Chapter 32: Pendant
The shield reflected the rays of the flashlight I held towards it as Genie rumbled through the bag for the pendant I had given to her earlier. It was the key to our way out of here. It had taken a lot out of me to even muster up the courage to steal it in the first place.
Just remembering how it happened had the blood rushing to my head again.
Angelo was looking at me with surprise in his eyes that I had willing come to his room.
"Are you alright?" He tentatively asked after shooting up out of his chair. He had been reading a book and tossed it aside for me. My eyes caught a glimpse of the titleâ'Beyond Good and Evil' it spelt out boldly. I didn't have the time to think about it before the back of his hand rested on my forehead.
I stiffened at the contact, but I wasn't surprised. He had been constantly checking my temperature at any chance he got after the entire fiasco with Elisabetta in the mirror room. Me almost freezing to death had triggered some type of thermostat in him and I couldn't go five seconds in his company without being tested.
"Just in case," he said again with a mildly sheepish smile before removing his hand he wasn't sure I wanted on me.
Before he could completely pull away, I cuddled my face closer into his palm.
He looked at me, shocked and wide eyed.
I couldn't say I blamed him though. This was the first time in a long while I wasn't being standoffish or complaining about my life because of him.
The slight show of affection had him melting before he brought both my cheeks into his hands. I couldn't deny how fulfilling it felt with the warmth of his palms resonating on my face. I even felt my toes tingle with joy.
It had taken a moment of us sighing in contentment and our bodies slowly drawing closer to each other's like mutual mates. We seemed so in need of the physical comfort the distance brought us that we had to gather ourselves before we could speak again. Moreso him than me; my brain had been clouded by his addictive and calming scent from the very beginning. It took a long while before I could remember my mission again.
"I thought you would never want me to touch you again."
"I thought so too." I admitted out loud.
I felt him visibly flinch at my honesty.
After his rainy parade and anger tantrum, I really thought it was over for us. He had stripped me bare emotionally and physically which was more embarassing than anything I had ever experienced in my entire life.
Despite me willingly talking to him, it was only so I could get here. To this point of him letting me into his world and for me to know the truth of what happened between us. However, he had taken the cowardly route and brought me to Aegina only to enclose me from the truth of it all. I never asked to be on the border of the heavens for this reason. He might as well hadn't brought me here in the first place if this trip was only going to turn out to be false hope. I wasn't going to settle for that.
If it meant selling myself short for a small fraction of time to gain something much more knowledgable in return, so be it.
I was willing to get on my knees if it meant taking that pendant from around his neck.
I hadn't even realized it had been there this entire time.
He must have started wearing it before our journey here.
That would have made sense with how important it was to seamless mobility here.
He nuzzled the side of my face and I felt him blow out a breath of hot air. It was obvious how us being so close and initimate after such a long period of time was affecting him.
To be honest, I wasn't all that immune to everything that was happening. My chest pressed against him, his large hands encircling my waist and his hair brushing the nape of my neck softly. It was alot for me to take in at the moment. I could feel myself becoming excited as his lips brushed against my ear whispering, "Can I hold you closer?"
"Just how much closer can we get?" I voiced my thoughts out loud.
We were practically stuck together like glue.
"I can show you." Was all he said before holding me tighter and with much more hunger.
I felt his need without having to look him in the eyes, and I was certain the shade of them would be a dark and dangerous gray.
My mind stirred as he held me like he was going to lose me which was highly ironic given my inner intentions.
I gasped when his hands reached for my hair and tugged the tie off, making it fall loose. The strands hardly got the time to block my face before his hands came, pulling them back and facing me.
I was right about his eyes.
I almost came undone seeing the sight of them. There was something so defintively intimate about the way he looked at me, the way he exposed himself and such a gaze to me and only me. It made me feel like I was the only girl in the world worthy of seeing him in this state. To see him absolutely glow with that halo-like shadow that manifested around him. In these moments, I was humbled to realize he was beyond my reach.
Yet I was also attacked with a sensation of nothing but less than feeling blessed as I realized he wasn't a figment of my imagination.
I could touch him.
Angelo was real.
He allowed himself to be as real as he could be in my presence.
I bit down onto my lips without much thought. His gaze caught the act for a second before it flickered back to my eyes that watched him, silently stunned.
He smiled, not smirked, but gave an endearing, heart-wrenching kind of smile.
One that made a girl feel guility about what she was about to do.
Swallowing my pride because I have already come too far to turn back now, I gripped him by the collar of his shirt and forced his lips down onto my own.
At first, he didn't respond.
It was like the earth stopped when he hadn't.
I felt myself growing more and more embarassed as the time elapsed and just as I was about to part from him, his arms came and caged me in.
His lips were ravenous from that point onwards. He didn't waste any time in taking what he wanted from me and I did my best to keep up with him. It was hard though because it was like asking a turtle to race a shark in water. There was no way I could win.
