Free Angelic Union by Jana Downs

pectoral.
    “It seems so.”
    “He looks really happy.”
    “Yep.”
    “It’s making you nervous,” Erik noted, bumping their hips as they walked.
    Marius’s eyes never left Levi’s smiling face. “More than I can express. But…it kind of relaxes me, too. I can’t explain it. I want to believe that everything is going to be all right and that they are going to love us, but I worry that it’s not going to happen or that they’re wrong somehow.”
    “We’ll find out soon enough. Either way you get your redemption and we will be just fine.” Erik smiled reassuringly.
    “Marius!” Levi shouted, grinning ear to ear as Brax caught up with him and swept him off his feet and swung him in a wide circle as Levi laughed at his audacity.
    Marius waved to him, and Erik’s smile widened. “You are a sucker for him.”

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    Jana Downs
    “Aren’t you?” Marius countered. Then they couldn’t talk anymore because Brax sat Levi on his feet and he immediately streaked toward them. Marius opened his arms to receive him as Levi flung himself into the circle of his arms. Marius chuckled. “Have fun?” Levi grinned ear to ear and nuzzled Marius’s chest. “Yeah. The Elites are funny. Brax let me play his Angry Birds game on his phone.
    He said he’d get me the game on my Kindle. Isn’t that great?”
    “It is,” Marius agreed.
    Levi looked up into Marius’s face. “Did you and Erik have fun without me?”
    “We did,” Marius said. He gave Levi a squeeze and kissed his temple. They were married. It struck him then for some reason.
    Yesterday had been such an emotional roller coaster that the realization that they were bound in some small way had seemed vastly unimportant. Now it gave him something that he would always have, something that predated the possible merging of their family with the Elites. It comforted him to know that he had something fundamentally separate from them. Was that selfish?
    “You look sad,” Levi murmured, his face falling. Marius cursed himself internally. He couldn’t keep doing this. His redemption and his lovers’ happiness hinged on Marius’s ability to accept that his perception of himself and his relationship may encompass more than he’d originally thought.
    “No, little one. I’m not sad. Just confused about my feelings.” Marius tried to answer as honestly as he knew how. His lovers had taught him how to communicate in the rough year that he’d known the two of them.
    “They belong to you, too, Marius. I know it. I feel it.” Levi gave him a smile so soft it just made Marius feel like a marshmallow. The little nephilim could twist him around his pinky like the most loyal of dogs, and Marius loved every second of it.
    “I believe you, little one.”Marius swerved as a fellow guest of the hotel nearly barreled over him. He’d become an expert at twisting his Angelic Union
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    wings out of the way of humans who walked too close. Despite the fact that they were charmed to be invisible unless he called them into form, they were still there, and if someone bumped into them, the humans could definitely feel them.
    “Sorry!” the short, blonde, spiky-haired female called to him, heading toward the front desk.
    “Good dodge,” Erik complimented, nudging him. “I can’t wait to get home so you can let your hair down.” He had a singular fascination with Marius’s wings. Whenever they made love, he always either wanted to touch them or actually touched them. Marius didn’t see what the fuss was about. It was just bones and feathers.
    They reached the Elites where they stood just inside the entrance on either side of the door. They certainly looked striking in their uniforms, even wrinkled. Axis stepped toward him, and Marius stood his ground. A feeling speared Marius’s gut, and he wasn’t entirely sure it was a bad feeling either. Whoa. Where had that come from ?
    “We already had the valet bring the car around front. The rest of the Elites thought we’d follow