Chapter 22 Ares
ARES
Rain lashes the convent's grounds in heavy strikes as I stand behind the broad sweep of a limestone column, my hood drawn down over my face. It shields my eyes from the worst of the storm, but I feel impatience boiling inside of me as I wait for my angel in white to leave the church.
I've been here a half hour, maybe longer, and as it always does, dissociation skulks forward at the most inconvenient of times.
Lightning lashes the outskirts of the wilderness to the north, but I barely feel the rumble shake the ground beneath my feet. I am gone, slipping away as the world dissolves into a monochromatic haze.
Rain, blinding strikes, cobblestones, and convent walls—it all blurs into a shadowy fog.
Deep in the recesses of my gray matter, a voice warns me to ground myself and come back to reality. I'm lucky—this time at least—because I hear it.
Feel. See. Smell. Hear. Taste. Find the ground.
Methodically, I take slow mental notes.
I feel the rain pelting my shoulders and see the lightning crack across the horizon.
I smell the moss-riddled earth of the cloister and hear the rumble of incoming storm clouds.
I taste the salt of the sea and fresh rainwater slipping past my parted lips.
With each thought, the haze dissipates, color returns, and I slip back to the present.
Fuck.
That was close—too close.
My obsession in white has been taken away from me, and I'm already coming unglued.
You've found the ground, Ares. Keep it.
I shuffle, bringing the feeling back to my toes as I bide my time and wait for my angel to leave Ezra's domain.
Puddles pool on the stone beneath my feet and surge up the soles of my leather boots as lightning strikes again.
I stand there for what feels like forever before, at last, my angel emerges from the church.
She walks fast, huddled close to an old nun, and from the shadows, I watch them as they start under the covered walkway and try the door to the convent, finding it locked.
It is providence, I think, and I can't help myself. I start forward, slipping between the columns and the winter-deadened rose bushes to venture deeper into the cloister.
I shouldn't risk it, but my angel in white is so close.
Her pull is hypnotic, and God has favored me tonight. I can't let the opportunity go to waste.
Under the flickering gaslight from the lamps that line the courtyard, my angel's habit seems almost luminescent. Each raindrop clings to the saturated fabric, turning it into woven diamonds as she hugs herself. Even from the shadows, I spot the way her fingers tremble.
I am transfixed, cutting through the darkness as I watch her.
The girl doesn't belong. She shouldn't be here. I want her for myself.
The old nun spots me at the same moment as my angel. Their eyes go wide, but in two steps, I am lost to the shadows again as the thunderclouds roll above us. I skirt the courtyard's perimeter, letting the whistle of the wind and the pelting rain swallow the sound of my steps.
At the back of my brain, the curtain of dissociation threatens to fall, but something about my angel in white anchors me. She pulls me back from the brink of abyss and tethers me to this world.
Stalking through shadows, I watch as the old nun grabs her rosary and begins to pray. The girl notices and walks even faster, hurrying alongside the nun. The woman doesn't realize how ineffectual her divine entreaties truly are.
God is silent.
I am not.
Another bolt of lightning splits the sky, and I pull the hood of my jacket back. Rain stings my eyes, momentarily blurring my vision, but when I blink, I catch the moment my angel's lips part and her eyes widen.
A dark laugh escapes me, though there's no way she can hear it. A savage clap of thunder puts me within arm's reach of her, and the old nun's scream pierces the sky before she crumbles unconscious to the ground.
I couldn't care.
My angel is in front of me, and I am bound to her spell.
The wind gusts around us, blowing stray strands of her rain-darkened hair and plastering them to her cheeks in tiny, wet tendrils. Up close, I see how the raindrops cling to her lashes and the wind reddens her freckled cheeks.
I incline my head at her, half invitation and half taunt, but she doesn't back down. She just stares, as lost to the moment as I am. The air around thickens with tension. It's biting, electric, and utterly exquisite. The moment is better than I could have ever imagined.
I can't float, not when I'm on fire for her.
I close the remaining gap between us, each step leaving a trail of swirling water through the puddles pooling beneath my boots.
Time stretches taut in the thunder's lull, and I watch as rain slides across my angel's jaw and drips to her drenched habit shirt. Up close, her blue eyes look almost surreal, bright and pale against the night.
I hate myself for doing what I do next, but old habits die kicking and screaming, apparently.
Ezra prays because he believes in his God.
I pray because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't.
"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," I tell my angel, my voice hushed by the clamor of the storm. I raise my thumb and press it to her cold forehead, relishing the moment she shivers beneath my touch.
I'm probably even more surprised than she is, though. I'm more than surprised. I am entranced.
I'm touching her, and I feel it.
I actually feel it.
The numbness that I'm accustomed to doesn't claim me. If anything, I am more alive than ever, and that makes my heart knock even harder in my chest.
A startled gasp slips free of her lips as I trace the line of her nose and continue down, lingering on her lower lip and brushing against the soft curve I find there.
Something thick and heavy hangs between us, and I'm grounded in the color of her cheeks, the stutter of her breathing, and the way her habit clings to her form in the drenching rain.
I spot the gentle slope of her collarbones and the slight hitch at her ribcage beneath the fabric and let my mind wander with visions of unraveling the layers until she stands vulnerable before me.
Before reason can regain control, I sink to my knees in front of her and press my lips to the damp cloth at her midsection, just below her navel. It's too much, too soon, too needy before she is truly mine, but I can't stop myself.
I feel her. I need her. And I want more.
For the first time in forever, numbness doesn't steal the moment from me.
I relish the scratch of the rough fabric of her habit against my fingertips and the soapy, sugary scent of her threading through the air.
It's addictive, and I grasp her habit tighter, murmuring whispered prayers against her belly. My angel tilts forward, almost imperceptibly, and my heart lunges up into my chest.
It's hypnotic. I feel everything. I want to … I refrain.
I can't risk losing my one fucking tether to reality.
Reluctantly, I rise to my feet with deliberate slowness, our bodies so close that droplets of rain slide down my face and fall onto her cheeks.
Jagged lightning cuts the sky above her, illuminating her with stark clarity as she looks at me.
"Who are you?" she asks as the old nun stirs on the ground next to her.
"Didn't you hear, angel?" I tell her, my tone laced with sardonic reverence. "I'm the devil."
Time stalls with the hitch of her breath.
It's just her and me, bound together in a captivating moment, her snowy irises locked on mine and her hair whipping free of her veil to frame her heart-shaped face.
The courtyard belongs to us before another bolt of lightning floods the space in blinding white, and as it dies, I recede into the darkness. A final, savage roar of thunder punctuates my exit as I disappear among the twisted trees.
Tomorrow, next week, next month—it doesn't matter. One day, she will be mine.
First, though, I'll let the madness claim us both.