We came to this forest a lot, I had noticed, but I didn't have any objections exhorting to be heard whatsoever. It was writ large that Mammon was keen on this place, and eventually, so was I. We marched through the breaches of trees, sporadically ducking under variable branches. Our connected arms swung back and forth vehemently—because of me. I was awfully animated today for some reason, even with the thought of his possession poaching the form of my shadow.
"Angel, you're gonna' rip off my arm," the raven-haired commented.
"Maybe that's what I'm trying to do, Mammon." I grinned but extenuated the movement, so as not to peeve him. I hankered to keep him elated, and was willing to do anything that would fill his core to the rim.
"Why'd you stop?..."
"Stop what?"
He took the authority, and started oscillating our arms as we carried on, drawing a smirk on my face. "I thought it was annoying?"
"Not when you do it, Luka," Mammon replied, prizing his arm away before muffling my waist and guiding me closer to his muscular body. He kissed the top of my head numerous times, whilst the plane ground abutting the stream publicized its view to our eyesight. "I like when you touch me."
"Actually, I think you like anything I do," I stated as the etiolated grass was treaded by our shifting weight.
"Maybe."
Weißstein was rallying from the steady rainfall, and it was making progress. The sky was a wan blue, like it had seized some colourant from the ocean, its older sibling. The sun's light dazzled the surviving leaves, although clouds tried to bedim it as if bodyguards. I pointed at the herculean tree, where I assigned the indigo blanket. "That was where we had our first date! You came with your bouquet of flowers...and swept back hair."
"Don' remind me about the fuckin' hair..."
"And that's where we had our first kiss..." I trained my hand at the dwarf grass, beautified with small white flowers as we came towards the rippling stream.
"Oh yeah? Don't think I remember...maybe I need a refresher," the raven-haired whispered, a smirk melting his grin before he kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him in closer and enriching the kiss, a blush being brought to our faces via our arteries.
"Come on, let's sit down."
"Sure angel." We both collapsed onto the carpeted ground before comfort made us tailor our sitting positions. I propped my head on his left shoulder as I watched wet asymmetrical stones meander interminably down the waters treacherous to them. The other ragged stones at both sides of the stream watched with me.
"Any luck with your demon marking?...," I asked.
"Nah, it's still the same, but, you were right..."
I looked up into his grey eyes, "What about?"
"My demon traits, or whatever they are," the raven-haired answered as he placed his arm around me. "They're slowly comin' back. My urges...they're controllable but getting harder to control."
Fireworks of anxiety had went off in the pit of my stomach, desecrating the walls of my stomach with legion worries, "Does that...worry you?"
"No' really. I've controlled them before, so I can control 'em again." Mammon emitted a stentorian sigh, "I'm just scared that one day, I'll end up hurting you."
"You won't." I kissed his soft cheek, "I'm not weak you know, I'll make sure you stay yourself."
A toothy grin divorced his pink lips. "I'ma hold you to it."
A dozen beats passed until he opened his mouth again to vocalise something. "My urges, they like...stop when I'm with you. I know it sounds fuckin' cheesy but seriously, my body's just...calm when you're next to me." The raven-haired turned his head to me, almost like he was underlining his statement.
I couldn't step down on the brake for my joy, and cracked a big smile, "And...you're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
"Course not! You make me...feel invincible...Is that too cheesy?"
I shook my head as I drove myself into his arms, straddling him as a precarious stream of my own developed on my waterline. Mammon had made me feel so...loved, appreciated, even if fortuitous. "Mammon..."
"Hm?"
I inhaled the musky aroma burrowing against him—and our hoodie—before extricating the words I had been desperate to say.
"I love you..."
The raven-haired bestowed his swamping hands on my shoulder, pushing me back to look at me sceptically. His eyes famishingly searched mine for a scrap of sincerity, but I was certain he would find a plate of it instead. "What?..."
"I love you," I expressed, with much more conviction, before he kissed me on the lips earnestly.
"Again." His lip moved down to the beauty mark a centimetre under my mouth.
"I love you!"
His lips travelled under my chin, and onto my neck, leaving hidden kiss prints, for the UV light to discover, on my skin.
"I love- ah-"
His mouth drew in the malleable skin holding together my neck, sucking on it as his moist tongue grazed it. My core was frenetic; it was beating faster than the speed of light. My unreduced body was dancing, in a warm, euphoric sea of red. What was he- A wet, obscene, pop could be heard before his lips attacked another neighborhood close to it. "Mammon...what are you- doing?"
"Kissing your neck."
"That doesn't...feel like kissing.."
An even louder pop told me that his lips were completely disengaged. He gazed into my eyes solicitously, his lips wet with desire. "Never had a hickey before?"
"No," I replied as Mammon perused me.
He gave to me a languorous smirk, "So, I'm your first?"
"Shut up." I punched his right shoulder lightly.
Mammon kissed the nibbled zone before gazing at it, "It looks pretty on your neck, you know."
I elevated my wrist to the level of my neck, the loose sleeve of the maroon hoodie sinking fittingly. I closed my eyes, conducting my vision to the black eye blindly focused on my neck.
"You can fuckin' see from that eye too?"
"I can see from both!"
The skin was still wet but drying, as through microscopic sandbags were placed on it. There was a red, coupled up with purple, dotted bruise on my neck...in the shape of a heart—just when I thought he couldn't get any cheesier. I pressed my burning face against his shoulder. "A heart?...Really?"
