by Nana Malone
“What if I accidentally zap you while we’re … um?” Azrael had been okay until this moment. The Regent had reassured him it would be fine. But Azrael didn’t feel reassured.
“Then I’ll cling to my body like I did the last time you tried to jolt me,” Elisabeth ran her hands down his chest. “In case you forget, I don’t die easily.”
“No, you don’t.” Elisabeth's ability to resist void-matter was on par with the General’s.
“You won’t be repulsed if I … um … devolve?” Egad! That would be awful! Although his current form was pleasing to behold, he didn’t think she’d find it quite so wonderful if she found herself in the embrace of a gigantic black-tentacled … thing.
“I cared for you when you were injured, remember? I’ve seen all of your forms. It's what’s inside that matters.”
He kneeled above where she lay supine, her body curved into a pleasing ‘C’ shape as she propped herself up with her elbows behind her. Wings flared, he noted the gentle rock of the houseboat beneath them. The malleable form of this entire water world … water bed … water house … felt as though this realm existed as a halfway point between his formless existence and her solid one.
Her hand slid down from his cheek, down his neck to his bare shoulder, his flesh naked beneath her fingertips. He shuddered with pleasure as her hand slid further down his bicep. She raised his hand to her lips, kissed his knuckles, and then placed it upon one soft, firm breast hidden beneath her dress. The room vibrated with a pleasant shudder. Just for a moment, the Song of Creation and Song of Destruction came together in rare harmony.
Oh! That had never happened before! He could see by the surprised gleam in her silver eyes that she had sensed the shift as well. Her lips curved up in a smile, softening the scar which marred her otherwise perfect face, that beautiful scar which had brought them together again. He kissed it, his lips trailing from her temple to her lips, relishing the sensation of the pink imperfection sliding beneath his mouth.
“Make love to me, Azrael,” Elisabeth's eyes were platinum with desire.
For thousands of years, Azrael had kept an iron grip on his emotions, afraid to feel any great depth lest he let things get out of control and destroy. But now the emotion which warmed his chest and spread throughout his physical form was different from the emotion he’d previously suppressed. Anxiety. Excitement. Terror. Love. His hunger still demanded to be fed, but it felt more like the hunger one would feel gazing upon a hot fudge sundae than the emptiness of a starving beast. Ice cream? He dissipated her dress, exposing two perfect mounds of vanilla deliciousness with erect cherries taunting him to take a taste of the forbidden fruit.
Her groan of pleasure as his lips closed around one pert nipple and suckled it incited a pleasant reaction within his own body. Never had it occurred to him to manifest an erection until the day she’d led him into their tiny cottage and taught him how to spoon against her back. Not for the first time, he wondered how he’d known to recreate the body part now straining against the illusion of pants long before he’d crossed paths with her again this lifetime. A growl of pleasure escaped his lips, causing a low vibration not unlike a cello warming up before a performance. Two songs, anxious to harmonize as a single orchestral piece.
“This whole planet is going to know what we’re up to,” Elisabeth giggled. She nipped his lower lip, the flesh there finally substantial enough to feel pain. He closed his eyes and relished the sensation. Pain … and pleasure. Actual physical pain and pleasure. Not just all in his head. It was the most heady sensation he’d felt in a very long time.
“Emperor Shay’tan rented out the entire hotel for us as a wedding present,” Azrael said. “Including the rooms submerged beneath us. He uh … thought … um … he said the whole galaxy knew he’d won his bet the last time an Agent of Ki merged with a mortal.”
Elisabeth slipped her hand to touch his insubstantial black wings. Her hand passed through the nothingness of his feathers, each caress depositing memories of DNA and encouraging it to grow.
“I wish I could remember our time before,” Elisabeth frowned. Her puckered scar made her look sad.
“We were both still children,” Azrael kissed the lonely pucker and trailed his kisses to whisper in her ear. “I can most definitely tell you we were not doing this!”
