As Sister Anita knelt before the altar, she trembled, chafing her knees on the floor. The young nun bit her lip, eyes fixated on the dark, polished wood before her. Shaking, she lifted the skirts of her habit, the cool fabric trailing along her thighs. In the shadowy, deserted chapel, Anita moaned. Her voice echoed off the high ceiling, reverberating off cold stone and unyielding wooden pews.

Anita was the youngest nun in the convent by at least thirty years. Her pretty face and deep brown eyes had captured the hearts of nearly half the young men in her village, and musical voice had attracted most of the rest. But there were no young men to sing her praises here. Not in a nunnery. The moonlight, filtered through stained glass windows, gave her pale a skin an unearthly, ethereal glow as she bent backward.

Thin lips parted below wide eyes. She ignored the ache in her thighs and the burning in her arms; her mind was intent on the heat resting beneath her legs. Anita groaned again and bent forward, so low her nose brushed the floor in front of her. Wet sounds echoed faintly in the enormous chapel.

They’d begged her not to join, all the handsome young men in the village. So did her parents, pleading on their knees and weeping. But Anita refused to listen. The Lord had appeared to her, she told them, and ordered her to become a nun. So, in spite of the wailing and begging and tears, she’d left her home and joined a convent. But she had a problem.

At twenty-one, Anita had more than sufficient experience with the boys in the village, and she had developed a healthy appetite for a man’s touch. But the nuns…disapproved of her “carnal acts,” and it had taken only one man being caught in her bed, naked, for the sisters to undertake extreme measures. She was kept under constant surveillance and banned from leaving the grounds, to ensure she didn’t deviate from more…godly pursuits.

Anita smirked, then bit her lip to stifle a moan. Her teeth dug into the soft skin and she tasted blood. The young nun opened her mouth, threw her head back, and let out an animal groan. The other nuns were older, they slept deeper (and longer) than she did—nighttime was the only way she could steal herself some privacy. Every few nights, Anita snuck out of her dormitory and down to the chapel, where she touched herself, kneeling on the floor between the pews. If she were ever caught, she’d claim she couldn’t sleep and had been in “intense prayer.” Her trembling and moaning would pass for religious rapture, she was certain.

She slid another finger inside herself, grimacing in a mixture of pleasure and pain–she was stretching herself now. Three fingers worked into her pussy, curling and thrusting in and out, covering her palm with her juices. The stone beneath her spread legs was stained dark, her faint musk overcoming the deep-ingrained scents of dust and ancient Bibles.

She lifted her halter even higher, leaning back until her thighs burned and her shoulders scraped the stone behind her. Her bare stomach heaved with irregular, jagged breaths. Anita whimpered, clutching her breast with her free hand. The rough fabric crumpled in her palm, abrasive against her sensitive nipples. Her mouth and eyes shot open in a soundless gasp–

Wind tore through the cathedral, tousling her hair. Anita froze, standing still with her hand between her legs, fingers buried deep. Her robe and breast beneath it were still clasped in her fingers as a column of wind whirled above the altar. Dust and spare papers hurtled through the sanctuary, whistling in the air

On either side of the maelstrom, a pair of iron-gray wings opened. Between them, as the wind dissipated, a bronze-skinned man emerged, falling and landing on the ancient, dusty altar. He hopped down, clattering to the floor, and stared imperiously at the cathedral. He was naked from the waist up, barefoot, with silver chainmail covering his legs. It clanked as he stepped toward, turning his head and scrutinizing the dim, gray chapel.

His silver eyes found her brown ones and bored into them, his gaze powerful, dangerous. She trembled, stock-still, waiting. He took a laborious step forward, never taking his eyes from hers. His muscles rippled as he moved, lithe and strong beneath bronze skin. His wings rustled, the edges of his feathers brushing the pews alongside the aisle as he walked closer…closer. Every step reverberated through the dark cathedral, each footfall echoing with terrible, incredible strength.

