Page 28 of Where the Light No Longer Follows

She stared at the shop’s display window, her mouth parted with fascination, eyes almost welling from excitement as she braced both hands on the glass barrier, trailing her fingers down the details on the white dresses on the mannequins.

Gabriel stepped beside her. She could feel his questioning gaze on her dripping down on her like warm wax as he silently watched her admire the wedding dresses, obeying to her first demand that he was to take her to visit a bridal store—breaking more of her rules of never stepping on human spaces yet again.

To her luck, he had not asked for any explanation for her demands, only had followed after her like some pup on a leash.

The store was strangely empty as they got inside, and she turned to him. “There is no one here.”

He sat by a large sofa probably meant for guests, arms spread wide on the back rest. “Try some of them on.”

She blinked, flustered. “I only wanted to see.”

“The store is all ours for today. Try some and show me. I want to see.”

Silene did not need to be told twice. She skimmed the long rows full of silk, lace and all kinds of dresses hung along the walls, stopping only to pull a few out and hang them over her arm.

She’d never undressed faster, her clothes discarded all over the changing room as she quickly stepped into the first dress, cursing when she realised she needed to be zipped in.

Peeking her head out of the changing room, she met his gaze and sighed. “I need help.”

With a huge grin, he got up and stepped right behind her, gently pushing her hair to one side, careful not to touch her as he reached for the zipper and slowly pulled it up.

She couldn’t look away from his reflection on the mirror before her when his eyes lifted to meet hers and then travelled down her body. She wanted to look away, to look at the dress that fit her as if it had been made for her. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t look away at all, too entranced by the way his blue irises turned molten at her sight.

“Why wedding dresses?” he asked, his fingers grazing the very ends of her long hair, curling around them, the sensation sending a shudder down her spine.

“I’ve always wanted to be a bride,” she said, tracing the beads on her bodice. “When my father would drink too much, I would sneak and hide behind a grand oak by the temple in our village, watching brides walk down the long aisle to the sound of the chiming bells. I’d seen nothing more beautiful, it was entirely out of a dream. Like the fairies I’d read about when I was younger.”

“Did you want to be married?”

Her bitter chuckle filled the empty hall, and she pressed a shaky hand to her mouth to muffle the sob that threatened to follow as memories of her old life returned. “Who would have wanted to marry me? My name was tainted with more than just poverty,” she admitted. “People knew, you know. They all knew what was happening to me.” They all knew what was being done to her. Some were their own wives, their own daughters and sons, their own parents. And instead of turning that scrutinising glare on their own kin, they had turned it on her. She’d been cast out, spit on, hit on, hated on, even denied any service by the villagers—if she’d been on fire, no one would have wasted a drop of water on her.

The tip of his finger traced the length of the silver zipper, the closest he could get to touching her. “And they’ve all paid for it.”

Silene almost didn’t hear his words because of how low his voice had gotten. “What did you say?” she asked, looking up at him, noticing the tight features, the shadows and the drowning eyes.

“Put your hair up.”

She blinked fast. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

Gabriel stood rooted there behind her as she did as he’d asked, pinning her long hair at the base of her neck, all too lost watching him watch her to realise that the scar on her neck was now all for him to see.

Only when his eyes in the reflection dropped down from hers did she realise.

A hand came to rest there under her neck. “Would you stop looking at me?”

“Gods and Fates have tried, and they both have failed to make me do so. But you can give it a try, too, my pretty desolation.” He stepped even closer, his chest almost brushing her back but not quite so when he leaned into the naked crook of her neck and closed his eyes. “You smell like heaven.”

Ignoring the chill that chased down her limbs, she said, “Didn’t know the heavens had a smell.”

“Mine does.”

“Also didn’t know you owned one. But then, you seem to own many things.”

“I don’t own her,” he said, reaching for a veil and pinning it at the back of her head. “But she does own me.”

“You’re a pathetic God.”