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A Certain Amount of Connecting by Sigyn
 
Fallen
 
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    “That was fun,” Buffy said, grinning. “That was like... way fun.”

    Spike reached out and caressed her hair. “‘M glad of that, pet.”

    Buffy picked up the cane and twirled it like a stake. “Think you could take any more?”

    “Within reason. Why should I?”

    “Um.” Buffy thought. “Because you’re a wicked serial killer, and I have to interrogate you to find the bodies.”

    “Um, no,” Spike said.

    Buffy rolled her eyes. “Aw. Why not?”

    “No police, love.”

    “Why?”

    Spike only looked at her pointedly. Oh. Right. Robot was too close to home, and so would the police be. He’d only recently gotten over those bruises from that night behind the police station....

    “Okay, no police. Um... enemy spy?” she tried.

    “I play a good Nazi,” Spike grinned.

    “Eh, wait, no. Too much Captain America commando crap.”

    “Good point. Though how’s your bad Russian accent? If you can do a decent Natasha...”

    “Do you really think you should be trying to play the good guy in this scenario?”

    Spike chuckled. “Probably not. Witch trial?”

    “More equipment?” Buffy asked.

    “They tried men, too, I heard. Don’t know a thing about it, personally.”

    “But you’re not a witch, you’re a demon. Ooh, how about a devil?”

    “Betraying the host of heaven?” Spike asked. “I could get down with that.”

    “Good,” Buffy said. She pulled back out the chains. “Then down on your knees, devil man.”
    

***

    The demon knelt at the altar of heaven, his head bowed in supplication. He was stripped naked, chained hand and foot, the flickering fires of the heavenly host glittering around him. Before him, the speaker of the angels gazed down upon him in judgement. She wore black, a full black – ah, robe – but wore nothing beneath, so her feet shone out beneath the black leather, innocent as children. Her hair was her halo, golden and glowing in heaven’s candlelight.

    And she was going to make him pay. The rod of punishment rested easily in her hand, and the thought of the coming retribution for the fallen angel’s sins... yes. This was going to be immensely satisfying.

    “You,” she intoned in voice sharp with disgust.

    “Me.” The demon looked up, yellow eyes glinting, monstrous features plain to see. There was no artifice. He was a follower of evil, and there was no mistaking his wickedness.

    “You, demon, have betrayed your maker. You have become a follower of Lucifer and turned against the host of heaven.”

    He grinned, showing off rows of sharply fanged teeth. “That I have, pretty angel. That I have. And had a damned good time doing it, too.”

    The speaker grabbed the chains and yanked the demon roughly. “You mock this trial?”

    “Is that what this is?” he asked. “A trial?”

    “Trial. Retribution,” the speaker said. “Before the entire heavenly host, your betrayal will be revealed.”

    “And when it is?” he asked. “When that happens, what? Will I be properly cast down? Or hasn’t that already happened?”

    “You will be used in the way all evildoers must,” the speaker said, “to bow before the host of heaven and swallow the fruits of your transgressions.”

    “Swallow, huh?” he asked. He grinned, through fangs as sharp as his tongue. He slid his chained hand up beneath the black robe and touched the warm legs of the speaker of heaven. “How do the fruits of my transgressions taste? I’m betting sex and grapefruit, with the salt of the mother ocean...”

    “Shut up,” the speaker snapped, and threw him back to the ground.

    He chuckled and climbed back to his knees. “Am I meant to give it all up, then?” the demon asked. “Is that it? ‘Cause penitence ain’t my scene, love. I’m more of the unrepentant and remorseless school.”

    She hit him across the shoulders for that, and he grunted, but actually bent his back up toward the rod of heaven, arching his spine. He shrugged his shoulders sensuously and smiled through his fangs. “You enjoy that, don’t you, my angel,” he said. “Beating the bad out of the demon.”

    “I have no hope of that,” she said, her voice cold. “You’re too corrupt. I don’t ever expect you to be one of our host again.”

