Where most Angels were about love and peace, Isaiah and his brothers doled out punishments and judgments. They were determined and lethal. Isaiah and his brothers were not the ones people looked to for guidance or comfort; they were anything and everything but courteous and loving. For the most part, they were detached warriors, showing nothing toward others. Their true companions’ dead, there was no reason to love any other. They shared a deep-seated devotion they showed one another, but that was before today, before last night, before Dalila.
Squeezing her closer to his body, Isaiah took a moment longer to hold her. Her skin felt smoother than silk spun from the rarest of silkworms. Amazed by her, he’d seen many people on Earth in their individual skins and sizes, but Dalila was entirely new to him. As if there was the slightest hint of gold to her tone. Literally, he thought there were specs of gold embedded in her, not too dark, not too light, perfection at its finest. If he was in a coffee shop, and she was on the menu, she’d be Sexpresso with the lightest helping of cream. Her own distinctive smell wasn’t too loud or overpowering. The aroma of anise and vanilla: warm and alluring. Natural.
Dalila began to stir in his arms. Realizing his brothers would return, Isaiah unfolded her from his tight embrace. He wanted to hold her longer, tighter. “Dalila, we need to leave, the farmhouse isn’t safe anymore. Grey and Raz will be here soon to collect us. They have secured other lodgings.” She mumbled something into his pillow, and Isaiah let out a laugh. He hadn’t laughed in a very long time. “No, you’re not dreaming, this is truly real, and unless you’d rather stay here in the farmhouse, I suggest you get up so we can get moving.” He’d slowly lifted her from her deep sleep.
Dalila sprang up and tried to clear her eyes. Isaiah looked over at her, pulled her into his arms, kissing the top of her head. Why was he being affectionate with her? Better still, why was it impressed into his mind? As he held her in his arms, Dalila stiffened and stayed very still. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she mumbled into his chest. She hadn’t pulled away, that must mean she was comfortable there. It’s where she belongs.
She used her arms to push away from him. The blisters on her face looked almost healed from earlier, which was strange but not odd, some mortals had good platelets and did the work faster than most.
“I am simply trying to be rational. I need to get you to a safe place. Allow me to do what is necessary to protect your life,” Isaiah reasoned.
“Then why hug me and kiss the top of my head? Huh?” she questioned.
“You were frightened; I only meant to soothe you, and as you can see you were calmed by it.” Because you belong in my arms. “It worked. End of story, don’t read it any other way,” Isaiah protested.
“And in the car, when you kissed me, saying you wanted my gum, what was that?” The woman was infuriating. Always calling him out on his shit.
“We’ve already discussed it, leave it in the past.” Isaiah rolled away so that he could get out of the bed and not answer any more of her questions.
“What about this?” She stretched out her hands to show how they were lying side by side on the bed. She wasn’t going to stop asking questions now that she started. She was mouthy like that. Isaiah groaned and walked from the bed, adjusted his feathers, and hid them from view again.
“I don’t have time to sit here and go over my reasons for doing what I do. Accept it or not. You are under my protection now, so if I feel like hugging you, I will. If I want to touch you, I will. If I feel the need to taste your gum, I fucking will!” he roared. “And if you don’t shut the hell up, and stop questioning me, I will fuck you into oblivion. The kind of raw carnal power that I can and will use on your mortal body will more than exhaust you. It may very well kill you. If you don’t stop talking with that mouth, I will make you use it in ways you’ve never dreamed of. And when you’re fully sated and exhausted, I will fuck you some more. You won’t be able to walk, talk, or eat for that matter. A thing like that will end you. Period.”
Isaiah burst from the room, just as Raz and Grey walked toward him. He didn’t look back, because if he did, he’d do exactly what he said he would and then some. The last thing he heard, as he stepped out into the evening air, was Raz telling Dalila it was time to go. She hadn’t said a word. Good. Now she would stop asking questions he had no real answers for.
