Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

liked to torment. He preferred the flexibility and range that came with destroying the mind with its own sin, which was why the older souls, those that had moved beyond the ability to be tormented through physical means, feared his presence so much. Primal pain was brutal, but the psychological pain he brought to them was an exquisite abomination.
    This was a primal pleasure, and it stirred something heavy and aching and hot inside of Renat. This was flesh pressed to flesh, rigid inside of its silken cage and bound between warm, slick skin. This was Emiel in his arms, the angel he had longed for, so much more than the threadbare memory Renat had cherished. This was a real entity, who sighed against his lips as he brought one elegant hand down between them and closed his fingers around both their lengths. He stroked their erections, and the feel of it made Renat groan, half in protest, half in pleasure.
    "It's all right," Emiel reassured him, his voice shaking with desire. "You can have this. We can have it, together. I swear to you this is right. Relax, my love, don't fight it. Don't fight me. Welcome me." Renat didn't reply, but tilted Emiel's head back and fastened his lips to the long pale column of his throat, alternately nipping and caressing him there, trying to control the urge to sink his teeth into that tender skin as the ache in his groin intensified. Emiel didn't pull back or resist, just leaned harder against him as he pumped his hand around them, holding them so tightly together it almost felt like they were joined there. It left Renat balancing on the edge of physical pain, still overshadowed by the foreign ecstasy that was consuming him.
    "You are for me," Emiel moaned, digging his nails into the space between Renat's wings and wrapping his legs around the demon's waist. The sudden weight was nothing, but the neediness of the gesture stunned Renat, breaking down the dregs of his faltering opposition. "Mine," the angel said, lowering his face to Renat's. His eyes shone so brightly with his grace that Renat could hardly meet them, and yet it was impossible to look away. All that brilliance, all that love…it was all for him. "You are mine, Renat." Emiel was close, so close, and when he began to lose himself to the pleasure of their flesh, Renat was able to let himself go and fall over the edge with his lover. He closed the distance between their mouths and screamed his ecstatic delirium into Emiel as everything else faded away.
    For a time Renat couldn't see anything but the golden mist of the air, covering his eyes like a shroud. As he recovered, shapes began to coalesce, and then he could see bits and pieces of Emiel: his nose, the sweet curve of his mouth. His eyes, still so blue and so bright. He looked happy, and held Renat gently around his waist. After a moment, Renat realized that he was smiling back at the angel. It was potent, this love between them, if it could force his lips into an expression they hadn't worn since he fell from Heaven.
    "Renat," Emiel said, like his name was a prayer. "My love."
    "Yours," Renat agreed, finally accepting it. Emiel smiled and kissed him. When he pulled back his expression was a little more solemn. "We need not seek him out. Your king is coming to us."
    As soon as Emiel mentioned it Renat could sense it as well, the silent but sure pressure in the back of his mind that heralded Satan's impending arrival. In the weak, Satan's presence evoked insanity, and lesser demons fled from it. In those with stronger minds it put them on edge, made them more likely to snap and snarl. It accentuated their urge to challenge, and Satan had used this visceral ability to prompt his enemies into reckless combat with him many times before. He had never come close to being defeated. Renat felt simultaneously protective and despairing.
    "He will not take me away," Emiel promised him.
    "How do you know that?" Renat demanded, holding onto his lover's arms too tightly.
    "Because I have faith in our Father," the angel said. "The Morning Star is still His son. He has a place in God's grand design, even if it is hard to understand. We will be well." He kissed Renat again, then stepped back and put some space between them. "We should go and meet him."
    "We should," Renat agreed. They climbed out of the healing pool, and somehow Renat knew he would never enter those waters again. Whatever happened next, his existence was about to change indelibly.
    They were dry in moments in the hellish