Forbidden Love

Chapter 7

I can't move even though all of my instincts are telling me to run and never look back. Eric looks at me with two balls of coagulated blood where his eyes used to be and the black cracks that are all over his face is hiding the beauty I once knew. Tears of blood are continuously running from his eyes down his cheeks. He takes a hesitant step closer to me and I instinctively take a step back, holding my hand up to let him know that I don't want him to come any closer.

"Please don't be afraid," he says and I'm surprised that his voice is still the same considering the fact that everything else about him just changed in front of my eyes. He slowly starts coming closer to me and I keep moving backwards until I feel the wall against my back. I'm on the verge of a panic attack as he gets closer and before I know it, he's standing in front of me. He reaches out and takes my hand, I'm surprised that I don't pull away. I could be imagining things but his skin feels even warmer than it did before. "I won't hurt you, Rose. Not now, not ever." He pulls me into his embrace before I can say or do anything and he wraps his arms and his gigantic wings around me, trapping me in darkness. He holds me like that for what seems like hours but in reality, it was probably less than a minute. When he finally lets me go and steps away, I'm consumed by relief to find that his face is back to normal. All of the cracks are gone, his eyes are back to their beautiful smoldering blue again, there isn't a single drop of blood in sight on his perfect face and his wings are shrinking, slowly going back to where they came from.

"What are you?" I whisper and I can only imagine the look of shock that's plastered on my face right now. Everything with Eric has felt like a dream so far, but this... What just happened had to be a nightmare, there's no possible way it could've been real.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he says as he bends down to pick up his T-shirt, his wings completely out of sight again, as if they never even existed. "I'll drive you home and answer all your questions on the way." He takes my hand after putting his shirt back on and we start walking to the elevator. I'm completely silent all the way to the car, still frantically trying to make sense of what I saw but failing to come up with anything close to a rational explanation.

"Why did that just happen to you, Eric?" I finally ask once we're in the car and he turns in his seat to face me with a frown.

"Because I lost my temper. I can control it most of the time but when I lose my temper there's no way for me to prevent it from happening."

"Have you always been like this?" I have about a thousand more questions.

"No, the first few years of my life were relatively normal but I always knew that I was different." He starts the car and drives down the busy street in the direction of my apartment. "It all started when I was fifteen. The cracks were the first thing that happened, just a couple of them here and there but within a week they covered my whole body. A month later, my eyes started changing and bleeding, took a while to get used to that one. And then I finally got my wings. After I got the wings for the first time, my soul was taken away in my sleep and I went to hell. Once I got there, I met someone known only as The General, he's just a couple of levels below the devil himself on the ladder of evil. He told me that my life was about to change drastically and then he made me sign a contract containing a list of rules that I must follow for the rest of my existence and the tattoo on my ribs is a constant reminder of the contract. He told me everything that I needed to know and informed me that I'd have the ability to do certain things, but he didn't tell me what I am."

"What are the things that you have the ability to do?" I ask after taking a minute to allow everything he told me to register in my mind.

"When I meet someone for the first time, I only have to look into their eyes once to know everything about them. I never did a background check on you, Rose, I knew just about everything about you that night at the bar after our eyes locked for the first time while you were dancing. I can see and control your dreams, that includes daydreams, which explains that little incident you had in the bath before your first date with Jason." He shoots me a wicked smile and I can feel myself blushing at the memory. "I can also see you when I'm not with you if I focus on you hard enough and I can hear what you're thinking all the time."