Ω Ω Ω
Dalila had never been fucked into oblivion; hell, she hadn’t ever been fucked, let alone made love to. Every time she would try and engage in the act of sex, something strange would happen. She saw it as a sign that no matter who she was with, she was supposed to wait. For what, she had no clue, but hearing the words thrown at her from Isaiah’s mouth had an interesting effect on her body. She didn’t know if that was something she should fear or get extremely excited about. The feeling in her stomach screamed excitement. Sinful, carnal, decadent, all those words did funny things to her stomach. It had her clawing the sides of her pants, because as he spoke, she’d wanted to launch herself into his arms and beg him to do all those things and more. There was no doubt in her mind that he could. The ultimate death. To die after being so thoroughly sated the body could no longer perform its normal duties? Well, that was something she would have liked to experience repeatedly at the hands of Isaiah. He made her angry, but he also made her want things she’d only ever dreamt about. Something deep inside her soul ached to be recognized by him as equal in all things. It was as if her body wanted to be permanently joined to his. Her heart beat erratically in her chest as Raz and Grey came to collect her. They wouldn’t touch her, and Raz wouldn’t even look at her, just said that they were leaving and heading to another location. Isaiah was out in the front of the house and there was no car for transport. How the hell were they getting to the next destination?
Her brain registered how, right when Isaiah and his brothers’ wings appeared and unfolded. Dalila stood frozen in awe. They were all beautiful, dangerously beautiful, like fallen Angels come to take her to a place that claimed to be Heaven, but she knew when she arrived it would be Hell. Isaiah didn’t even look at her as he held out his hand. She didn’t want to upset him further, so she quietly walked into his embrace. Her entire body shivered, not from the cold, but from the feeling of being ensnared in his web. He was the spider and she was the fly. Isaiah bent down and spoke directly into her ear. “Grab hold of my neck,” he whispered. His breath was just as ragged as hers, and she could feel the pounding of his heart as he brought her closer, their bodies aligned together perfectly.
“Whenever you’re done mind-fucking the mortal we can leave,” Raz taunted.
Mind-fucked indeed. This was exactly what it was. There was a slow rumble that vibrated through her skin, and Dalila realized that Isaiah was growling, almost like a purr, but it was a definite growl. She looked up and caught his eyes, liquid silver again, like the night in the park. His nostrils flared, and Dalila crossed her arms around his neck and whispered into his chest.
“I’m ready when you are.” She felt him take a gulp of air and then he shot into the sky. It was smoother than a plane took off, and quieter. There was a slight displacement of air, and then they were airborne. The feeling was amazing, and Dalila tried to look around, but Isaiah pressed her head closer to his chest. She didn’t argue, she relaxed and let him do all the work.
She could hear the flapping of his wings, strong and sure. It sounded almost like a low thrum, a thump and then whoosh as he cut air. As he sailed higher, the atmosphere seemed to change. She thought it would get colder, not hotter. She tried to peek again, and again Isaiah held her to his chest, blocking her view. She wanted to see. His breathing was harsher as they soared, and it seemed the air itself was getting warmer not colder. Where the hell were they taking her? Dalila began to panic as the air became stifling. Isaiah’s hold got tighter and tighter, until soon she felt as if she’d pass out due to suffocation. She barely heard him whisper, “I’m sorry, Dalila, there was no other way.” Then the screaming began. Lou
d anguished wails, high-pitched screams, multiple pleas asking to be saved, asking to stop the burning. Something grabbed her foot as Isaiah flew, and she let out a bellow of a scream herself. She was in Hell. There was no other way to explain what was happening to her. They’d taken her to Hell.