    “Too right,” he scoffed. “Bunch of stodgy toe-rags toadying up to the powers that be? I’d rather reign in hell, love. And you know it, too. That’s why you’ve chained me down.” He rattled his chains, and couldn’t help but notice her smile as he drew her attention to them. Yes, she liked those, too. She liked the rod and the chain and the role of the justice. She liked to be the one in control.

    “You cannot be trusted unbound within these hallowed halls,” the angel said, pacing before him. “These... these pearly gates contain the highest and purest angels of heaven. And you are nothing but a demon in the thrall of the devil. And I am going to see to it you pay for every transgression.” She stopped before him and glared down in judgement. “Confess. Your. Sins.”

    “Why?”

    She smirked. “So long as you are honest before the host of heaven, you might not have to endure... the full extent of our wrath.” She slapped the cane into her hand, and the demon allowed himself to wince.

    But not to back down. “I’d rather lie,” he said. “And cheat, and steal, and kill. And you know it, too, or I wouldn’t even be here before you.” He raised a thick eyebrow, and his yellow demon eyes flashed their evil. “That’s why I’m here, innit? You don’t want some pitiful no-account naughty. You want the big bad, chock full of all that evil your pretty angels won’t let themselves feel. You want to indulge in your hatred, let the dark hide in the coat of righteousness. If I wasn’t a filthy pile of dirt, you wouldn’t even want me here before your throne of angels.”

    “Silence!” She slapped the cane down across his shoulders again, and the demon flinched. “You corrupt our court with your insolence.”

    “You love my insolence,” he said, expecting her to hit him again. But she didn’t. He took in a deep breath. “You’d rather that than my silence. You want I give you a pretty show of evil for your audience out there.” He nodded out his chin to indicate the... unseen heavenly host that had to surround them.

    “Your evil is self-evident, it is your repentance I demand!”

    “You can demand all you like, you daft bint,” the demon snapped. “I know my rights!”

    She struck him, thwack, thwack, thwack! “You have no rights.”

    “Bitch,” he muttered.

    “And do not address me so uncouthly!” she demanded. “Call me by my title.”

    “Which is?”

    “Um... uh... the bright... um... splendid....” She paused, lost for a moment.

    “Effulgence?” he said suddenly.

    There was a moment as she gazed at him, startled. His eyes, despite their yellow glare, seemed almost soft.

    “Forgive this lowly demon, Effulgence,” he said evenly. “I should respect the dignity of this host.”

    She tilted back her head and looked down at him with her shoulders straight and head held high. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you should. I’m not some petty cherub or seraphim. I’m... I’m a higher angel than that. An... an archangel, and... and I can whip you to within an inch of your life, you pathetic little imp.”

    The demon broke into a laugh, his fangs gleaming. “Right. Too right. Didn’t mean to denigrate the proceedings.”

    “Well, good,” the archangel said.

    “What, exactly, are the proceedings?” the demon asked. “Apart from giving you the excuse to thrash me proper with that pretty stick.”

    “Shut up!” the archangel said, thrashing him once properly with the pretty stick. “We are here to determine how you fell.”

    “Oh, is that all?”

    She struck him once for his insolence, and he made himself stop laughing, though it was pretty funny. “Well, it was a dozy devil, wa’n it?” the demon said. “Lucifer’s pitch to the tatty wankers who were sick of you blighters and your holier-than-thou.”

    “That’s all you have to say?” the archangel asked. “The devil made me do it?”

    “Well, what else is there? Here, Lucy says, why don’t you come following me, and I’ll take you out of this dumb cloud of bleeding-heart nancy-boys, and lead you down to the warm pretties of hellfire. Seductive little tart.”

    “You’re saying Lucifer’s a woman?”

    “I’m saying it don’t matter,” the demon said. “Evil is Evil. There’s no body to it, but it’s all about the seduction.”

    She arched her neck and stared at him. “And Evil itself seduced you?”

    He looked back up at her through hooded demonic eyes. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Got right up into my face, left her sweet breath prickling at my skin, until I was lost in her. I drowned in the evil, she swam into my blood, surged through my body and down into my loins. Folded me into her warm embrace and dragged me down with her.” He smiled at the effect his words had had. The archangel was sweating. One pale hand was sliding down her long throat, and her breath caught as he caressed the words.

