[The Bridal Suite, Heaven]
The bridal suite was a masterpiece of celestial architecture, a place designed for a love as eternal and perfect as Heaven itself. The walls were not solid, but woven from panels of soft, ambient light that shifted in a slow, calming rhythm, like the breathing of a sleeping star. The bed was a vast, inviting expanse that looked less like furniture and more like a captured cloud, impossibly white and soft. A wide balcony, devoid of any railing, opened up to a breathtaking panorama of the cosmos—a silent, majestic sea of distant galaxies and shimmering stardust. The air itself hummed with a quiet, resonant peace.
It was the perfect, serene backdrop for a betrayal of cosmic proportions.
The crystalline door slid shut behind them, sealing them away from the distant, joyful music of the reception hall. For the first time, they were truly alone as husband and wife. Michael let out a long, happy sigh, the sound echoing slightly in the vast, quiet room. He turned to Seraphina, his eyes shining with a love so pure, so absolute, it was a physical force.
"I still can't believe it," he said, his voice a low, reverent murmur. He reached out and gently cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "That you're here. That you're real. That you're my wife."
Seraphina leaned into his touch, her eyes fluttering shut in a perfect imitation of blissful surrender. Her internal monologue, however, was a cold, precise countdown.
'He is completely open,' she observed, analyzing his posture, the steady, trusting rhythm of his breathing, the complete absence of any spiritual or physical guard. 'No shields, no suspicions. He trusts me utterly. The magnificent fool.'
"My whole life," Michael continued, his voice full of a hopeful, wondrous energy, "has felt like a prelude. A rehearsal for a performance I was never sure I could give. But right now, standing here with you, I feel like my real life is just beginning."
That was it. That was the line. The perfect, poetic, tragic trigger. It was the moment of his maximum emotional exposure, the apex of his trust. And it was the signal for his world to end.
Seraphina's eyes opened. She rose on her toes and initiated a kiss. It was not a gentle, hesitant kiss of a nervous bride. It was a kiss of breathtaking, consuming passion, a final, perfect performance of the loving 'Sera' he adored. She poured every true, conflicted feeling she had for him into it—the genuine affection, the intellectual admiration, the shared loneliness—and used it as a weapon, drawing him in completely, making him feel like the center of the universe. He responded with an equal, trusting passion, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her close. He was lost in her, lost in the promise of their forever.
In the midst of that deep, loving embrace, she pulled back just enough to whisper against his lips, her voice a soft, venomous caress.
"You were always too trusting, Michael."
The words, so out of place, so wrong, didn't register at first. He looked at her, his expression one of pure confusion. "Sera? What do you—"
He never finished the question. As she pulled back fully, the illusion of 'Sera' melted away like a dream at dawn.
The transformation was terrifyingly swift. From his perspective, the woman he held was unraveling. The soft, platinum-blond hair seemed to bleed into a liquid, metallic silver, lengthening and sharpening as it cascaded down her back. The gentle, warm grey eyes he loved bled away, replaced by a blazing, intelligent, and utterly alien crimson. The beautiful starlight wedding dress, a symbol of their sacred union, seemed to writhe and contort, its holy light corrupting into shadows, reshaping itself into the dark, elegant, and lethally practical attire he had never seen before.
And then came the final, impossible revelation. With a sound like tearing silk, two wings, vast and draconic, unfurled from her back. They were not the soft, feathered wings of an angel, but things of sharp, articulated beauty, forged from a material like polished, living obsidian.
Michael stumbled back, his mind refusing to process the information his eyes were feeding him. The woman he loved had vanished, replaced by this magnificent, terrifying creature—a devil of the highest order. But still, denial was his first shield. This was a trick. A test. An illusion.
"Sera?" he repeated, his voice strained, full of a desperate, pleading confusion. "What is this? Stop this game. Why are you hiding?"
The being who was no longer Sera looked at him, and her lips, now a shade darker, curved into a smile that was sharp, beautiful, and utterly devoid of warmth. It was a smile of pity and of triumph.
"I am not hiding," she said, her voice the same melody but now laced with the cold authority of a queen. "I am finally showing you the truth." She took a step towards him, her crimson eyes holding his, pinning him in place. "My name is not Sera. It is Seraphina. Daughter of Lucifer and Eve."