Chapter Five
Grey and Raz flew on his right and left flanks. He hated having to take her through the first hour, but it was the only way for them to get to their destination without being tracked. The first Gate, or what the Egyptians called He Whose Name is Hidden, was protected by his own mother’s serpent. The Guardian of the Desert was known to let the souls of the dead, who resided in the mountains of the west, roam about in a chaotic mess. One had tried grabbing hold of Dalila’s foot. They’d never done that before in passing. Isaiah kept a tight hold on her as they took the first hour to their new destination. Everything in the first hour seemed bathed in agony. There were twelve hellish hours in all. Mortals would refer to them as a book, but in fact The Book of Gates wasn’t a book, but Gates that separated the hours of the night. Once thought to be a book that contained writings, spells, and incantations collected over the millennium. It was a tale to keep the archaeologist and explorers at bay. The Gates themselves divided the twelve hours of the night and separated the enemies the sun god himself would encounter. Another thought was of Re’s journey through the twelve hours of night, where he battled each enemy held captive at each Gate. It was believed the only way the sun god could rise each morning was if he faced each Gate and triumphed over each obstacle. Once that was complete, Re, or the sun, would rise again in a joyous rebirth. They had it all wrong of course; the Gates did have serpents at each entrance, but Re never had to fight each hour, nor did he have to rise for the sun to come out. Humans always had the myths wrong. If they knew the real use and reason for the Gates, pandemonium would not only ensue, but their world would crumble to pieces amidst the chaos the knowledge would create.
The tortured screams of the souls echoed as they vied for attention, wanting to be released, and continued to grab at one another. Here they had it easy. Here there was no real torture, just a constant darkness of sorts. These souls would perish if they ever felt the rays of light. Nothing but blackness and the cries of the dead lived here, inside the mountain. There wasn’t as much as a shadow cast on its walls when the crystals dimmed. The mountain swallowed all the light that would have tried to seep in, its outer shell bathed by the dim lights of the crystals. They twinkled like stars, filled with huge diamonds and geodes. Dalila thought they were flying heavenward at first, but they were flying through the first Gate, the first hour. Humans couldn’t see it but their shadows could. Constantly trying to keep up with the person it was attached to, a mortal could learn a lot from their shadows, if they just paid attention to their surroundings.
The goosebumps a person felt was the shadow’s way of issuing warning. When you walked into the shade and the air seemed cooler, it was there a mortal’s shadow feared the darkness most of all. There the soul was at its most vulnerable, as the shadow is attached to the soul. Take the shadow. Take the soul. There were soul Demons about, but only in the deepest darkest of hours. The souleaters were fierce during the first cleansing. Lives ended instantly, without thought; if a soul eater so much as touched your shadow, the soul was taken, and the mortal left a shell. A human mortal could be walking in the sun, and then out of nowhere, their emotions dropped dead without warning. They still walked, still talked, even carried on their day-to-day routine, but they’d be nothing more than an empty shell of a person. Their inner light was quenched and then they were filled with darkness. In those times, mortals knew what was coming for them and took great precautions to not get tangled in the path of a soul eater. The humans of the past valued their souls; rarely would you catch a man or woman that would want to barter theirs away for anything. Now humans flocked to do just that, for things that could not carry with them once they were reaccumulated. If they only knew how empty their lives would be and what really happened if they bartered their souls away.
Dalila gasped when she felt the darkness of lost souls once again try and grab her. She couldn’t see in the dark this deep into the gate, they were further now from the crystals and geodes.
“Just close your eyes, Dalila, and keep your noise to yourself. For some reason they want you.” Isaiah looked to his brothers for confirmation of what he’d just said, and they both nodded in agreement and kept moving.
Ω Ω Ω
Things were fucking trying to grab her. More importantly, things were trying to soak themselves into her skin. Almost like an imprint. She could feel them, and she could see them. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to see them, but she did. Black sludge was what those things reminded her of, and there were some with teeth and nails. She could have sworn they’d taken flight in an ascent, but for some reason this place felt as if it was beneath the ground, an abyss. When she first thought they’d been flying up toward the sky, she’d seen the stars with such clarity. It was as if they’d pierced through Earth’s atmosphere, where the air was cleaner and the skies clearer. The huge geodes and crystals, which she’d thought had been stars, shone with such clarity and brilliance, she almost hadn’t noticed that as they drew further and further away; they were in fact heading downward in a decent. She’d held her breath most of the way, trying to fathom just where in the hell they were taking her. Somewhere safe they had said. Somewhere they could not be easily tracked. As they continued to fall, the sounds that started out as faint whispers began to grow in a crescendo of agonized wails. She’d wanted to ask where they were taking her, but her words were swallowed in a soundless scream. There were things beneath her, oceans and oceans of black oily things. That was the only way she could describe it. It was as if Isaiah and his brothers were flying below some sort of radar, skimming just above the surface of what looked like an ocean of bodies. Dalila could make out heads and arms, and sockets where eyes should be. She could see their mouths open and close as they wailed.
