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A handsome, muscular hand clutched his sword, but Douglas knew that his guest would not challenge him to a duel. He was here for something else.
The young man could barely catch his breath. How long and hopelessly he had dreamed of this moment. And now the miracle had happened. It was a frightening miracle. The sight of the angelic beauty made his blood run cold.
He was not afraid of going blind at the sight of angelic features. It had not already happened to him. So it would not happen to him again. But the chiseled profile, framed by golden strands, made him feel a kind of morbid admiration. There he was, Dennitsa. He’s right there. Incarnate. Douglas, try as he might, had never been able to make sense of the complex structure of supernatural bodies. It was almost incomprehensible. Even now it was difficult to determine where ether ended and matter began. The guest seemed to him quite tangible and material and at the same time incommensurably more powerful than a physical being could be. Even the wings that fluttered slightly behind him seemed so powerful. One swing of them could knock a man to the ground.
Douglas swallowed hard. Why did he hesitate, the fool? He had waited all his life for this moment, and he did not dream of waiting. Right in front of him in his tower isolated from the world stands the very man he has so ardently dreamed of. Perhaps he is only here for a moment before his inevitable disappearance. So he should take advantage of that moment.
He could ask for something. Instinctively he could almost sense that his guest was waiting for it and even ready to respond. Douglas’s lips went numb. It was so hard to believe in the long-awaited moment. Already seeing the immortal warrior here was an indescribable reward.
«Don’t be afraid!» the angel moved toward him, smoothly and not at all menacingly, but Douglas pressed himself against the wall in fright. Bookshelves of books fluttered and caged creatures whirled behind him, sending a charming smile across his pale lips. He reached forward and touched Douglas’s hair with long slender fingers. The young warlock was dazed. The sensation was unspeakable. Here almost ethereal yet unspeakably strong hands slid over his strands, winding them as if to tie them into a net. Shining blue eyes in a halo of golden lashes look inside him. They were seductive pale lips quite close at hand. Dennitsa himself… Douglas had many horrible or noble names swirling on his tongue that were worth calling him: Lucifer, Masemma, Beelzebub…
«You know my name!» The golden voice came through as if through him. «The one I prefer.»
«Yes,» Douglas nodded uneasily. He saw his dream so close, and at the same time he was suddenly stung by a sharp sense of disappointment. Was this what he’d been dreaming of lately? If so, he was very close to him. So why was Douglas suddenly looking for different feminine features in his face? Rhianon’s. Why couldn’t she come to him now? Why had Mastema come instead of her? After all, Douglas had been dreaming of nothing but her lately.
It had taken him some time to realize that the beautiful angel had not come to him with an offer of intimacy.
«Does your king want me in his army?» His pale lips curved into a sneer that sent a chill down his spine. It was a statement, not a question, and yet Douglas nodded.
«It is a curious suggestion…»
Even Douglas’ captive creatures in the cages and corners of the tower chuckled, recognizing the sneer in Dennitsa’s tone. Douglas, on the other hand, did not know where to put his eyes.
«I promised…»
«I know it,» the angel interrupted him. «You don’t think there’s anything I don’t know.»
«Well…» The young man felt like a fool. His idol had deliberately dragged him through the mud, chiding him for his naivety. «I think nothing escapes your attention, Monsignor.»
«Monsignor,» the beautiful pale lips sneered again. Douglas noticed that the mocking grin bloomed on them like a rose, so beautiful were they. He’d never been a poet, and yet the comparison was self-evident.
«It’s a funny way of putting it, but I like it…»
The laughter never came, but in Douglas’s mind it rang, like the clang of gold in a dragon’s cave, deafening yet husky at the same time.
«It is too low for you,» he murmured fearfully.
«But it conveys the essence,» his golden lashes lowered suddenly, casting no shadow across his cheeks, only a glow. «I was never the first…»
He frowned thoughtfully, as if weighing recent memories.
«No, you are the first, and only you,» Douglas dared to retort, and then he bit his tongue. The hand that had been stroking his curls nearly closed around his throat.
«She doesn’t think so,» Madael whispered.
Douglas had no further objections. He remembered Rhianon. The mere sight of her would make everything he had ever lived before vanish in a moment. He could understand Dennitsa, his passion, his love, his self-denial… He was not prepared to lose for her, was he? Douglas was suddenly frightened.
I love you, he almost said, both of you, and that is the only reason you should not fight. Fight the whole world, but not each other. Why can’t you be against all, but together? But apparently everything had already been decided without his advice. Douglas panicked, and the hand that was clutching him suddenly grew harder. Freeing himself from the statue’s grasp would be much easier than throwing it off.
«Demand whatever reward you want from your king, little one, for convincing me to take your side.»
«But…» Douglas was taken aback. The golden voice was like an echo. How tired he was. «If you are with them, you are against her.»
The very guess stunned him. He stared dumbly at the gorgeous face, as if frozen for a moment. His laughter, which sounded sudden, like the clinking of coins rolling across the floor, completely threw him off balance.
«She has a husband, if you remember,» the angel reminded him, laughing bitterly. «Or have you finished watching her?»
The hand that held him against the wall grew even harder. Douglas shrank back.
