Chapter 85: 85
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With those fateful words reverberating through my system, stilling my body to an artificial obedience and abating my willpower to little more than a fraction of its former glory. Those two words and just like that, every limb in my body ceases to function. My mind sinks into a spiral of compliance, forged with the idea that moving- in any sense of the word, would be suddenly the most awful thing to do.
A vampire's glamour has always been a binding one, an enactment that can last a lifetime if the creature so sees it fit. And perhaps I should have presumed that sooner or later Soren would hold me under its grasp, use it to tease and toy with me in the flirtatious and daring manner that vampires often do, but I find even so that the knowledge of that notion does not make me any less bitter to the consequences.
"Good, my sweet little dove," he whispers as he positions himself behind me with the cocky boldness of a vampire prince in seducing his prey, pulling down the collar of my blouse with his long, slender fingers to expose the pale skin of my neck, laden with bite marks that dot themselves all over my pale body. He traces over them tauntingly, the smile glaringly evident in the whispering murmurs of his voice.
"I see you haven't healed them all. And why is that, Serena darling?" he coo's mockingly, voice dripping with a taunting sweetness. He flicks out his dark hair from across his eyes to blow a cool breath over my neck, sending an icy shudder ricocheting down my spine to coil pleasantly in the base on my stomach.
Yet in my subdued state of mind, there is little more I can do than stand in obedient silence and trust that he- a vampire notorious for his wanton love of games and lusty desire, has sense enough to not pull any more dirty tricks on me. If I could have moved, I might have bent double laughing at the ludicrousness of my own thought.
The Scarlet Prince not play games? He practically invented them!
"Arch your back for me darling," he murmurs against the shell of my ear for little more purpose than the joy of getting my to do so, flicking his tongue over it in a lazy effort to get me to bend to his will- an effort that is entirely successful. Despite the shackles that lace their way throughout my mind to bind my to his superior constraint, with what little remaining scraps of willpower I have, I still have enough energy to shoot two words at him through the hazy denseness of my mind.
Hedonistic bastard.
To that he merely chuckles.
"Now, would this really be a dream if I could glamour you?" he asks, sliding my blouse off a little further to expose my shoulders to the bare warmth of the golden sun. The peculiarity of the feeling overwhelms me, for while the icy touch of his fingers is all too prominent against my hypersensitive flesh, the sun's warmth barely penetrates through me, as though its glorious light had somehow faded into oblivion.
"N-no," I stammer, suddenly all too aware of his lips smoothing their way down my neck to lay to rest at the junction between my neck and shoulders, lingering with precise coyness over a sensitive patch of my skin.
"And would it, Serena darling, be a dream if you would feel this?"
His wet mouth opens up against my skin and, sure enough, his wet, warm tongue flickers over my tender skin, eliciting a heavy shudder to course through my body, weakening me at the knees until the only thing holding me up is Soren's hand hooked tightly around my waist, drawing me firmly into his body. Something hard pokes me from behind, and I blush.
"Keep yourself under control, Soren. If I had my sword, it would most certainly be at your neck by now, you realise." I retort, but my voice is breathy, and I barely have the concentration to think, let alone speak, so my threat holds of little value to him. I cannot see his face, but I could have sworn he rolled his eyes.
"You have an awful habit of threatening me with swords, you know. It really ruins the mood." He sighs weightily, stepping back to run a hand through his silky, mussed hair with a beautifully careless ease as he snaps his fingers for me to be released from my invisible shackles. I flash him a sharp toothed grin and ignore the throbbing ache that has begun to devour its way through my flesh.
"Now now," I say, turning myself round to face him as he throws me a mocking pout. I wiggle my finger at him. "You will get what you want later," I assure, walking over to place a tender kiss on his cheek.
Soren however, being the hedonistic and self indulgent creature that he is, is not sated by a simple kiss on the cheek, so just as I pull away, he takes hold on my chin and captures his lips in mine in a fiery wave of burning passion. His tongue swirls around my mouth, claiming every inch of me as his own as his free hand sinks lower down my body, trailing over my skin, under the hem of my trousers until he reaches his desired destination with a low and satisfied growl. Pleasure spikes the end of my nerves.
"I see my poison is still having an effect on you," he chuckles devilishly, withdrawing his hand to press my body tightly against his. He is lucky there is no one around, else I might have screamed at him.
