by Eva Brandt
“Dying by their hand isn’t that painful. Why not?”
The idea dissipated into dust as the waves of my first orgasm started to settle into a gentler afterglow. But my new lovers weren’t done with me, not done by far. I was still trying to recover when Sariel and Yeqon pulled away, giving me room to catch my breath. Or at least that was what I thought, at first. I promptly realized that had been foolish of me. They weren’t so merciful.
Azazel pulled me into his lap and in one single thrust, buried his cock into my pussy. I cried out, still oversensitive after my earlier climax. The penetration didn’t hurt, but that didn’t change the fact that my new lovers were demonically well-endowed.
My body and my mind couldn’t seem to agree on whether I should feel discomfort or not. Yeqon decided that was unacceptable. “Stop thinking so hard,” he purred from behind me. “Just give in.”
His cock nudged my anus and before I knew it, he was sliding inside, the thick head popping past the ring of guardian muscle. I let out a choked gasp, filling so full it was a miracle I didn’t explode. Sariel took advantage of this moment to grab my hair and force his cock into my mouth.
After that, I followed Yeqon’s advice, because I couldn’t do anything different. My ability for rational thought vanished. I surrendered to them, because it was so much easier than having to question everything.
They weren’t gentle, but I didn’t mind. I welcomed their strength, their intensity, and their hidden fire. I welcomed their passion and need for me. My spine burned where Yeqon was making contact with my wing stumps. My pussy throbbed as Azazel thrust inside me with abandon. My jaw and scalp hurt as Sariel fucked my mouth and pulled on my hair. I could’ve sworn I felt claws rake over my skin, although I couldn’t tell who they belonged to.
It was raw and carnal, brutal, yet beautiful, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I was the willing vessel of their pleasure, and I would have happily damned my own soul if it meant this moment could last forever.
But even The Celestial Realm had its limits, and before I knew it, I was on the verge of orgasm again. I was so close I could feel it buzzing in every atom of my body, from the tips of my hair, to my incipient wings, and even my fingernails. They claimed every part of me, my pussy, my ass and my mouth, and it showed.
A new surge of magic erupted through me, this time emanating from Yeqon. My already sensitive wing stumps vibrated under the spiritual touch and I screamed around Sariel’s cock. No longer able to hold back, I came, my body tightening around my lovers’ dicks.
Clutching my hips in a painfully tight hold, Yeqon buried his cock inside me one last time and fell over the edge. Wet heat flooded my ass as Azazel climaxed. Sariel succumbed to the unavoidable and filled my mouth with his cum.
The echoes of their pleasure ricocheted into me, propelling me into a third orgasm. Tiny explosions seemed to be going off all over my body. If I didn’t black out, it must have only been because my lovers’ magic kept me cognizant.
It was a true miracle, and one I was thankful for, because every second we spent together stretched into an age, imprinting the ecstasy they’d brought me into my pores. And when that pleasure finally started to fade, I knew I’d never be able to forget this moment.
My lovers slid out of me and lay me down on the pillows with gentle hands. Sariel inhaled the scent of my hair and kissed my brow. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Amazing,” Azazel repeated. “The most beautiful woman in the world.”
“And you’re ours,” Yeqon finished.
I wasn’t so sure about being the most beautiful woman in the world, but I did agree with Yeqon’s comment. I was theirs. My body and my soul belonged to them, forever.
As this thought crossed my mind, my reason finally awoke. What was I thinking? I couldn’t possibly belong to them. I couldn’t be with them. But it was too late to take back my actions and deny what I’d just done. I’d had sex with Sariel, Yeqon, and Azazel, and I’d enjoyed it very much.
I hadn’t intended to save myself for someone special, but this… This was just crazy. They were Lucifer’s underlings, the men who’d participated, even if indirectly, in my parents’ murder. How could I have done this? How had I allowed myself to forget their loss, even for a moment?