Then one had reached for her and grabbed her by her ankle. Her foot felt almost dead to her, as if the thing was trying to drain her while attaching itself to her. Parasite! her mind screamed. She’d tried crawling up Isaiah, but he held her firm, telling her to close her eyes and stay quiet. She’d stay quiet, but she wasn’t missing a minute of this horrible sight. It would be burned into her memory forever, but something told her to keep her eyes open. There was more to come.
Ω Ω Ω
“I can see the guardian up ahead,” Grey announced. Isaiah could see the guardian too: Guardian of the Desert, he was more like the Guardian of Lost Souls, but titles were everything to some people and meant nothing to others.
“Apophis, we seek passage through the first hour, will you cede?” Isaiah asked, Grey rolled his eyes and Raz stifled a laugh. It was morose to have to say the same damn thing over and over, year after year to the arrogant ass, but he was The Chaos Serpent. Standing at almost seven feet, Apophis was a force to be reckoned with. His bald head, covered in ancient glyphs, somehow glowed from within. Arms crossed, feet shoulder width apart, Apophis stood there on his ledge brooding. It wasn’t Isaiah’s fault that he got the job of guarding the lost souls. He hadn’t slept with countless mortals and demi-gods, stringing the earth with children that, from birth, were mad. Every woman he ever fathered a child with was ripped apart from the inside out; there was nothing to be done about it. It was said that he was forever cursed due to the one child he fathered and left behind for dead. The bastard knew of his curse and fathered children, regardless of the consequence. This was his punishment for eternity: guard the first hour.
“Suck my cock and I just might let you through this time, you slimy bastard.” Apophis then noticed the carry-on that Isaiah was toting. Dalila. His nostrils flared, and his eyes glowed an eerie shade of yellow. “Better yet, leave her here and you and your brothers may pass.” Isaiah tightened his hold on Dalila. She looked up into the face of Apophis and Is
aiah almost cringed. He knew what she would see as a human: a beautiful face, a body that was built for pleasure. All women saw this when looking into the dark prince’s eyes.
“I’d rather be dropped in the ocean with the pit of black parasites, than stay here with you.” Apophis threw back his bald head and laughed, the sound echoing off the walls of the mountain. “I like her, Isaiah, she’s got…” he thought for a moment and then seemed to smile wider, “She’s got sass. I like a woman with sass.” Apophis reached out and gently took one of Dalila’s curls between his fingers and pulled it straight to watch it spring back in place again. Neither he nor his brothers moved. The one thing about traveling through the Gates, where they were rendered powerless was that they were able to pass through as long as each guardian gave them free passage. It didn’t matter that they were Seraphim; in this dimension they were only allowed use of their wings, nothing more. Dalila stiffened, and her skin seemed to harden. Apophis pulled his hand back and cleared his throat.
“I’ll fight you for her.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dalila squeaked.
“You know that wouldn’t be a fair fight,” Raz spoke up, taking a step toward Apophis. “We’re powerless here and you know it.” Grey put forth a hand toward Raz to calm him and Isaiah took a step back, taking Dalila with him.
“Fuck off, Apophis, and let us pass.”
“I fuck off too much as it is now, and you have what I want, right there.” He pointed toward Dalila and let his serpent-like tongue snake out of his mouth, the end forked with a black line down the center.
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