by Trisha Telep
Despite their success, Ezekiel wasn’t pleased. We must live this way forevermore. You all accept this?
The alternative is losing him, Nathaniel responded.
Raziel kept even his thoughts to himself, but of them all, he had been closest to Camael, and he could read his kinsman’s brooding silence. He was blisteringly angry. I never asked for help, Camael thought. I would have taken my punishment and left you out of it.
And you truly think I could allow that? Raziel demanded. Of us all, you would be destroyed down there. Did you know people call you Camael the Innocent, even here, where all are pure?
He hadn’t known that, and it angered him. Innocent I may have been, but I am not helpless.
No, Raziel responded. Just stupid.
Enough. The force of Ezekiel’s thought silenced them both. We acted to preserve your secret. You must go now to this human woman. Tell her whatever you must, but there will be an end to it.
He had watched the Morning Lord’s fall, once the most beloved and beautiful. Later, he had seen Gabriel willfully turn his back on his host. Neither hurt so much as the prospect of this – and he did not know why. Only that an ache throbbed deep in the core of him at the prospect of bidding farewell to a beauty he had hardly known.
I will attend to it now.
With a twist of his will, he left them. It was too much to hope he would find her where he had before, and yet that was the first place he looked. Camael matched his appearance to what she had seen before; otherwise, how would she know him? The river had risen since his last visit, which signified rain. How much time had passed? He stood quietly, listening to the water tumbling over the rocks. The trees were a little thinner, somewhat less green, and the air carried a chill. This was the dying season, when the leaves fell, and the world spun toward winter.
It was too cold for bare skin and he thought clothing into existence to cover himself. Not because he felt discomfort on any crucial level, but if another traveller came upon him here, they would call him demon or worse, finding him tarrying so. For the first time, it occurred to him he did not know how to find her. While he could focus on her essence and port to her, it might prove awkward if she were in company. He did not want to cause problems for Rei, or offer trouble she could not explain away.
And so he sought shelter in a cave not far from the river, where he built a fire. It was easy work, a matter of laying wood and willing it to kindle. He could have had fire without fuel, but that too would alarm human travellers. Camael wanted to blend in as best he could. Once he had created a tolerably comfortable space, he sat and sent the call. If Rei felt anything for him, she would be compelled to seek him out. The delay gave him time to accustom himself to her world. This time, he would not be helpless and overwhelmed by so many physical sensations.
On the third day, she found him. She looked different, less girlish. He had no way to gauge the passage of time here.
“It’s you,” she breathed. “And you have aged not even a day.”
He’d wondered if she remembered. He had wondered if he ought to come and tell her there could be nothing more. Perhaps she already knew. But his conscience would not permit him to share such intimacy and then offer only silence thereafter.
The right words – words of farewell – trembled on his tongue and yet he did not speak them. “Did you miss me?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “But when I did not quicken, I thought I dreamed you.”
Would that were so – then he would not feel the awful sensation of being torn in two. He carried Ezekiel’s orders like a weight in his heart, but for the first time, he struggled against them. Camael did not want to obey. He craved a few more moments with her.
“I cannot get you with child,” he said, instead of good-bye.
“Because you are truly not of my world.”
He inclined his head.
“Then it is safe for us to be together.” Before the fire, she began to disrobe. “I relived that afternoon so many times. Nothing ever felt so good or so right.”
This was where he must tell her. But instead, he admired the curves of her body, no longer sylph slim, but rounded and succulent. “Rei . . .”
“You make my name sound like singing. No one ever did before.”
When she threw herself into his arms, he was lost, oh, so lost. Camael wrapped his arms about her. He had not touched her thoughts as he did with the host, and it mattered not at all. He knew her. The ache he hadn’t been able to explain before intensified into longing, and then he recognized it.
“I missed you.” Such longing for an absent person; it was wholly new to him.
Six
“And I, you.”
It had been almost five years since she’d first felt him watching her, nearly three since she had lain in his arms. Yet she had never been able to forget him. Rei wondered now whether she was mad. Her father had at last broken down her will to refuse the marriage, and in two weeks’ time, she would become Kenzo’s bride. An alliance between the two villages would improve life for all concerned.
No more raids. No more burning houses or dead livestock. Thus she had been told, over and over again.
So what was she doing here, breaking her vows for a golden dream that had come to seem no more real than the touch of the breeze upon her skin? The answer was simple: she could not deny him. He lived in her blood, like a fever. Yet she could not blame him for what had passed between them. She had seduced him, and if she were honest, that sense of power offered great allure. In her village, she had little, even as chieftain’s daughter. But she had bewitched this impossibly powerful male – and that certainty was heady.
Just once more, she told herself. Kenzo will never know. He had not been promised a virgin bride, after all. Rei had married young, and her husband perished of fever. She had been a widow for some months before she encountered Camael by the river, else she would not have known how to seduce him.
But this time, it was different. She sensed it even before he put his arms around her. He was more centred, more sure of himself. Rei did not yet know what that change signified.
He kissed his brow to hers. “I want to know you.”