Tasting bile in my mouth, I tore myself away from them and stumbled out of the bed. “Delilah?” Azazel asked. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his question. “What’s wrong? Everything! Don’t you see that? I shouldn’t be here… I can’t be here.”
I clutched my head, feeling the sudden urge to tear my hair out of my scalp. It was the wrong color. I felt wrong in my skin.
“Why… Why did I do this? I’m supposed to be a guardian angel, not this thing.”
The three Watchers left the bed as well and slowly made their way to my side. “Delilah, you are an angel,” Sariel said slowly. “You’re our angel.”
He brushed his fingers over my arms and my body instantly remembered how good it had felt to be touched and kissed by him. I recoiled. “No! Don’t touch me! I don’t want this. I don’t. I love my parents.”
“We know you do, Delilah,” Azazel answered. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t—”
“Shut up!” I cut him off. “I’m not your angel. I’m not your anything. This was a huge mistake. It won’t happen again. Never. Never again. I won’t allow it. I can’t. You can’t be anything to me.”
By the time I finished my rant, I was breathing hard, crying and shaking. I was still naked and covered in their semen. And the worst thing was that I couldn’t even pretend they’d forced me into this, because I still wanted them.
“Please,” I said between gritted teeth. “Just let me go.”
The trio shared a silent look, then turned toward me and nodded. “Of course, Delilah,” Sariel said. “We’ll just have to touch you for a few moments so we can take you back to your room, but I promise we’ll leave you alone after that.”
I believed him, but I was afraid of what would happen if I allowed him to touch me. I was afraid I’d succumb to this accursed attraction that bubbled between us. But there was no other way to get out of here, so I snapped my eyes shut and agreed.
A familiar current of energy flowed over me, sweeping me away from the tower. I sensed Azazel’s regret inside it, and a part of me ached. But I closed myself off to the emotion and tried to focus on what I knew I had to do.
It didn’t really work, but it distracted me long enough to allow Azazel to get to my room. When I dared to open my eyes again, I was alone, clean, and dressed.
It was a shame that the magic of the Watchers couldn’t wipe away my memories as quickly as they had the traces of my continuous fall from grace. What was I supposed to do now?
Ashes of the Past
I was an idiot. I was such a damn fool. How could I have allowed myself to fall into bed with Sariel, Yeqon, and Azazel of all people?
As I lay curled on the bed, the memory of their touch flashed through my head. It had been so amazing. The moment they’d slid inside me, the way they’d moved together in tandem—everything had been pure perfection. I could still feel them stretching me, kissing me, claiming me.
Tears filled my eyes, trailing down my cheeks. I furiously wiped them away. Fuck. This wasn’t why I was here. I was supposed to become an angel and having sex with three of my enemies was not the way.
But it wasn’t the end of the world either. I was just making a mountain out of a molehill. They might have sprouted flattering words in the heat of the moment, but without a doubt, they didn’t have any profound feelings for me or anything like that.
Okay. Relax, Delilah. It was just sex. I couldn’t get any diseases or stumble into an unwanted pregnancy, for the very simple reason that I didn’t ovulate. This might have been for the best, since now, I could forget about my curiosity and focus on what really mattered—class.
Maybe that was the whole problem. I’d dropped my guard ar
ound the three Watchers because I felt I wasn’t going anywhere with my quest to become a guardian angel. I just needed to study harder.
Once the idea was rooted into my brain, I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. I’d let them all decide for me, which had made sense at the time. But they didn’t actually understand human nature, and didn’t understand me.
This was my choice, and I needed to step forward and embrace the change.
My incipient wings tingled, a warning and an encouragement. Decision made, I left the bed and headed out of my room.
After all the time I’d spent in The Celestial Realm, it was fairly easy for me to find my way to Metatron’s office. It was not so easy to figure out how to approach him without stirring his anger. I stood there, staring at his door and wondering what I should do. It wasn’t like I could just… ask to see him, right?
