EverenVale

  Malrath listened in silence, his golden eyes reflecting the neon shimmer of the city as they walked. For once, he didn’t interrupt. Didn’t mock. He just let Opharel speak.

  Then, quietly: “And what happens when you undo their work?”

  His voice was softer than usual. Not sharp. Not mocking.

  “Where do those freed souls go instead?”

  There was a strange urgency in the question, like the answer mattered more than he wanted to admit. His fingers traced the silver rings on his opposite hand, an absent, nervous habit he rarely showed.

  “And what about you?” he added, voice tight. “You just wander the earth indefinitely, cleaning up their messes until one side finally kills you?”

  He scoffed, but it was hollow.

  “Seems like a shitty retirement pn… even for an immortal.”

  Opharel smiled softly at Malrath and said, “They’ll join Heaven or Hell eventually... But in their own time.”

  He paused in front of a strip club, gncing at the glowing neon before turning to Malrath.

  “As for me… I don’t think they have to wait much longer.”

  He didn’t eborate. Instead, he offered a smile, then turned and slipped behind the building, into the dark parking lot.

  Malrath quickened his pace, matching Opharel’s stride. His brows furrowed at the angel’s ominous words, golden eyes scanning the shadows out of habit before locking back onto him.

  “Wait... What the fuck does that mean?” he snapped, voice cutting through the humid night air.

  One ring-cd hand shot out to grab Opharel’s wrist, but he stopped himself at the st second, remembering the burn. He yanked his hand back instinctively.

  “If you’re talking about dying...”

  He swallowed hard, jaw tightening.

  “Bullshit. Nobody gets to kill you except me.”

  The possessive decration tumbled out before he could stop it, raw, unfiltered.

  His cheeks flushed crimson beneath the harsh fluorescent light.

  “I-I mean professionally speaking,” he stammered, eyes darting away. “Contractually obligated death threats and all that.”

  Opharel chuckled, clearly amused. He took in the demon’s reddened cheeks with open amusement.

  “No,” he said. “Nobody is strong enough to kill me. Not in Heaven. Not in Hell.”

  He gave him a slow, knowing smile.

  “Not even you, little demon.”

  Before Malrath could respond, Opharel turned his head toward a sound, a low, wet noise from a dark corner of the lot.

  They approached silently.

  A girl knelt on the pavement before a man, his pants down to his thighs. She was giving him a blowjob, her movements mechanical. The man moaned and staggered back as he finished, pulling up his pants with clumsy hands.

  His pupils were blown wide. He was clearly high, swaying, slow, detached.

  He didn’t even gnce at the girl.

  When she stood up, the parking lot mp illuminated her face just enough. She couldn’t have been older than twenty. Her features still held that softness, youthful, beautiful, and far too innocent for the pce she was in.

  Her voice was soft as she wiped her lips.

  “When can we go from here?” she asked. “You promised it would be soon.”

  The man huffed, annoyed.

  “I said it already,” he muttered, voice dripping with condescension. “As soon as you work enough to save up. We can’t go anywhere without money, can we?”

  Malrath tensed immediately. His golden eyes narrowed to slits, the muscles in his jaw locking tight.

  The casual cruelty in the man’s tone, the vacant way he dismissed her, it lit something dark inside him. His fists curled at his sides, rings glinting dangerously in the low light.

  When the bastard turned away without another word, Malrath’s patience snapped.

  “Oh, hell no,” he growled, stepping forward, but then stopped.

  His arm shot out, instinctively blocking Opharel’s path, shielding him from the scene as if it might dirty the angel more than the night already had.

  His voice dropped into a low, venomous whisper, trembling with restrained violence.

  “Tell me you’re gonna fix this one too. Or step aside and let me handle it my way.”

  The air around him felt charged, lethal. His version of handling it would leave nothing but blood and bone.

  And yet… he didn’t move.

  He watched Opharel. Waited.

  There was something in his eyes now, not just rage, not just disgust. A question. Quiet, buried, desperate.

  “Is this what you meant by their greed?”

  Opharel sidestepped Malrath, moving to stand before the girl. Her wide eyes snapped to him the moment he dropped his gmour.

  The drugged-out man squinted, confusion turning to aggression.

  “Who the hell are you?” he slurred harshly.