My heart skipped several beats as he stepped forward, causing me to meet the edge of the bed and fall onto his mattress. I let out a small shriek of surprise. Before I could even react to being laid down so skillfully, he climbed on top of me.
I looked up at him like a deer caught in headlights as he began to take off his shirt.
"A-Angelo..."
I hadn't expected things to progress this quickly.
By chance, did he interpret my actions as a hint that I wanted to consummate our relationship?
As he leant his head down for my neck, I burst out, "I'm not gonna sleep with you!"
His lips nibbled on my neck and I moaned before vibrations of laughter came from him.
"I know." He hummed, then attacked the cleavage before his eyes with tiny love bites.
I lost control of my hands as they went all over his body, through his hair and squeezing at his biceps at the thrill of him descending downwards.
"Angelo," I whined breathlessly as he started kissing down my stomach until he reached the area below my belly button.
"What do you want, my love?"
I marveled at the rasp and rawness of his voice, but there was also genuine affection.
It caused a level of affliction to my heart I could hardly withstand.
What did I want? I stupidly thought.
I wanted to seduce you and get that goddamn pendant!
But my body betrayed me as it always did whenever it came to him.
"You," my lips whispered instead. "I want you."
Funny thing how he was the one who ended up on his kness, but for some reason, it felt like I was the one who submitted to him.
By the time I was taken to euphoric heaven, I had forgotten all about my mission and the pendant.
All that was left was a satisfying high and a longing for Angelo I had never felt before.
So how did I end up getting the pendant if I got sidetracked by Angelo's incredible oral skills that came in more ways than one?
Surprisingly, he took it off to shower when I went back to his room to tell him dinner was ready in the evening.
At first, I didn't approach it because it felt like a trap. Any situation that was too good to be true usually was.
Thankfully though, that wasn't the case.
After hearing Angelo hum in the shower for another five minutes I snatched the damn jewelry like a thief and ran.
Now as Genie revealed it to my eyes from the bag she has been digging in for what felt like an eternity, the necklace had a different vibe to it. The weight of it seemed to fall onto me even though I didn't have it in my hands.
Guilt.
It was the guilt of how I let its owner drop his guard and leave it unprotected.
I looked away, not wanting to face the antique design of wings and fire it had. It started glowing within the dark as it came at a closer range to the shield. I watched as Genie tapped it four times before placing it against the field of energy. The entire wall shook before it swirled and within it a hole to the outside was torn open.
"Angel numbers," she said referring to my non-verbal curiosity of how she knew what seemed to be a password to this thing.
"It's usually the case for most ancient artifacts used by celestial beings or whatever you humans call them."
"Hey, that sounds oddly like discrimation. Did you already forget you're still one of "us humans" since you can now do cool shit like this now?"
She laughed. "No, I didn't forget. I was a cat a couple minutes ago, did you forget?"
"A badass cat." I mumbled.
Her humor sobered up before she looked before us pensively. It looked like she already had a fair idea of what lied ahead of us while I had no clue. Looking over at me, she asked seriously, "Are you sure this is what you want to do?"
My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at her. Is she really trying to talk me out of this after everything we just went through to get to this point?
"What? Are you catching cold feet?"
"Kind of," she chuckled half-heartedly.
"If you feel like that then you don't have to come with me. I'm sure I'll figure something out along the way."
She snorted. "That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth. You have a higher chance of surving in Antartica than you do on the border of the heavens if you get lost. Without a guide, all sorts of venegful creatures linger there, hoping to stumble across unsuspecting passerbys like us."
"And that's allowed? One would think the heavens would have better surveillance than that."
"They do, but shit happens. Especially if it's your own kind that brings along trouble with them wherever they go."
"I have a feeling you're talking about somebody in particular..."
"You do know that Angelo is willing to do anything for you, right? And I mean anything." She cut me off sharply, almost urgently.
"What does this have to do with what we were talking about?" I was confused about her motives.
"It has everything to do with it. You're going to the extremes of asking me to put you in Mikael's way to confirm your suspicions of things you didn't even live through. I'm all for supporting you and I wouldn't help if I knew he would hurt youâ"
"He won't?"
She paused and looked at me like I had grown an extra head. "Did you think I would do all of this if it meant you would possibly die?"
"Maybe."
Genie sighed before throwing up her hands in defeat. "The point I'm trying to make here is that you have options. You don't have to walk into the lion's den looking for help when there's a domestic angel willing to fly to the moon and back to make you happy."
"What if that angel is a liar? Does that mean I have to be content with him doing everything for me when I don't even know who he really is and what he's doing behind my back? Is ignorance really bliss? Because I don't believe it is."
Her lips folded with silence.
"That's what I thought."
"Now, are you going to continue helping me or not? This is your last chance to back out. You won't be able to turn back after this."
"You don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "I was giving you a chance to back out."
I simply stared back at what looked like a portal ahead of us.
She reached for my hand before counting, "One, two, three..."
Then, we were engulfed in darkness we could not turn back from.
END OF PART ONE