Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

AZRAEL

M ichael is a name I've heard before, spoken about by the other Angels in tones of shimmering reverence, passages of myth and legend revealed in between hunts, like silver glinting off the ocean's surface.

I'd gleaned enough from their stories to fear the possibility of a confrontation with him, but Lilith seemed almost entirely unconcerned by the threat he presents, even when she stood before him on the docks. I had seen Lilith pick up the bronze dagger before we left her flat, but it still took me aback when she plunged it into Michael's chest while mocking him.

Afterwards, Lilith hurries us back into her car and takes off. She calls Adam and Eve on the road, telling them in brief, well-practised terms to go to ground. It is clear by how easily they both accept the warning that this isn't the first time they've been in a similar situation, exchanging promises to meet in the usual place.

Lilith doesn't take us back to her flat, and I don't ask where we're going. It doesn't matter to me. I have nowhere else to run other than in the direction Lilith is leading. When matters are filed down to that sharp a point, cutting through any residual uncertainty is easily done.

One question that gets the better of my newly reborn sense of curiosity—one that is equally unimportant, but which I cannot put aside—is why Lilith is agreeing to do this at all. When Michael asked, sounding as baffled by the prospect as I feel, Lilith did not answer him. There's no good reason why she would give me the truth when she would not even offer a lie to Michael.

I ask for it anyway.

"Why are you protecting me?"

As the world blurs by outside the car, I turn my head to stare at Lilith from the passenger seat of her blue Mini Cooper.

In daylight, Lilith appears no less fierce than she did when lit up by the moon. But watching her with her family, as they joked and argued over breakfast, softened her edges in my mind if not in reality, and although her obsidian eyes burn with the same fervour as they did last night, they seem less angry, filled with a heat ignited by compassion rather than fury.

Lilith rolls her shoulder back like she's shrugging off a coat at the beginning of summer, like she's resetting and recalibrating for the sudden change in temperature. She doesn't take her attention off the road ahead when she answers.

"You don't know this about me," she says in a low murmur, deceptively genial if the dig of her eyebrows is anything to go by. "But I'm a real believer in finishing what you start."

If I expected more elaboration, I'm apparently destined to be disappointed because Lilith stops there and does not seem inclined to accept any requests for further reasoning behind this objectively absurd choice she's just made.

With no other option available to me, I'm forced to accept her uninspiring explanation, for now at least.

"The dagger?" I ask, eyes flickering down to her pocket where the handle is still sticking out and knocking against her seat belt.

My wings barely fit inside the car at first, but then Lilith pushed the seat back when she saw me struggling. She did it wordlessly and then turned away again as if that small act of silent assistance meant nothing to her, and I wonder what it must be like to exist in a life where acts of service are freely given and devoid of either consequences or expectations for remuneration.

Lilith's right hand jerks on the wheel, fingers flexing outwards, an aborted movement to grab for the dagger. I'm not sure if she heard my question as a threat, or if any mention of the dagger would prompt a similar response regardless. She seems vaguely annoyed by her own, possibly instinctual, reaction.

When the other Angels mentioned Lilith, they muttered words like "warrior" and "killer" alongside her name. I know there was a war between Angels once, but I know nothing else about it, why it started or even who was directly involved. When Lilith was speaking to Michael, she spoke the name Lucifer. I'd never heard of him before. If the Angels I hunted with knew of him, they were too afraid to speak that knowledge aloud.

"It's special. We call it a bronze dagger because of how it looks, but that isn't what it's made from," Lilith tells me. "A friend forged it a long time ago and left it with me for safekeeping." She closes her mouth with a sudden click, her jaw clenching slightly like she's trying to cage further information behind her teeth to stop it from escaping.

"What did it do to Michael?" I ask, pushing for more despite the warning signs from Lilith that I should back off this subject.

"Sent him back where he belongs," Lilith says, and there's a finality to the statement. It's clear from the whipcrack intonation of her voice to the foreboding blank expression on her face that she won't be offering anything more about the dagger, no matter what I ask.

