Lonely Light

Chapter 3

"Where are we going?" asked Sariel, as Arael brought them back upstairs to change clothing.

"I have to take care of the rest of the people responsible for bringing you here," he replied grimly, pulling a long white dress from the bag he had brought. The seriousness of his expression was replaced with tenderness as he turned towards her.

Knowing what he wanted, Sariel stripped off her outer clothing and allowed Arael to slip the dress over her head.

Arael's breath caught in his throat. Against the pure white fabric of the dress, the golden undertone of her skin glowed.

"You are beautiful." He meant it in every way possible. Sariel could feel the utter adoration behind his words, and it made her blush and look down, away from his green, green eyes.

He could not help himself. Gently, he tilted her head up. Slowly, as if afraid to break the spell that held her mesmerized, he brought his face closer and closer and kissed her.

It was a chaste kiss, but sensation threatened to overwhelm them both. Sariel was lost in the sensual pleasure. Her eyes drifted half-shut, and she only vaguely noticed that the Darkness within Arael was morphing.

Thin, delicate tendrils of Darkness grew from the column at his core towards her, like vines seeking sunlight. She was no longer afraid of any part of him, had spent all day leaning against him while he taught her the ways of this world, pressed close to that very element now reaching towards her.

It was Arael who wrenched himself back, pressing his forehead against hers while pulling the Darkness of his desire back towards his core. If Sariel accepted any Darkness from this world, she would be forever barred from the upper plane, just as he was.

He sighed. "I should not have done that."

"Why not?"

"Because now it will be even harder for me to let you go." He would never forget the sensation of her warm, soft lips, her innocent pleasure, and her welcoming acceptance of all that he was. Everything in his being wanted her to stay with him forever.

But that would be the ultimate in selfishness. He knew that she did not belong on this Earth, with its greyness and violence and death. Happiness was possible here, but it was rarer than the most precious jewels and much harder to keep. Better that she return to the upper plane, where there was at least contentment and beauty.

The magical understanding of his words gave Sariel an idea of what he was feeling at the moment, but without any but the tiniest trace of Darkness within herself, she could not comprehend all of his emotions. All she really understood was that he was in distress, and it was related to her.

"Do I make you sad?" she asked. She never wanted to make him sad, this being of strength and kindness that had saved her from a nightmare and treated her as if she were the most precious thing in existence.

"No, you make me happier than I knew was possible," he said, wrapping his arms around her. Her arms copied the movement, their embrace feeling so natural, so comfortable that it was like they had been together for centuries and not hours.

"But you are not happy right now," she persisted.

"Ah, but I am. I am happy and sad and tormented, all at once."

"But how do I make you only happy?"

Stay with me. The words were filled with so much longing inside his head that for a second he was not sure if he had kept them safely behind his lips. He would not ask her to sacrifice her wants and needs for his.

He kissed her again, knowing that nothing he did now could make their future separation even harder. "It is enough that you want to." The words were truth that hid a lie: if he had said there was nothing she could do, she would have known his words to be false.