Page 13 of Meant to Burn

T he chapel is empty as I pace back and forth in the shadows, considering going to Elijah’s room again, but realizing I need to calm down before I do.

I’m angry. Well, that is an understatement.

Rage is simmering in my blood, and if I see him, I know I’m going to demand answers.

Watching him and his friend be all over each other in the chapel this morning is making me come undone.

I hate that Micah had his hands all over him.

I stop and stare at the spot where he had been sitting with his friend Micah just hours ago, speaking in hushed whispers.

I saw the way they looked at each other, and fuck, something possessive threatened to take over and yank Elijah away from the man.

But I didn’t. Somehow, I stayed hidden, always in the shadows, forever separated from his life until nighttime when he gives himself over to me.

The only time he lets me—in the dark, where no one will know.

He’s willing to be seen in the light with Micah though, which makes something ugly crawl inside my chest. The way he touched Elijah’s wrist and said his name as if it meant something holy haunts me. Just remembering it is making me shake with rage. I was jealous, I am jealous.

Mine.

Elijah is fucking mine .

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear—Elijah is walking toward the chapel.

He hesitates at the threshold before walking toward the altar, the candles burning low, lighting his path.

He’s as quiet as a mouse, clearly not wanting to be discovered, and my nostrils flare when his steps hurry even more.

He stops in front of the altar and grabs an unlit candle, placing it in front of him and grabbing matches to light it.

Once the flame is lit, he takes a step back and bows his head.

Elijah exhales shakily, loudly, as if bothered by something. Maybe he’s remembering something himself—something worth praying about. Something making him beg for forgiveness. Maybe it’s about me, or maybe it’s about Micah. Either way, it pisses me off even more.

Anger propels me forward, and I make sure to tuck my wings in, since I’m no longer in my human form, as I walk down the aisle from behind him and stop a few feet away.

He doesn’t notice me, his head still bowed, whispers coming from his lips.

I can’t make out what he’s saying, but it sounds like he’s begging his God for something.

Absolution, probably. Doesn’t he know he won’t get it?

His God isn’t kind or understanding, and yet he’s worshipped anyway.

“He touched you, Elijah,” I say softly and watch as his body stiffens and he gasps.

Elijah startles, turning around. He looks terrified, yet instantly aroused at seeing me.

He also seems intrigued, and more than a little confused.

His wide eyes roam my naked body, and then come back up to my face, blue orbs boring into my golden ones.

I look down to notice his erection tenting his jeans. My Little Lamb, always horny for me.

“You were watching me?” he murmurs, barely audible, and I narrow my eyes at him.

“I’m always watching you, Elijah.”

“He’s just a friend,” he says, lips wobbly.

I take a step forward, then another, until I’m crowding him. “Is that what you call it when your breath hitches and your pulse stammers beneath someone else’s hands?”

Elijah shakes his head, taking a step back, but stopping before he can burn himself with his candle. The fucking candle he lit to pray to his God. To beg for forgiveness. “Az, that’s not fair?—”

I almost give up the fight altogether when my name falls from his lips. When he’s shortened it. Made it his own. But I don’t.

“Fair?” I spit, caging him against the altar, moving the candle to the corner so I can rest my hands on either side of him.

He trembles beautifully, panting breaths falling from his lips.

Lips I want to fucking devour but refuse to.

“You summoned me. Named me. You offered me your desire, and I came. And now you dare to tremble for another man?”

“Micah didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Maybe not.” I narrow my eyes on him. “But you did.”

Elijah stays quiet as I press my body to his, anger boiling and spilling over. My chest rises and falls against his, and the warmth of him is enough to make me spiral. I feel like a feral animal trying not to show my teeth, and I’m definitely failing.

“Did he touch you here?” I ask against the shell of his ear, brushing his wrist with my fingers lightly. “Did he whisper your name as if it’s sacred? Did he see how you bend so prettily when you’re close to breaking?”

Elijah gasps, and my nostrils flare as I try to rein myself in. But it’s impossible. I feel sharp. Possessive. All consuming.

“Why does it matter?”

I pull back and lean into his face instead, our foreheads almost touching, and now we’re sharing breath. “Because you’re mine,” I whisper. “Because when you cry out in the dark, I answer. Not him. Me .”

Elijah sucks in a sharp breath, his bottom lip trembling, his eyes filling with tears.

It reminds me of a few nights ago when I visited him and he had this same expression on his face.

When guilt was eating him alive. I left him alone after that, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t meant to be.

That he’d never accept me into his life.

He’s too busy trying to serve his God, his church, his brothers.

There’s no space for me there, and I convinced myself to let him be.

Until today, when I realized I couldn’t see him with another man.

One who clearly wants him. I let it go the other night because Elijah rejected him, but he’s clearly not giving up.

I’m not letting Elijah go.

Not now.

Not ever.

“If he touches you again, I’ll tear him from your memory,” I growl against his lips, tilting my face until our noses brush, and I feel his lips shiver against mine.

Elijah flinches. “You’d hurt him? My best friend?”

“If you want me to,” I whisper, brushing my knuckles against his cheek and fighting the urge to press my lips to his. “Do you?”

