Ignoring her incessant need for over-explanation, I close my eyes so I can better concentrate without her staring at me in the way she does. I reach out with an invisible touch, delicately grazing her soul—despite how much I’ve deliberately avoided doing so since she’s arrived—and the tethers attached to it.
This young human is just so unbearably full oflife.
Her soul is a geyser of it, pouring out her emotions without inhibition. Angels are seldom so unguarded. Seldom so emotional. But not her.
It’s difficult to stop at just the barest touch.
The emotions born from her physical body are the most obvious. She’s exhausted and hurting from her injuries today. They’re simple, very understandable emotions, that I should stop my investigations at so I may continue my quest in peace.
But I do not.
I am inexplicably drawn into her deeper emotions, a roaring river of feelings, arising from the core of her soul.
The first thing I stumble upon is the complex tether between her and the Messenger. She is so frustrated, angry with him, yet still encumbered by a dull longing that makes my lips downturn as I abandon any further investigation of it.
In my haste, I switch my full focus to the growing connection between Kae and me—and I’m not prepared for what I find.
When was the last time I had a connection to someone anywhere near as vibrant?
The humans I briefly encountered on Earth are long, long deceased. The locusts operate on a different sort of wavelength of emotion. And any angels I’ve acquainted in the past two millennia, even the harlots I’ve bedded, have known better than to open themselves up to me.
Nobody leaves a river of emotions free to flow into The Destroyer.
Nobody dares to.
This was not my intention, I remind myself. I was looking for that fragment of power embedded in her soul. I’m aware this is a very opportunistic distraction.
And yet… I cannot stop myself from taking advantage of it. What she doesn’t know, what she doesn’t understand, cannot possibly hurt her.
So, I fully open up my reception to every minor thing Kae feels towards me.
Intenseloneliness, yearning for companionship.Frustration, born from a fear that has little to do with me. There is a lingering fear of me, but it is not for her own safety. On the contrary, she holds a brave, yet fear-born protective instinct to shelter the people she cares about from me—likely something to do with that very human-nature awe she still has for my heavenly nature. And then there’s also a hint of… of…
Arousal.
Kae Lambros is attracted to me.
My world tilts slightly off-balance, sending my thoughts free-falling.
I did not expect to find any warm feelings. I certainly did not think she harbored anything for me so…enticing. Such sinful, forbidden lust, both revolting and incredibly appealing to me.
I don’t even have words to describe the way such a little flicker of light feels after centuries of melancholy. A fierce protective instinct rises from somewhere deep and forgotten inside of me. To shield that little shred of positivity from fizzling out. To cherish it, hoard it, devour it?—
“Abaddon,” she graces my name in a breathy whisper, stealing the air out of my own lungs. I could sip my name from her lips for an eternity and never be satiated.
I look at her face, her beautiful face, finding an exotic expression that I can’t quite describe. It draws me in, like a moth to a flame. Her heart beats faster, yet still, I do not let go of that tether between us. I let it grow, watching in earnest as it becomes even hotter, more dominant of her other emotions, as if she senses my interference—even if she doesn’t understand the first thing about it.
My base nature, the beast inside me, awakens. I become alive. Mybody has a carnal response, craving an outlet that can only be found between her thighs.
I have to stop this.
Despite the painful emptiness it brings me, I force myself to let go of her tether to me, pushing beyond all her emotions. I drive deep into her soul, aggressively chasing the faint, foreign signal.
The gasp it solicits from her is a sound I never want to hear her make again—not in this way, not under these kinds of circumstances. I have no doubt she can feel my probing now. Even for an untrained human, it is hard to ignore this much intrusion. This is not a level of surveillance I would risk for covert observation.
But the fragment of unearthly power I’m seeking is still further inside her soul.
I must continue. I’m close enough now that I can feel the shadows of the strong, foreign entity. It is a presence that is both living and dead, almost seeming to writhe at being noticed. In my very, very long existence, I have never experienced anything like it.
