Gabe

She is marked by my hand. I have given her a death sentence. Why in all that is life did I touch her?

Because you’ve always wanted to.

“Fuck.” I pound my fist against the rough stone of the roof ledge I am perched on. The same roof where Fern had watched me leave her all those years ago. A year for her, a fucking lifetime for me. Thirty-seven long years since I saw her last break apart whilst I took that baby’s life. I vowed never to return. I vowed to never think about her again.

Now look at the fucking twisted shit I am in.

Fern is the missing clan daughter.

Fern.

My angel.

Is our angel.

And I can’t even touch her.

“FUCK!” I roar, the agony ripping through my chest. I’m fucking bleeding once again, right here on the rooftop where it all began.

This is where I first found her. I had been walking along the corridors of this building where the sick reside, pulled by an invisible force deep in the heart of my chest. I thought it had been another life needing to leave the world, needing my assistance so that they could pass peacefully. Here in this world I do not dish out pain or heartache. I am still an Angel of Death, but it isn’t a punishment I give, no, I relieve suffering.

How ironic, given the suffering I feel now.

I’ve marked her. Life damn it, I’ve marked Fern.

I stand and roar into the night. I roar until my lungs are empty and my throat is sore. What the fuck am I to do now?

My eyes fall back to the door I passed through all those years ago, the memory bombarding me.

I’d emerged on the rooftop ready to help this life wrapped in death move on. I had been expecting someone close to the end of their life and instead I had been faced with Fern.

Fern and her sun-blonde hair.

Fern and her gentle soul.

Fern and her will of steel.

Fern and her voice filled with sadness, edged with beauty.

She had been standing on the rooftop looking out across the horizon as dawn rose, warm pinks and oranges spreading like spilt paint in the night sky.

And she had been singing, her voice as pure and light as the most talented of Clan Vitae.

Fern had been lost to her song, the first tendrils of light making a halo of her sun-blonde hair. I had stopped abruptly, the power of her aura forcing the air to leave my chest in a sudden rush. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more beautiful, or more alone. Her pain-filled words called to something deep inside of me and in that moment, I felt something crack. My heart hasn’t stopped bleeding since.

I think I would have been able to leave and never come back if she hadn’t turned and looked directly at me. I should have left the moment I felt the pull inside my chest wrench me towards her. I should have left as she turned, the morning breeze lifting strands of her hair.

I should have left.

But I didn’t.

That had been almost one hundred and sixty years ago and I have stalked her ever since. Coming back to this place where life meets death and death regains life, just so I could see her, be in her presence. I have got to know the woman who is Fern. The woman who draws life into the world, who holds life in her hands on a daily basis, who reminds me of the man I once was, who so selflessly gives up her own time, her own happiness, so others can live theirs. She is full of so much love, and yet she has no one to love her in return.

I have watched her live a life alone. So many times I have wanted to be the one to share it with her, this dark angel with a heart that bleeds shadows and death, wishing for the impossible.

I bend over, my stomach sucker-punched with the realisation that I have hurt such a beautiful soul. Now she could die because I wasn’t strong enough to step away. I can still feel her hand pressed against mine.

My fucking skin burns from her touch still.

For her it was just yesterday, for me a month has passed. In that time, my soul has grown darker with the barbaric acts that Queen Adrielle has forced me to commit. So dark that I want to touch Fern again and damn the consequences. I’d felt her life essence seep into my skin and for a brief moment I’d wanted to take her brightness and absorb it, making it mine.

I’d wanted to own a piece of her.

My fingers curl into fists at my sides. Anger, pain, soul-curdling rage sweeps over me.

I want to drown in the darkness. I want to take and take and take. I want to feel something other than this agony. Then I think of Fern and the dawn lighting her hair into a golden halo and I cannot commit such acts. I won’t.

Because I love her.