"Does he?" Memories of whispered claims and possessive touches fill my mind. Lilith spares me a quick glance, uncomprehending, so I add, "Does he belong where you sent him?"

Lilith contemplates the question for a handful of seconds before sighing wearily and switching her full attention back to the road. "If he doesn't," she says, "he'd never admit to it."

She sounds resigned to it and a little heartbroken. I want to ask her what it takes to break the heart of the first Demon if only so I can resolve to never be the cause of it myself, but I let the moment pass and lapse into quiet. It isn't silence, there's too much movement and noise for that, but there's a fragile serenity to the aftermath of our conversation that settles me.

My craving for the lost has abated since I cut ties with the other Angels, like our hunger fed into each other, making it bigger and stronger when shared. But when those flames ignited by my hand, it was as if the fire that burned them to cinders and ash also took root inside my stomach, scorching the need for soul flesh out of me. It hasn't gone completely; I can still feel the vestiges of that dark, insidious hunger deep and ravenous in the bowels of my gut, screaming and clawing for satiation, but it's not enough to trigger the sort of ferality I'm certain Lilith would find difficult to excuse, no matter how empathetic she's been thus far.

Lilith takes us out of the city and onto a ferry bound for England, using our ability to move between planes of existence to avoid being seen by the humans checking peoples' passports. It's not something I need to do too often, despite my wings and eyes. Most humans are very good at coming up with their own explanations for strange things. They assume my wings are a costume and my eyes are contacts, and anything else innately bizarre about me is put aside in favour of reason.

I lean beside Lilith against the boat railing, looking out at the grey ocean as we cut through it from one island to another. Lilith doesn't protest or pull away when I eclipse the space between us and press my arm against hers, mine bare and hers covered by her leather jacket. It feels smooth and cool against my skin, coldness seeping into my body, made more noticeable by the icy wind blowing around our hair, and I have to absorb a tiny shiver in reaction to it.

I'm startled by the sensation, and it takes me a second to understand why. It's the first time I've been affected by temperature when I haven't gorged on soul flesh, and even then it would need to be extreme, even the sensations of scalding hot and freezing cold were muted, barely more than ghosts in comparison to what humans feel.

Lilith notices my shiver and the sharp gasp that expels from my mouth following it. She looks at me with veiled concern, but lets it go when I shake my head once, quickly, not at all prepared to discuss this revelation with her yet.

"There's a place we can go that'll be safe, for a while at least," Lilith tells me instead, and it's obvious she's trying to distract me from my roiling emotions. It calms me further that she's trying to offer more of that unspoken and unrequested assistance than the contents of the attempt itself.

Lilith's hair is thick enough that the wind, as strong as it is out here, struggles to shift her larger curls. There are small wisps of dark hair around her face that batter against her cheek insistently as if seeking entry. I get the unfamiliar urge to reach up one hand and brush them back behind her ear. I resist it at first, thinking Lilith will find it odd, but then I tell myself it's okay. If Lilith can move my seat back, I can protect her face from persistent stray curls.

Lilith does seem surprised when I catch the edges of her hair with the tips of my fingers and swipe them behind her ear, but she doesn't stop me or appear disturbed by the action. My fingers graze her cheek and jaw as well as the shell of her ear. Her skin is warm to the touch despite the weather, her blood hot and pumping through her veins.

My hand stills when I drag it back, stopping to fit the curve of my palm and fingers around her face. I brush my thumb across her cheek, letting the feel of her soft skin run along mine, like I'm smoothing out wrinkles in a silk scarf.

Lilith tilts her head, leaning into the touch. She meets my eyes with a steady, expectant stare. She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, biting down on it briefly before releasing it again as if in reprimand, a gush of something liquid hot pooling in my stomach at the sight. Her lip has a sheen of spit now, and a far more powerful urge pushes me to lick that shine from her mouth, to use my teeth on her lip myself to find out if it feels even better to use my own on her than to see her do it to herself.

