Page 6 of Touched By Darkness

She looks confused. I don’t blame her. I don’t understand it myself. “I don’t mean an actual light.” Pressing my hand over her chest, I continue, “I mean this. Yourlight. Maybe Heaven and Hell are physical manifestations of our inner states. Maybe none of this shit is real. How else can what happened to me just be erased? How am I even back here as if I was never gone? The truth is, I don’t know why Heaven took me back. It makes no sense.”

“It does to me.”

“Yeah?” I ask, and she nods.

“I’m not going to pretend I understood your ramblings about manifestations and whatnot. But you’re inherently good. No matter what you may have done out there or what you have witnessed, you’re good and pure at heart. It’s not about your actions, but what’s at your core. Even perfection has flaws. Even good souls make mistakes. How can the Light forgive sin unless sin is committed?”

“You’re sounding like me,” I reply with a laugh, and she joins in as we start walking again.

“You said it yourself. We’ve known each other our whole lives. I may not understand most of it, but I do listen to you.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” I reply honestly.

“Where are you going?” a masculine voice asks behind me, making me jump out of my skin.

Oliver takes me in, running his eyes down my body before scanning the trees and the trodden path. I was on my way to the gates. No surprise there.

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Where to?” he asks, stepping closer, suspicion written all over him. He’s tall and broad with a blinding smile, which is nowhere in sight now. His blue eyes narrow when I hesitate to reply.

“I like it out here.”

“We all know where this road leads. You shouldn’t be here.”

Freya sounds awkward as she interrupts our stare down. “I’m going to head back before the elders come looking for us.”

Neither of us reply, locked in a battle of wills.

“I’ll see you guys later.” She walks off, the sound of her soft steps growing fainter.

Grinding my jaw, I steer off the path, refusing to justify myself to him. It soothes me to know I can still experience anger and annoyance in this shiny place. It reminds me that the part of me that aches for Daemon, Alaric, and Ronan is real. Not a fragment of my imagination.

Oliver chases after me and cages me against a tall tree. “Where are you going?”

I study him, running my eyes over his defined cheekbones and straight nose. When my gaze flicks down to his lips, a familiar throb awakens in my clit. More proof I’m not going insane. I had never felt sexual desire before I left Eden. I didn’t know about sex. Now I do. Now I’m painfully aware of his nearness and masculine smell. The muscles in his arms, where he traps me against the tree. The rise and fall of his broad chest.

“Nothing good can come from stealing an angel.”

“Besides the pleasure of defiling her.”

My eyes dance across his skin.

“Want us to corrupt you beyond repair?”

“I was going for a walk,” I repeat, my eyes catching on a splash of red on the branch behind him.

An apple.

My breath catches. I can practically hear the hissing in my ear as my eyes collide with Oliver’s.

I reach up, dragging my fingers through his day-old stubble. The look on his face would be humorous if the insides of my thighs weren’t sticky with arousal.

I drop to my knees before I can think it through.

“When we’re done with you, your white wings will drip with ink.”

“Aurelia, what are you doing?” Oliver asks, confused. His words soon die on his tongue when I palm his soft length while sinking my teeth into my bottom lip. Oliver has never been touched before. The same innocence that once burned bright in my eyes stares back at me through his ocean-blue irises. I want to taint him. The satisfaction I get when he hardens in my hand makes me feel alive for the first time since I re-entered this fucking place.

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