Embrace the Night

Page 16



womanhood. In a single glance, he noticed for the first time that there was no longer any hint of girlishness in her face or form. Her lips were full and naturally pink. Her neck was slender, graceful. Her hands were soft and smooth, and he felt a sudden shaft of heat spiral through him as he imagined her arms holding him, her hands caressing him.

She took a deep breath, and he noticed that she had taken on the full, pleasantly rounded shape of a woman.

But most startling of all was the realization that she was looking at him as if he were a man.
In a single fluid motion, he rose to his feet and dropped the book into her lap.

For a long moment, he held her in the heat of his gaze and then he reached for his cloak. The dark wool swirled around him like fog on a dark night as he settled it over his shoulders, and he was gone.

"Gabriel?" She blinked several times, wondering if she had, indeed, dreamed the whole thing. She picked up the book, still warm from his touch, and laid her cheek against the cover.

She hadn't imagined it. He hadbeen there.

Closing her eyes, she prayed he would come to her again.

He melted into the rising mists of darkness, welcoming the cold of the night, embracing the chill wind that blew off the river.

He had read to her from an ancient book of poetry, and she had stolen into his heart and caught a glimpse of his soul. She must have seen the darkness there, an emptiness that was deeper and blacker than the bowels of hell.

Why hadn't she been afraid?

Others had looked into his eyes and run away in fear; those who had not run fast enough, or far enough, had died.

Why hadn't she been afraid? How could he ever face her again? He felt the anger rise up within him, and with it the lust for blood, the urge to kill.
He tried to ignore it, but on this night the hunger would not be denied.

Like a dark wraith, he prowled the near-deserted streets until he found what he was looking for, a homeless drunkard lying in the stinking refuse of an alleyway.

Like the angel of death, he hovered over the man, his long black cloak shrouding them in darkness as silent as the grave…

Sated, yet filled with self-disgust, Gabriel stormed into the long-neglected monastery where he had made