I've watched humans, countless numbers of them, touch each other like that. I didn't think too much of it at the time. Mouths on pulse points, teeth scraping across hot, spit-slick skin, hands grasping, yanking, roaming, squeezing. None of it was mine to ache for. Those things were as distant to me as the stars in galaxies untouched by humankind.

When my eyes zero in on Lilith's mouth and stay there, she inhales roughly.

"Az," she breathes out, sounding unsure for the first time. But even so, she stays where she is, and I begin to seriously question if Lilith is incapable of retreating from any battle once she's stepped onto the field.

You don't know this about me. But I like to finish what I start.

A flush of exhilaration works its way through me like a wave of rippling fire, so strong and wild that it compels me to back down first. Unlike Lilith, I have a history of not staying the course, and I might feel shame over that if it weren't for fact that it's brought me here, to where I am now, away from the Angels and leaning on the one person who might be able to keep me safe.

I let go of Lilith's face, sliding my palm and fingers down her neck and collarbone, nails scratching along the hollow of her throat before removing them from her skin entirely. I turn my head, facing forward again, chin tilted down so I'm looking at the foamy water bubbling up along the edges of the boat.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flicker of emotion on Lilith's face that might be disappointment, but it's too fast for me to be certain.

Lilith doesn't bring it up, though, which is a mercy, but that causes its own claws of disappointment to cut across my stomach lining.

When we're off-loaded onto British soil, Lilith takes us to nearest train station, insisting it will be the fastest way to get where we're going, a place called "Danger City." We settle in a nearby café whilst we wait for our train, and Lilith takes advantage of my new discovery of tea by buying us a few cups. She picks out a piece of chocolate cake as well, bringing back two forks in case I want to try it.

I was unsure about accepting the tea back at her flat because I'd never eaten or drunk anything other than soul flesh. I didn't even know if it was possible for my body to process human sustenance. It seemed like I shouldn't be able to. Why would I need to digest things when I don't need it to survive?

But Lilith seemed certain it'd be fine, and I assumed she'd know enough about Angel physiology to be aware if I couldn't consume things like tea without causing an issue.

Besides, I was curious enough that I didn't need much convincing. Taking that first sip felt daunting but also like a life raft being thrown out to sea to help bring me back to shore. It showed me, if nothing else, that some part of me must still be alive enough to enjoy a hot drink.

So when Lilith offers me the second fork, I accept it easily. She watches me break off a piece of chocolate cake and eat it, her attention at once avid and deceptively casual. Flavour explodes across my tongue, rich and almost too sweet. I make a strange sound, like a sigh mixed with a hum. I don't think I've ever made that noise before, and it causes Lilith to shoot me an amused smirk.

"Good?" she asks once I've chewed and swallowed the cake.

I nod immediately, already digging my fork into the cake to steal another piece. Lilith's amused smirk turns into a delighted fit of laughter. She seems pleased and raises her fork to dig into the cake as well.

"Danger City has wards against Angels," Lilith tells me when we're sitting next to each other on the train. "It was ground zero for the war, and Lucifer put their stamp on it afterwards, so the other Angels won't be able to track us. If Michael wants us, he'll have to put on his special hat, find a more likeable sidekick, and make like Sherlock Holmes."

She just says "the war" as if there's only ever been one that matters. It's the most selfishly unaware thing she's said since we met, but maybe everyone who's ever fought in one thinks their war is the only one that matters.

It takes five hours on the train, and Lilith spends most of it alternately losing to me at I spy and forcing me to listen to music on her phone, insisting that I need to find "my vibe." We go through about seventy-nine songs before we find Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun , which I make Lilith play at least twenty times, then Lilith calls a revolt and sticks on Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls instead. I find myself enjoying that song enough to insist we listen to it around ten times although that might be partly due to the fact Lilith has no compunction against singing along to it. She has a nice voice, deep and little raspy, drawing my attention like a light sparked in the fathomless void, and I end up listening more to her than the song itself.

