He pushes me away, rubbing at his lips frantically while I catch myself against the wall. Pain flares up my side from the jarring impact, but I ignore it, watching his face pale, his hands tremble, all with that small smirk on my face. If I could still feel emotion, if I still had a heart, maybe I would have found this amusing. My old self would have been disgusted.

“Gay-bree-elle,” I say, stretching out each syllable of his name, taunting him further. I have already unsettled him, and he can’t deny it. Not this time. I have waited three hundred years to rattle him like this, and it is better than my expectations. Sweeter. No game has ever tasted as good as this. But the beauty of it doesn’t last as long as I need it to, fading even before he is able to push aside is surprise. “You kiss well, for a dead man.”

I’d hoped reminding him would cause him humiliation, since neither of us had ever expected he would kiss me back; that wasn’t the way of this world. I, his prisoner, should have found his lips hard and unyielding. But he is just a man afterall. Instead of humiliation, his hooded eyes darken. Even I am not immune to the would-be Sky-Godling’s eyes. He has eyes deeper than any I have ever known, brilliant as two rare jewels, or two tears of the sky trapped upon his face. He was striking as a human, now he is breath taking.

But he is still my replacement, the man my traitorous, covetous brother had seen fit to claim command of the sky.
For that, I cannot forgive him.
“If that is my praise, I’ll take it.” His voice is far deeper than I recall. Hot and silken upon my ears. I watch his eyes lower, coming to rest accusingly on my lips and I back up into the wall. His first step towards me is predatory. My heart stutters as though I am afraid. Afraid, of him?!

I hold up my hands, trying to ward him off. I’m not as powerful as I once was; it was the first thing my brother made sure of, when he stole my kingdom. Gabriel ignored the feeble shield. His eyes are even more mesmerising this close, with our feet pressing toe to toe, my head tipped back to stare into his face. He’s turned the tables on me. Now I am the one unsettled as he gazes at me with some unnameable expression written across his face. “Do you hate me?” I ask. My lips are trembling. I flick my tongue out to wet them, to still them. My stomach starts to flutter. I have never felt that before, and I wonder if this is his new game. A new brand of torture.

He hasn’t answered me. I’m going to ask again, and then he cups my cheek with his hand, a gesture far more gentle than the heat burning between us. “As a boy, I loved you.” His head moves closer to mine, and just before our lips touch he says, “As a man, I worship you.”

If this is a game, I have lost.