Anita fell forward, her palms landing with a splat as she prostrated herself before him. He was terrible and alluring, full of power and majesty and awful beauty. She mouthed prayers under her breath, English and Latin blurring together in a desperate, terrified babble. His knelt before her, the scent of oiled skin and polished metal filling her nostrils.

His hands, heavy and powerful, but incredibly gentle, landed on her shoulders, and lifted her to her feet. He set her down delicately, holding her firmly until her trembling ceased.

She looked him up and down, breathing fast, eyes still wide with fear. She was close enough to see the silver veins standing out on his banded arms and broad shoulders. His long, black hair brushed his shoulders, and iron-gray eyes drilled into hers. His face was chiseled and hard, with a strong, shaven jaw and solid, powerful features. Then he smiled.

His entire face changed. His eyes softened, the skin around them crinkling. His teeth, straight and pearly white, shone from behind his lips. Warmth replaced the iron in his gaze as he looked at her–no. He looked into her.

“Sister Anita,” he sighed, shaking his head. “What were you doing?” His hair rustled as he moved, the sleek black wave cascading down his neck. She gulped and shook her herself, silently chiding herself.

“Ah…nothing?” The angel’s wings folded behind him as he crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. She swallowed again, louder, and backed away, retreating until her feet bumped into a pew. “I–I was just in…intense…prayer…that’s all.” Even to her, the lie sounded pathetic. An elderly nun might believe her, but not an angel.

He snorted, scowling. “Prayer does not wet a woman of the cloth’s fingers between her legs.” Anita glanced at the offending fingers, coated in warm, wet liquid. They smelled like her, and the scent was strong–strong enough she could clearly smell her musky, dark tang from arm’s length. She bit her lip, looking up at him.

“But…even the most pious person can deviate from God’s commands now and then, right?” Anita raised her eyebrows, trying to look as pitiful as possible. The angel stared down at her, his imperious, unreadable expression chiseled into his face again. Then he raised his eyebrows and chuckled warmly. His voice was as warm as a hot bowl of soup on a summer’s day–it permeated the very fabric of her being.

“Yes, of course,” he whispered. Anita took a step closer to him, his hands still resting on her shoulders. He was warm–the heat emanated from his body like a bonfire, and Anita shuddered. It felt good, and clean, and masculine. “The Lord our God, our Father and Savior, forgives all things. But he doesn’t know I’m here. I am…drawn to you. I am Zaaphiel, angel of love and lusts. And your passion, here at this altar…it called me.”

Anita swallowed. “Really? I called you? My…lusts…called you?” She bit her lip, and looked down his body. Zaaphiel’s arms were thick and strong, his chest sculpted and powerful. His stomach, inches away from hers, was a mass of lines, guiding her eyes downward…where they stopped at the armored belt holding his chainmail pants. She frowned, irritated. She wanted it gone. She wanted him.

“It has,” he murmured, tilting his head closer to her. His hair brushed her neck, tickling the flesh between her halter and her veil. It smelled sharp, acrid, and powerful, an ebony curtain surrounding their faces.

“Your desire, Sister Anita…it fills me.” He was close to her, so close she could feel his hot breath on her forehead. A bead of sweat rolled down her jaw, and a trail of liquid ran down her thigh. Her legs trembled, making her entire body shake.

“Please…” he whispered. An undercurrent of desperation filled his voice now, dark and powerful and full of desire. “Release me from it.” Anita shuddered and stepped closer, pressing her hand against his armored thigh. The metal was cool in the night air.

“So, even angels have needs.” He nodded once, biting his lip. His chin was aligned with her forehead, and he was massive, but in that moment, Anita held power over him. The nun slid her hand up the angel’s thigh as his hands moved down her body, pressing her halter to her ribs and feeling her soft curves. She shivered, and let lust overtake her. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps as he scraped her robe over her body.