“Of course you can ask,” an unfamiliar voice said from behind me. “That’s why he’s here, to listen to the requests of the people at the academy, even if he might dislike it.”
I turned, only to see an old man hobbling toward me, bent over a glowing cane. I was seized by the immediate impulse to rush to his side and make sure he didn’t fall over, but he reached me before disaster could strike.
Groaning, he gripped his back and grimaced. “Sorry about being so late in coming. These old bones don’t always listen to me, even if we do live in The Celestial Realm.”
“That’s quite all right, Sir,” I reassured him. “You don’t need to trouble yourself because of me.” We didn’t even know one another. Why would he feel responsible for me?
He shot me a small, kind smile. “That’s not really true. We humans have to stick together, at least a little.”
Another human? That was odd. Considering Metatron’s attitude toward my species, I would have guessed there weren’t a lot of people like me here.
The old man must have realized my confusion, because he proceeded to elaborate. “I’m Lazarus. I have the dubious honor of teaching here at Watcher Academy.”
Lazarus? As in the guy who was said to have been resurrected by Jesus? That was actually a thing?
I supposed it shouldn’t have surprised me so much, considering that I was basically in a section of Heaven. But still, I hadn’t expected a guy like this to be a teacher at a school for fallen angels.
“You must be Delilah St. John,” he continued, undeterred by silence. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I couldn’t help but flinch. “I’d say that most of it wasn’t true, but I can’t. I think I didn’t make the best impression on the people here.”
“Nonsense. Everyone with taste likes you and those who don’t are irrelevant. Don’t believe Metatron’s little act either. Just between you and me, he’s jealous Sariel, Azazel, and Yeqon got to you first.”
What? Okay, clearly, I’d fallen asleep in my room again and was having a weird hallucination. The mere idea of Metatron being interested in me that way freaked me out.
Lazarus laughed. “Don’t give me that look. You’ll see I’m right in time. But for the moment, you go on ahead and speak with him. I promise he’ll help you.”
For some reason, I believed him. Bracing myself, I knocked at Metatron’s door and hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
The door opened and I stepped inside, all the while reminding myself that I had nothing to worry about. Metatron was sitting at his desk, just like he had during our first meeting.
He was reading a glowing book and he didn’t look up when I walked in. “Did you need anything, Delilah?”
“Actually, yes. I was wondering when I could start my regular classes. I’ve been here for a while now and I still feel like I’m behind.”
Metatron looked at me and arched a brow. “Of course you’re behind, Delilah. Everyone here is over one hundred times your age, remember?”
“The thought did occur to me, yes,” I answered truthfully. “But that makes it all the more important for me to put more effort into this.”
“You’re putting plenty of effort into it. Perhaps a little too much, if what I hear from Uriel is true.”
I was tempted to apologize for the episode in Uriel’s class, but I wasn’t sorry, not really. Being dishonest about it would just offend Metatron and insult his intelligence.
And so, I clenched my jaw and straightened my back. “I don’t know if I truly misunderstood his intentions, Archangel Metatron. Maybe I misjudged him and I shouldn’t have intervened. But even so, I’m not going to stand by and watch people suffer as long as I can do something about it.”
“Even if those people hurt you before?” Metatron hummed thoughtfully. “Tell me something, Delilah. Was Uriel right about you? Is your apparent selflessness a sham? Do you even care about anything or anyone except yourself and your revenge?”
“Does it matter?” I replied. “As long as I achieve my goal—to be a guardian angel—my reasons are beside the point.”
“I can’t argue with that.” He paused and for a few seconds, it almost seemed like he wasn’t in the room with me anymore. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to give me a real answer to my request, he snapped out of his trance and said, “Very well, Delilah. I’ll put together a new schedule for you. I’m sure Sariel, Azazel, and Yeqon will be thrilled to have you in class with them.”