When our train pulls into Danger City's station, Lilith takes us across town, giving me a nice look at the city itself, which paints a very specific picture. Danger is a gothic nightmare full of cracked cobblestone streets and old, ornate buildings that were probably built in the eighteenth century at the earliest. There are more spires than skyscrapers. The roads have lanterns . I've never seen a place like it; it's like stepping into a different time if not a different world altogether. I'm a little surprised Lilith doesn't try to flag down a horse and carriage instead of a taxi once we're out on the street.

Lilith stops outside a large townhouse sandwiched between two other houses of a similar style. She hustles me up the steep front steps and bangs on the lion-head knocker.

There's a strange mist in the air, cloying, almost as thick as smog but not as dark, more a pale grey. I don't know where the mist is coming from, which gives me an ominous feeling despite the fact Lilith seems entirely unconcerned by it.

We only have to wait a handful of seconds before the front door is jerked open to reveal a pretty young person of ambiguous gender. They're wearing a long white shirt and a waistcoat, paired with fishnet tights and heeled boots with laces all the way up to their knees. They probably have shorts or something on under the shirt, but I can't see them. Their chin-length hair is dyed a bright purple, and they have similarly shaded glittery eyeshadow and lipstick.

"Lilith!" They exclaim, delight spreading across their face, unleashed joy making them somehow even prettier. They reach out a hand and grab hold of Lilith, yanking her over for a tight hug.

"Luc, hey, you look great!" Lilith pulls back from the hug, hands gripping Luc's shoulders as she shakes them slightly in what seems like excitement.

Luc's black eyes scan Lilith from head to toe in unabashed appreciation. "I can't believe it," they say, huffing. "You actually got more gorgeous. How the fuck do you do that? Every time we don't see each other for a while"—they click their fingers—"bang, you glow up just that little bit extra!"

Lilith throws her head back and laughs uproariously. It's loud and brash, and I find myself enjoying the sound as much as I did her singing.

I blink at them both, waiting to be introduced. Finally, Luc's eyes turn in my direction, flickering over me with bold appraisal.

"This the Angel?" Luc asks Lilith without looking away from me.

"Nah," Lilith responds dryly, "I just picked this one up at the station. Yeah, obviously, this is the Angel, and she has a name, which is Azrael, which you know because I already told you. Don't be part of the problem, Luc, come on."

Luc looks momentarily chastened and shoots me an apologetic grimace that I have no clue what to do with, so I just nod in acceptance.

"Good to meet you, Azrael," Luc says with emphasis, giving Lilith a flat stare as if to convey, "There, I was civil to the Angel, happy now?" Lilith gives them a sarcastic grin and flashes two thumbs-up.

Lilith moves past Luc further into the house and reaches back to grasp my wrist, pulling me along behind her. Luc closes the door once I'm inside and twirls around to face us again with a genuinely welcoming smile.

"Come on then, my lovelies!" Luc claps their hands together, flashing nails painted a bright yellow, then strides off into the house, clearly expecting us to follow.

Lilith nudges my arm and jerks her head at Luc's quickly disappearing back. I heave a quiet exhale and nod, letting Lilith keep hold of my arm as she drags me off after her friend.

The inside of Luc's townhouse is almost the exact opposite of the outside. Everything is decorated in bright, vibrant colours across the rainbow. There's art covering every inch of the walls, mostly portraits of people in varying art styles, and half of them are either naked or barely dressed. The floors are a mix of dark hardwood and white carpets.

As Luc coaxes us through the house, I notice they have a chandelier hanging in almost every room, each of them encrusted with gems and crystals and feathers. Their furniture is similarly bombastic, and I find myself pausing to stare more than once, struggling to take it all in. Lilith has to keep grabbing my wrist and pulling me along with her so I don't get caught up gazing into the aquarium, which takes up almost an entire wall, filled with lots of different tropical fish.

Luc takes us to their large, modernised kitchen, walls painted bright purple, the cabinets and counters all black. There's a kitchen island in the middle of the room that's the size of a small car, which we gather around.

