Chapter 31
I was watching her the entire time she was laying inside my arm.
All our gazes were fixed on her.
It wasn’t easy for me, knowing I wanted her just as much as she wanted me.
But now, after she knew what had happened to me… what my body had been used for… I couldn’t even look her in the eyes anymore. I was filled with too much shame and disgust.
Why wasn’t I strong enough to prevent Leanan from touching me, from using my body in a way that solely belonged to Gwendolyn?
The moment I had embraced her in my arms in the underground cave, the feeling of her soft skin against mine, her scent, her hair strands against my face, everything became too much.
She was the closest feeling to heaven, and I’d give anything, even the right to touch her, if it meant I could just taste that moment again.
“Is this what you want?” I asked, my fingers stroking through the strands of her long hair.
Her gaze enveloped me like a soft blanket. Her lips were parted, whether to decide if she would speak the truth, the desire to bond with me, or not.
Instead of waiting for a response, I looked at my brother and Xavier, making it clear where we were both going, as I picked her up, vanishing through the icy surface, which Gwendolyn’s dreams and wishes had created.
I entered my room cautiously. It was the first time she had been here.
The ceiling was pretty high, much higher than in all the other rooms in the castle.
The walls and deck were white, and the room itself was very light and barely decorated.
Along the outer wall was a huge glass armoire that was stacked with books, and in the center of the room was a huge bed with white sheets that had been untouched since I got here.
I had been so used to sleeping on the floor that sleeping on a bed felt wrong.
Fear and anger unfolded through my chest—what if she didn’t want me, once she found out how messed up I was?
I wanted to leave her all by herself until a picture of a little ginger-haired girl on my armoire caught my attention and calmed me down.
It was her. I had kept this little piece of memory inside me for as long as I can remember.
It was something I had kept hidden down there.
“Is this… okay?” she asked. Confusion spread through me.
“What do you mean?”
“That I’m in your private space… I can also leave…”
“No… stay, you belong with me,” I said, kissing her forehead. It might sound like a plea for her, but it was a demand. There was no way I’d allow her to leave, if I wanted her just as much, if not more.
“There are so many things I want to protect from you, Gwendolyn. Including me.” She looked up at me, eyes widening in surprise.
“You protected me from myself, Malakai. I don’t need to be protected from you. I want to understand every single piece of you…” she said, tears appearing in her beautiful eyes. Tears I created with my distance, with my rejection.
“Don’t… please don’t, love. My mind is too dark for you, and I don’t want this darkness to become your friend,” I said, stroking my fingers over her back as I positioned us both on the bed. It felt so good to have her in my arms, all alone.
“My head was a very dark place before you, Malakai. I’ll gladly drown in darkness if it means I’m going to be closer to you.”
“You don’t know what you are asking for, my little robin…” My fingertips brushed along the curve of her hips.
“Let me see every single inch of you…” she begged.
I looked up to her, gripping her chin softly, absorbing every single inch of her beauty until I couldn’t control myself anymore and captured her lips with mine.
“I just don’t want my darkness to consume you whole... It feels like an abyss I can’t come out of… and as much as I want you, after I went through all of that stuff, I just couldn’t let your beautiful body touch mine.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused.
How could she even want me? After seeing how my skin looked? The streaks of shame, the buried feelings of guilt and anger. The way my body was humiliated and yet it should have only been touched by Gwendolyn.
“Because sometimes… because of all of these things that have happened to me, I feel… I feel dirty,” I stuttered, the words hardly leaving my lips. The shame felt deeper than my soul.
She seemed speechless, not able to process why I felt dirty, so I aimed to make it very clear for her. I gripped her face in both my hands, forcing her to focus on me.
“That woman touched me, Gwendolyn. Touched me in ways you don’t want to know. I was meant to be pure for the one person who would be mine. Purity is an important requirement for angels before you bond. I feel so filthy now that I’d been so terribly abused, my body was only ever meant to be yours.”
Gwendolyn’s eyes widened. Her lips parted, but no words came out of them. The shock visible on her face.
