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[Mikhaeil]

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Mikhaeil brought his head up out of the water with a vigorous shake, crystalline droplets splaying rampantly in every direction as the angel's thick amber mane fell in wild disarray over his broad sun-bronzed shoulders. He raked a hand through the tangled mass, frowning at the creaking protests of a wooden tub that was far too small to accomodate the bulk of his stalwart frame. It wasn't long before he gave in to futility and closed his eyes, surrendering himself to the pleasure of the bath.

Pleasure
and
Pain.

Fallen, he'd been allowed little else. While his hearing and sight remained acute, the rest of his senses were diminished to the point of near non-existence. Taste found no place upon his tongue and fragrance passed unnoticed in the air. Touch, altered to the manifestation of its result, had become the contrivance of his damnation. When Xoriah placed her hand upon him it was not the warmth of her contact that he felt, but rather an instant inundation of enticing submission so captivating as to send waves of unending ecstacy swirling throughout his psyche. When Harlequin's brushes came to rest upon his skin transcending desire became the paint that embellished him.

In complete opposition to such pleasures was the pain that plagued his survival. Never crossing his lips to find voice was the fact that the archdaemon's power yet possessed him. Whether in the heaven of this world kneeling before Xoriah or in the hell of the world from which she'd taken him, he remained standing in the midst of burning flames and striking lash - an enduring reminder of the castigation from which he would never be free.

Between these two extremes lay the foundation that bound him, shackles of restraint holding him back from becoming the champion he'd been. How was a gladiator to find victory without the faculty to determine the depth of his strike or the ability to ascertain the severity of his own wounds when pain was already a mind-numbing constant? And what of superior skills once renowned, withered by centuries of debilitating torture?

Where might he find the key to return? Perhaps the answer was as plain as his captivity, as obvious as his chains.

[Xoriah]

---

“Please, swear to me...” The flaxen-haired angel paused, struggling with such a firm request.

“If it is within my power to give it to you, Mikhaeil, I swear it.” Xoriah’s eyes glowed faintly, curiously, in the firelight as she watched the angel rise and go to the wall where a pair of golden shackles attached by a chain hung on a hook beneath the wall torch. He lifted the shackles from the hook, along with the single gold key, then returned to the loveseat where Xoriah waited.

“Mistress, please.” Mikhaeil knelt before her on both knees, lifting the shackles in both hands to her. His head was still bowed, his gaze upon the floor at her feet.

Xoriah’s senses reeled. It was an act of submission beyond any gesture he had made since she had stolen the sword, and with it, his will. Her eyes shone a brilliant white in the darkness, and she lifted his chin gently with a gloved hand. His gaze lifted to meet her own, pleading silently what he did not speak aloud.

“This is truly what you desire, Angel?” Xoriah searched his clear green eyes with her own.

“It is the only way.” Mikhaeil answered with conviction.

Xoriah nodded once, then took the golden shackles in her hands, closing them around his wrists, and locking them with the key. “You have only to ask if you wish to be released.”

Mikhaeil looked at the shackles on his wrists and back up to Xoriah. But his expression told her that he had no more ability to ask for their removal than he had to disobey her commands. And to think that he had asked her for permission to surrender so much to her – she was positively intoxicated by the euphoria of such submissive devotion.

“Are you all right, Xoriah?” Mikhaeil watched her expression with concern. “Please, let go of the guilt you feel. This is what I want.”

Xoriah tilted her head, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Dearest Angel. My guilt, at this point, is the very least of your worries.” She held him fast with the chain and leaned in, claiming his mouth with a kiss.
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Come with me where chains will never bind you...all your grief at last, at last behind you. ~Les Miserables

[Mikhaeil]

---

Mikhaeil trudged through the snow, an angel truly felled, although not by the hand of God this night but by the unrelenting talons of a God-forsaken daemon. He'd fought bare handed for over an hour, time's passage at a seeming standstill. The shackles' restriction upon his mobility had been far less a concern than watching his flesh being rent through like paper and feeling little to nothing as blood rushed from the wounds in turbid streams of sanguine casualty. At last too weary to continue, he'd finally collapsed upon the stones and were it not for fortune's happenstance, he'd never made it out 'alive'. Unexpectedly distracted by a sound from deep within, he'd taken opportunity for flight when the daemon had turned to ponder the resonating source.

Beaten and bleeding, Mikhaeil sought pursuance of the circumstance rather than retreating from it. He'd promised Xoriah return before dawn, but pride along with care for her reaction should she see him so defeated, gave him pause. While he was loathe to go back on his word, at that moment the price he was likely to pay seemed far more its worth than the cost of its keeping. Besides, a slave had no place in the bed of his Mistress following such lack of mastery. He'd stay at the ludus tonight, in the cell, bound by chains. By mid-day the wounds would be healed and gone, but the answer to his question not yet found.

[Xoriah]

---

"It's been a very long day, Mikhaeil." Xoriah sighed resignedly and raked her fingers through her long crimson hair. "I searched everywhere I knew to look for you, afraid something had gone wrong. Afraid the chains had restricted you too much - that you may have been hurt." She paused, leveling her gaze on the angel who stood before her. "I was unaware that you had the ability to break a promise."

Mikhaeil stood before her, head bowed. He lifted his gaze, daring to make eye contact for a moment. She knew he saw more there than she would have cared to admit. "Mistress I--"

"I'm tired, Angel. Perhaps it's time I left you to the shackles and the cell that you have chosen over my company."

Her mind raged, alternately turning its daggers on the angel, and then on herself. Had she not given him everything that was hers to give? Had she not denied her nature to her very core to spare him even an ounce of pain? Yet here he stood, having chosen the confines of a prison over the comfort of the home they shared. She had given up everything to take him from the tortured hell that had consumed him. But in the end it was not enough - would never be enough. He was an angel, and she a daemon. She would suffer for her transgressions, and he for his. Given enough freedom, of course he would take refuge from her. Why wouldn't he?

