“Gabriel,” he panted against Gabriel’s shoulder as they clung together, panting, reveling in the afterglow.
They lay back on the bed as Gabriel climbed off Michael’s lap and lay on his side, a hand resting over Michael’s heart. Michael’s fingers traced over the black tattoo on Gabriel’s right bicep, his expression curious.
“It’s a phoenix,” Gabriel said.
“I see. Why did you choose a phoenix?”
“Because I ca
n relate to the whole rising from the ashes thing.” Gabriel smiled fondly. “And because the phoenix is fire and lives in ice, the old Russian stories say, and my power is the color of ice and burns like fire.”
“You are a poet.” Michael smiled.
“Nah, not I.” Gabriel laughed. “I tell it like I see it.”
“Well, I say you are a poet.” Michael’s gaze moved down to Gabriel’s hipbone, where a stylized H was inked in black. “And this? What is it for?”
Gabriel stretched. “That is from when I were in Constantinople in the late twelfth century, just before the Third Crusade. The men who fought for me designed it as a symbol of our unit. We all had it tattooed onto us.”
“I see.” Michael was silent for a moment. “It does not sadden you now, to speak of those years? You were very angry when I came for you when Constantinople was invaded by the Crusaders, as I recall.”
“It’s a sort of melancholy feeling.” Gabriel shrugged one shoulder. “I know I was. I’m sorry about that.”
Michael waved that off. “There is nothing to apologize for. We have all been very angry at things that have happened beyond our control and when loved ones have lost their lives. It is, I understand, a normal reaction. We are ancient, my Gabriel, we have seen and loved and lost much.”
“True.” Gabriel kissed Michael’s shoulder. “And we should talk about something happier, or we’ll both get maudlin, and that would be depressing.”
Michael chuckled. “As you say. What would you like to talk about?”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Red.” Michael moved closer to Gabriel. “Red is good fortune, joy, good luck. What is yours?”
“Blue.” Gabriel let out a contented sigh. “Like the sky and the sea.”
“Your natural elements,” Michael teased.
“I guess they are, yeah.” Gabriel hooked a wing claw in a blanket and pulled it up over their legs.
“Are you cold?”
“No. I just don’t know what time the kids will come back, and they shouldn’t get an eyeful of us naked, you know?”
Michael immediately turned crimson and hid his face against Gabriel’s chest. “Did you not close the door?”
“I have now.” Gabriel laughed. “I kind of forgot before. I was totally absorbed in you and having hot, hard Archangel sex.”
“As you say.” Michael’s face felt very warm, Gabriel thought.
“So now we’re covered, and John or Mira—if one of them barges in, which they probably won’t ’cause they got manners—won’t see anything they shouldn’t.”
“Thank you.” Michael lifted his head and gazed at Gabriel for a long moment. “I am glad, da bao, that we have become close like this. Very glad.”
Gabriel kissed him. “So am I,” he replied, his voice soft in Michael’s mind.
Chapter Nine
“SO, I was thinking,” Gabriel said, after several moments of companionable silence, “that maybe one of these days you could show me your female shape.”
Michael tensed for a minute and then slowly relaxed. Gabriel quirked an eyebrow, surprised by the reaction, but didn’t comment on it. Instead, he waited for Michael to speak.
“If you would like,” Michael said finally. “I confess, Gabriel, that I tend not to use my female form around our kind.”
“Why not?”
“I do not know.” Michael shrugged. “It has not been necessary to do so. But if you wish to see, then I will show you.”
“Okay.” Gabriel smiled a reassuring smile at him, and Michael smiled shyly in return. “Whenever you’re comfortable. I mean, it’s not like we’ve got a time limit or anythin’. We’ve got forever, after all. And if you want to see my female shape, just say. Unless I’m working on a job in my female form and you see her anyway. But aye, we got forever for all of this.”
“That is true.” Michael’s smile broadened. “I like that very much, in fact.”
“Is my baby a bit of a sap?” Gabriel teased.
Michael poked his side. “Perhaps.”
Gabriel yelped at the poke and retaliated by tickling Michael’s ribs. Michael immediately started laughing, trying to bat Gabriel’s hands away.
“Oho! He’s ticklish!” Gabriel’s laughter was delighted.
“G-Gabriel! Stop! I surrender!”
“Okay, okay, I’ve stopped.” Gabriel wrapped his arms back around Michael and kissed him.
“You are to tell no one,” Michael said.
“What, that you’re ticklish?”
“Yes.”
“Right-O. No telling anyone that you’re ticklish.” Gabriel mock saluted.
“You are a brat, da bao,” Michael said.
“Aye, but I’m your brat.”
“I confess, I like the sound of that too.”
Whatever Gabriel was going to say in response was lost as the summons reached them both at the same time. The two Archangels froze as Tzadkiel’s voice reached them across the miles.
“Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Metatron, Raziel, Haniel, Samael, Remiel. I invoke the Call of Brotherhood of Archangelus and cite war conference. Follow my thought to the meeting location.”
Gabriel sat bolt upright in bed, running a hand through his hair and looking around for his clothes. “Where are my pants?”
“On the floor, da bao.” Michael was already out of the bed and tugging on his own clothes. “This is serious. The last time the Call was used was in the seventh century BC.”
“Aye.” Gabriel was rifling through piles of clothes on the floor, hunting for something that was marginally clean and unwrinkled. Finally, he gave up and, using his power, pulled on his armor. As Michael looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he shrugged. “Never know what could come of this. If I need it, I’m already wearin’ it.”
“As you say.” Dressed in a black silk suit with black shirt and tie, a red handkerchief in his pocket, Michael donned a pair of sunglasses and held his hand out to Gabriel. “Shall we?”
Gabriel took his hand, nodding. “We shall.”
With that, Michael moved them, teleporting them across the vast distance between Deep Bay and Tzadkiel’s Savannah penthouse apartment. When they emerged from the ether into the palatial living room with its wall comprised entirely of windows overlooking the historic district, Gabriel saw that Tzadkiel had also called Shateiel and Agrat.
“Lieutenant.” Gabriel nodded to his second, and Shateiel saluted smartly. Gabriel nodded again, approving of the fact that, like himself, Shateiel was also in his armor. “Ah, Agrat,” he said, smiling and holding out his arms for a hug. “It’s been too long, sweet thing.”
Agrat, her long, dark brown hair falling in waves to her waist, ran over to him and hugged him tight. Gabriel lifted her up and spun her around in a little circle as she laughed, a bright and joyful sound.
“Gabriel, it’s good to see you.” Agrat kissed the tip of his nose, and Gabriel pulled a face, setting her down on her feet. She wore a floor-length red dress made of a soft and flowing fabric that didn’t so much cling to her form as sigh and whisper around her lush figure. Her blue eyes were full of mischief as she patted Gabriel’s cheek, the red dress suiting her olive complexion perfectly.
“You look gorgeous,” Gabriel said sincerely. He shot Shateiel a grin. “I bet your husband isn’t happy to have to cut short his R and R with you.”
Shateiel rolled his eyes eloquently, and Agrat laughed. “Neither of us were, but work takes precedence.” She turned to Michael, giving him a half bow and addressing him in Korean. “Michael.”
Michael returned the bow and the Korean greeting, and she smiled and moved to him, gently kissing his cheek.
“It’s good to see you,” she said with a warm smile. She looked from Michael to Gabriel and back again, shrewdly adding, “And it’s good to see you so happy… with each other.”
“My wife speaks true, Sir,” Shateiel moved to join them. Gabriel chuckled as Agrat leaned into him, Shateiel’s chain-mail
-clad arm automatically wrapping around her shoulders. “Are you and the Field Marshal well?”
“Aye, lieutenant.” Gabriel clasped Shateiel’s arm warmly. “And you two are too, yeah?”
“Yes.” Agrat answered as Shateiel nodded. “It’s our two thousand and third anniversary next month.”
“Already?” Gabriel blinked. “Where’s the time gone?”
“Behind us… or in front.” Shateiel shrugged. “It is a matter of perspective.” He looked at Agrat, petite and perfect against his side, and his expression softened. “I cannot think of a better way to have spent these last two thousand and three years than with my bondmate. My wife. My beloved Agrat.”
“Sweet talker.” Agrat looked up at him, her expression just as adoring of Shateiel as his was of her. “It never gets old. So don’t ever stop.”
Shateiel chuckled soundlessly, saluting her with his other hand. She laughed, resting a hand over his heart, and Gabriel thought that right then, seeing the two of them together, he couldn’t imagine a more perfect picture of marital bliss than these two. Older than both of them as he was—indeed, older than all of the Host save Michael himself—Gabriel had seen a lot of love and loss, but Agrat and Shateiel definitely had something special.
“Do you know why Tzad called us over?” he asked.
“No.” Agrat’s expression grew serious. “He used the Call of Emergency with us.”
“Huh. He used the Call of the War with us.” Gabriel frowned thoughtfully. “It’s serious, then, I’m guessing.”
“And he’s waiting for everyone else to show up before spilling the beans.” Agrat frowned as well. “With the Archangels, us, his seconds… would there be anyone else?”
“I doubt it.” Michael had moved to join them. “So we would be fourteen, and I cannot imagine his report will be a happy one, considering the Calls he used to ask us to join him.”
“Very true, Sir.” Shateiel bowed low.
“Rise, Shateiel,” Michael said. “You do not need to bow to me. You are Gabriel’s second and as he trusts you, so do I.”
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