“All the time in the human world you were somehow there, you saved me in lonely times. Purity has nothing to do with the body to me, but with the soul. You are the most kind-hearted and generous being. You feel shame for something that someone else did. You are morally on a much higher level than most people. Don’t let her consume your thoughts by thinking you are impure or dirty.
How can you even think your darkness would terrify me? ”
She wasn’t afraid of my darkness. She was hurt by my putting distance between us.
Gwendolyn stroked my neck, her soft fingers grazing over my skin.
“I thought I couldn’t help you…” she confessed softly, “and that it was me who was not good enough, unw—” Before she could finish this nonsense, my lips captured hers until they were nearly bruised.
I wasn’t able to listen to any parts of shame, when she’d been the embodiment of everything kind and good.
The only thing in my life I was proud of… was her.
“Never speak out what you were implying with your words… They aren’t true. You were the only reason I didn’t let her kill me.” She flinched at my directness, but her thinking that she was unworthy of me made me sick to my stomach.
“I’m not afraid of your darkest parts, Malakai. Whenever you are ready to share with me, I’ll take it,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
I couldn’t believe how much this sweet, angelical being in front of me, still wanted to bond with me…
after everything that had happened. And yet, I wasn’t able to deny her.
So, I gave her what she craved. She would see every streak, every scar…
from the times when I was struck with a whip, or cut with knives.
Times where magical poison was used on my skin to prevent me from healing.
I turned around, revealing all thick and dark marks on my back. Most of the time, I used my wings to cover them up, but none of them had healed like they were meant to.
“Did she hurt you there, Malakai?” Her fingers brushed over the frayed feathers of my wings.
Silence. Not because I wanted to keep things from her, but because I didn’t want to let her in fully. Despite me trying to open up to her, not every dark part of my past was going to interfere with her peace.
“Can I touch them?” she asked, her fingers trembling, too afraid to overstep any of my boundaries. Not that I had any when it came to her.
“Yes.”
She traced above my scars, red and swollen on my back and chest. Then on to my wings, causing me to shudder.
My wings unfolded themselves, even more sensitive to her touch.
They yearned for her so much, the desire to just fly away from here and fuck her sweet pussy in the air, my wings using their magic to pleasure her too strong.
But then I perceived the guilt and rage flooding her body as she stroked over the scars.
“Stop feeling guilt, baby. These scars will heal with time.”
I didn’t want her to be angry at something that wasn’t her fault.
“I’m sorry, I just feel so helpless. I could not save you. Hell, I did not even know you were my mate and trying to connect with me in the human realm,” she whispered in tears, tears that ran like an unending stream, impossible to stop. They blurred her vision and soaked her lashes.
“Shhh,” I whispered, embracing her in my arms softly, my wings curving around her like a second shadow.
“No need to feel this way, my precious… I was immersed in darkness until you came, my little robin. You were a flaming arrow that went right across my heart and made it feel alive again—made me feel worthy again.”
The confession made her tear up even more. My fingers grazed through the soft strands of her hair, taking her tightly against my chest, kissing away every single tear.
She grabbed my face, as if she were almost reassuring herself that I was real, that this was not an illusion. That I would never leave her again.
“I wished I could take this pain away from you, your sorrow,” she said.
“Are you ready to give in to me then, Gwendolyn?”
Because even if I knew what she meant, even if I knew what she wanted, I yearned to hear the syllables leaving her sweet lips.
“I want you, Malakai.” The words leaving her lips as a whisper.
“Then you will be mine. Take your clothes off. I want you bare on our bed.”
She slowly slid off her little dress, leaving her in only a white lace bra and lace thong. My heart ached at the sight. I took a steadying breath as she unclasped her bra, letting it fall to the floor. I wished her hair wasn’t so long, as the strands covered up most of her chest.
As soon as I felt her hesitating about taking her panties off, I stepped closer. “Take those off now. I want to see you bare for me.” I gripped her chin softly in my hands, forcing her to focus on me.
I almost bit back a groan when her hands gripped the lace and slowly shoved them down to her ankles. I picked them up before she could toss them away, smelling her sweet scent. My gaze raked over her exposed flesh, nearly making me growl. At that moment, I felt more vulnerable than ever.