Celeste
I woke slowly, as though rising from a dream too deep to surrender.
The wooden ceiling of the cabin seemed to sway gently above me, illuminated by the first beams of light slipping through the side window.
For a moment, I lay still, trying to understand why my body felt so light… and yet so unfamiliar.
The memory returned like a warm breath:
The blue light.
The lake.
That impossible face.
That kiss.
My heart raced.
Then reason reached for me—just as it had every day of my life—trying to pull me back to solid ground.
"It was a dream," I murmured to myself, still lying there.
A dream so vivid, so intense, so utterly impossible… that my chest ached in its absence.
An angel.
Lucifer.
Kissing me.
Carrying me in his arms.
It made no sense.
None at all.
I let out a soft laugh—a nervous, almost desperate sound—as I brushed my fingers across my lips.
The laughter vanished instantly.
Because the taste was still there.
Not the taste of a dream.
Not the taste of imagination.
It was real.
Warm, faintly sweet… like sunflower oil warmed by the sun.
Something so gentle, yet so unmistakable, that my legs tingled at the memory.
Then another detail struck me with force:
My pillow carried a light, delicate scent—
an aroma that had never belonged to my cabin.
Lavender.
Lavender mixed with something else.
Something almost celestial.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
"This couldn't have been real…" I whispered, trying to convince myself.
But no matter how many times I repeated it, my body knew the truth.
My lips remembered.
My skin remembered.
And above all, my heart remembered.
I tried to stand, but my legs were still weak.
The dawn brushed my face, and for a moment I desperately wished I could fall asleep again—sink back into that impossible dream and feel his touch once more.
I wanted the blue light to wrap around me again.
I wanted the safety of that embrace that never existed… or never should have existed.
And still, I wanted it.
I wanted it as I had never wanted anything before.
What I did not know—what my heart dared not imagine—was that far from there, in the shadow of an ancient hill, Lucifer was watching.
Not me asleep.
But the cabin.
He had left before I opened my eyes.
Why?
Because dawn weakens his light.
Because my presence made his grace resonate—too loudly, too powerfully—enough to be sensed by the celestial realm.
And because, above all else…
He was afraid.
Not of me.
But of himself.
The angel who had commanded legions, who had faced Michael, who had endured the Fall and carried worlds upon his shoulders…
felt fear for the first time.
Fear of staying.
Fear of touching me again.
Fear of admitting that, for the first time in ages, his heart—the one he believed long dead—had stirred.
So he left before the sun could touch my skin.
He left to protect me.
And he left… to protect himself.
But his mind remained with me.
His gaze was still trapped in the moment my fingers brushed his brow.
His chest still burned with the warmth of my kiss.
And his grace—rebellious and restless—whispered a name he could not silence:
Celeste.
Meanwhile, I sat at the edge of the bed, trying to steady my own heart.
I tried to reason with myself.
Tried to dismiss it as a dream.
But dreams leave no scent.
Dreams leave no taste.
Dreams do not embrace the soul.
And yet, the most painful part of all was the quiet belief that began to bloom within me:
Why would an angel so powerful, so beautiful, so unreachable…
draw close to someone as ordinary as me?
That question followed me throughout the morning.
With every step I took inside the cabin.
With every breath I tried to calm.
Every time I closed my eyes—and saw his face.
I convinced myself it had been a dream.
I tried to believe it with all my strength.
But every time my fingers touched my lips, the truth burned through me:
I did not dream.
I lived.
And my heart, despite the fear, wanted to live it again.
Unaware that with every second I tried to flee from the truth…
Lucifer was drawing closer as well.
Because neither of us could resist what had begun that night.
A destiny that neither Heaven, nor the Underworld, nor the Earth would be able to stop.