He spoke the latter sentence in a drawling, mocking tone, which told me he knew exactly what had happened between us. I felt my face heat up, but I tried to not let him fluster me more than he already had.
“I doubt it. They’ve helped me get a little more used to Watcher Academy, it’s true, but now, there’s no need for that any longer.”
“You’re either a better liar than I ever thought, or you’re just that good at fooling yourself. In any case, that’s irrelevant to me. Your private life and intimate relationship with those three don’t matter as long as you can prove to me that you truly can let go of your mortal self.”
“And how do I do that?” I asked.
I suddenly had a bad feeling, because I didn’t think I’d given up on my mortal self and I didn’t want to do it either. I might have mixed feelings about my three Watchers, but I did believe they’d been right when they’d said being human wasn’t a bad thing.
Metatron got up from his desk and offered me his hand. “You come with me and don’t let go.”
There was a warning in his eyes, one that I should have perhaps heeded. But regardless of my doubts, I’d been honest when I’d told Metatron that I wanted to do this, to be the best that I could be. There was no turning back. I took his hand and hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
* * *
Growing up, I hadn’t given much thought to what my resting place would be like. I wasn’t prone to thinking about things like that. Some people liked to say ‘I’d love to play this song at my funeral’ or ‘when I’m dead, I’m not inviting her’, but I’d never bothered with such talk.
Funerals were more for the living than the dead anyway. That was what I’d always believed. The dead person was gone and wouldn’t really care about petty things like songs and invitations.
None of that had prepared me for the moment Metatron brought me to the crematorium. My body had already been mounted in the cremation chamber and was about to be turned into ash.
It was, in a way, a sterile process. There was no one there but the worker who operated the machine and the body itself wasn’t visible, as it was inside a closed coffin.
But such things didn’t pose a problem for me now, so I could see past the wood and the metal. I could see my own broken form, and it was an echo of my nightmares.
I didn’t know who’d made the decision of cremation, but I could see their reasoning. There wasn’t much left to bury, so an open casket funeral would have been out of the question. That flashback I’d had in the tub had been more accurate than I’d have liked.
It was a mystery how they’d even managed to find any pieces of me at all, but I supposed humans we
re nothing if not very determined.
“Your parents hoped until the last moment,” Metatron said. “They couldn’t believe you were dead, not when they lived.”
I jolted and looked at him. I’d been so hypnotized by the sight of my own dead body that I’d completely forgotten he was there.
“They lived?”
He nodded. “While their fate is conditional on you fulfilling your agreement with the Grim Reaper, right now, they’re fine. Naturally, they don’t remember a thing about the incident. They were found and rescued by the coast guard. You weren’t so lucky.”
He waved his hand, and all of a sudden, I could see my parents standing outside, presumably waiting for the urn with my ashes. They looked like they’d aged a decade since I’d last seen them, although that couldn’t have been the case.
“I disagree,” I told Metatron, smiling tremulously. “I think I was very lucky.”
The worker turned on the machine and the fire started in the cremation chamber. I watched myself burn and I didn’t find it scary. Mostly, I was conflicted about it.
It was much better this way. The person in that device could have easily been my mother or my father, but for whatever reason, I’d been given the chance to save them. I didn’t know what would have happened to their souls had they died, but I didn’t want to find out, not anytime soon, at least.
My parents were leaning against one another, finding strength in each other’s proximity. It was nice to see, and even though I’d never be able to have the family life I’d wanted, I was happy for them.
That still left me with having to face the view of my body burning. When I caught a glimpse of the cremation chamber again, my arms started to itch, as if I could feel a phantom pain of the flames licking over my skin. I was only imagining it, of course, but I hugged myself, clinging to the reality of this new body I had now.
When that failed, I tried to focus on my parents, on the fact that they were alive and well. It didn’t really work either, so instead, I thought about Sariel, Azazel, and Yeqon. I thought about the moments we’d spent together, good and bad. And I realized that they weren’t nearly as transient as I’d tried to pretend.