  Opharel didn’t respond. He raised two fingers and tapped the man’s forehead. Instantly, the man’s eyes gzed over, and he went still, silent and motionless.

  Turning back to the girl, Opharel held the relic before her eyes. For a second, fear danced across her face, but then her gaze softened, turning hazy as the orb’s glow intensified. Light poured from the relic, nearly blinding in its brilliance.

  Opharel leaned in to whisper something in her ear. She nodded.

  A pure light erupted from her chest, sizzling against his palm as he pced his hand over her heart. He absorbed it slowly, reverently. Then, as he pulled away, he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

  A thin trail of bck smoke slipped from his mouth into hers, curling into her nose, her ears, her very breath.

  When he stepped back, the girl gasped loudly, a full-body jolt snapping her from the trance.

  Opharel walked back to Malrath and pulled his gmour over them once more. They vanished from sight.

  The girl’s eyes flickered with darkness, then steadied as her awareness returned.

  She turned to the man and shrieked, “You fucking asshole!”

  Her booted foot smmed into his shin, hard enough to make him double over with a wheeze.

  “You want me to sell my body so you can shoot more drugs up your nose? Well… fuck that... fuck you...”

  She spat the words like venom.

  “I don’t need you... Or anybody.”

  Her heels clicked sharply against the pavement as she stalked toward the strip club. Her shoulders straightened, her stride steady. There was fire in her step now, not survival.

  It was rage. Direction. Power.

  Malrath watched the entire scene unfold, his golden eyes wide. His trademark smirk was nowhere to be found. As the girl stormed off with her voice still ringing in the night, he exhaled through his nose, part awe, part discomfort.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his ptinum-bck hair.

  Turning slowly to Opharel, his voice dropped, quiet, reverent.

  “You didn’t just take her pain…”

  He shook his head slightly, still watching the empty space she’d left behind.

  “You gave her anger. Enough to break chains.”

  For the first time since meeting the enigmatic angel, Malrath looked genuinely shaken. His pierced lip caught briefly between his teeth as he processed what he’d just seen.

  “That’s not hypnosis…” he murmured. His golden eyes locked onto Opharel’s face, burning with a rare, raw intensity. “That’s justice.”

  Opharel shook his head.

  “No, little demon,” he said softly. “That’s the Order. As it should be.”

  He gnced briefly at the man still doubled over and groaning, then turned toward the main street. His gait had changed, slower, wearier. The toll on his body was clear in every step, every softened breath.

  Malrath matched the angel’s pace easily, his towering frame casting a long shadow beside him. Gone was the usual cocky swagger, in its pce was something far quieter. Reflective.

  He watched Opharel’s tired steps, a frown tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “The Order, huh?” he repeated, tasting the words like they didn’t quite belong in his mouth. “Hmph.”

  Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he reached out, his hand stopping just shy of touching Opharel’s arm.

  “You’re draining yourself doing this,” he said bluntly. No mockery in his voice this time, just cold observation. “How many more tonight before you colpse?”

  His hand flexed awkwardly in the space between them before dropping back to his side.

  The motion was small. But for Malrath, it was almost tender, and dangerously close to concern.

  Opharel murmured, his voice barely above the breeze, “Unfortunately, most of those I make contact with already have darkness inside them. So I absorb darkness more than light. Creatures like her… they’re rare. Those that I can take some of their light in exchange for the darkness growing in me.”

  His smile was warm but sad, his voice soothing and hypnotic.

  “But this is also the Order,” he said quietly. “I’m just a means to an end.”

  Malrath’s golden eyes narrowed slightly at his words, catching the mencholy woven through them. Without thinking, he closed the distance between them, his rge frame nearly brushing against Opharel’s as they walked.

  “Sounds like martyrdom wrapped in poetry,” he muttered, his voice rough but stripped of its usual bite.

  His fingers twitched at his sides, as if resisting the urge to steady Opharel when he swayed slightly from exhaustion.

  “There’s gotta be another way. Some loophole even your precious ‘Order’ hasn’t accounted for.”

  The stubborn set of his jaw made it clear he wouldn’t let this go easily.

  “You’re not expendable, Opharel.”

  The admission slipped out before he could stop it, leaving his cheeks faintly pink under the neon city lights.

  Opharel chuckled lightly. “Oh, but I am.”