Rei thought it a poetic way of asking to make love to her again, so she nodded. Suddenly her mind filled with him, every small shame and unworthy secret – he possessed them all. The moment she tried to resist, he went away again, leaving her alone, and that might be worse.
“What—”
“I thought you gave permission.”
“For that?” It seemed wholly more intimate than sharing her body.
“I wanted to know you this time, before . . .”
Before they made love. She understood the impulse, though in her experience, such knowledge came in small trickles, not in a single brush of their minds. But she knew him now, too, and he was unquestionably alien. He had touched no women in this world or any other. Rei could not have explained why that excited her; only that it did. It lit a fire unlike any she’d ever known.
But even so, she wasn’t the aggressor. This time, she could tell he knew what he wanted. His mouth claimed hers, tender but implacable as well, as if his kiss branded her. Madness. Though she had been free three years ago, she was no longer. And yet she could not refuse him. Did not desire to, no matter the cost later. She had been like a shade, echoing the memory of life after vitality had fled. Only in his arms did she kindle beyond that pale shadow.
As he kissed her throat, she shivered. When he stroked her inner thigh, her legs fell open in welcome. There was nothing so divine as a godling slaking his desire. Her breath hitched as he traced the curve of her hip and nibbled behind her ear. Then he slipped his hand around her body, playing with her right breast.
But he wasn’t as sure as he pretended. In the firelight, his oddly innocent eyes asked reassurance. “You like that?”
Mutely, she nodded, not sure if she could speak. Rei’s husband had never taken such care with her. Sometimes she wanted the mating,
and sometimes she didn’t; it had all been the same to him. In her world, men most oft felt so. They held all the authority. Despite his otherworldly power, the same did not hold true with Camael. She marvelled at that, even as he caressed her. It seemed to her she had never truly known free will before.
He paused, holding her arms to the light. “Who did this?”
“Kenzo.”
The Tanaka’s firstborn saw no reason to be gentle with a woman. He used his strength instead. Camael bent his head and pressed his lips to the marks. As she watched, they faded with a god’s power to heal. Rei wanted to weep, but instead she answered with a kiss to his throat.
The firelight permitted her to see his response – awe gilded his beautiful face, even as much as the fire did. He revelled in her pleasure and his own ability to invoke those feelings. His lips followed his fingers: full of delicacy, demand, and burgeoning confidence. The heat against her skin was delicious and unexpected; his mouth sliding along her curves made her scrape the soles of her feet against the rock. Groaning in response, he licked until her nipple stood erect, begging for his attention. She cried out when he sucked it into his mouth and teased her with his teeth.
“Tell me what you want now,” he murmured, sounding odd and hoarse.
Unbearable tension rose within her as his golden head surged between her breasts. She did not notice when he slid the robe completely away, baring her body. Aware of a momentary lapse in contact, her senses swam as she tried to focus and received only the sweet shock of his hot skin against hers.
Dipping his fingers into the slick, swollen folds of her femininity, he stroked her, making her hips lurch up to meet him. He found a place that felt to her as if he held lightning against her flesh. Rei tested him in turn, fingers stealing down his abdomen and curling around his man’s flesh. He bucked, strain evident in his face. For long moments, he worked against her cupped palm, moaning with each push.
Oh, now, my love. Now.
She was ready, so ready. But to her surprise, he did not cover her. Instead he slid lower. Since he was innocent, he must have taken this from her darkest and most secret fantasies. No man would stoop to perform this intimacy for a woman. But a god would. Only such a one could possess the self-assurance to humble himself so.
“Camael!” she cried as his mouth found her.
Rei clutched his head, fingers tangled in his gilded hair, and rocked against his mouth. He licked her, just so. Climax shook her, head to toe. Giving her no chance to recover, he slid up and pushed inside. Once, twice, thrice, he thrust, making her moan. He wrapped his arms about her hips, dragging her up to meet each push and she locked her legs about him. His fierce beauty almost hurt her eyes, seeing his intensity so focused on her body.
Her second peak crashed almost as hard as the first, coming in relentless spasms, and it drove him over the edge. Though her own satisfaction had been staggering, she still knew when he shook in the familiar response. But she had never been so fiercely glad of it before. Her husband had used her body, but only Camael made her feel this way, and she took visceral pleasure in maddening him in the same fashion. He offered no accompanying gush of seed, however, and she regretted the lack. It was the only imperfect part of their union.
She did not protest when he rolled to the side and wrapped himself about her for warmth. With him at her back and the fire at her front, she felt the cold beyond their private haven not at all. But the world would intrude soon enough.
“I heeded your summons this last time,” she said softly. “But I can come to you no more. I have made promises to others, now.”
“Yes. I saw that in you.”
Of course he would have. How could he permit it? Why wouldn’t he take her away, back to his godly palace, and keep her there for himself? Yet those were not questions she could ask, and so she swallowed the pain like a shard of broken pottery.
“Rei . . . according to the rules of heaven, this is wrong. I am not to have you. Not to do what I have done. Twice now. Twice the sin.” He did not sound as though he felt guilty, though, merely sad beyond bearing.
“So you will not call to me again, either.”