Anita stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. Zaaphiel cupped her chin in one hand and kissed back, hard, his tongue poking between her lips. She opened her mouth, yielding to him, and pressed her body to his. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, tangling her hands in his iron-gray feathers. His powerful arms wrapped around her, holding her in a tight, firm embrace as they ground against each other.

He broke away from her, leaving her flushed and trembling. He trailed a soft line of kisses down her neck, stopping at the collar of her robe. Blushing a brilliant scarlet, she lifted her halter over her head, exposing the bare, pale body beneath. She threw the robe to the side and stood before him, legs open.

The world twisted and bent. The roar of a storm filled her ears, a thousand colors swirled across her vision, and her mind exploded. Time and space ceased to exist, everything and nothing filled her mind. Then the world reassembled. When she came to, Anita screamed.

She was hanging above the altar, held in midair by four enormous chains. Each link was as thick as her forearm, and glowed silver in the dim light of the chapel. Her legs, held apart by the immense manacles, faced the doorway, and between them, she could see Zaaphiel, naked now, glaring down at her. She cowered, the chains clanking as she tried to make herself small, invisible. It didn’t work.

“SISTER ANITA.” he boomed. His voice was dark and terrible, thunder roaring in a glass jar. Her teeth rattled in her skull as he spoke, each word falling like the blow of a hammer.

“What is this?” Anita whimpered, struggling against the chains. She thrashed, sending ripples up the heavy metal, but nothing happened. She was held fast.

“A TEST. ONE YOU FAILED.” His eyes cast columns of silver light as he looked at her, illuminating her nudity and her arousal. Her sin. “GOD SENT ME TO TEST YOUR LUSTS. A TRIAL BY SERAPHIM. A TEST OF WHAT PURITY YOU STILL RETAINED. A TEST YOU FAILED.” He was toneless and furious, the words flat and dark, full of terrible finality. Anita trembled.

“No, please! I–I didn’t know it was a test! Give me a second chance, please! I can be better, I swear! I know now–”

“WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A TEST IF YOU KNOW YOU ARE BEING TESTED?” The angel bellowed. “NO. YOU HAVE FAILED. YOU, A SERVANT OF GOD, COMMITTED LUST–A DEADLY SIN. AND TO WORSEN YOUR CRIME, YOU BEGGED AN AGENT OF GOD TO SATISFY YOUR DESIRE.”

“Lust is the least deadly of sins!” Anita cried, tears streaming down her face. The droplets splattered on the altar below her, scattering years of dust into fragile powder. “The most common! The most forgivable!” She pulled at her chains again, rubbing her wrists raw, hoping to break the chains. They held. “Please, I’ll do anything if you keep this a secret! No one has to know!”

The angel’s eyes flared. His wings shot open, spanning the width of the sanctuary. He glared down at her, the ferocity in his gaze overwhelming her. Animal terror filled her…she needed to escape, to run, to hide…but she couldn’t. She was chained above an altar, and no one in the world could save her from God’s wrath.

“GOD. ALREADY. KNOWS. ALL THINGS ARE WITHIN HIS GAZE, AND YOU SEEK TO KEEP THE SECRET OF YOUR INDISCRETION WHEN IT OCCURRED IN–HIS–HOUSE!?” Anita recoiled, crying out in terror. She closed her eyes and turned her head, waiting for the blow to fall, for her to die and be judged, to go to Hell. But when it never came, she opened her eyes a crack, peering upward.

Zaaphiel stood beside her head. The fury was gone, and he was a man again, a handsome man with beautiful wings. He reached down and stroked her hair, bronze fingers running through brown fibers.His fingers caressed her scalp as he bent and kissed her. When he broke away, his eyes were soft, his expression tender.

“But God is also merciful.” Anita’s heart leaped in her throat, hammering. “You will not be damned, not for this. You have fallen to lust many times, but you are not beyond His redemption.” His hand moved down her neck, over her shoulder, the smooth, hot skin caressing her collarbone, the muscle of her shoulder. She shivered.