"That's enough of that," I scold, pulling away, whilst simultaneously trying to ignore the notable drop in my heart and the wanton burning in my chest the burns inside my like a bonfire, each of Soren's actions adding more and more fuel to the already towering flames. Curse a vampire's poison.
And curse me, I think sorrowfully, for wanting it nonetheless.
Soren makes a pleasant enough show of bringing up his fingers up to run through his hair in a beautifully careless manner, eyeing the flushed redness of my face with an intense curiosity, as if he would like nothing more to press a few more of my buttons to see where else that redness may spread. There is a look about him that catches in the subtle lowering of his eyelids, the cheeky upturn of his half smile, as though he would like nothing more than to spend the evening feasting on bloody wine and undressing me for no other pleasure than his own- or to show his prize to the jealous eyes of his court. His voice echoes tauntingly in my mind:
What's the matter little dove, can't you handle your Prince?
I sniff.
"Tease,"
Soren shrugs insouciantly in response.
"Would you prefer I go?" he asks in a manner that seems to imply that no matter my answer, he would not be going anywhere, offering up a sideways smile as he straightens his court coat, all at once switching from a lust driven hedonistic vampire to a refined gentleman in a matter of seconds. I grumble an indignant response.
After a few seconds of silence, something pings in the back of my mind.
"Where is Azrael today?"
Soren narrows his eyes, a dark shadow drawing over his face.
"I haven't seen him all morning. Not that I really care to either. Why?"
I bite my lip, twiddling my fingers uncomfortably as a faint flash of white hair parts across my vision, the dying echoes of screams resonating in my mind like the wild laments of a ghost. Could that truly have been Azrael?
I shake my head absently, dismissing his question.
"It's nothing,"
Though suddenly, this single factor had become everything. I wonder faintly to myself if Soren has already seen through the lies in my heart, and if, perhaps, as perspective as he may be, he has already figured out what I am asking over, but the dull look on his face gives nothing away, remaining an empty canvass over a vault of emotions. A muscle twitches on his cheek.
"So be it,"
A breeze pulls up in the clearing, and the tugging sensation pulls at me again, twisting at my gut and the fragile edges of my skin, threatening to wash me away in the breeze like a leaf that has fallen by an autumn wind- whisked away into a crumpled oblivion. I clutch my arms tightly around myself.
"I think I am going somewhere again," I mutter nervously, my mind shifting from all thoughts of Azrael, "Though I am not entirely sure why this keeps happening."
Soren studies me, pondering over my situation with a tilt of his head to one side. With a small smile, I think in that moment he looks like a curious puppy who has just been offered a toy that he doesn't understand, the look of confusion evident, plastered all over his face.
"Well," he says, circling me now, bending low to inspect my form, keeping a healthy distance from my skin as his hands air around my body as though it were an artefact too precious to be handled. "Considering you have been emitting a minor radiance for the past however long you have been here, and the fact you have a physical presence and can feel me, I would take a gander that it might be a new strain of your magic. Like my shadowshifting, only the way you describe it makes it sounds like you are occupying more than one plane of existence. Perhaps it has something to do with the projection of the light. Perhaps it is random. I cannot say for sure," he sighs, then, looping his arms more gently round my waist, whispers.
"Don't worry yourself over it. If you need someone to educate you on the magic of souls, I am here for you. Just don't ask Azrael," he adds jokingly at the end, but there is a slight bitterness in his voice that even the delicate curves of his smile cannot conceal.
"Well, I am sure he knows something," I tease, waving a taunting finger at him to which Soren takes with a wrinkle of his slender nose. "He has the mind soul after all."
Suddenly Soren grows very still.
"Mind soul?"
I nod furrowing my brows in confusion.
"Don't mess with me, Soren. He is your brother! I know you hate him, but you don't need to deny him his powers."
Still, Soren remains rigid, his body motionless, gleaming under the golden light like a marble statue, frozen in the rays of the dying sun. A slow and deadly realisation seems to wash over him.
"Serena, Azrael wasn't born with a soul of power."
My body suddenly goes very, very cold.
"What?"
But Soren is already backing up, running his hand through his hair in a grasping desperation, as though some awful realisation had hit him all at once. Something murmurs on his lips, but I cannot hear it.
"Soren?" I start, making towards him. "Soren, what do you mean?"
But as soon as the words leave my lips, they are snatched away; my body begins to fall backwards again into that hungry, devouring darkness, stealing away the light in its outstretched talons and replacing it with an aching cold, robbing me of my vision for the next and final time as I swirl down into the spiralling black abyss, my words and thoughts echoing into nothing.