“No.” He laid his head on her breast, ear to her heart, as if listening to what she could not say. “But if I did, if I found a way, would you give up everything for me, Rei of the River?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in her, only a broken kind of longing, because the fierce desperation of his arms about her in this moment did not speak of hope. Instead it betokened an impossible love and inevitable ending.
Seven
Did you end it? Ezekiel asked.
They awaited his return together, converging as soon as they felt him. Camael did not need to answer. As soon as he let them touch his mind, they knew. Nathaniel filled with sorrow while Raziel boiled with anger. From Ezekiel, he sensed nothing, not even surprise. Doubtless he saw only history repeating itself. He had walked this road with Gabriel.
You endanger all of us with this madness, Raziel accused.
Nathaniel stared at him, sombre as he rarely was. He is right, brother. Do you think Seraphiel will forgive our involvement?
I shall not, the Seraphim intoned, manifesting.
The time had come, then. For himself, he cared remarkably little. Camael only wanted to return to Rei before she married the man who had put the bruises on her arms. He cared nothing for the dramas of heaven any longer. Still, he could not let his host suffer for his sins. He had to try.
I acted alone, he told Seraphiel. They knew nothing. Only I must Fall.
The leader of the Seraphim sent angry amusement arcing into his thoughts like a lightning bolt. It stung, as intended. Do you take me for a fool? I saw through your shields immediately. I only wanted to see how complete the conspiracy. And so I have. Your whole host is corrupted. They will pay.
A flaming blade appeared in Seraphiel’s hand, rippling with awful blue fire that gave no heat: the Sword of Judgment. With it, he tapped Ezekiel on the shoulder. Ezekiel, your loyalty to your host proved greater than your love for the Most High. I know you yet mourn Gabriel’s loss, so I bear good tidings. The grim glee that accompanied the thought sent a wave of horror through Camael. You may now join him, as the leader of these Fallen. If you can find him. If he yet survives. I know you, Ezekiel. You feared the Fall as nothing else. For our kind, it is the closest thing to death. And so I give you dominion over it. I give to you power over death and transformation. They will beg you for clemency, those dying and doomed, and you will offer none. May it bring you nothing but pain to be known as the Merciless Archangel when your secret heart is so tender.
Camael thought he would run Ezekiel through then, but no. They had conspired together; thus they would die together. And the Seraphim had not finished sentencing them for their crimes.
Seraphiel spun to face Nathaniel. To you, Fallen, I give responsibility for fire. This force can be used for cleansing or destruction. You will spend eternity weighing the difference, judging what must burn, what should rightly burn. Since you were the gentlest of us all, it will be a just punishment, and for each wrong judgment, you shall receive a scar. You will know agony beyond imagining, Nathaniel.
And you, Raziel. The Seraphim pointed the Sword of Judgment. Who first plotted to hide this transgression from me. I find it fitting to give to you the mantle of mysteries. From this day hence, you will be charged with keeping divine knowledge from the mortal world. They must not know of us, see us, or hear of us. You do so love your secrets, do you not? And this responsibility will give you the most contact with humans – and I do know how you love them. You will clean up for them forevermore.
Finally Seraphiel came to a stop before Camael. He stood straight and steady against the terrible threat of the sword. You had carnal knowledge of a human woman and sought to hide it. You put base pleasure before your vows to the Most High. So then, Camael, I charge you with joy. That did not sound terrible, but then the Seraphim continued. You will be responsible fo
r making sure the world stays in balance – that those who ought to be happy, are, even when you are not. In time, it will become . . . excruciating. I only wish I could be there to see the moment when you realize I have placed upon you the heaviest burden of all. You craved the pleasures of earth, and so I bestow them upon you. You were once princes of heaven; now you are only princes of dust, princes of your small dominions. You are exiles, henceforth, never again to know divine peace. Go forth, Fallen. I cast you out!
Seraphiel swung the Sword of Judgment in a wide arc, and the fire cut them wide open. Beneath their feet, a chasm opened, and then they fell. Pain became Camael’s only awareness. The world washed red.
Eight
As Hana plaited her hair, Rei faced the truth. He was not coming. She had been a fool to place her hopes in a god’s hands. Surely she should have learned by now that they did not care. If anything, they saw this world as a place to come and play, where pleasures might be shared and then forgotten.
He had not promised; he’d only said if I find a way. It seemed impossible that there existed a force that could hinder the will of a god, but then, he had also said he was only a messenger. So perhaps he was not important enough to break free whenever he chose. Perhaps he too had responsibilities.
She bore fresh bruises on her back, but her wedding clothes hid them. Kenzo had tried to take his rights as a husband the night before, and she’d fought him. Not before tonight. And so he’d taken his satisfaction of her in another way – with his fists. He truly might have killed her if Hana had not heard her cries and tiptoed to see. Though she was a silly girl, she was not heartless and she had run to fetch Isuke.
“She is not your bride yet,” her father had said. “While she remains in my house, you will treat her with respect.”
For a long moment, she’d dared to hope her father would call off the ceremony. But no. He needed the Tanaka alliance, so he must abide by the agreement. This was no more than a temporary respite, as Kenzo stormed out. They both knew she would pay dearly for her final night of peace.
