II. Wings
Edvardiel's dark eyes flashed, his first sign of true aggression.
"Tell your mistress the answer is no."
Issa kept her face servile and sweet, masking her gleeful triumph. His emotions had confused her before, but no longer. Anger was familiar territory. She understood it, revelled in it, knew how to twist it to unravel her victims.
Present innocence, Lilith had said. The way he'd thrown down the dagger. The beautiful sunset in his void. They all came together.
This hell-dweller had been sheltered from the Apocalypse. He didn't know the ways of the world. Yet. He'd change once he understood how abjectly helpless they were before Lilith… and the absolute power he would hold over his own Acolyte. For now, she would use his inexperience to her advantage.
"Well, then, I suppose I'll just have to die," she purred, still kneeling, her eyes watching his every move. Fragile-boned and damsel-like, her body was no secret garden, it was a weapon she wielded with deadly precision. It was a machine, well-oiled and obedient because that was precisely what she was—an extension of someone else's will.
That was what she liked them to believe, anyway. Weakness was easy to find if one knew where to look. Issa was patient. She was observant and conniving and she knew how to get under skins. She'd gotten under six skins, in fact. She took pleasure in knowing that she'd ended them. The puppet killing its puppeteer. It was worth every drop of blood they'd drawn from her after her crime was inevitably discovered.
Her eyes returned to her assignment.
He'd seemed frail at first. But she didn't like his silence or the way he watched her. The rash ones were easier to handle. This one quelled his anger too quickly and when he was calm, he was impossible to read.
The silence stretched, and she made herself wait, counting down the seconds. Seven. Eight. Nine—
"Explain," he said.
"What do you think Lilith will do when I return empty-handed?" Issa arched her slender neck and willed him to see it snapping in his mind's eye. Yes, Prince Charming. Save the fragile beauty. All she needed was for him to be by her side. Everything else would follow. "Besides, do you really want to stay trapped in this void?"
He gazed at her. She stared back, trying to decipher his irritatingly unfamiliar emotions. She failed but noticed something puzzling. His eyes lacked youth. These weren't the eyes of someone ignorant to the ways of the world. Unease prickled her mind. This puzzle piece didn't fit, which meant…
"I won't come with you," he said.
She'd misjudged.
Badly.
No matter. She licked her lips and uncurled herself. She wore nothing underneath the flimsy dress and it clung to her skin, wet from the seawater. He didn't move as she rose on her knees and fisted the hem of his sullied robes. The material felt surprisingly fine, silken, softer than anything she'd touched before. And she'd touched the dresses of empresses, blood-soaked and torn, after she'd slit their throats and slaughtered their entire court. These gleamed and pooled in her fingers as though they were made not of threads but moonlight. If not for the poison forcing her to focus, she would've paused to examine them more closely. As it was, she kept her eyes on his face as she pulled them apart.
Something like confusion flitted in his eyes but he didn't try to cover himself or to stop her. Before she could take him into her mouth, he'd knelt down so that they were eye-to-eye.
A romantic, she thought sarcastically, as she pushed him down onto the sand. Lucky me. That always meant more work. As she kissed down his neck, hearing his breath catch, she found herself marvelling at his body. His taste was heady but that wasn't what caught her attention. His flesh was fever-hot and grew even more heated as she lavished them with attention. All of her Keepers had been cold-blooded and none of the humans she'd hunted had been this warm. It wasn't like her to pay attention to a body—she'd done this a hundred times and bodies didn't interest her. His heat, however, piqued her curiosity. She reached to remove his robes, to see more of him—
He began to resist.
"You're beautiful," she murmured. She'd said the words countless times to calm her victims, and this time, she meant it. He was wasting away, his legs were twisted and broken, but up close, she could see the vestiges of beauty in his skin, his jaw, his eyes.
Lucky me, indeed. It wasn't often she got to enjoy her prey.
Once again, she tried to remove his robes but his easy willingness had evaporated. "No," he said, his voice tight. "Get off me."
She paused, blinking several times as she studied their position. She was arched against him, dress hiked up to reveal shapely thighs that cradled either side of his hips. The most intimate part of her was pressed against his and she could feel his hardness. She was the picture of feminine desire—no one had ever resisted. No human, no hell-dweller, no one. It was in an Acolyte's design to be irresistible.
"No?" she asked coyly, rolling her hips. "Are you sure?"
His face contorted, desire and desperation thick in his eyes. "What are you doing to me?"
"Whatever you want me to."
He closed his eyes.
"You're beautiful," she whispered again, reaching for his robes once again but he caught her hand. His eyes burned and she could've sworn she saw a glint of gold in the black.
"Beautiful," she repeated.
She used her free hand to run her fingers through his shoulder-length hair. And then slowly, she leaned in to kiss him. His lips were soft and tasted strangely like ash. He didn't kiss her back but he didn't push her away either. When his grip on her hand slackened, she reached for the invisible energy threads she'd been holding since entering his void and pulled viciously.
His eyes flew open.
She held onto him, shielding him with her body as the ground began to shake and the sky began to collapse. A horrible tear formed in the setting sun, and it began to bleed into the air and the water. The children's sandcastle began to sink and they were screeching, the sound ear-splitting and unnatural. The couples who had been so lovingly entwined just moments ago were now tearing into each other, distorting into horrifying shadows.
Edvardiel held his head as the anchors of Lilith's prison began to break away from his mind, and with it, whatever beauty was left in the world.
They landed in a heap on the dusty floor of the antique shop. Issa sat bolt upright, still holding tightly onto her assignment as she scanned their surroundings for danger. There was no sound around them and so she turned her attention back to him.
He was breathing rapidly, and she hoped she hadn't destroyed his mind. There were, after all, two conditions that needed to be fulfilled for a prisoner to be properly released from Lilith's void. First, they needed to know it wasn't real. Second, they had to be willing. He certainly hadn't been willing to follow, but he had been willing to kiss her.
"Edvardiel," she said. "Can you open your eyes?"
He could barely sit upright but he wrenched his eyelids open.
"How are you feeling?"
"What…" he breathed, as she steadied him. "What did you do?"
"Everything in my power," she said, repeating the order she'd been given by Lilith. Do everything in your power to bring him back. "Can you stand?"
It was a stupid question.
Of course he could. He looked nothing like he had in the void. His robes were clean, and he wasn't crippled or emaciated, although she could see the mottled scars on his legs.
Is this your worst fear? she'd goaded him. Sunset on a beach?
Obviously the sunset couldn't have been his worst fear. Losing his legs and wasting away… That had been his worst fear. Why the hell that was, she didn't know and didn't care. She had to work fast. She pinned him down and grabbed his wrists, trying to bind them together, but at that, he began to struggle in earnest. He was strong—much stronger than he'd been in the void—and her own body, after all, was dying.
As they fought—no, what they did was too pathetic to be called a fight, his disoriented thrashing and her feeble fumbling—she clawed at his robe, her sharp nails tearing through the fabric. He twisted, blindly trying to get away from her, and the back of his robe gaped open.
Issa gasped.
There were two terrible, bloody stumps on his back.
She could see the veins and muscles and bones, still bright red and inflamed where they protruded from his shoulder blades. The edges were jagged, as though someone had hacked through them multiple times with a blunt knife.
Bring him to me whole.
No wonder Lilith wanted him.
No wonder he was so warm.
No wonder his void was so peaceful.
He was no hell-dweller.
He was an angel.