“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, mylittle 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 washumiliatedand 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 feelshamefor 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 fromhealing.
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, mylittle robin. You were a flaming arrow that wentright across my heart and made it feel alive again—made me feel worthy again.”