    “Couldn’t help it,” he said, his voice like fingernails scratching seductively down her flesh. “I may have been an angel, but she was all I really wanted. She was everything. I’d been watching her for what felt like a lifetime, and I knew. I knew it had to happen. Been leading up to it, closer and ever closer every night until there was no more chance of missing it. And then she took me... and I took her. Her arms went about me... and I fell into her kiss... let her slide over my body... work her way into my blood. And I opened my eyes, and there was nothing left in me but the evil itself.” He chuckled as he saw her hand tremble around the rod. “Sweetest night ever.”

    She hit him for that, the hand with the cane sliding up and down faster than his eye could follow. He grunted with the pain of it. “Evil isn’t sweet,” she said with her teeth clenched.

    His voice was a purr. “She is to me.”

    She hit him again.

    He cried out, but he looked back up. “And I’m gonna stand by her.”

    Thwack.

    “No matter what you do to me.”

    Thwack! Thwack!

    “Is that all the host of heaven has at her disposal?” he demanded with an evil smile. “A sharp cane and a heavy chain?”

    “What else is she meant to have?” the archangel asked. “Some alternative?”

    “Well... thought you were heaven. Aren’t you s’posed to try and redeem me?”

    The archangel grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back. He hissed with the pain of it. She was very strong. “You’re past redemption,” she spat in his face.

    “Yeah... I knew that,” he said, still with the seductive tilt to his voice. The pain in his scalp made him breathe hard. He was trembling with the power of her grip. “But how do you know it?”

    “I’ve seen what you do,” she growled. She pushed him onto the ground and held him down with her bare foot, knocking the breath from him. He almost laughed with how deeply she was into abusing him. “You kill, you lie, and you cheat. You rob others of their hopes and their dreams and their future, and you laugh while you do it.”

    “And you expect me to feel bad about that?”

    “No!” she snarled. “I don’t expect you to feel bad. I expect you to pay!” She went down to her knees to beat him in earnest.

    She hit him again and again and again, grunting with the release of it, and for a long, almost interminable interval, he let it happen. Strike. Strike. Strike. The whip, SMACK! of the cane made a regular rhythm within the candlelit grotto before heaven’s altar.

    But after a while the demon shifted. He was clearly uncomfortable, but she didn’t stop

    “Enough,” he said.

    She struck him again. And again.

    He shifted again, trying to get out from under her. “Enough,” he groaned. “Stop!”

    She forced him back down, beating him again and again.

    “Hey!” That was an angry bark. He shifted, turned beneath her, his chains clanking, and he snatched the cane out of her grip. “That’s enough of that, Effulgence,” he said, gasping. “I thought the host of heaven was merciful.”

    “There can be no mercy,” she snapped. And to the demon’s surprise, she hit him in the face with her fist to the rhythm of her words. “You. Don’t. Deserve it!”

    This was more than the prescribed punishment of heaven. Very suddenly, the demon realized, this... this was personal. What was going on...? “Now, hold on a second,” he snarled. He already knew what would happen if he let this continue.

    But she didn’t seem to care. She hit him again. His chained hands went up and caught at her wrists, but she pulled away and kicked at him, kicking him halfway across the grotto. “No!” she barked. “No! I’m not letting it escape! Not tonight. Not this time!

    “Buff–”

    “Shut up!” the archangel yelled. She grabbed him by the shoulders and hit him in the belly, over and over again, and he kinda just let her, because he wasn’t sure what was happening. “I – am gonna beat – her – out of you! And you are gonna just sit there and take it!” she barked into his face.

    “This isn’t what–”

    “I said shut up!” She hit him in the face again. “You! You!

    “Quit it!” he snarled. “What the hell did I do!”

    “You betrayed heaven!” she said, surprising him. She was still an archangel? “You were one of us! You were an angel!” She hit him over and over, and she sounded almost like she was sobbing. “You were Angel, and you fell!

