Page 94 of The Salvation

A subtle shimmer bathes her skin, resonating from her chest and blossoming from there. Silver as moonlight dancing upon water.

“She’s glowing,” Kyan observes, kneeling next to me to stroke her cheek with his knuckles.

I nod as I stroke her skin, having not left her side.

But beyond the glow upon her body, it’s the wings. Luminescent feathers have sprouted from Quintessa’s shoulder blades.

“They are as soft as gossamer,” Mayce mentions from below her.

“Hmm...?” Quintessa finally opens her eyes and registers the radiance of her skin. Once the Fae skirts his fingers upon the delicate pinions, she shivers and giggles from the tickling sensation, widening her eyes in question. “What was that?”

I smirk as Mayce propels his vines to shift her body into more of a sitting position. His and Drago’s cum pools down her thighs from the action. But she’s too transfixed with her newborn evolution.

Awe parts her lips and tears form in her eyes at the sight of the ethereal wings, ones she instinctively unfurls. Shadow approaches on her left, and she lifts her brows, seeking his deep-set gaze for answers as he reaches out to touch them. One skirting of his fingers triggers the layers of feathers to cascade, rippling and fluttering to grace the darkness with their spectral light. When she cries, they shudder. When she laughs, they bounce—as if they are bound to her emotions.

Her chaotic laughter and bouncing wings knock against me, but I steady her as she arches her neck to meet my eyes.

“Merikh...!” she gushes, and I nod with pride filling my chest—pride, approval, and a sense of honor. “They’re dove wings!”

“Not only dove, but they are a ghost’s wings,” Mayce points out, coming up on her right side while he throws on his rich brown Fae robe with its gold detailing.

She scrunches her brows, craning her neck toward him. “How do you kn?—”

“My realm is the visceral, little Tess. Trust me, when I am aware of the matters that are not so physical...” he clarifies whiletouching the tips, only to smirk from his knowledge proven right when his fingers pass through the diaphanous feathers.

“And I, little dove,”—I take her jaw in my steady hand, directing her back to me—“know the matters of blood. And it is not merely blood that flows through the veins of your wings. It is spirit.”

“A harmonious fusion,” agrees Kyan, having returned to the forefront, brushing his knuckles across the edge of the pinions. “The celestial and the earthly.”

“What does this mean?” She darts her gaze between all of us, from a nude and muscled Drago leaning casually against my coffin to Mayce, who finishes dressing before scanning Kyan who’s fetched his breeches, and finally...back to me.

“Turn around,” I command her, my voice firm but tender.

Once I lift her hair to study her scalp, my pride only grows. Pride in her. And a reverence I will forever hold in my blood as my brothers will hold in their elemental forces.

“The mark of Kronos upon you is gone, Quintessa.”

As soon as I speak the words, she buckles, overwhelmed. I’m surprised she hasn’t passed out from everything tonight, but considering how she is a conduit and shares power with us, our most recent event has garnered a small amount of strength.

Pressing her dainty dove-white cheek to my scarred chest, the woman I love and will possess more than anything in this world, stares up at me with tear-soaked eyes. “So, I’m not a half-ghost anymore?” Her wings lift, the feathers tipping upward.

I kiss her brow. “Now that you have broken and ended all our curses, Quintessa, you have claimed the other fragments of your soul we once consumed. But the fabric of your soul and every fiber of your being is bound to us.” She smiles, resting her head on my chest, relief causing her wings to drop and fold seamlessly against her back. “You are fully human and yet, you have retained ghost-like qualities. As if you are...”

“Fully spirit,” Shadow finalizes, advancing toward us with his dark eyes meeting mine. “Quintessa is our fifth. The one who binds us and may pull us back from the shadow realms. The Goddess of Spirit.”

“Well, not a goddess yet,” I remark, rolling my eyes at him.

“We will make her a goddess soon. For now, she is our Queen.” Shadow brushes his knuckles across her cheek as she yawns.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she says with her eyelids growing heavy. “Where is Aislynn?”

“You left our daughter with a stranger?!”Quintessa shrieks at the top of her lungs once we’ve returned to my bedroom wing.

After a brief washing in the Sea, followed by Kyan drying her, Drago warming her, and Mayce giving her his outer robe, she looks more like her usual self. Our hedonistic and impulsive girl with scars and tattoos who prefers our clothes to hers.

My smirk is uncontrollable as my father hands the sleeping babe to her mother before holding up his hands in defense. “I assure you, my dear, I?—”

“Don’t ‘my dear’ me!” she snaps before quieting, so she doesn’t wake our child. “I don’t know you.”

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