Chapter Three
With a slow pace she set out towards the old house in the eastern
parts of New Orleans. It wasn't a very long walk, but she enjoyed moving
and feeling the wind brush past her face, numbing her senses only a little.
She felt for running, perhaps she could make Wrath run with her? She quickened
her pace a little and turned right, crossing the empty street.
The garden was wilder then she had imagined it would
be, but she climbed over the walls without any problems except for a branch
in her hair. She let it hang and jumped down to the ground without the slightest
of sounds. She made way between the thorny bushes until she saw the stonelaid
path that had once spanned through the whole land of the house. Gray followed
it on used feet until she knew that the fountain was somewhere around there.
She could almost hear the falling of water as she pushed to bushes aside
and laid eyes it again. Wrath was sitting on the stone bench beside it, looking
at the ground and a single white flower at his feet. A loving smile took
place on her face and she stepped out from her hidingplace.
"I thought you'd be here," she said and ran a hand through
his silver hair.
Without looking up at her he dragged her down sitting beside
him. She into his deep blue eyes and saw that flame still burning there.
Love shot through her instantly and he kissed her. Gray became
as slack as a doll. Nobody could kiss as Wrath. Nobody could ever touch her
soul as he had.
"I'm glad you came. I was feeling lonely again," he murmured
into her and she giggled as she sat on his lap.
"I'm cold," she told him. "Couldn't we run to get ourselves
warm again?"
He looked at her sternly, then his mask broke up and he laughed.
Warmth spread through her body at the sound. How she loved him!
"Well, why not."
He put her down on the ground and looked down at her, for a
second pain flashing past.
"I don't like your color. It's wrong." he said and touched
her hair tenderly. "It should be red."
"You know how I hate my red hair!" she protested. "Why not
black?"
"Shatter."
A shudder rattled through her at the name.
"Why must you drag up him now? I want to run!"
She grabbed Wrath's collar and kissed him again. Then she stepped
back and transformed. His loving smile was etched on her eyelids. Wrath bent
down and patted her head.
"At least your fur is the same color as before. And you are
so beautiful in your other form..."
Gray shook herself and he transformed too. His still, silvery
form was transfixing but she took a step forward and licked his ear before
she ran away through the undergrowth, his howling laughter ringing in her
ears.
Gabriel woke with a start at the sound of the front
door opening and soft laughing. He looked at the bread cooling on the heath,
he had managed to get them out before he had been overmanned by sleep.
He popped his head through the doorway of the kitchen, his
gaze first falling on the still sleeping Grace, then on his heavily clad
friends. Gray was holding Wrath's hand and they were talking, almost chattering.
He waved silently at them to keep quiet for Gracie's sake and they silenced.
Wrath smiled at him and bent down to kiss Grace's cheek. A hot emotion shot
through Gabriel that instant and he had to down the urge not to do something
rash.
Gray walked towards him, Wrath in her wake, at her heels actually,
and they ushered him up the stairs and tucked him into bed, almost like a
pair of parents, both kissing him goodnight. Gabriel found himself unable
to resist this pampering and felt very good as he lay in the bed. Gray and
Wrath was two of his dearest friends now, he had only known them for some
weeks, but it felt like the four of them had been together for a long time
before they ever met.
With a puff, Wrath got Gray out of Gabe's room.
"Let him be, beloved, he needs his sleep."
"I know, it's just that..."
"He needs his sleep better than our pampering," Wrath firmed.
"He's a grown man, not a spoiled child."
"What did you two talk about really?"
"Pain. And what have happened to him these years. What more
can I say? He's sad. Everybody dies around him."
Wrath lied down on their bed and Gray rested her head on his
chest.
"The poor boy... Just like us."
"Maybe. But he's stronger than we are, Gray, we must never
forget that."
"But we're demons! How could he ever be stronger than us?"
Wrath started and got very close to slapping her.
"We're not demons!" he roared. "We're powerful beings, yes,
but we don't spawn from hell!"
"But we come from Eyeana!" Gray shouted back.
"Oh, we do, but Eyeana isn't the same as hell, now is it?"
Wrath's voice was dangerously calm and Gray turned away from him in anger.
"You damned me to this life, Wrath." she said and looked at
his face again with flaming eyes. "When will you be sorry?"
Grace turned in her sleep.
Gabriel was having another dream. He was falling
into a void between to raging creatures. At first he thought them to be the
Serpent and the Lion from his talisman as before, but he soon found out he
was wrong.