1 Prologue: Sacrifice

Prologue

I was running.

Clad in a simple white silk dressing gown, both excitement and fear fueled my bare feet as I ran through the dark cavern. I could feel the magical eeriness in the air; its charged stillness and its silent anticipation. I could sense its restless wait, the sighs of tormented lambs and the dancing shadows of my impending doom. It was calling for my blood; longing for another sacrifice.

Am I scared? Definitely.

But even with labored breath, protesting mind and a fast-beating heart, I did not stop until I reached the cave's most sacred place.

Because there were fears far greater than this...

Uttering a silent prayer of guidance to the ancient goddess, I made my way to the center of the pool. It was a shallow pool, specifically carved in a perfect circle from limestone of this sacred place. I disrobed myself with closed eyes letting only the light of the moon to cover me. Naked, I brought out my dagger and positioned it in my chest, right in the center of my fast-beating heart. Any minute now it would stop. I would make it stop. Maybe it already knew and this was its way of protest.

But a hand stopped me, "Are you really that stupid to give him another life while you die?" he asked in a voice so deep and so dark I felt it in my very essence. "Give him another chance while your body withers, unfound and forgotten?"

"Hand him another shot to experience life, to find new love?" I bit my lips as he taunted my mind into surrender. I admit; his words sent seven kinds of pain in my heart. I felt each one of his remarks lash out on me, bruising my already battered soul. "Because he won't remember you, Isabelle, nobody would."

"It doesn't matter." I hissed at the dark angel holding me. I ordered myself to stop listening to his hypnotic voice. That sweet husky voice of his uttering words that dripped poison into my being. "If that's the price I must endure then so be it. I loved him enough to even ask for something in return."

"Doesn't it?" He asked again, mocking my resolve.

He kissed my neck and traced circles on my sensitized body. I tried to stop him. I tried to stop his lingering hand and the onslaught it was weaving within my body - down to my very core. I would receive the ancient goddess' wrath if I would give in to my lustful nature, but my body and my heart seems to have different minds. I just couldn't decipher which part of me wants to stop and which one doesn't. "Wouldn't it really bother you that he would hold someone else, caress someone else," he whispered while his devilish hands travel in places it should not go. Places even I, in my most private moments, never dared to seek. But I could not find my voice to stop him. "love someone else?"

"S-stop..." I finally said in a voice so weak and so labored even to my own ears. It lacked the confidence I wish to project. Like I knew deep within, I did not want him to stop.

"Do you really wish for me to stop, my princess?" He caressed my inner most feminity with strokes that could send any angel to hell. It was pure torture, I hated it - and yet I could not help but love every second of it. I shivered at his touch, my body betraying me to his worldly fingers. Everything was new to me and I bregudgingly marveled each sensation against my will. "I can make you my queen."

"No..." I can feel myself shuddering, my weak resolve slowly shattering...

"I can give you everything, Isabelle. I'll give you everything that he couldn't." He turned me around to face him. I met his devastatingly beautiful eyes of molten gold. It was as hypnotic as his voice - deep, dark, and mysterious. I felt him kiss my eyes, then my nose, then my cheeks. "I can give you even his life." And finally, he claimed my lips together with my whole being.

"Please..." I begged while he continued his onslaught. I closed my eyes in submission. Something I should have not done. The darkness and his lips, traveling to where his hands had gone, seemed more inviting than before.

Bathed with moonlight, covered with his magnificent black wings, we swayed to the primitive dance I never wished to participate with him. But dance we did - flesh to flesh, soul to soul. The dark angel invaded my being. He shattered me from within and I could not stop him. My body did not want him to stop. I shed tears and blood amidst our tyrst. It was altogether maddening - the sight, the sound, the smell, the carnal feelings. As I succumbed to the temptation and he marveled with his worldly desires, I felt the vibrations within my core. It shook us both, sending tingling sensation to our limbs - arms, knees, fingers, bones.

And with labored breath we stopped. I found his eyes still filled with unmentionable desires...mirroring mine. It was dark as the incoming storm, dark as the retribution for our blasphemous encounter. From the heights of our forbidden passion, I plummeted to the evil reality of what we had done. The sacrilege!

I tried to break free from his hold but I was too spent. He chuckled at the expense of my defiled innocence. Tears freely flowed from my eyes as I realized the depth of my betrayal. He wiped my tears with his fingers but I pushed him away. He didn't let me. I remained trapped in his cold embrace.

"His life," he whispered in a husky voice that never fails to send shivers down my spine "in exchange of your soul."

--

Are you still waiting, my darling Isabelle?

Still longing for my lips? Dying for my kiss?

Do you still keep the memory of your promise?

Can I bring you now to the kingdom in hell?