"Want a drink?" Luc asks, but they're already opening the massive fridge and taking out a bottle of chilled vodka. They're about to close the fridge when Lilith jumps up to stop them, reaching inside over Luc's head to grab some cans of Coke.

"Fuck's sake, Luc." Lilith bops them on the head with a can. "I'm not drinking straight vodka at two p.m. on a Thursday. I'm a fucking adult, not a twenty-one-year-old uni student."

Luc pulls a face like they have no idea what Lilith is complaining about. They put the bottle of vodka down on the counter near me. "How about you, babywings, want to drink like the brave little toaster you are?"

"Quit trying to corrupt the youth," Lilith chides, putting the Cokes and three tumbler glasses down on the counter. She flashes me a grin, though, and pushes one glass in my direction, offering it up. "Wanna try it?"

It's like the tea although the energy in the room feels different, fizzing with anticipation rather than the soft curiosity of this morning in Lilith's kitchen. Luc has already opened the vodka and poured themselves a generous slosh of clear alcohol. They knock it back in record time.

Lilith is watching me earnestly, unfiltered joy emanating outwards, framing her like the blur of heat around an open flame. It almost hurts, somewhere deep inside my chest, like a hook piercing inflamed muscle and yanking sharply enough to rip and shred.

"Okay," I agree, unable to resist the pull of Lilith's seemingly innate magnetism.

Lilith beams at me like I just promised to grant all her wishes for eternity, and it hits me a little like a punch to the chest, knocking the air out of my lungs. It's only when I find myself struggling to breathe that I realise I've been inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide automatically, without noticing it. I can't even pinpoint when I started breathing instinctively. I can't remember when I started needing to.

Unaware of my sudden revelation, Lilith makes me a drink of Coke and vodka. She goes back to the fridge to retrieve a bag of ice. She drops two of the medium-sized ice cubes into my drink before sliding it over and settling in with her forearms leaning on the island to stare at me expectantly, waiting for my verdict.

There's a fizz of excitement in my gut, new and unexpected, Lilith's enthusiasm soaking into my skin like condensation from the air.

I raise the glass to my lips and take a bigger gulp than I mean to. Luc notices and claps their hands, tipping their head to let out a bolshie cackle.

"That's right, babywings, knock it back like a champion!" they crow, still laughing.

The sweet taste of the Coke registers on my tongue first, but the harsh bite of alcohol comes in fast behind it. My face tics, wincing at the sudden strength and bitterness of the vodka. It takes me a second to discern whether I like either taste. I have to swallow another mouthful just to make sure.

"So, then?" Lilith prompts when I don't say anything, her black eyes squinting, almost pensive.

"It's good," I pronounce, much to the appreciation of both Luc and Lilith. Luc downs another glass, half full of only vodka, and raises the glass up high, toasting me. Lilith, seemingly satisfied with my response, finally pours herself a glass of Coke and vodka. She swallows it down almost as fast as Luc. Neither of them winces despite their far-stronger drinks.

When I finish mine, Lilith pours me another.

Determined to drink without blanching at the aftertaste, I indicate for Lilith to put more vodka in mine, which she does, smirking at me like she knows exactly what I'm thinking.

"Pace yourself," she tells me. "Angels can still get drunk in their mortal forms."

"Ah, let her get smashed!" Luc nudges Lilith's arm. "After all those years stuck doing Mike's bullshit soul-snatcher work, she deserves to let loose a bit."

Luc doesn't even bother with the glass and drinks straight from the bottle. Lilith grabs the bottle from them after a couple of glugs.

"Settle down, you tiny nightmare," she admonishes Luc.

"There's like, fifteen more bottles in the fridge," Luc says, waving her off.

"Not the point." Lilith holds the vodka bottle out of reach when Luc tries to grab at it. "Come on." She turns to me again. "Let's take this shit into the living room."

Lilith walks off, and I snatch up the remaining cans of Coke before chasing after her. Luc follows, too, after procuring another bottle of vodka from the fridge, and we all settle in the living room. It's decorated in bright yellows and purples, the sofa ridiculously large and curved like a donut with a chunk bitten out of it.