"Would you rather a dick?" the raven-haired deadpanned.
"Stop ruining cute moments with those words!" I exclaimed as I hit his shoulder blade.
"I'm sorry! Shit!" Mammon silenced himself, and permitted our bodies to stay close to another, talking to each other in the language of our cores. My system registered his scent as my breathing simmered down. His body seemed normal; aside from the marking, my eyes nor core could see any irregularities within him. Typically, when a demon was bedeviled, a black mist would gallop around their core. But there was no mist held around the raven-haired's. Could Helena have been wrong? No, it wasn't possible—her analyses, and theories were infallible.
"I wish...I could see your core right now."
"Why my core? Am I not han'some enough for all four of your eyes?"
"Of course you are! And all four of my eyes appreciate it, but, I had an ability that let me see the cores of others." I jogged the middle of his chest. "Their cores would be in the form of what meant a lot to them...or something along the lines of that."
Although I never used that ability to the maximum—because the one I would use it on, could feel it—it was a rivetting power. I recalled using it on my close friends a long time ago. Kallista's core took on the build of a red gladiolus; Mikkel's had stolen the form of a leather book; Adona's was in the shape of a familiar man, painted a grey colour. (The blonde's core never failed to intrigue me, as a core like that needed a strong yearning.) Ezekiel's was, unsurprisingly, a china cup, akin to the one he had given me.
"It's probably a statue of you." Mammon's lips quirked up as I blushed at the image. "What d'you think your one is?"
I lifted my eyebrows at the speculation-inducing question, "I'm...not sure. When I was younger, I always hoped that it was something edible."
"You can't see your own core?"
I gave a shake of the head. "No, what do you think mine is?"
"It better be a statue o' me," the raven-haired answered confidently as he kissed my forehead. "You're my angel..."
I smiled sheepishly, "And you're my demon..."
He crinkled his nose sadly, "That doesn' sound as good as angel."
I laughed, putting the weight of my loved forehead on his. "Then, you're...my Mammon."
Mammon grinned before pecking my lips happily as I lowered myself further into his lap, peering into his benign grey eyes.
"Mammon...you know, I just feel like you're going to...leave me one day. That..one day, you'll just...disappear on me."
"I'm not goin' anywhere, Luka." The raven-haired sighed. His brows frowned at me for even thinking that. "If anything, you're gonna' be the one to leave me."
"What?...What do you mean?"
"You're an angel, and I know you're loved by so many fuckin' people," Mammon answered. "I'm just a demon, 'm not special or anything. You might end up finding someone...better than me."
"That's not true! You made me feel so many new things...did things no one has ever done for me." I held up his wrist to show him the tattoo he seemed to have forgotten. "You even got a tattoo for me, Mammon..."
"Promise you won' leave me?"
"I promise."
The raven-haired's back was pulled down by the ground—with me above him—as though they were magnets of opposite poles. I felt a gasp leave my throat involuntarily as the untrammeled green blades began outlining Mammon's head before he employed his hands to arch my back against him. "It was really hard...keepin' my hands off you last night."
"Well, you're gonna' have to learn how to," I said, poking the tip of his nose. "You nearly got us caught by Helena..."
"Who was she anyway?"
"Ezekiel's assistant."
An immediate scowl transferred to the raven-haired's face. "So the bug-eyed freak's lookin' for him? If you told me that earlier, I wouldn't have cooperated."
I chuckled quietly. "Ezekiel isn't that bad you know. I've been friends with him for over a millennia, and he's...really great."
His eyes tapered, and a tingling anger darkened his features.
"What's wrong? Aren't you happy that...people are looking for him?"
"D'you really think it'll work?" Mammon brushed his thumb against my cheek. "He's been hidden for so long, how are they gonna' find him with a few questions?"
I reviewed his doubt in my mind, my lips ajar and ready to answer when I had thought of one. "The difference is...they're actually trying this time. When Ezekiel fixates his mind on something, he does everything in his power to make it happen."
The raven-haired smiled slightly, but I knew that he was unable to take what I had said as true.
"You don't need to worry...we'll definitely find him, and I'll make sure he doesn't have the chance to hurt you, or anyone else."
"You're determined, aren't ya?" Mammon responded cheekily.
"Only for you."
I enabled my lips to fall onto his, like a cozy duvet thrown over a bed, before cupping his face with my hands. His lips were so unbelievably pleasuring, that I suddenly grew jealous of anything that could have touched it. Using his digits, he ran through my fine hair, as if in a meadow. "I...love you."
"I love you more."
The grin on my face had become dormant. And my expression changed gradually as I felt something strange.
Something other than us.
Another aura...dawdling behind the sheltering trees scrutinising us. It was no human's, in fact, it was nothing like the auras I had enrolled into my senses. I felt a shudder dominate me momentarily. Their character was unnerving, minatory. I ached for this not to be another fabrication of my imagination; I couldn't help but think that it was that black-haired man, anomalous yet pacifying.
I attempted to exhibit all the fear, and anxiety on my face, hoping that Mammon would confirm its presence, but he continued to smile at me unremittingly.
I gulped at the lack of results, "Tell me...you feel that too..."
"Act normal."
The anonymous aura soon began to recede from the trees, from us, and so did the raven-haired's joy. Mammon released a sigh of anger battling frustration, and looked at me worriedly.
"I felt it too."