To derail her melancholy, he blew bubbles upon her neck. Her shriek of laughter bubbled within his own heart, causing joy.
“Then I suppose we didn’t do … this … either.” Elisabeth caressed his manhood. “Did we?” She giggled as his wings flapped of their own volition, hitting the lofty ceiling of the room and causing the chandelier to jingle like wedding bells.
“Definitely not,” Azrael gave an earthy growl.
“Then let nothing come between us again?” Tears welled in her beautiful, silver eyes which were becoming more and more luminous each day they spent together, nestled in the safety of each other's arms. The eyes of a pre-ascended creature. She needed him to help her heal as much as he needed her. Without the other, they were both incomplete.
The Regent had pulled them aside and tutored them about what must happen next. Cross-species bondings were risky for Seraphim descendants, but Azrael didn’t think Elisabeth would have carried his DNA forward in time if she hadn’t wanted to be with him. It was with great solemnity that he touched her slender lace G-string.
Elisabeth nodded, his own vulnerability mirrored in her silver eyes. She chewed her lower lip as he dissipated the remainder of his own shaped clothing and then slid her slender panties down her hips, leaving them both naked before one another. His eyes were drawn not to her feminine mysteries, but to the scars which ran down her damaged leg. He had never seen her completely naked before, so he had never noticed the scars looked as though a shark had taken bites out of her leg and hip
“We breathe,” Elisabeth's voice trembled as she began to recite the Seraphim lifemate vow. “As one breath.”
“Our hearts beat,” Azrael's bottomless black eyes held her silver-eyed gaze, “as one heart.”
“Our souls merge together,” they spoke together, “as a single soul. So that come what may, not even death shall keep us apart.”
The air grew thick with expectation; as though the gods themselves were listening to them make their commitment. Although words were not necessary to bond, the intent focused their energy.
“Just breathe,” Azrael whispered as his mouth descended upon hers, no longer anxious or unsure as every ounce of his being focused upon making his beautiful Elisabeth his for all eternity. “All we have to do is breathe.”
Elisabeth slid her hands around his back as she guided him into position to complete the mating act. It wasn’t sex which caused the bond, but the deliberate intertwining of their life energy into a single soul. The act of procreation had been beautifully engineered to facilitate this bonding by necessitating the physical joining of two bodies.
Azrael’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, his breathing rapid even though he no longer needed to breathe. The head of his manhood brushed against her silky curls and grew more substantial. The instinct to bond tutored his body what it needed to do. Errant strands of DNA rushed to his manhood to not only make it more erect, but also more real.
Elisabeth's pupils dilated until her eyes were nearly as black as his. She wriggled her hips to relish the feel of his very solid manhood brushing against the entrance to her feminine mysteries.
“Does this make me the Blue Fairy?” she grinned.
With a groan, Azrael sank into the place some ancient god had engineered so they would fit together. He froze, nearly overwhelmed with the sensation of her body closing around a part of his anatomy that was so … intimate. She nestled against his torso and waited for him to adjust to the sensory overload before allowing herself to succumb to the urge to rise up to meet him; to ride towards the ecstasy both could taste just on the other side of the next delicious push into each other's flesh.
A sense of urgency
came upon him, urgency to complete the act which would bind her to him forever. He exhaled and slowly slid his manhood from the warm sheath of her flesh, trembling with the loss of no longer being fully inside of her.
“Are you okay?"
Azrael nodded, afraid to speak lest the power in his voice dissolve the walls of the room and leave their activities exposed to the outside world. Her eyes. He focused on the flecks of light dancing deep within her beautiful silver eyes which had been the first thing which had captivated his interest both lifetimes that he had known her.
“Breathe,” Elisabeth repeated. “All you have to do is breathe.”
His wings stretched the full width of the room. Electricity surged through them. They flapped of their own volition, trying to shake off the painfully pleasant tingling one might feel when one’s foot fell asleep and then woke up again. Alive. Elisabeth made him feel alive.