Lilith chooses a seat in the middle of the donut and encourages me to sit next to her. Luc throws themselves down a little further away from us, bringing their legs up onto the sofa and curling them up underneath them.

We spend the rest of the night drinking and talking, with Luc and Lilith telling me stories from their very long, very immortal lives. At one point, Luc gets out a stack of cards, and they teach me how to play poker. Lilith plugs her phone into some sort of dock system and puts on the playlist we made on the train of all the songs I vaguely agreed to enjoying. When Girls Just Want to Have Fun comes on again, and I tell Luc it's my favourite, they laugh so hard they almost fall off the sofa.

Despite still not really needing to sleep, I start to feel tired around three in the morning. I even yawn, something I don't think I've ever done before. Lilith obviously notices and suggests we lie down for a bit. Luc protests at first, but when Lilith gives them a pointed look, they wave us off towards the stairs.

Lilith offers me her hand, and I take it, threading our fingers together, holding on tight, causing Lilith to offer me one of those smaller, shyer smiles. She leads me upstairs to a room I assume she's used the previous times she's stayed over because she seems entirely comfortable in it.

The room looks different from the rest of the house. It's decorated in dark colours, shades of blue and brown. The furniture is more reminiscent of that in Lilith's Ireland flat, simple and almost certainly secondhand, the style bohemian and well used as seems to be her preference.

Lilith strips down to her underwear and T-shirt and goes to climb onto the large bed. I do the same. Neither of us are bothered by temperature, and we stay on top of the covers. I expect Lilith to keep the distance between us because of my wings, but she tells me to spread them out so she can lie down on top of my outstretched wing. She gives me a chance to refuse, but I don't, liking the idea of having her close.

I settle in the middle of the bed, and Lilith doesn't hesitate to fit herself against my side, her curls crushed against my feathers. It isn't the first time she's touched them, either on purpose or by accident, but it feels different now than it did before. More intimate, like the trailing of fingers up a naked back in the privacy of a bedroom, rather than out there in the world where everything is a little fractured, brutal and unforgiving. There's no judgement here, no rules and no orders.

There's a moment when we're both staring up at the bed's canopy, lying on our backs with our arms pressed together from bicep to fingertip. Slowly, I shift my little finger, curling it around Lilith's, our breathing loud in the silence of the room.

We turn our faces towards one another, bare inches of empty space separating us. Tension builds as I study her face. This close up, it's easier to see the imperfections, the marks that immortal hardship, the constant pain of living, has left behind on her skin. I can see the woman she was, thousands of years ago.

It's the vulnerable, almost human part of her that sings to me like siren song, captivating and special for all its flaws, something I can tell she doesn't let many people see.

I can feel her breath on my face every time she exhales. Unlike Luc, Lilith and I stopped drinking a long time ago, the buzz from earlier faded and drowned out, replaced by a different sort of intoxication, a rising tide of sensation that is both darker and sweeter at the same time.

In the end, it's me who closes the distance first, crossing over enemy lines without a thought for the potential land mines I could be trampling on in the process.

Lilith's mouth seems too high-risk when everything else between us is in flux already, so I start at her collarbone instead, pressing a kiss between her shoulder and chest, letting my tongue drag over the warm skin there. Lilith holds herself still at first, but at the swipe of my tongue, she releases a full-body shudder that only serves to stoke the fire spitting and raging away inside my gut.

She tastes vaguely of salt, a possible mix of sweat and the ocean spray from earlier. This close up, I can smell the perfumed scent of her hair and skin, citrus and lime, more likely shampoo or body wash. I didn't see any actual perfume in her room or bathroom back at the flat, and Lilith doesn't seem like the type for it. I'm glad because the other scents are faint enough that when I drag my nose up and inhale at the crook of her neck, I can smell the distinct bite of her, the thing that is pure Lilith, the blood that rushes beneath.