    And the demon’s fanged mouth fell open at the realization that bringing the word angel into this trial had been one of the biggest mistakes that could ever have been made. After all that had happened, all the moments the two of them had shared, the archangel was deep, deep down within her own psyche, had unearthed something there that might have been better left buried. “Wait,” he said. “Wait, not me!”

    “Yes, you!” she hissed, though she let up on the hitting, her fists clenched, trembling within her leather robe of judgement. “You! She touched you. The unclean thing held you and fucked you and corrupted you, and you fell, and I can – beat – her – out of you!” She slapped him over and over, open handed, now, but it still stung like nettles.

    With another startling realization the demon looked up. She meant that. She meant every word of that. That it was only touching the unclean which could strip an angel of his goodness. That it was the devil woman’s fault that he went bad. Which meant... which meant....

    “Wait,” he snarled, backing away. “Are you telling me,” he asked, to be absolutely sure, “she should never have... seduced me into touching her? That it was her act alone that made me evil?”

    “What else?” she snapped, her mouth tight with disgust. “You were one of us until that night. An angel. You were good, you were clean! You protected the weak and stood for the righteous and sacrificed  for the good of all. And then she touched you, and look what you became. A vicious,” she struck him with each inflection, “murderous, demon. A devil, that didn’t. Care. About. ANYONE but himSELF!”

    The demon accepted each blow in a kind of daze, bewildered at the loathing of the archangel. How could she think that? How could she remove the blame entirely from the corrupted demon, and place it on... on....

    “You forgot how to love!” she yelled at him. “You forgot... forgot everything that we’d done for you! How we trusted you! You were one of us, and at the moment of deepest trust, you betrayed me!” The demon winced at the pain in her voice.

    “Maybe–” he tried to say.

    “Every death,” she went on. “Every scream. Every moment of terror. All the pain and all the anguish happened from that night! You let her seduce you. You let her corruption inside you! You let her burn out your soul!

    “No!” With a sudden roar of fury he tore his arms apart, the chains of heaven splitting beneath his strength. This was no game any longer. He grabbed at the archangel’s wrists and held her, staring into her with all the strength of his demonic power. “Don’t you get it? I wanted to be corrupted. Maybe I was an Angel, but I was never pure. I was never good to my core, being good never gave me any joy. It was only when I could take what I wanted that I was happy, do you get that? When I could hunt, and... and own, and let the evil slide into me, and corrupt the innocent, that’s what turned me evil! That’s what let the evil that was in me – always in me – loose.”

    He touched the archangel’s hair, brushing it out of her flushed face. “Look at me. The evil in me... it’s my own. Lucifer didn’t bestow it on me. My own lust for her let it loose. My own.” He pushed her firmly against the wall, so she could feel his strength against her. “Listen to me. The corruption. It wasn’t her doing. I reveled in how much I corrupted her. That was what thrilled me, that’s what burned out my soul.” He caressed the angel, touched her, gazed into her. “Lucifer. Who was she? The shining one, the light bearer, the bringer of dawn. The best of us.”

    “And she fell,” the archangel whispered. “She fell from heaven. She chose to touch you.”

    “Yeah,” the demon admitted. “That she did.”

    “She corrupted you.”

    “I corrupted myself,” the demon said. “All she did was let me take what I wanted to have, and that let me be what I wanted to be. She pulled away all the lies – the lies! – about how good I was and made me an honest monster.”

    Tears touched the eyes of the archangel. The demon wanted to lunge at them, lick them from her cheeks, tear into her flesh. It was what his every instinct told him to do. But she was the greatest of the angels, and he loved her beyond instinct. There was power in her pain, but he only held her. He trembled as he held her.

    “Do you hear me, Effulgence?” he whispered to her. “I wanted to be corrupted. The corruption was inside me. It wasn’t caused by her.”

    The archangel cried. “No,” she whispered. “No. That’s... the only thing that made sense. Good... doesn’t just... go away like that. Not because of love.” He nearly groaned. Love was so tainted to her. “She let it happen... it... it had to be her.... She shouldn’t have let it... never have made him touch her...!”

