Angel in Chains (3 page)

Inez was
too nervous to sit this close to him, but she decided that it was time to stop being childish and give him a chance. He hadn't done anything to hurt her, and she started to doubt that he ever would. There were no signs of hatred or aggression in his eyes, and she should know. She was way too familiar with those kind of signs. Besides, he was injured and in pain.

Inez picked u
p her plastic cup from the backpack and filled it with water before she handed it to him.

“Here,” she said. “Drink. It's just water.”

He grabbed the cup slowly as if he was still afraid that he would scare her away, but when he touched her finger the second time she knew he had done that deliberately. This time she didn't jump back. Instead, she met his gaze.

“Sorry,” he said and pulled his hand back
along with the cup. “I just needed to make sure that you are real, that I'm not dreaming you up.”

Inez smiled and grabbed his other hand to prove him wrong, but the action made her whole body react.
Her heart started to beat fast yet again, but this time in a good way and not because of fear. This time it was because of something she couldn't really place.

“See?” she said and squeezed his hand carefully. “I'm real.”

He gave her an unsure smile. “Yes ... yes, you are.”

Before the situation bec
ame too awkward, she pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. Again, she started to search through her backpack for one of the sandwiches she had brought along. Once she had it in her hand, she noticed that he still hadn't drank his water.

“You don't want it?” she asked.

“I haven't eaten or drank anything for over two hundred years. I never had to in here.”

Inez looked around inside the cave and
she knew he was telling the truth. There was no furniture or any other comforts anywhere.

“You don't sleep either?” she asked.

“I sleep. I have a resting room over there.” He nodded toward the area filled with lingering shadows where she had first seen him appear. The area was too dark for her to see what was hiding in there.

Aledyan
raised the cup to his lips and tasted the water. He closed his eyes and sighed when the first sip went down his throat. He enjoyed every second of it as if the water was the best thing he had ever drank.

She
handed him a sandwich. “It's butter and cheese, but remove the plastic before you eat it.”

He examin
ed the thin plastic sheet covering the sandwich with big eyes. Inez couldn't help but smile.

“This is very good,” he sa
id after taking the first bite.

“I'm glad you like it
.” Inez closed the backpack before making herself comfortable on the ground. “Will you tell me about your wings now?”

Aledyan
was silent for a long while as if he were thinking things through. Maybe he was wondering what he should tell her, and what he should not. All Inez could do was hope that he would be honest, but that honesty meant most likely a not so pleasant story. Someone had put him in here for a reason, and that reason had to be to hurt him, not to imprison him from the world.

“Yorin, that's
the name of a warlock,” he started.

Inez tried to remain
still, and just listen. She needed him to tell her everything. She couldn't tell why, but for some reason she cared about him.

“Yorin is one of the most powerful warlocks out there, but he uses his abilities for egoistic reasons. He wants power, and that's all he cares about. Anyone who stands in his way is ... removed.” Aledyan looked around in the cave. “It took him many years, and a huge amount of his power to create this place. But once it was done all he needed was an angel to sustain his dirty needs.”

Aledyan
lowered his gaze when the memories from the past came over him. He had tried not to think about it because it would do him no good, but now he had to. The memories were painful, and they hit him like a knife in the chest. If only he had listened ...

“
I received orders from my leaders about this human, Yorin, whose powers had to be sealed away. They never told me why, but they wanted me to keep an eye on him.”

Aledyan
looked around inside the dim cave. He felt as empty on the inside as the cave was. A sad atmosphere surrounded them, and there was nothing to see apart from the stone walls, the sand on the ground, the shadows and the torches. He couldn't remember how many times he had stared at the torches and the walls throughout the years. He knew them very well by now. There was no inch of the cave that was unexplored by him.

For a
short moment, he looked at Inez and noticed interest in her eyes. She waited for him to continue. He liked that.

“Could he sense you?” she asked.

”Of course, but I kept my distance. You see, Yorin can do a lot more than just sense me. He can even see and touch me.”

Inez
's eyes grew big from surprise. ”But you said that ...”