His hand slid over her ribs, the fingers trailing over the curves of each bone. Down her belly, over her hips, and around her thigh. At her knee, he looped his hand back up, moving it agonizing close to her pussy, but stopping before he ever reached it. He lifted his hand, bent lower, and kissed her on the mouth.

Anita strained upward, moaning, desperately pressing her lips to his. Desire conquered her fear, and when he laid his hand on her breast, and worked her nipple into a hard, sensitive nub–the world stopped. When she breathed, Anita smelled herself in the air, her body worked into a frenzy, betraying her.

He pulled away. A trail of spit connected their lips as he stared down at her, smirking. “You weren’t wrong about the desires of angels…and you are incredibly beautiful, Sister Anita.” He tweaked her nipple with his thumb, rubbing the sensitive point between two fingers. She moaned, air rushing through her throat.

“So…I’ll be let off…with a warning…and you’ll…fulfill both our..needs?” She still wasn’t sure what he was planning. When Zaaphiel nodded, her heart lept. She hadn’t had sex, real sex, in years…she needed this more than anything.

“Yes,” he rumbled, still rolling her nipple between two calloused fingers. “Your punishment, this time, is the relieving of both our lusts.” Zaaphiel bent forward and took her other nipple in his mouth, sucking hard and biting, teeth digging into the delicate skin. She moaned.

“That’s…that’s not punishment at all…” Something wet slid over her cheek, and Anita realized with a start she was drooling. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment as Zaaphiel worked her breasts, before his voice brought her back to Earth.

“Oh, it will be,” he chuckled. “An angel is far stronger than a human. And our seed is agony for a mortal to take. You’ll be punished soon enough.” Somewhere, far away in the back of her mind, Anita was terrified. But her brain was lost in a haze of lust, the mental fog thickening Zaaphiel released her nipple with a pop, and kissed down her body.

His lips were hot, hotter than any human she had ever been with. The trail of heat slid down her body, his lips pressing her ribs, her belly button, her hipbones. Finally, finally, Zaaphiel knelt, put his head between her legs, and kissed her inner thighs. She groaned as his lips trailed across her hips, moving closer and closer to her core.

His tongue pricked the bottom of her slit and moved upward, trailing between her lips and soaking in her juices. Anita groaned, closing her eyes and pulling on the manacles, struggling to push her hips closer to his mouth. The angel’s breath was hot against her skin, and his palms forced her thighs wider, pushing with enough force to dig the manacles into her ankles.

The huge, gray wings surrounded her as Zaaphiel began to lick her in earnest. The two charcoal curtains surrounded her, blocking her view of the chapel as their owner licked slowly between her legs. The outermost feathers on the wingtips brushed her ribs, tickling her.

Zaaphiel’s tongue reached inside her, finding every sensitive fold and working her to a frenzy. Anita cried out, tossing her head with enough force to throw off her veil. It landed on the altar with a soft thump, drowned out by her echoing moans.

The angel wrapped his lips around her swollen, sensitive clit and began to hum, the low bass vibrating his mouth and setting her body ablaze. Anita whimpered, then screamed, unable to speak as contractions of ecstasy shot up and down her body. Her juices sprayed from her as her pussy tensed; they dribbled down Zaaphiel’s mouth and chin in a warm, wet wave before sinking into the altar below them. Her mind melted for a moment.

When she came too, Zaaphiel was floating between her legs, nude. He beat his wings slowly, barely keeping himself aloft, hips level with her sex. He grinned as her gaze traveled down his body until it reached his cock.

“Sister Anita. Will you accept me within you?” Breathless, eyes wide, Anita nodded. Without another word, Zaaphiel gripped her hips and thrust forward, groaning. His muscles strained as he sank inside her, entire length penetrating in one smooth motion. Anita’s toes curled as she screamed. The long cry petered out to a soft whimper of utter bliss as her body stretched to accommodate his cock.

