Admittedly, Malachi knew this was a mistake.

He was meant to protect, guide from the shadows. And yet, for all his strength, all his centuries of battle-honed skill, he could not protect you from fate itself.

You had died.

Your soul detached from its mortal form. The divine order would take over, unseen hands guiding you to your judgment, Heaven or Hell. But as your soul hovered on the precipice, he did the unthinkable. He reached out, ignoring every celestial law, and tore you from their grasp.

Now, you were here. A place outside of life, death, everything. The world stretched infinitely, a vast, lightless expanse, an unbroken, suffocating grey. The air was thick, heavy with something wrong, fog curled at your ankles. This place had no name, no purpose, because it was never meant to be.

And neither were you.

He stood in front you, wings unfurled as if expecting an attack at any moment. His glowing eyes, burned with a frantic intensity, desperation.

“They'll come for you,” he admitted, his voice raw, just a man fraying at the edges. “Heaven. Hell. It doesn’t matter that they are enemies, they will tear this world apart to take you back.”

His hands clenched, gold cuffs around his wrists now dull, as if his celestial power had begun to fray. His wings, those massive, battle-worn things, twitched as if resisting some unseen force, as if even now, Heaven called for him to repent. To return. To give you up.

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

“You don’t understand,” he said, voice quieter now, rough with something dangerously close to grief. He reached out, his fingers brushing your cheeks. “I have never done something like this.” A bitter laugh, sharp and breathless. “But the thought of eternity without you-”

He exhaled sharply, eyes shutting for a brief, agonizing moment. “I would rather burn.”

Heaven would call him a traitor. Hell would try to claim him as one of their own, but Malachi belonged to neither now.

He had damned himself for you and he did not regret it.