For some reason, humans always portrayed us as ugly and our brethren as beautiful. I say, "for some reason" when I know the reason. It's easy to make something you don't agree with or think is wrong into something ugly. It's called "demonizing" for a reason. The truth is, we are both beautiful in a terrible and unspeakable way. When those above appeared to man, their first words were always about fear and how man shouldn't.
I remember the first time I saw him. Fear wasn't what I felt at all. It wasn't lust, either. It was love, as pure an emotion as their is, and one we're all capable of - messengers and humans. His form was exquisite, but that wasn't even where it began. His eyes were the color of a nebula. Stars and luminous clouds floated in his irises. There was hope there, and compassion.
We were both on the Earth for the same reason - to vie for a human's soul.
Uziel stood there, looking gorgeous and sad. "You can't have this one." He said the words to me, not in anger, but as a simple statement of fact.
I smiled at him and shook my head. "That's not for you to say or even to know. Our Father may know it, but he's not going to tell His will to you or me. Even our General doesn't know."
I was right and he knew it. My knowing it made him a little angry. There was the flash of heat, a supernova in his right eye, which gave it all away. "I won't let you take him. I'll fight you." He drew his flaming sword.
"No you won't." I laughed, believing the tinkling noise of my amusement would make him even more angry.
"You... You won't?" The tip of his sword drooped. One raven eyebrow raised. A muscle on the right side of his jaw twitched.
"I know you won't use that on me unless I draw my own weapons." I patted the daggers at my hips, their green, crystalline blades jagged. "I don't plan on doing that. Therefore, you won't fight me. Now put that away."
His confusion turned to painful earnestness. "Then, we're at a standstill. You can't take this human's soul." He gestured to the man in the bed. "Not if he chooses to follow the creator and to accept the mercy on offer."
I held up a finger. "So, he hasn't in fact accepted the offer?"
Soulful eyes, now a much warmer hue than the color of the star sprinkled void, flicked from the frail creature and back to my own eyes, which I knew then to be filled with golden light. "Regretfully, no."
"You really care about this man and his soul, don't you?" I'd done battle with thousands of his cohort over the millennia since we tried to take the Throne. I'd seen militant anger in many different flavors. This was the first time I'd seen anything like love. He was no more the mindless war drone than I was an evil, manipulative soul devourer. Oh, I was manipulative to be sure. And Uziel was a warrior. His muscles were sculpted from iron and marble. He could lay waste an entire human battalion with one blow of his sword. We were cut from the cloth of our kind.
"I do. I care about them all, but there's something about this one." He shook his head, dark hair brushing his neck. He set his jaw. “And I'll do whatever I can, to save his soul."
I stepped closer to him, running my hands down my breasts. Dark leather hugged every curve. I knew he found me attractive, his eyes following my fingers as they traced the outline of my body. We had the same sort of drives He had given these creatures. "Whatever?"
His lips pursed and his tongue flicked out to moisten them. He cleared his throat. "Nearly." The word cracked as it fell from his generous mouth, one made to laugh and sing.
I wanted to own him and for him to own me. I took a step forward, ethereal light playing on my horns. "All I ask for is a kiss. Just one, and I will leave. If you don't give it to me, I'll fight you here and now. I've killed in the war, but I find myself reluctant to clip your beautiful wings."
He sheathed his long blade. "Just one kiss, eh?" He smiled, looking at my mouth as if it were the fruit of the Tree.
"One, though I warn you, there may be consequences." I took another step forward, looking up at him.
His arm came around my back, and he pulled me against the belted white robe of rough homespun. His wings came around us, and I smiled as he pressed his mouth to mine. The swirl of power as our essences came together was the grandfather of whirlwinds. I saw the birth of a new solar system as his gazed into my eyes.
My fingers traced the soft inner feathers where wings joined back. His body shuddered against mine. I bit down on his lip, drawing blood. The golden fluid tasted like star fruit and steel.
Arms squeezed me, tectonic plates of muscles coming together, drawing me in.
I no longer had any thought for the human in the bed. If Uziel did, I couldn't see it in his eyes, or feel it in his movements.
He was the one who broke the kiss. A broad, callused hand smeared the rivulet of blood from an already healed wound. "Our deal is sealed. I have work to do." Regret warred with satisfaction as he smiled softly. "I hope you won't get into too much trouble for this?"
#romance, #ScottRoche, #angels, #demons, #fantasy
Art Source: Demon~ by GUWEIZ at Deviant Art
Story and Characters (c)/by Scott Roche
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