Elijah doesn’t speak, but his body says everything I need to know. My hand slips around his throat, not tight, just claiming. Elijah shivers, making a needy little sound at the back of his throat.

“Say it,” I growl. “Tell me who you belong to.”

Elijah closes his eyes, and I feel his pulse pounding against the palm of my hand. My chest heaves as I wait for his words, and even though it’s just a split second, it feels like an eternity.

“You.”

I smile. “Show me.”

Elijah gasps, then crashes his lips to mine.

He kisses me like he’s sealing a covenant, lips parting until he sucks on my bottom lip roughly.

He’s lost to passion, biting and tugging at my lip, completely out of control.

He thrusts his tongue into my mouth impatiently, and I suck on it until a groan tears from his throat.

Elijah pulls away, eyes wide.

“Strip,” I command, taking a few steps back and giving him space.

He immediately obeys, taking off his clothes and letting them drop to the ground by his feet.

His bare back is now to the altar, his tan body on full display, cock hanging heavily between his legs, thickening before my eyes.

I look up to find him biting his bottom lip, eyes boring into mine with a fire I’ve never seen burning so brightly within him. He wants this. Me. Us.

I can tell.

“Do you give yourself to me?” I ask him with a whisper, my ashen wings spreading behind me. His eyes widen as he takes me in. “Willingly?”

There’s a pause from him, eyes wide as he considers my words. He bites his bottom lip as he thinks about it, a frown on his face, and just when I think he’s going to reject me, he speaks again.

“Yes.” Elijah nods slowly, cock fully hard, and he wraps his hand around it tightly until his knuckles blanch. “I burn for you, Azriel.”

A shiver runs down my spine as I grab his ass and lift him onto the altar, laying him on his back and spreading his legs.

I kiss a path down his chest, down his abs, then take his cock into my mouth.

His head falls back as he moans and trembles for me, and I let him go, trailing my lips lower.

I lift his balls and look at his hole, my eyes widening.

He prepped for me. He’s slightly open and glistening with the lube I left for him in his drawer.

I thrust two fingers into him, and he cries out, then thrust a third one in.

He clenches around my fingers when I find that little spot of pleasure inside of him, and I watch as his cock turns a deep shade of red.

He reaches for it, about to wrap his hand around it to chase relief, but I swat it away with my free hand and continue to finger him.

He makes a choked noise at the back of his throat, and we make eye contact.

“You’ll come on my cock or nowhere at all, Elijah,” I growl, “I’m not playing any more games with you. I’m taking you right here, right now.”

“Yes,” he gasps when I push him back on the altar a few inches, and he spreads his legs wider. “I need you, give me your cock. Please. Right n-now.”

“Such a demanding little creature.” I tut, then climb onto the altar with him, getting between his legs and pressing them up toward his chest. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” Elijah moans when I bite his chest, drawing blood. “More.”

I look beside me, at the candle burning brightly, and grab it. Elijah’s eyes widen when I pour the wax onto his chest, and he hisses. I look down as his cock jerks against his abdomen, and I smirk. Looks like my little lamb likes a little bit of pain.

“So beautiful, Eli,” I whisper reverently, “So beautiful and so fucking mine.”

“ Yes .”

Elijah holds his knees up to his chest as I press my cock against his hole, notching it at his entrance, but before I go through with it, I want to do one last thing. One last ritual.

I grab the anointing oil next to his head and open it, dripping some onto my fingers and pressing them to his forehead.

I draw the sign of the cross, then say, “I consecrate this oil to claim you, Elijah. Body, mind, and soul. From this day forward, you belong to me, and I to you. You’ll be everything to me from now until eternity. My love, my religion, my ruin.”

Elijah shakes underneath me. “Forever?”

“Always,” I assure him.

“Fill me, Azriel,” he growls, eyes crazy, desperate. Just how I like him. “Fill me with holy fire. Take me apart and put me back together.”

I don’t wait one more second, drenching my cock in oil and gripping it tightly.

I push into him slowly, and it feels like a vise around my cock when the head finally breaks through the ring of muscle.

I clench my eyes shut and breathe in deeply through my nose, then push in another inch. Elijah whimpers, and my eyes fly open.

“It’s okay,” I say softly. “Relax for me, Eli.”

“Oh, f-f-fuck,” he mewls, eyes squeezing shut as I push in another inch, then another, and another, until I look down at his cock to watch it dripping between us. I wrap a hand around him, jacking him off as I push in further. “Yes. Please. All the way.”

Elijah’s fingers dig into my shoulders as I bottom out, and there’s a moment between us that feels like a lifetime, yet I know it’s just a split second.

We look into each other’s eyes, his searching mine frantically, and I nod at him.

I’m reassuring him with that nod. That this is it for me, that he’s it for me.

I want nothing else except for him. We’re tied together, bound, from now until eternity.

Infinity.

Stained glass glows red from the moonlight, and I look back down at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Ready?” I ask through gritted teeth, trying to keep my composure as his heat envelops me.

“Azriel,” he moans. “Please move. I need you to move.”

And just like that, I pull back and thrust back in.

It’s heaven and hell.

It’s my undoing.

I want him to destroy me.

I’m willing.