I resist the impulse to sink my teeth into her throat, sharp incisors aching with the need to sink in deep, down through muscle and sinew, to scrape against her jugular. It should concern me how badly I want it, to rip into Lilith, to consume her piece by piece until I'm sated. But I know, somewhere burrowed inside my heart, that nothing I could ever steal from Lilith would be enough, so there's no point. You can't own stolen things, and that's what I want. I want her to be mine, completely, if only for a moment.

Lilith has to give it, herself, her desire to me, or nothing else matters.

She gasps when I breathe her in, her body instinctively bowing backwards, her neck and spine arching. Her T-shirt-covered chest pushes up against mine, and the heat in my gut flares to a bone-scorching degree, a pang of want sparking lower.

Emboldened by Lilith's response, I grasp her hip and shove her over to lie flat on her back again. One of my wings is still half trapped underneath the heavy press of her body but not enough to impede my ability to shift into a position where I'm holding myself over her, knees braced on either side of her hips.

Lilith hooks her hands underneath my thighs and grips the meat and solid muscle there with unambiguous intent, holding on tight, digging her nails into my skin hard enough to leave behind indentations and bruises that won't last as long as I wish they would.

I take the hint and settle more firmly on top of her, bringing my crotch into alignment with hers, our thin underwear the only barrier between us. I splay a hand over her chest, pinning her shoulders and upper back to my wing. Then I push my free hand under her T-shirt, roving my fingers across the expanse of naked skin there, from her navel and along her rib cage to just below her breasts. She took off her bra earlier, so there's nothing to stop me from palming one of her ample breasts and carefully rubbing my thumb over her nipple. It hardens under my touch, and Lilith gasps again, back attempting to arch like before, but with my other hand holding her down, she can't do anything but take what I give her.

I bend over at the waist, still grasping one of Lilith's breasts as I continue to rub her nipple just to feel how she trembles beneath me at even that small amount of pressure.

Bringing my face close to hers again, my hair falling around us like a curtain of protection from the outside world, I ask the questions that need to be asked before we go any further.

"Is this okay?" I murmur against her mouth, our lips brushing lightly with every word. "Do you want this?" Me , I don't ask. Do you want me . I'm afraid that would be too much, too immense a question for the moment.

In answer, Lilith slides her hands up to my waist and clamps down hard, holding me in place against her at the same time she rolls her hips up. The first roll elicits a sharp whipcord of pleasure that does little more than bait the beast that growls ferociously inside my abdomen. On the second roll, I grind down to meet her, rubbing my clit against hers through our underwear.

Lilith releases a short cry when I tighten my hold on her breast and dig a nail into her nipple as we grind together, our hips moving faster and shallower now as the desperation and heat grows between us. Lilith's hands tighten even more on my waist, to the point where it's genuinely painful, but I don't want her to stop, the pain and pleasure mixing to create a more visceral sensation, something that is both different and better.

It's not nearly enough, and yet it already might be too much. The feel and sound of her as she moves frantically against me—want transforming into need—pulses through my cunt, and the urge to reach down so I can hurry along our joint release is more intense than I expected.

Naked emotion, raw and exposed, plays out across Lilith's face. She doesn't try to hide any of it from me, and the brutal honestly of her desire makes me so hot for her that I feel like I could combust, split apart into atoms, like stars in the deep recesses of space.

Lilith's underwear is soaked through with her lust, and so is mine; the smell of us mixing together reaches my nose, and it's such a primal thing that a guttural moan explodes from my throat in a violent rush. I don't know quite how to ask for what I need from her without it sounding like a deranged set of demands, so I just tell her instead, all civility abandoned behind me at the door.

"I want to bury my face between your thighs and taste that slickness you've made for me," I growl, pushing down on her chest a little harder and biting my nail into her nipple again for emphasis. "I want to push myself inside you and feel all that wondrous heat pulsing against my fingers."

Lilith tips her head back as far as she's able to and groans something unintelligible, voice as soaked in lust as her cunt.

" Touch me , Az, please, please, touch me," Lilith manages to get out the second time she tries to speak. It still sounds more like an animalistic whine than words, but I understand it well enough to act on the request.