“There are exceptions
. There are a few people out there who can see and touch us who dwell in the astral plane.”

“I see.”

Aledyan noticed that she moved a little bit closer. It made his heart beat faster. Maybe she was getting used to him.

“So what happened?” she asked.

“I went to take a look at him. My friends told me that I shouldn't go alone. They had bad feelings about Yorin, but I didn't listen. I was naive and stupid. I just couldn't see how a single human could be as strong as they claimed him to be. I had never heard of anything like that before.”

Inez didn't seem to be aware
that her knee was touching his leg. Instead she seemed to be listening with great interest to his story, but her touch sent shivers throughout his entire body. It made it difficult for him to focus, but he didn't want to move. Instead, he wanted to pull her into his arms. He couldn't understand why he longed for her touch, but he did. It made him feel sad because he knew what he needed to do to be set free. Everything inside him screamed that he shouldn't hurt her, that it was the worst thing he could do. She looked so sweet and innocent. Her beauty appealed to him more and more. But there was only one way out of this, and Inez was the key ...

Aledyan
swallowed, and tried not to think about what would happen if he managed to gain her trust.

“I didn't see it coming,” he said. “He used his magic on me, and I was without a chance. Before I knew it, I was in here.”

“How is that possible? I mean, what did he do to
catch you?”

Aledyan
shrugged. “I don't know. I don't know much about how a warlock's powers work, but I shouldn't have taken him for granted. He waited for me to come close enough, and somehow he managed to pull me out from the astral plane and into this cave. He had waited a long time for that moment.”

Inez
looked straight at him with sorrow in her beautiful eyes. He could see that her trust for him grew. It made him smile, but at the same time it made him feel even more hollow. It wasn't in him to take advantage of an innocent, but he had to get out of here. He just wished he knew how on earth he would ever be able to go through with it.

“Why is he
keeping you here?” Inez asked.

“To stay alive.”

“What do you mean?”

Aledyan
straightened his back and moved his heavy wings. They didn't hurt that much anymore, and with that he knew the time was coming.

“Yorin may be a warlock, but he i
s still a human. Humans eventually die. Yorin wanted eternal life. He discovered that all he needed to do was to catch an angel and feed on his life force.”

Anger
toward Yorin's actions were written all over her face. It made him glad that she didn't doubt his words anymore.

“
He returns every ten years and gives me my strength back so that I can survive another draining of my life force. By doing so, he gains another ten years in life.”

“So your wings ... ”

“They look like this because he is keeping me weak. I don't have the strength to keep them up. I can barely stand on my feet. Most of the time I just lie on my bed, exhausted and so tired that I'm fading in and out of consciousness.”

“But you don't look like that now,” she said with a confused look on her face.

“No. That's because the cave has opened. A few days before it opens my strength starts returning to me, but I'm still weak, and I will be until he comes here and makes me strong again for a few days.”

Inez reached her hand
out and placed it against his cheek. Aledyan winced and stared at her. He hadn't expected that, but her touch felt like heaven. He couldn't help but moan. His loneliness would one day be the death of him, but this woman made him feel more alive than he had ever felt before. He wanted to touch her too. He needed it. The feeling grew stronger fast, and he managed to stop himself in the last minute. He doubted that she trusted him enough for his touch yet.

“Please, don't stop,” he said before he
could stop himself, but he didn't regret it and leaned his cheek into her hand while he closed his eyes.

Could this really be what he thought it was?
Could these feelings really mean ... ?

It had to be.

“So much loneliness,” he heard her whisper. “When will the warlock return?”

“
In a day or two.”

“And what does it take to set you free?”

Inez saw that Aledyan froze. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. Instead, he turned his head away from her hand, and for a short moment disgust filled his features. That made her wonder.

Inez moved even closer and placed her hand on his leg. She smiled
toward him, and saw that her touch made him yet again shiver. Inez wasn't blind. She saw how much he needed her nearness, and she understood very well why.

“Please, tell me,” she said.

Aledyan didn't want to answer. Whatever needed to be done to set him free, was something he didn't want to do. It was written all over his face. She had to admit it worried her.