    The demon’s still heart hurt for her disillusionment. He held her cheek and brushed the tears away with his thumb.

    “An angel is not supposed to fall,” she whispered, her throat full. “He’s better than that. He’s better! Anyone I love has got to be better than that!”

    “That’s not how it works.”

    “It is! If I could love, then... then... the judgement. My judgement is wrong...! Angels are good. They’re good! He’s supposed... supposed to stand... and be trusted. The... the trust is....”

    “I know,” he whispered. “If she could love what was evil... she must be evil. And if touching him made him evil... she must have wanted him that way. But that’s not how it works,” he said. “There’s a reason the devil is called the Prince of Lies. The truth hides, and love doesn’t know the future. Love can’t see the truth. Why do you think they call it blind? She wasn’t loving the evil, and she didn’t bring it out. It just happened, that’s all. That’s all it was.” He swallowed. “It wasn’t her fault.”

    “But lies are evil... and truth is good... and the truth about evil... what’s that?”

    He shrugged. “I dunno. But it feels better to be an honest demon then a lying angel.”

    “Honest evil.” She trembled and looked up at him. “You.” And she crumbled, sobbing in his arms like a little girl. He pulled her against him and sat on the floor, rocking her slightly. And she let him.

    The demon looked down. This was wrong. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t leave it like this. He could leave the halls of heaven, and cradle her, but... it didn’t feel right to, even though it was clear things had gotten way out of hand. Why didn’t it feel right?

    “So what does that make me?” she asked, her voice very small.

    That was why it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t finished.

    He had two options. You’re an angel trying to fall. Fall into the dark with me. That’s where you belong. He considered saying that. He considered it hard. Earlier in the night, he’d have said it without question. It was what he wanted all along, her to walk in the shadows with him, that corner between dark and light, the edge of evil, the catwalk above the good. It was where he felt she belonged. With him.

     But... that wasn’t what she wanted. And he knew it. After all this, it seemed wrong to just claim that and make that ugly truth his victory. And this was a game, dammit. It was supposed to be a fantasy.

    “What of you, love?” he whispered. “Archangel.” He let his nose caress her damp forehead. “Better than the angels. Highest of the heavenly host, most pure, most perfect.” He wiped her tears with his fingers and looked down at her through his yellow eyes. He held her down by the black leather, caressed her arms beneath the sleeves of the robe. “An archangel, the chosen of heaven. You.”

    “What?”

    He let her go, setting her on her knees by the wall, and then pulled away a bit. He gazed at her, naked, his chains broken, his face harsh and fanged. “Touch me, Effulgence?” he whispered. “You, white goddess. You, the chosen one.”

    The angel stared at him, trembling slightly. “Why?”

    “Because you, Effulgence, are perfection. You cannot corrupt, you can only purify. Do you hear?” She stared at him as if in shock, power burning in every line of her, but dormant. Confused. “There is nothing dark or unclean in you, Effulgence. You are brightness, you are sunlight. You can only burn away the evil and leave purity behind.” He stared into her with yellow eyes that screamed of evil with every glint.

    “Corruption,” she breathed.

    “Yes, yes, corrupt,” he said. “Corrupt the evil with the good, bring me back into the arms of heaven. You have the power, my archangel, I know it. You are perfection, you are goodness itself. You’re the One.”

    “A mistake.”

    He shook his head. “A creature such as you... no mistake. Not a single flaw. You are the opposite of corruption. You can only heal, only save, only purge the evil from me. You can bring out only truth, Effulgence.”

    “And the truth is evil,” she said pointedly.

    “Let’s see,” he said. He leaned back further. “Touch me.”

    “What?”

    “Touch me. Touch me, know me, make love to me. Make yourself part of me and see what happens.”

    “What happens....”

    “She made love to good and it turned evil,” he said, his head lowered. “You. You make love to evil. Turn it good.” He held out his arms, the broken chains dangling from them. “Turn it good.”

    The archangel stared at the demon, wicked, corrupt, full of evil so raw it glittered in his eyes, dripped from his sharp teeth, burned in every clean line of his powerful flesh.