The angel still stood before her, his eyes downcast. The silence locked the distance between them, and was larger than either of the lost souls who dared not cross it. Shackled and chained, Mikhaeil knelt and picked up the braided leather whip off the ludus floor, then held it up to her and placed it in her hands. Xoriah looked at the whip in disgust. How could this possibly help anything? She seethed silently and cast the whip on the floor before him.

"Farewell." She turned swiftly and retreated from the ludus into the frozen night. The ache in her throat was as unfamiliar as the emotion that fretted at the edges of her being. Unbidden thoughts and words, better left unspoken. Weaknesses better left concealed. She passed a hooded figure with a kind face, whom she recognized as a member of the valley's community. Xoriah smiled pleasantly as the two passed one another. Afterward, the smile broke in two and became a sudden suck of air. But she did not shudder. She simply spoke the spell that would carry her away from the frozen desolation of this place. Kal Ort Por.

Home. Xoriah looked up at the home that Mikhaeil had created for her. He had filled the empty and abandoned shell of a house with his light and his song. His spirit. She latched the door behind her with a soft click, and let the magic that allowed her to walk unnoticed among humans, fall away. Her eyes went white, pulsing with the dull and unfamiliar ache in her chest. She retreated to the depths of darkness in the bedchamber, curled up tightly on the bed, and wrapped her soft, leathery red wings around her. Annoyed by the emotions that crept unbidden into her mind, tonight the best she could do was pray for sleep.
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Come with me where chains will never bind you...all your grief at last, at last behind you. ~Les Miserables

[Mikhaeil]

---

Mikhaeil halted mid-stride glancing toward the bed from beneath hooded lashes. Xoriah lay with her back to his entry wrapped in wings of silent refuge from the unexpected onslaught of emotions he'd evoked. He'd placed the whip in her hand at the ludus seeking refuge of his own, disgrace by the lash being far easier to bear than standing witness to the visceral suffering of the woman he loved. His recent success at easing her out from under the mantle of guilt that had plagued her now seemed insignificant in comparison to the pain of doubt he'd seen etched upon her countenance.

What did he know of love? Far more used to the rage of the arena, his experience with affection had been sorely limited. Gifted with a wife as reward for glory, he was allowed her company just once a week and then but for a few short hours only. Prior to the Doctore's decision to train him as a gladiator, he'd served the Domina in quite another way. Sold into slavery at an early age, he spent two years a secus puerulus, pleasuring as he was commanded. While he learned the ways of sweet seduction, his attentions expert and sought after, love was never any part of anything he knew . . .

. . . until Xoriah.

Aware there would be hell to pay for staying the night away from her without having first gained permission, the possibility of causing her such turmoil hadn't even crossed his mind. Prefer shackles and a cell to her company? His most ardent desire was to please her, but she deserved more than the shell of the man he'd once been and if it took chains and nights secluded behind bars, then so be it. The greater challenge now was to waylay her doubt through the purity of his devotion.

"Mistress?"

[Xoriah]

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(PG-13)

Stop it Mikhaeil, just stop…He could not know how his pleas and apologies affected her. In any other instance, it would be all that she could bear. But these damnable shackles – she understood why he wanted them, and she would never deny him anything he desired. She had made herself – and him – that vow. But they yoked him with a submissive devotion that set her spirit ablaze.

The angel finally lay in silence behind her, but he shifted his gaze from the ceiling to watch her. She felt it, and wrapped her soft red wings more tightly around her in defiance of her every instinct. A fire burned hotly at her center, and it threatened to consume her – and Mikhaeil as well, if she allowed him too near. She had to neutralize the situation. His feelings of remorse and submission would be her downfall, otherwise. She turned over, stretching out from her tightly-curled position, and allowing her eyes to drink in the vision of her angel as he lay, fingers entwined behind his head, gazing back at her with eyes that were the pools of his soul his body could not contain. Even with his wings hidden by her magic, there was no way he could ever be mistaken for a human male. No mortal specimen had ever been allowed to become so perfect as he seemed to her.

Without a second thought, she traced her fingertips lightly down his chest and over his abdomen as she spoke the first idle thoughts that came to mind. Anything to take his mind off this misstep. She gazed up at his gentle lips as he spoke, paying little to no attention to their conversation. It took every ounce of her concentration just to keep her composure. Perhaps she should have been more cautious.

“I want to make love to you, Xoriah.” His words seared through her body with a heat that made her shudder. “But I don’t know if--"

With no hesitation, Xoriah silenced his mouth with a kiss. Bereft of any semblance of control, she parted his lips, her tongue delving inside to taste his mouth as her hands and fingertips devoured every ripple of his flesh and muscle. Slowly, she crawled up over him, pressing him back into the bed and sitting astride him. She took up the golden chain that linked his shackled wrists and lifted it to hook it on an ornate section of the headboard. The angel looked nearly helpless, bound as he was to the bed. “Now, my Dear Angel, allow me to show you the true meaning of pleasure.” Her tail twitched mischievously.

"Dear Lord, Xoriah." Mikhaeil gasped.

Xoriah grinned and leaned down to whisper in his ear, "Prayer can't save you now, Angel."

The euphoria spread through her like wildfire as his desire for her heightened. For once, she gave in to the feeling, allowing the fire to consume her as she acted on instinct. She lifted her brilliant white gaze to his, her crimson waves spilling down over her shoulders and down her back. Tonight, finally, she would allow him to claim her as she was: His lover. His daemon. His mistress. As surely as she had claimed him from the depths of hell.
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Come with me where chains will never bind you...all your grief at last, at last behind you. ~Les Miserables