With a laugh of pure joy, he slid into his beautiful Elisabeth a second time, relishing the tingling which spread throughout his body as he felt not just her body, but her consciousness rise up to stroke his, testing for the places they could join together and merge as a single soul, just as their physical bodies stroked and tested for places they could join together in the act of becoming man and wife. He knew it was her mortality he felt tingling through his flesh right now, not his own, but it felt good. It felt like…
“Grá mo shaol [love of my life],” Azrael laughed aloud, wanting to shout his joy to the world, “you make me feel alive!”
Elisabeth wrapped her legs around his thighs, limiting his ability to withdraw, and pulled his head down for a kiss. In all the movies Azrael had ever seen, one's first mating was supposed to be apprehensive, or heady, or filled with panting and groaning, but all he wanted to do was shout for joy how much he loved this woman who had travelled across two lifetimes to be with him.
"Alive!" he pushed into her again, trembling like a stallion at the starting gate of a racetrack. "I feel so alive!"
“You’re funny,” Elisabeth laughed. This was not the way romantic encounters were supposed to go, and she seemed as giddy as he was. In fact, he could feel each passion-filled giggle as he pushed into her a fourth and fifth time, her laughter reverberating throughout his wings and out into the larger room, amplifying the sound, the vibration, the … joy!
Tendrils of consciousness, darkness and light, stroked, tasted, touched, and found its counterpart on each other's body, testing for which tendril wished to be joined with which, a sensation not unlike being licked by the rough tongue of a cat. Breathe. All he had to do was breathe.
He captured her mouth and relished the feel of each exhaled breath she made into his lungs, passing the same breath back and forth many times until they both came up for oxygen, laughing at the pleasant burning. Air! He needed air when they made love and it felt very, very good!
The tension which had been building began to spread, causing the texture of their lovemaking to change. Friends. Twin-sparks. Lovers. Mates. His wings gave up holding their shape and transformed into thousands of microvilli like the long, slender tailfeathers of an emu. For as long as he had known her, Elisabeth’s life-energy had been invisible, hunkered down within her body as though she wished to hide her essence. Safe in the shelter of his arms, she unveiled what she had kept so carefully hidden. Each dark tendril wrapped around the slender tendril it had chosen of her consciousness and coaxed her non-corporeal form to open like the petals of a flower. Memory of a similar, much larger form he had once seen comprised of the exact same light leaped into his mind.
Primordial light in its nascent, still vulnerable form. The exact opposite of what he was, only she was the same size as him because she’d been damaged from being fed upon and nearly destroyed by Moloch. He knew now what she was, his Elisabeth, and why Ki had chosen him to guard her.
“Mo bandia, mo ghrá [my love],” he whispered with awe as he realized what she, herself did not yet remember, a mercy bestowed upon her by her bigger sister. “I will protect you with my very existence.”
Nails dug into his back, causing a sweet blend of pain and pleasure as she rose up to meet him with more urgency, greedy, hungry, her breathing a frantic pant. The hunger which had been building in his own loins grew more insistent, clamoring for him to stop thinking so darned much and just finish what he had started. Tendrils of consciousness bound themselves together, every ounce of their being yearning to be joined as one. Breathe! Their breathing synchronized as they pulled each other closer, the urge to become one so overpowering the flesh which kept their bodies apart began to merge as their heartbeats synchronized into a single beat.
“Azrael,” she arched her back and drove her hips upwards as she shuddered in anticipation of the precipice both could feel themselves perched upon, ready to fall.
“Say it,” Azrael cried out, wishing to hear her say the words. He touched her cheeks as they prepared to fall over the edge together, to look into her beautiful, silver eyes which glowed with the light of what she really was as she spoke their commitment aloud.
