Ending Hymn

Miles had been staring at Vretiel in silence as he lay next to her. He would caress her cheeks, her shoulders, her arms, her legs, her lips. Occasionally, he would ignite a wave of goosebumps over her bared skin, but aside from that, she didn't react to his touches. Her stare was like rings of fire.

"Is it because you don't recognize me?" he asked her again for the umpteenth time.

She frowned.

He leaned forward. "Is it my eye?"

Vretiel opened her lips but remained quiet, and Miles signed in frustration. He ached for her to remember. He ached for her to react to him. She was the reason for all he had done. If she couldn't acknowledge him, acknowledge his touches, then what had he been living for? She had to remember him. Speak to him. Anything.

Please.

He drew her closer so they were almost bumping noses. She was warm. "I was there when you were ripping your feathers off your wings. It was eleven years ago. That's how long I've waited to see you again," he said.

Her face lit up as if her memories were life-giving. "That boy..."

He smiled and his chest swelled with the sweetness of her breath. "I wouldn't say I was a boy back then."

A pause. "Your eye."

"It happened back then too. Your first touch." Miles kissed her and ran his hand down her spine, over her hip bone, and to her inner thigh. Again, no matter how much he touched her, she was stiff and unresponsive.

He gritted his teeth, digging his fingers in her soft flesh. "Is it because of the Avid Eye? I'm not like them. I won't do to you what they did."

Vretiel slipped back into silence and Miles reached for her face, gripping her cheeks and chin. He shook her a little. "Why won't you just let me—Fuck."

He smashed his lips to hers. Their teeth clicked together and he tasted blood, but the burn of it on his tongue fueled him. He squeezed her breasts with both hands before he spread open her legs with one quick shove of his hand. Miles traced her cunt with his finger. It easily slipped inside and he felt wet warmness all around.

Surprised, he gazed at Vretiel. All along had his touches actually been kindling her? Her face was flushed and her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths that exited her parted lips. But her eyes. They appeared glazed and vacant one second, then filled with fiery hatred the next.

But she was wet all the same and that was enough for him. His thumb found her clit and his fingers moved inside her. She gasped and that tiny sound was enough to drive Miles wild. He buried his face in her hair and rotated between kissing her neck and sucking her breasts. All the other women he had pleased before were only practice for this one that mattered. The only one that mattered.

Her airy gasps evolved to moans of climax, and the sound of her, the feel of her squirming under him, had almost been enough for Miles to reach his own. He looked down at his angel. Her chest was covered in red marks, legs shaking, and nipples on her breasts erect. There was a cut on her lower lip from their earlier, violent kiss.

Miles bit his own lip. He was so hard, desired her so bad. He took off his shirt and when he brought his cock out, the air was enough to make him twitch. When he inserted himself inside Vreteil, Miles kissed her. He kept kissing her the entire time. Inside, she squeezed him and he pressed her to him until he didn't know if the warmness he felt was her skin on his or his own fevered body taking over.

¤~¤~¤

Miles woke up to Vretiel's red eyes. They weren't empty nor were they passionate with loathing. They simply were, and it filled Miles's head with a lightheadedness he enjoyed. He reached out to her and caressed her lip where a scab had formed. He frowned. When he had cut her back open with his scalpel, she hadn't scarred.

"They're gone," she said. "Well almost."

He sat up in panic. She hadn't said what was almost gone, but he knew what she was talking about. He licked his lips and ran his fingers through his hair. Vretiel sat up next to him, hugged her legs to her chest, and rested her cheek on her knees. The small smile on her lips betrayed how much she enjoyed his agitated movements.

"It's your fault," Vretiel said.

Miles bared his teeth at her. "You're lying."

But the scab on her still smiling lips said otherwise. Angels don't scar.

"Let me see them." His voice ended with a growl.

She glared at him. "I'm not going to let you cut me open again!"

A nude woman was not an intimidating creature, angel or not, especially one as beautiful as Vretiel. Miles knocked her legs away from her and pinned her on her stomach, twisting an arm behind her back. Her cries were muffled by the pillow underneath her face.

Miles's heart beat raced and the only sound he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, his breath dragging through his throat. He didn't need to cut her open. The decay was seen through her battered skin.

Black veins branched out from her spine and across her shoulder blades, a macabre kaleidoscope of bruised flesh and inked skin. Jutting through the tiny rivers of black were white dots. Bile burned his throat as Miles pinched one of them. He pulled out a feather, its barbs clumped together by black, tar-like substance.

"No," he said as he pulled one after another after another. "No!"

His room filled with the sound of Miles's frustrated yells and Vretiel's growing screams of pain, but Miles kept going, pulling out as many feathers as he could until Vretiel's silver blood coated her entire back, making it difficult to find the remaining peeking quills. The blanket around her clomped with her blood.

"Why?" Miles asked, releasing Vretiel. His hands were slick with her blood, but it didn't burn anymore.

A cough escaped her as she gasped in air, and her arms shook as she lifted herself up. She faced him with wet eyes and a tearstained face. "I said it was your fault. All of you. Because of the will He gave to you all."

Miles breathing wouldn't slow down. "He?"

"The will of mankind was the most powerful thing He created. It controlled everything. It was akin to His own power. That is why when He finally brought you all up here, it was able to change it all. You changed it all, and then when your willpower caused Him to disappear, you all forgot, and only we remained." She released a single sob. "Mankind's willpower damned us all. Even now, after almost everything He had created has been replaced by your definition of paradise, even now, as we slowly disappear as well...even now...I have been fighting against your will since we met."

Vretiel collapsed onto the bed with a cry. "But I can't. And I'm losing my wings. You all think angels are beautiful women you can tame. Well, that's what you're turning us into. I wasn't created with breasts or with this foul slit between my legs, but you gave it to me. You wanted to be inside of an angel."

Miles was in a fog. He didn't know who this He she kept talking about was. All he could think about was her wings. They were disappearing. His angel was disappearing. But then...

"Why were you ripping out your wings when I saw you? Why if what you hate what you're becoming?" he asked.

She grinned and despite the discord Miles was drowning in, the sight of her impish smirk sent his heart into a frenzy and he felt a slight flush across his face.

"Because I wanted to be a fallen, but without Him to disobey, I had to do it by turning on myself, the only part of Him that remains," she said. "Fallen aren't allowed to return up here, regardless of its state, and up here is not my home anymore."

"I don't understand what you're saying!" Miles lifted her by her shoulders to face him.

Her smile was weak this time. "Of course you don't. You all forgot. What did you think angels were?"

He didn't know how to answer her question and instead cradled her. The feel of her bare skin on his calmed his distorted thoughts. But he also felt the quills from her feathers pricking his arms, the slippery sensation of her blood sliding across his thighs.

Miles gazed at her and for the first time in years his injured eye burned like the day it was stabbed. "Are you leaving?" he whispered.

Vretiel chuckled. She was all smiles today. "No. I will be exactly as you want me to be."

She sighed while he exhaled. Then, the two were still and silent, nude statues bleeding silver within a nest of rotten feathers. 

~*~*~*

Author's Note: Hi there!

So this is the end of this story. This was something I wrote that was waaay out of my comfort zone--hence why it's a short story--so I apologize for anything that sounded off or strange or...just bad and half-assed. XD It was an experimental piece, and even though it took me FREAKIN' FOREVER to finish it, I had fun doing it. Even came up with some more background of what kind of world this is that didn't really come out in the story. 

Either way, I hope you enjoyed it, and please let me know what you think about it. Like I said, this was an experimental piece, so I'm open to feedback...even if it's negative. 

Thank you for reading! <3