Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

was hard with minerals, and hot like everything here was hot, but it was pure for all that. "Come." He turned away and Emiel followed, keeping a hold on his hand as they walked.
    The bathing chamber was on the far side of the great room. Renat's statue stood in the center of that room, there was no way Emiel could miss it. Renat wondered if the angel would be offended by the likeness, which was a replica of Emiel as Renat had last seen him, on his knees, arms akimbo from the force of their broken embrace, and the look on his face was nothing short of agonized. He looked beautiful, as all angels were, but tortured too. It was the pain in his expression that had given Renat some small measure of comfort over the millennia, and he wondered if Emiel would understand that. The angel didn't say anything, just tightened his grip on Renat's hand a bit more as they passed it by.
    A single torch guttered in a sconce on the wall of the bathing chamber. The water steamed, misting the air and touching Renat's face like spirit fingers. The bath itself wasn't too large, no longer than the length of his body in any direction, but it would hold the two of them. He stepped down into the pool and turned to guide Emiel in.
    As soon as the angel's foot touched the simmering pool, the water changed. In the space of a second it went from cloudy with dissolved minerals to clear and soft, water so soft it felt like silk against the skin. The color of the mist changed from gray to gold, and once the angel was immersed up to his waist even the temperature had changed, from a degree below boiling to comfortably warm. "You…" Renat's voice failed for a moment, and he had to try again. "You should not waste your grace. You are cut off from God now; you cannot get it back."
    "I have enough for this," Emiel assured him, moving a little closer. He dipped his free hand into the water and raised the liquid to Renat's shoulder. It soothed as it trickled down his side, every rivulet leaving whole, unburned skin in its wake. It had been so long since anyone had cared for Renat, since anyone had bothered to consider his pain, that it was actually hard for him to take. Renat jerked back from Emiel's hands and pushed away, toward the far side of the pool.
    "Renat—"
    "Don't touch me!" he hissed. "Do not touch me. I have lived without your touch for too long, I cannot accept it now. You aren't for me. You have never been for me."
    "But you have always been mine," Emiel pointed out, not moving closer but not backing away either. His voice was matter-of-fact. "You have been mine, in all your ways, from the moment you came into being and knew me. Our Father sees that."
    "Then he has hated me from the beginning."
    "No," Emiel told him. He did move forward now, slowly but inexorably. "God understands love. He also understands sacrifice. Do you think it has been easy on me, all these years, to be separated from you?" Emiel's tone gained an edge of anger and frustration. "There was never a moment when I wasn't thinking of you. I traveled all the Earth looking for you, wishing that you were one of the Fallen that rose to tempt humanity just so that I could see you again. I don't have the power to look through the Wall into Hell."
    "I could not bear to go to Earth," Renat confessed. "To be surrounded by the cause of Heaven's sundering was too painful for me to contemplate. Once their souls are here they are fair game, for they too have betrayed our Father, but up there…"
    "I know." Emiel stopped a hands-width away from Renat, the soft, healing water lapping between their bodies. His white wings spread, curling forward and around both of them until everything else was blocked out, and the only thing Renat could see in every direction was a cocoon of white, pulsing with the beat of Emiel's heart. "Everything you see," the angel assured him, "is for you. I'm yours, and so are all of my abilities. Let me share my grace with you." Emiel placed his hands very gently on the points of Renat's hips. "Let me give you everything."
    Renat knew he didn't deserve everything, but he couldn't deny that he wanted it. This might be all he had before God or the Devil stole Emiel away from him again. If this was the only moment together that Renat would get, then he would own it completely. Before he could remind himself why it was wrong to do this, Renat wound his arms around Emiel's shoulders and neck, pulled the angel's body flush to his and kissed him hard on the mouth.
    Renat