Elisabeth opened her mouth to speak, but instead of words, the rays of light that were her true form radiated out into the room, causing it to shift dimensions as she cried out in ecstasy. Elisabeth had her own song to sing, not merely the echo of her mother's song. Rays of light intertwined with his primordial darkness, illuminating it, giving shape to the fertile silt that was his void matter, dragging him over the precipice along with her.
Azrael’s back arched, his formless wings flapping of their own volition as the bass-string of a cello joined her flute. His heart exploded with joy as his physical seed spilled into her mortal shell. His. She was his. Forever. He could feel rays of light wrap around his heart even as his own, dark tentacles stroked and kissed hers. The bonds wrapped around one another and solidified into a single tree reaching between their hearts into the upper realms towards eternity. She was his. For all eternity.
“I love you more than life itself,” Elisabeth whispered, her mortal vow blending with her immortal light and song. “And I shall never be parted from you. Ever. Again.”
He realized he was crying.
“I love you more than my own existence, mo ghrá,” Azrael wept. “And not even Moloch himself will keep me from you.”
They floated there in that place that felt as though they were cradled in the branches of a great tree beneath the stars, carried along in the joyous song that was a blending of their own, unique song, and the much stronger Song of Creation. Every touch, every caress, every kiss, every warm thought increased that beautiful duet where his song and hers came together into a single melody. The Song of Creation and Destruction reunited as one. Her hand brushed across his cheek, her expression tender.
“Your tears,” Elisabeth said. “They’re clear.”
She held the glistening drops in front of his eyes. Clear. Like dew clinging to a blade of grass on a summer morning. Not black, creating destruction wherever they fell. Simple water.
“I guess that makes me a real boy now?”
They floated in the Song of Creation as they nestled into each other’s arms. He saw the places her consciousness had been fed upon, where physical scars mirrored spiritual scars, the places her light was dim, where Ki had pieced together what little she could find and nurtured her back to sentience just as she had nurtured him, many pieces missing where Moloch had dined upon her light and failed to completely destroy her. She rested her head upon his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and sighed. Content. It made him happy to see her so content.
After a time basking in the Song, he could sense Ki nudge them back towards the material realms. Elisabeth instinctively pulled her consciousness back into the mortal shell she had grown to hide it, to avoid broadcasting what she was for Moloch’s agents to find. Remaining hidden would make it easier for him to protect her.
“Are we being cast down?” Elisabeth asked. The energy grew heavy as they were guided back to their own dimension. Lungs demande
d air, muscles resisted gravity. It felt as though just for a time they’d dropped a heavy weight then picked it back up again.
“No, gcroílár m'anam [heart of my soul]," Azrael said. "We have work to do. That’s all.”
He didn’t add that he knew, what, exactly, that mission entailed. Until his beautiful mate had healed enough to deal with whatever traumatic memories had caused her such horrific damage, he would not enlighten her that she was the first of many siblings now roaming the Earth, all clueless they'd been sent back to Earth to destroy their father.
Nestled together in their wedding bower, Azrael covered her with one ebony wing instead of a blanket. They whispered their hopes and dreams to one another until the wee hours of the morning, when at last sleep overtook them. They had a long road ahead of them, but together, Azrael knew they could conquer anything.
Even her father...
* * * * *
Epilogue
O Lord of lords, so fierce of form,
Please tell me who You are.
I offer my obeisances unto You;
Please be gracious to me.
I do not know what Your mission is,
And I desire to hear of it.
Bhagavad Gita 11:31
April, 2004
Fallujah, Iraq
Azrael stared across the scarred village, debris littering the cobblestones of what had once been a lively, vibrant marketplace. No merchants hawked their wares now. All had fled in the wake of the vicious Al Qaida insurgents targeting any who did not buy into their rabid agenda, their hatred fueled by whichever Agent had moved up in rank to take Saddam Hussein's place. It saddened him to see the once-proud Babylonian Empire reduced to rubble. Would Muhammad be horrified to see that suicide bombers now worshipped Moloch in his name?