I tear myself free from her ironclad grip, creating space between us again so that Lilith's next grind meets nothing but empty air, which Lilith vehemently protests until I take my hand from her chest and move it down, shoving inside her underwear to rub two fingers over her clit.

Lilith releases a strangled noise, and I catch the tail end of it with my mouth, taking hers with a filthy, open-mouthed kiss, licking into her with my tongue, mimicking how I would fuck her cunt.

I keep up a steady rhythm of rubbing her clit and scraping my nail over her nipple, a little harder now that she has the extreme contrast to balance out the pain-pleasure responses.

One of Lilith's hands shifts to grasp the back of my neck in a possessive hold. She tugs me in a little roughly and kisses me back with twice the fervour. Her other hand slips inside my underwear, except she barely grazes my clit before pushing two fingers into my cunt.

I clamp down around her instinctively, my slickness easing her fingers in and out as she finger-fucks me with a precision and skill that makes me feel wildly jealous of all the people she must have done this with before to get so good at it. Her fingers find all the spots inside of me that light up my cunt and send aftershocks of white-hot pleasure through my abdomen.

With the benefit of dual stimulation, Lilith comes first, arching up against me with a cry torn from somewhere deep inside her chest. Her fingers remain inside me whilst her orgasm rips through her in torrents.

Once she's able to move again, she goes back to working on me, pressing dirty, tender kisses to my neck as she holds me against her and fucks me, her fingers moving to rub wildly on my clit. She murmurs words of encouragement into my skin, telling me, " Come on, babe, let go, it's okay, Az, just let go, I've got you."

My thighs shake with the power of my orgasm, my cunt dripping wet and so scorching hot it feels like there should be heat waves coming off it. I'm like a new fawn, unable to hold myself up. I collapse on top of Lilith, and she takes me without hesitation. She wraps her legs and arms around me as I bury my face against her throat, still resisting the urge to sink my teeth into her.

For a while, we just cling to each other in the dark. Lilith strokes my feathers and my back, soothing me until I can breathe easily again, and my body stops feeling like it's melted goo.

I shift myself off Lilith and roll over, tugging on her so she comes with me and curls up against my side, her head on my shoulder.

We're both sweaty and loose-limbed, and for the first time … ever, I feel like maybe I could sleep.

"Are you okay?" Lilith asks me. Her voice sounds scraped raw, like she's been gargling nails, and a shiver of want rides up my spine despite the overwhelming orgasm I just had.

I gently trail my fingernails over her bare arm, forming patterns on her skin that I wish I could make permanent, even more so than her tattoos, like a brand that would mark her as mine.

"I didn't steal any of that," I whisper, so low I don't think Lilith will hear it, but she does.

"No," Lilith says, pushing impossibly closer to me as if she's trying to fuse us together into one being. "You asked. That's all you have to do. Just ask, and I'll give it to you."

There's a short pause and then, "Can I have you?" I ask, careful and quiet. I'm nervous but not afraid. It feels too important for fear.

Lilith takes a breath and then another. Inhaling and exhaling slowly. She's nervous too.

"What part of me?"

She isn't afraid. Maybe it's too important for her as well. I hope so.

"All of you," I say too quickly and then amend it with, "Everything you're willing to let me have."

"I can give you everything." Lilith tips her head to look up at me, to meet my eyes so bravely it leaves me in awe of her. "Can you give that to me?"

"I would. I'd give you every little piece of me. But. Some parts of me aren't … here anymore," I say, waving at my temple vaguely, alluding to the shards of my absent memory. "They stole them."

Lilith's jaw hardens, and her eyes cool to something dangerous and angry. She rises up to loom over me, looking sexier and more predatory than ever. "Then we'll take them the fuck back." Her mouth splits into a sharp grin. "No one gets to steal what's ours and keep it without a fight."

I surge upwards and capture her grinning mouth in a kiss that feels like a promise forged from diamond. Unbreakable. Beautiful. Eternal.

Ours .