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With those fateful words reverberating through my system, stilling my body to an artificial obedience and abating my willpower to little more than a fraction of its former glory. Those two words and just like that, every limb in my body ceases to function. My mind sinks into a spiral of compliance, forged with the idea that moving- in any sense of the word, would be suddenly the most awful thing to do.
A vampire's glamour has always been a binding one, an enactment that can last a lifetime if the creature so sees it fit. And perhaps I should have presumed that sooner or later Soren would hold me under its grasp, use it to tease and toy with me in the flirtatious and daring manner that vampires often do, but I find even so that the knowledge of that notion does not make me any less bitter to the consequences.
"Good, my sweet little dove," he whispers as he positions himself behind me with the cocky boldness of a vampire prince in seducing his prey, pulling down the collar of my blouse with his long, slender fingers to expose the pale skin of my neck, laden with bite marks that dot themselves all over my pale body. He traces over them tauntingly, the smile glaringly evident in the whispering murmurs of his voice.
"I see you haven't healed them all. And why is that, Serena darling?" he coo's mockingly, voice dripping with a taunting sweetness. He flicks out his dark hair from across his eyes to blow a cool breath over my neck, sending an icy shudder ricocheting down my spine to coil pleasantly in the base on my stomach.
Yet in my subdued state of mind, there is little more I can do than stand in obedient silence and trust that he- a vampire notorious for his wanton love of games and lusty desire, has sense enough to not pull any more dirty tricks on me. If I could have moved, I might have bent double laughing at the ludicrousness of my own thought.
The Scarlet Prince not play games? He practically invented them!
"Arch your back for me darling," he murmurs against the shell of my ear for little more purpose than the joy of getting my to do so, flicking his tongue over it in a lazy effort to get me to bend to his will- an effort that is entirely successful. Despite the shackles that lace their way throughout my mind to bind my to his superior constraint, with what little remaining scraps of willpower I have, I still have enough energy to shoot two words at him through the hazy denseness of my mind.
Hedonistic bastard.
To that he merely chuckles.
"Now, would this really be a dream if I could glamour you?" he asks, sliding my blouse off a little further to expose my shoulders to the bare warmth of the golden sun. The peculiarity of the feeling overwhelms me, for while the icy touch of his fingers is all too prominent against my hypersensitive flesh, the sun's warmth barely penetrates through me, as though its glorious light had somehow faded into oblivion.
"N-no," I stammer, suddenly all too aware of his lips smoothing their way down my neck to lay to rest at the junction between my neck and shoulders, lingering with precise coyness over a sensitive patch of my skin.
"And would it, Serena darling, be a dream if you would feel this?"
His wet mouth opens up against my skin and, sure enough, his wet, warm tongue flickers over my tender skin, eliciting a heavy shudder to course through my body, weakening me at the knees until the only thing holding me up is Soren's hand hooked tightly around my waist, drawing me firmly into his body. Something hard pokes me from behind, and I blush.
"Keep yourself under control, Soren. If I had my sword, it would most certainly be at your neck by now, you realise." I retort, but my voice is breathy, and I barely have the concentration to think, let alone speak, so my threat holds of little value to him. I cannot see his face, but I could have sworn he rolled his eyes.
"You have an awful habit of threatening me with swords, you know. It really ruins the mood." He sighs weightily, stepping back to run a hand through his silky, mussed hair with a beautifully careless ease as he snaps his fingers for me to be released from my invisible shackles. I flash him a sharp toothed grin and ignore the throbbing ache that has begun to devour its way through my flesh.
"Now now," I say, turning myself round to face him as he throws me a mocking pout. I wiggle my finger at him. "You will get what you want later," I assure, walking over to place a tender kiss on his cheek.
Soren however, being the hedonistic and self indulgent creature that he is, is not sated by a simple kiss on the cheek, so just as I pull away, he takes hold on my chin and captures his lips in mine in a fiery wave of burning passion. His tongue swirls around my mouth, claiming every inch of me as his own as his free hand sinks lower down my body, trailing over my skin, under the hem of my trousers until he reaches his desired destination with a low and satisfied growl. Pleasure spikes the end of my nerves.
"I see my poison is still having an effect on you," he chuckles devilishly, withdrawing his hand to press my body tightly against his. He is lucky there is no one around, else I might have screamed at him.