“Yes, yes please yes,” she babbled. “Yes…like that, I…ohhh…” She bit her lip, hard. Above her, Zaaphiel’s wings beat slow, powerful strokes, each downward push sending air gusting over her body, ruffling her hair. The angel thrust deep each time his wings flapped, shoving her entire body forward in cruel, rough jerks.

Zaaphiel took short, shallow breaths, grunting with effort and squinting as he ravaged her, moving fast, furious. He bent low, speeding up his thrusts, wings beating at a furious pace. Ravenous, he bit her breasts and neck as his wings whipped the air of the sanctuary into a maelstrom. Dust whirled through the air as Anita cried out, her body tensing around him like a vise.

A wave of heat rose from between her legs, enveloping her body. Then a dam broke inside her, something lurched, and she orgasmed, every muscle in her body tensing. Tendons bulged in her neck as Zaaphiel growled, thrusting harder through her clenching sex.

She barely had time to breath, to come down from her orgasm, to shake herself to rid her body of sweat, before she was plateauing again. Her eyes widened, her limbs trembled in their cuffs, and Zaaphiel groaned beneath her. His cock swelled as he pounded into her, and her eyes widened.

The angel’s teeth clamped down on her neck, and that was enough. Anita exploded, eyes rolling and fists clenching, heaving on the chains with all her strength. Her pussy exploded, liquid streaming around Zaaphiel’s cock as he came with her, fingers gripping her hips with incredible strength.

Anita shuddered and moaned again and again as the angel’s cum poured into her, his cock shuddering against her walls with each surge. Zaaphiel moaned, a low, deep sound that seemed to last forever until, finally, he was spent.

“Th–that…doesn’t hurt.” Anita frowned, chest heaving, struggling to get the words out. “You said…it’d hurt.” She whimpered as he pulled away from her, his flagging cock sliding out with a pop, and landed. He walked around to her and kissed her on the cheek. His lips were surprisingly warm and soft, and the faint scent of cinnamon filled her nostrils.

“I lied,” he whispered in her ear, caressing her with his breath. “Humans are so easily terrified…and fear is erotic to angels. This is why we tell humans, not to be afraid when we appear to them. Otherwise, we would take them. Brutally.” He kissed her lips, pressing his mouth against hers, then vanished in a gust of wind.

A single key fell from where he’d stood and clattered on the ground beneath her. The tinkle of metal on stone echoed in the now-silent arboretum, sounding half a dozen times before fading into oblivion. Anita sighed, smiling lazily. Her eyes traced the patterns of stone on the ceiling, staring into the eyes of saints and sinners alike. None of them slept with an angel.

The nuns found her an hour before morning mass. Sister Genevra took the key and undid the chains–as soon as the locks were undone, the massive links vanished, letting Anita fall into Sister Zelda’s strong, waiting arms. She huffed and tossed the girl over her shoulder like so much meat, and carried her back to the dormitories. The too the long way around the convent, under the cover of darkness, to avoid the other sisters lined up for Mass. Their sister may have sinned, but the other sisters didn’t need to know what had happened. They weren’t that cruel. They laid her in bed and stood on either side, waiting with straight backs and averted eyes for the Abbess.

Abbess Lorelle walked in, took one look at Anita, and nodded, understanding. She rolled her eyes, covered the girl with a blanket, and left the room with a sweep of her robe. The two nuns glanced at each other and followed, walking quickly to keep up with her.

“Abbess, what happened to her?” The older woman smirked, remembering forty years ago, where she’d been the one chained to the altar. Zaaphiel’s face swam before her mind’s eye, as gorgeous and dangerous and powerful as she knew he always had been, and always would be.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, waving an airy hand. “Just remember, sisters–the Lord doth work in mysterious ways, sisters. Very mysterious indeed.”