Gasping for air, Diel submitted to the monster’s sudden surge of power to snarl, “I want this fucking collar off. I want to be who I was fucking born to be without the restraints.” Diel tensed and threw the monster back from taking control. The monster retreated, but its anger-tipped words echoed around Diel’s head like they were being blasted through speakers. Diel’s stomach turned and a fissure of panic slithered across his fractured soul at that thought. The thought off actually being free from the collar … of what that would look like, feel like …
Diel knew his monster could never be freed. He knew the collar could never come off. It would consume Diel. It would eradicate every part of who he was.
“D?” Sela asked, concern in his voice.
Diel couldn’t tell him that his monster was gaining power. Flooding Diel’s brain daily with thoughts of death and freedom and never having to obey electrical currents again.
“I want the Brethren gone,” Diel said. He had to throw Sela off the scent of his fear. “Every one of them. I could give a shit about any other murderous fucker Gabe sends us to kill. I want the Brethren. Only the fucking Brethren.” The words may have been a cover for Diel’s battle with his monster, but it made them no less true.
That night in Purgatory had done something irreparable to Diel. For years the Fallen had evaded the Brethren, stayed hidden so as not to draw their attention to the boys who had evaded the final exorcisms. Gabriel had made it that way, made them ghosts to anyone outside of Eden Manor, for their own protection. But Gabe wasn’t like Diel or his brothers. His blood didn’t sing to exact revenge on the men that had tortured them. He didn’t yearn to kill every single one of the secret sect until none of them remained. Until nothing was left of them but bloodstains and bones.
It was all Diel thought of. Day and night. Every minute of every day. It was his obsession.
Sela nodded, then, with his paper in hand, approached the bars of the cell. He kneeled down, his dark eyes fixed on Diel, and turned the piece of paper he had been drawing on. Diel’s blue gaze fell on the intricate sketch—every detail was perfect, as if created by Michelangelo himself.
It was the Brethren.
The Brethren dead on the floor, seven cloaked and hooded men around them. The Fallen, looking down on the sect of priests that had plagued them for too many years to count. Diel reached out and ran his fingers over the slain and broken bodies. His skin bumped in excitement. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“If you think the rest of us don’t think of destroying them too, all the fucking time, you’re dead wrong.” Sela turned the page to face himself and drank in the picture, his cheeks bursting with red. “It’s consuming.” Sela’s brown eyes darkened as something clearly crossed his mind. Diel knew what it would be. His best friend would be thinking of the member of the Brethren that Sela would one day bring down. The one who haunted him the most, the one who’d betrayed him beyond anything the rest of the brothers had experienced. The one who should have protected him, but instead threw him to the wolves.
The sound of footsteps on the stone staircase to the Tomb echoed off the old manor’s walls, ripping the two best friends from their mutual bloodlust. The light in the Tomb was low, but Diel saw Gabriel’s golden hair despite the darkness. It was like a damn halo, bright blond curls that framed his face and fell over his forehead. Gabriel was dressed as always in his priest’s attire, even down to the white dog collar. His blue eyes fell on Diel. Blue eyes that were always haunted, teetering on the brink of showing how badly he was breaking. Sela got to his feet and moved back to his chair, pencil back on the paper once again.
“Diel,” Gabe said, approaching the cell. “You okay?”
“Let me out, Gabe.” Diel got to his feet, wiped his hands on his pajama pants and wrapped his hands around the metal bars of the cage. Gabriel sighed, but, clearly happy that it was Jegudiel he was speaking to and not the monster inside of him, he reached for the key on his waistband and unlocked the door.
As it swung wide and Diel stepped out, Gabriel said, “We’re in the gym.” Diel felt the remnants of last night’s dream clinging to his skin like starving leeches, biting into his tight muscles, refusing to let go. But he nodded and followed Gabriel up the stairs, through the manor and out to the large gym Gabriel had had built in the vast gardens. The frigid air slapped at his skin, a heavy mist hovering over the landscaped grass like a sleeping spirit. The sky was overcast and gray, and drizzling rain sank into Diel’s dark hair with every step. Sela followed, his newest picture tucked into his pocket.
The rest of Diel’s brothers were already in the gym, shirts off, track pants on, and sweat dripping from their skin.
They looked up at the sound of the door being opened. “Here he is.” Bara approached Diel and Sela, his long red hair like a raging flame in the still-dark morning.
Silently, Gabriel moved to the changing room, leaving Diel with the rest of the Fallen. Bara stopped in front of Diel, his skin flushed from exercise and his usual disturbing smirk on his lips. Uriel came beside Bara, resting his arm on his best friend’s shoulder. His heavily tattooed skin was drenched in sweat, and messy blond hair stuck to his damp cheeks.
Diel’s head twitched under their attention, his monster pacing back and forth with excitement that Diel was about to train, to blow off some steam. His eyes searched the gym. They landed on the blades on the walls. His hands itched to hold them. They yearned to use them.
Raphael and Michael approached too. Raphael flicked his chin at Diel in greeting. Something inside of Raphael had calmed since he’d met Maria. Since he’d had the chance to kill her but, instead, saved her life, keeping her by his side as one of them. Michael stared across the gym, his eyes displaying their usual blankness as he clutched the vial of blood around his neck.
“The Brethren again?” Uriel asked, studying Diel with narrowed eyes. Diel met his pale gray gaze.
His blood heated as he remembered the dream. He nodded. “We were all there.” A slow grin formed on his lips, his monster curling affectionately around the fucked-up memory. “And they were all screaming at us to stop. Begging.”
“Fuck, brother. You’re going to make me hard,” Bara joked, but his green eyes were shining as he hung on Diel’s every word, needing more and more. Needing to hear—in close detail—about the violence, the revenge … the death.
“What else?” Raphael asked, wrapping his piece of string around his finger tighter and tighter, until the skin turned blue and his pupils dilated. His strained muscles jerked as his breathing became labored. “What else did we do to them?”
Even Michael’s usually disinterested ice-blue eyes drifted to Diel then, his tongue licking along teeth that had been cosmetically lengthened and sharpened into fangs.
“Pain …” Diel rasped. The collar buzzed at the quickening of his pulse. “Lots and lots of pain.” His brothers shifted on their feet, their slow breaths turning into heavy pants. “Agonized screams. And blood. Lots of spilled blood dripping from their chests, their throats and their eyes.” Diel’s eyes whipped to Michael’s as the youngest brother lifted his hand and bit down on the flesh of his palm beneath his thumb. Blood spilled into Michael’s mouth, crimson streams running down his chin and onto his bare chest. Michael pulled his hand away from his lips and smothered the blood onto his torso, over the Fallen brand that they all wore with pride.