The names struck him like a physical blow, shattering his denial. Lucifer… Eve… The architects of his parents' eternal sorrow. The very reason for his own creation. It was impossible. A lie.
"You asked why saints play games like this," she continued, her voice a soft, cruel purr as she circled him like a predator. "But it's because of a simple, practical limitation." She stopped directly in front of him, her presence radiating a power that was the chilling inverse of his own.
"Saints can't rip the wings from angels."
And then she struck.
It was not a punch or a kick. It was an attack of impossible speed and chilling precision. Her hands, now wreathed in a crackling, violet-black energy, shot forward. Her fingers were not aimed at his flesh, but at the points on his back where his wings connected to his very soul, the conduits through which his divine power flowed.
The pain was absolute. It was a white-hot, searing agony that transcended the physical. It was not the feeling of being cut, but of being unmade. He felt her chaotic, demonic energy pour into him, a violent poison that targeted his very nature. It was a feeling of his soul being torn, of his connection to Heaven, to the Celestial Song, to his parents, being violently and irrevocably severed.
A scream of pure, tearing light erupted from his mouth, a sound that should have shattered the crystalline walls of the suite. But she had anticipated this. A bubble of silent, dark energy had enveloped them the moment she attacked, swallowing the sound completely. To anyone outside, the bridal suite remained a place of perfect, serene peace.
He felt a horrific, wet, tearing sensation at his back, a sound of spirit and sinew being ripped apart. He saw a brief, blinding flash of his own white feathers, stained with his own golden, angelic blood, and then an agony so profound that his universe dissolved into a singularity of pure, white-hot pain.
[The Bridal Suite, Heaven - The Aftermath]
Michael collapsed to the flawless floor, his body convulsing. His back was a ruin of bleeding light and raw, spiritual energy. The stumps where his magnificent wings had been moments before were now gaping, cauterized wounds, sizzling with residual demonic energy. He was powerless, broken, and gasping for breath, his vision fading to a dim tunnel. His last conscious thought was of her face, trying desperately to reconcile the gentle woman he had loved with the beautiful, terrible monster who had just destroyed him.
Seraphina stood over him, her chest heaving, her body trembling. It was not with exertion, but with the violent, chaotic aftershock of her own actions. She had done it. She had won. Her mission was complete.
But the triumphant, validating thrill she had expected was absent. In its place was a confusing, nauseating vortex of emotions: the cold satisfaction of a successfully executed plan, the hot shame of her own brutal methods, a flicker of genuine horror at the sight of him broken at her feet, and a strange, deep, aching grief.
She looked down at the proof of her victory: his two magnificent, severed wings lay on the floor beside him. Even detached, they still shimmered with a faint, dying light. They were beautiful, perfect things. And she had destroyed them.
She looked at his unconscious face, so peaceful now in its state of absolute devastation.
"I wish…" she began, her voice a raw, broken whisper, "I wish it could have been different." The words were a bitter, useless truth. She knelt beside him, and with a surprisingly gentle touch, she brushed a strand of his ash-blond hair from his forehead. Her fingers came away stained with his golden blood.
The sight seemed to snap her back to reality. The time for sentiment was over. With cold, practiced efficiency, she rose. She channeled her magic, weaving a complex spell that erased all traces of their struggle. The blood, the severed wings, the lingering scent of ozone and demonic energy—it all vanished, leaving the room as pristine and perfect as it had been when they arrived.
Then, she turned to Michael's broken body. With a final, difficult effort of will, she opened a rift in space beside him—a tear in reality that led not to Hell or the mortal realm, but to the chaotic, unmappable void between worlds. A place where things went to be lost forever. She levitated his body and pushed it through the rift. It vanished without a sound.
The portal sealed, leaving no trace.
Seraphina stood alone in the perfect, silent bridal suite. The faint, joyful music of the reception was still audible in the distance, a mocking echo of a promise she had just annihilated. She looked at her hands, the hands that had just destroyed the purest thing she had ever known.
She was victorious. She was powerful. Her birthright was within her grasp.
And she had never, in her entire, lonely existence, felt so completely and utterly alone. The triumph she had craved for centuries was a hollow, bitter thing, leaving only a cold, vast emptiness in its wake.