"That's enough of that," I scold, pulling away, whilst simultaneously trying to ignore the notable drop in my heart and the wanton burning in my chest the burns inside my like a bonfire, each of Soren's actions adding more and more fuel to the already towering flames. Curse a vampire's poison.
And curse me, I think sorrowfully, for wanting it nonetheless.
Soren makes a pleasant enough show of bringing up his fingers up to run through his hair in a beautifully careless manner, eyeing the flushed redness of my face with an intense curiosity, as if he would like nothing more to press a few more of my buttons to see where else that redness may spread. There is a look about him that catches in the subtle lowering of his eyelids, the cheeky upturn of his half smile, as though he would like nothing more than to spend the evening feasting on bloody wine and undressing me for no other pleasure than his own- or to show his prize to the jealous eyes of his court. His voice echoes tauntingly in my mind:
What's the matter little dove, can't you handle your Prince?
I sniff.
"Tease,"
Soren shrugs insouciantly in response.
"Would you prefer I go?" he asks in a manner that seems to imply that no matter my answer, he would not be going anywhere, offering up a sideways smile as he straightens his court coat, all at once switching from a lust driven hedonistic vampire to a refined gentleman in a matter of seconds. I grumble an indignant response.
After a few seconds of silence, something pings in the back of my mind.
"Where is Azrael today?"
Soren narrows his eyes, a dark shadow drawing over his face.
"I haven't seen him all morning. Not that I really care to either. Why?"
I bite my lip, twiddling my fingers uncomfortably as a faint flash of white hair parts across my vision, the dying echoes of screams resonating in my mind like the wild laments of a ghost. Could that truly have been Azrael?
I shake my head absently, dismissing his question.
"It's nothing,"
Though suddenly, this single factor had become everything. I wonder faintly to myself if Soren has already seen through the lies in my heart, and if, perhaps, as perspective as he may be, he has already figured out what I am asking over, but the dull look on his face gives nothing away, remaining an empty canvass over a vault of emotions. A muscle twitches on his cheek.
"So be it,"
A breeze pulls up in the clearing, and the tugging sensation pulls at me again, twisting at my gut and the fragile edges of my skin, threatening to wash me away in the breeze like a leaf that has fallen by an autumn wind- whisked away into a crumpled oblivion. I clutch my arms tightly around myself.
"I think I am going somewhere again," I mutter nervously, my mind shifting from all thoughts of Azrael, "Though I am not entirely sure why this keeps happening."
Soren studies me, pondering over my situation with a tilt of his head to one side. With a small smile, I think in that moment he looks like a curious puppy who has just been offered a toy that he doesn't understand, the look of confusion evident, plastered all over his face.
"Well," he says, circling me now, bending low to inspect my form, keeping a healthy distance from my skin as his hands air around my body as though it were an artefact too precious to be handled. "Considering you have been emitting a minor radiance for the past however long you have been here, and the fact you have a physical presence and can feel me, I would take a gander that it might be a new strain of your magic. Like my shadowshifting, only the way you describe it makes it sounds like you are occupying more than one plane of existence. Perhaps it has something to do with the projection of the light. Perhaps it is random. I cannot say for sure," he sighs, then, looping his arms more gently round my waist, whispers.
"Don't worry yourself over it. If you need someone to educate you on the magic of souls, I am here for you. Just don't ask Azrael," he adds jokingly at the end, but there is a slight bitterness in his voice that even the delicate curves of his smile cannot conceal.
"Well, I am sure he knows something," I tease, waving a taunting finger at him to which Soren takes with a wrinkle of his slender nose. "He has the mind soul after all."
Suddenly Soren grows very still.
"Mind soul?"
I nod furrowing my brows in confusion.
"Don't mess with me, Soren. He is your brother! I know you hate him, but you don't need to deny him his powers."
Still, Soren remains rigid, his body motionless, gleaming under the golden light like a marble statue, frozen in the rays of the dying sun. A slow and deadly realisation seems to wash over him.
"Serena, Azrael wasn't born with a soul of power."
My body suddenly goes very, very cold.
"What?"
But Soren is already backing up, running his hand through his hair in a grasping desperation, as though some awful realisation had hit him all at once. Something murmurs on his lips, but I cannot hear it.
"Soren?" I start, making towards him. "Soren, what do you mean?"
But as soon as the words leave my lips, they are snatched away; my body begins to fall backwards again into that hungry, devouring darkness, stealing away the light in its outstretched talons and replacing it with an aching cold, robbing me of my vision for the next and final time as I swirl down into the spiralling black abyss, my words and thoughts echoing into nothing.