    “Take off that coat of judgement,” he said quietly, “and see what happens.”

    It was as if a cord was cut. As if a boat had been caught by the tide and was straining against the ropes holding it, and someone had just cut it loose from the dock. She had felt something similar to this before, but this was subtly different. There was something gentle in this, something pure. This didn’t feel like diving into the darkness, as if she was being dragged and the restraints had snapped. This was just... let go.

    She stepped away from the wall, and he must have unbuttoned the coat before he pulled away, because as she shrugged her shoulders it stayed behind, and she let it. She stepped naked into the candlelight, and touched his pale, demonic face.

    Her hands felt very hot on his cold flesh, and he breathed in the scent of her, so strong through his demonic senses. His mouth opened automatically, and he turned his head, catching the base pad of her thumb – what Drusilla had always called the mound of luna – in his sharp teeth. She let him for a moment, and then she pulled her hand away.

    If she’d stayed still, her hand would have been marked, but no more. As she pulled her hand away the sharp fangs scratched her, just a slight scratch, but it left droplets of blood on the demon’s teeth.

    He was already harsh faced and yellow eyed and hungry, the evil stark in his guise, but she could see his pupils dilate as he drank in the taste of her. He trembled, and ground his sharp teeth together. “Oh, god,” he growled.

    The archangel moved the hand back in front of his face. “Can you withstand the temptation?” she asked. “Can you endure what it would take to purge you?”

    The words sounded angry as they came out through clenched teeth. “Try me.”

    The archangel slapped him with her blooded hand, leaving a smear of her blood on his cheek. She stopped and stared at him, and he stared back. “Again,” he said, the word stark.

    She hit him again.

    He drew in a breath, and then made himself look back at her. “Again.”

    She hit him one more time.

    When he turned his face back this time, his eyes were narrowed, and his voice came out in a growl. “Make it real.”

    “I’ll make you real,” the archangel said, and she grabbed him by the back of the neck and stared into his face. “How much can you endure, demon?” she asked. “Can you take what I have to offer?”

    “I will take. All that you have. And more,” the demon said. He knew what a dangerous thing he’d just said.

    “Then take it!” the archangel snarled, and her hands went around his throat. He grabbed at them and struggled. She was strong, stronger than he was, and it was hard to resist her, but she needed the resistance, or it wouldn’t be real. He forced her hands off his throat, and they were wrestling, his hands around her wrists, her strength pushing against his, and she was winning. She was winning, and he was falling, and he fell backwards, and they were rolling... rolling... rolling, the strength and the heat of her swimming through him both together, and he wanted to kiss her, but a searing pain suddenly shocked him, and he groaned. The scent of demonic magics, almost an incense of burning demon, and he quickly rolled off the pile of clothes that had been left on the floor earlier by... some other angel. Among them was a simple silver cross, part of the usual wardrobe. The archangel sized the cross and held it, staring at the demon, as if saying, “I dare you.”

    He dared. He leaned toward her, head held up and shoulders back, steeled to endure the pain, and she pressed the cross against his bare chest, just over his heart. She held it there, and held it, and held it, and then let go before the burn could start to smolder, and she pulled the cross away, and he was branded by her. He relaxed as she let it go. Left there long enough, and he could have ignited, he could have been dust. But they’d both known that. She held out her hand with the cross in it, and he reached for it, their fingers intertwined. Smoke leaked from between their hands, and his flesh sizzled. Held... held... held....

    When she finally let go, he had a stigmata on his hand, in the shape of a cross. He breathed in and out to control the pain, and she moved the cross, and dared him to take her other hand. He did, seizing both of hers, and they stared at each other locked, one hand smoking, one in pain. The cross grew hot between them. The archangel opened their clasped hands and the cross fell to the ground, but she didn’t let him go, leaving their fingers laced. Both their breath was coming in harsh gasps, as if the pain had ripped through both of them.

    No doubt it had.

    “Do it,” the archangel said.

    He almost didn’t know what she meant. Then he decided he would wait for her to make it clear anyway.