“As yo
u may have realized by now, these chains are protected by a strong spell. Yorin came up with the most twisted and awful spell he could think of when he put them on me. He made sure it would be almost impossible to get rid of them.”

“What
spell?”

When
Aledyan avoided answering the second time, Inez grabbed him by his arm, pleading with her eyes for him to answers.

“A woman,” he
said with a grim expression. “Only a woman can set me free.”

Inez
gave him a confused look. What did he mean with that? Then it hit her. “So, to set you free I have to ... we have to ... ”

“Yes
.”

Inez
held her breath. Thoughts started to fill her head. Not exactly the thoughts she had expected though.

She didn't understand what was wrong with her.
She had just met him, but already felt an attraction toward him that she had never felt for any man before. The thought of lying in his arms, touching him and just being near him send a pleasant chill through her body. She wanted his touch, and now it seemed as if she could get it. She should feel disgusted, she should feel everything protesting inside of her. She should shake her head and tell him she couldn't agree to a thing like that, but those emotions just didn't come over her. Instead, it made her long for him even more, but then she realized something. It could have been any woman. She just happened to be the one who entered the cave. He wasn't doing this because he felt an attraction toward her. He needed this done because he had no other choice.

“I want you to know that I
won't hurt you. The decision is yours,” he said.

How foolish
she had been! She realized that his emotions and attraction for her came from his long time of solitude. He was starving for affection and would have asked this of any woman who entered the cave, but she couldn't ignore her own growing feelings for him. She wanted him after all, and not just for one night.

“I
understand what you're thinking.”

“Do you really?” she
asked with more of an angry tone that she had intended to.

“Yes,
and please believe me when I say that I can never take advantage of a woman. It's not in my nature. I want to be set free, but I wouldn't be able to do this with any woman. It doesn't work like that among us angels. There must be an attraction and feelings must be involved. If another woman would have walked in here and I wouldn't have felt anything for her, I wouldn't have been able to ask her to set me free.”

Inez blinked in surprise.

“That's why Yorin chose this kind of spell to set me free. The chance that a woman walked in here was small. You're the first one, but the chance that the woman was the right one was even smaller. Yorin was convinced I could never be set free.”

Inez straightened her back. “So why are you asking this of me if you don't feel anything for me?”

Aledyan leaned forward, and Inez noticed that it was easier for him to move now. The heavy wings didn't seem to bother him that much anymore. She couldn't help but feel joy that his strength was returning. Hopefully he would soon be able to lift them up from the ground.

“Isn't it obvious?” he asked. “I
do feel something for you, something I've never felt for any woman before. And don't think for a second it's because I've been in here for a long time. It has nothing to do with that, I can assure you. Falling for someone isn't something angels do on a daily basis. Honestly, it's very rare, and when it happens it's with the right person.”

Inez felt that her face was turning red from the
fire that was burning inside her body.

“We have just met,” she said and swallowed nervously.

“Yes, and I felt attracted to you from the moment I saw you.” Slowly he started to reach out his hand toward her. “I'm aching to touch you, to be near you, to hold you.”

Inez looked him in the eyes and saw fear in them. He was afraid that his words would scare her away,
and that she would back away from him now that he had opened his heart to her. Usually she would have accused him of being desperate, if he had been any other guy. But he wasn't, he was a lonely angel, filled with sorrow, and nothing like the other men in her life. She had trusted him from almost the first minute they had met. When she should have run away, she had stayed. When she should not have believed a single word he said, she had listened. And now there was no turning back. She would never abandon him.

Inez moved closer, making it easier for
him to reach her. She grabbed his hand and placed it toward her cheek before closing her eyes. She heard him gasp and felt his hand tremble.

“You feel something for me too,” he said with a hoarse voice.

“Yes,” she admitted.

She opened her eyes and saw him smile. His eyes w
ere shining, and it looked like as if he would cry. She moved even closer and caressed his hair. She was so close now that she touched his wings with her legs. When his arms pulled her into his warm and gentle embrace, she felt more relaxed than ever before.