With those fateful words reverberating through my system, stilling my body to an artificial obedience and abating my willpower to little more than a fraction of its former glory. Those two words and just like that, every limb in my body ceases to function. My mind sinks into a spiral of compliance, forged with the idea that moving- in any sense of the word, would be suddenly the most awful thing to do.A vampire's glamour has always been a binding one, an enactment that can last a lifetime if the creature so sees it fit. And perhaps I should have presumed that sooner or later Soren would hold me under its grasp, use it to tease and toy with me in the flirtatious and daring manner that vampires often do, but I find even so that the knowledge of that notion does not make me any less bitter to the consequences. "Good, my sweet little dove," he whispers as he positions himself behind me with the cocky boldness of a vampire prince in seducing his prey, pulling down the collar of my blouse with his long, slender fingers to expose the pale skin of my neck, laden with bite marks that dot themselves all over my pale body. He traces over them tauntingly, the smile glaringly evident in the whispering murmurs of his voice."I see you haven't healed them all. And why is that, Serena darling?" he coo's mockingly, voice dripping with a taunting sweetness. He flicks out his dark hair from across his eyes to blow a cool breath over my neck, sending an icy shudder ricocheting down my spine to coil pleasantly in the base on my stomach. Yet in my subdued state of mind, there is little more I can do than stand in obedient silence and trust that he- a vampire notorious for his wanton love of games and lusty desire, has sense enough to not pull any more dirty tricks on me. If I could have moved, I might have bent double laughing at the ludicrousness of my own thought.The Scarlet Prince not play games? He practically invented them!"Arch your back for me darling," he murmurs against the shell of my ear for little more purpose than the joy of getting my to do so, flicking his tongue over it in a lazy effort to get me to bend to his will- an effort that is entirely successful. Despite the shackles that lace their way throughout my mind to bind my to his superior constraint, with what little remaining scraps of willpower I have, I still have enough energy to shoot two words at him through the hazy denseness of my mind.Hedonistic bastard.To that he merely chuckles."Now, would this really be a dream if I could glamour you?" he asks, sliding my blouse off a little further to expose my shoulders to the bare warmth of the golden sun. The peculiarity of the feeling overwhelms me, for while the icy touch of his fingers is all too prominent against my hypersensitive flesh, the sun's warmth barely penetrates through me, as though its glorious light had somehow faded into oblivion."N-no," I stammer, suddenly all too aware of his lips smoothing their way down my neck to lay to rest at the junction between my neck and shoulders, lingering with precise coyness over a sensitive patch of my skin."And would it, Serena darling, be a dream if you would feel this?"His wet mouth opens up against my skin and, sure enough, his wet, warm tongue flickers over my tender skin, eliciting a heavy shudder to course through my body, weakening me at the knees until the only thing holding me up is Soren's hand hooked tightly around my waist, drawing me firmly into his body. Something hard pokes me from behind, and I blush."Keep yourself under control, Soren. If I had my sword, it would most certainly be at your neck by now, you realise." I retort, but my voice is breathy, and I barely have the concentration to think, let alone speak, so my threat holds of little value to him. I cannot see his face, but I could have sworn he rolled his eyes."You have an awful habit of threatening me with swords, you know. It really ruins the mood." He sighs weightily, stepping back to run a hand through his silky, mussed hair with a beautifully careless ease as he snaps his fingers for me to be released from my invisible shackles. I flash him a sharp toothed grin and ignore the throbbing ache that has begun to devour its way through my flesh."Now now," I say, turning myself round to face him as he throws me a mocking pout. I wiggle my finger at him. "You will get what you want later," I assure, walking over to place a tender kiss on his cheek.Soren however, being the hedonistic and self indulgent creature that he is, is not sated by a simple kiss on the cheek, so just as I pull away, he takes hold on my chin and captures his lips in mine in a fiery wave of burning passion. His tongue swirls around my mouth, claiming every inch of me as his own as his free hand sinks lower down my body, trailing over my skin, under the hem of my trousers until he reaches his desired destination with a low and satisfied growl. Pleasure spikes the end of my nerves."I see my poison is still having an effect on you," he chuckles devilishly, withdrawing his hand to press my body tightly against his. He is lucky there is no one around, else I might have screamed at him. "That's enough of that," I scold, pulling away, whilst simultaneously trying to ignore the notable