    “You have to do it,” she said. “Feed of my flesh, drink of my blood.”

    She smelled of lust and sorrow and bloodshed. The offer ripped through him like a blade, tore him asunder, made him want to kneel at her feet. He wanted it more than anything, and he was scared to death. “Not yet,” he said.

    “Why not? Take it.”

    “I won’t take it.” Her lips were parted, red as her blood, which he could still scent from the scratch on her hand. God, did he want that blood. He shook his head and licked his own lips through his fangs. He released her hands, letting his fingers slowly inch up her arms, pull her close. The sundered chains clicked as they brushed against her flesh. “You’d have to give it freely,” he whispered into her ear.

    “And if I am?”

    It was too much. He’d be lost, one way or another, if he took her blood. Oh, hell, he was lost anyway. Unable to stand it any longer, he did fall to his knees before her, his head bowed, and her soft, warm hand caressed his pale hair. After a few moments she lifted his head, her fingers under his chin, and he gazed up at her with absolute devotion. I am your teacher, I am your slave, I am your master, I am your friend, he thought. I could be your disciple. The idea appealed to him. She searched his face silently for long moments, and then sank to her knees, kissing him passionately even through his fangs, her body pressing against his, the hot flesh making his burns smart and his blood sing.

    She kissed him more fiercely, her tongue caressing his fangs, slicing itself slightly on his sharp teeth, and his mouth filled with her blood. He was hard pressed not to clamp down on her tongue and just bite it off, sever the lingual artery, suck her dry through their kiss. He’d done it before...

    No. Not with her. Never with her, no matter how possible it was. He pulled her atop him instead, straddling him, her legs wrapped around his back, his body finding the hot core of hers, plunging his cock into her instead of his fangs, forcing the bloodlust back into simple lust.

    She clutched at him, and removed herself from his kiss, and pressed her throat against him. “Will you do it?” she offered.

    He wanted to. “No.”

    She shifted, all but shoving her flesh into his mouth. “Do it.”

    No, he thought unable to speak. He would not bite down. He thrust up into her, and she squeezed at him, clutching his cock with her powerful muscles, dragging pleasure out of him. Not yet, not yet, not her... “Ahh!”

    It should have been release, but instead it was more pain. She had found the cross again, and had seared its mark into his back. “Do it,” she told him. She burned him again, a different spot. “Do it!” Again and again she burned him, and he kept shaking his head no, until she cried out in frustration and threw the cross away. “You have to do it!”

    “Why?”

    She stared at him, her eyes hungry and just as scared as his. “I don’t know, I just need you to,” she whispered.

    He was touched by the plea. And plea it was, the desperation was in her eyes, in her voice, in the feel of her hands on his skin. She needed him to do this, if only this once. The taste of her blood was already in his mouth. The scent of her was already coating his flesh. The feel of her warmth surrounded his cock. And if she threw this away tomorrow...? Oh, bloody hell! There was only tonight. He opened his fangs and sank them into her throat.

    She thrust hard at him as the pain struck, and she kept thrusting, so hard he spilled his drink, and blood trickled down her pale skin, so hard he couldn’t make the bite gentle, or smooth away the pain of it. All he could do was take in gulp after gulp of living, hot, angelic blood, lapping at her, trying hard as he could to hold it. The demon in him roared the perfection of it as he thrust up inside her, the release pouring all through him, almost sobbing. She screamed with it, pain and pleasure combined, and her hands bruised his burned shoulders.

    God she was strong. Between what was around his cock and what was around his shoulders he lost his grip on her throat completely, and cried out with pain and pleasure himself, his head arching back, the demonic roar echoing ‘round the chambers of heaven.

    And a moment later the archangel looked down at the demon... his eyes blue and clear, his face open and childlike, his innocent lips parted with awe. The demonic twist had faded from his face, the sharp fangs were gone, the evil... she couldn’t see a trace of it. She had claimed him back with pleasure and pain, with sacrifice and commandment. Bruised, burned, bloodstained, he looked up at her, and she gazed down upon what she had done.

    And she wept.


 

 
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