Archangel's Shadows

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Her eyes were drenched in terror.

Raising a hand, the one-who-waited stroked her cheek as her throat worked, the scream swallowed up by the pungent miasma of her fear.

“Not tonight.” A rasp, its throat a ruin. “I have fed.” The hunger came often, but the one-who-waited had learned to discipline that voracious need, because without discipline it would become a slave to those urges rather than a master of them.

So it pressed its mouth to hers in a kiss that made her whimper, its lips cracked and papery against hers. Hers had been soft once, were no longer. A pity.

Releasing her jaw, the one-who-waited smiled and drew one last draft of fear-laced air before removing the temptation from view. “Soon,” it promised as the wood obscured her face. “Soon.”