drop in my heart and the wanton burning in my chest the burns inside my like a bonfire, each of Soren's actions adding more and more fuel to the already towering flames. Curse a vampire's poison.And curse me, I think sorrowfully, for wanting it nonetheless.Soren makes a pleasant enough show of bringing up his fingers up to run through his hair in a beautifully careless manner, eyeing the flushed redness of my face with an intense curiosity, as if he would like nothing more to press a few more of my buttons to see where else that redness may spread. There is a look about him that catches in the subtle lowering of his eyelids, the cheeky upturn of his half smile, as though he would like nothing more than to spend the evening feasting on bloody wine and undressing me for no other pleasure than his own- or to show his prize to the jealous eyes of his court. His voice echoes tauntingly in my mind:What's the matter little dove, can't you handle your Prince?I sniff."Tease," Soren shrugs insouciantly in response."Would you prefer I go?" he asks in a manner that seems to imply that no matter my answer, he would not be going anywhere, offering up a sideways smile as he straightens his court coat, all at once switching from a lust driven hedonistic vampire to a refined gentleman in a matter of seconds. I grumble an indignant response.After a few seconds of silence, something pings in the back of my mind."Where is Azrael today?"Soren narrows his eyes, a dark shadow drawing over his face."I haven't seen him all morning. Not that I really care to either. Why?"I bite my lip, twiddling my fingers uncomfortably as a faint flash of white hair parts across my vision, the dying echoes of screams resonating in my mind like the wild laments of a ghost. Could that truly have been Azrael?I shake my head absently, dismissing his question."It's nothing,"Though suddenly, this single factor had become everything. I wonder faintly to myself if Soren has already seen through the lies in my heart, and if, perhaps, as perspective as he may be, he has already figured out what I am asking over, but the dull look on his face gives nothing away, remaining an empty canvass over a vault of emotions. A muscle twitches on his cheek."So be it,"A breeze pulls up in the clearing, and the tugging sensation pulls at me again, twisting at my gut and the fragile edges of my skin, threatening to wash me away in the breeze like a leaf that has fallen by an autumn wind- whisked away into a crumpled oblivion. I clutch my arms tightly around myself."I think I am going somewhere again," I mutter nervously, my mind shifting from all thoughts of Azrael, "Though I am not entirely sure why this keeps happening."Soren studies me, pondering over my situation with a tilt of his head to one side. With a small smile, I think in that moment he looks like a curious puppy who has just been offered a toy that he doesn't understand, the look of confusion evident, plastered all over his face. "Well," he says, circling me now, bending low to inspect my form, keeping a healthy distance from my skin as his hands air around my body as though it were an artefact too precious to be handled. "Considering you have been emitting a minor radiance for the past however long you have been here, and the fact you have a physical presence and can feel me, I would take a gander that it might be a new strain of your magic. Like my shadowshifting, only the way you describe it makes it sounds like you are occupying more than one plane of existence. Perhaps it has something to do with the projection of the light. Perhaps it is random. I cannot say for sure," he sighs, then, looping his arms more gently round my waist, whispers."Don't worry yourself over it. If you need someone to educate you on the magic of souls, I am here for you. Just don't ask Azrael," he adds jokingly at the end, but there is a slight bitterness in his voice that even the delicate curves of his smile cannot conceal. "Well, I am sure he knows something," I tease, waving a taunting finger at him to which Soren takes with a wrinkle of his slender nose. "He has the mind soul after all."Suddenly Soren grows very still."Mind soul?"I nod furrowing my brows in confusion."Don't mess with me, Soren. He is your brother! I know you hate him, but you don't need to deny him his powers."Still, Soren remains rigid, his body motionless, gleaming under the golden light like a marble statue, frozen in the rays of the dying sun. A slow and deadly realisation seems to wash over him."Serena, Azrael wasn't born with a soul of power."My body suddenly goes very, very cold."What?"But Soren is already backing up, running his hand through his hair in a grasping desperation, as though some awful realisation had hit him all at once. Something murmurs on his lips, but I cannot hear it."Soren?" I start, making towards him. "Soren, what do you mean?"But as soon as the words leave my lips, they are snatched away; my body begins to fall backwards again into that hungry, devouring darkness, stealing away the light in its outstretched talons and replacing it with an aching cold, robbing me of my vision for the next and final time as I swirl down into the spiralling black abyss, my words and thoughts echoing into nothing.
