Home > Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues #2)(3)

Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues #2)(3)
Author: Tillie Cole

Electric shocks snapped at the ruined skin underneath Diel’s collar in warning.

“Breathe.” Diel turned toward the sound of Gabriel coming up behind him. “Control it. Steady your breathing.” The monster inside him hissed at Gabriel, the one who held it back. Diel had never been able to control himself, ever. But he closed his eyes and did as Gabriel said. The crackling of the collar decreased to a low, steady hum. Eventually, Diel opened his eyes. Sela stayed beside him until he was steady, then Diel tossed off his shirt, preparing to train. Gabriel’s priest’s uniform had gone and he was dressed in sweatpants, his torso bare but for the Fallen brand that marred his skin.

Gabriel nodded at Diel in reassurance, but Diel’s eyes fell to the small remote in Gabriel’s palm, fixated on it. Gabriel always reduced its power when they trained, took away the pulse-trigger function.

“Let’s go,” Gabriel said to his brothers, and took off running around the perimeter of the huge gym.

Diel cracked his hands and neck and fell into step. He felt the moment Gabriel lowered the charge on the collar. In a flash, the monster inside shifted from its containment and began to seep its darkness into Diel’s bloodstream, his muscles, his damaged soul. The twitch of his head stopped, and the world around him sharpened into focus. He felt the presence of his brothers around him, heard their breaths, smelled the sweat on their skin. He felt the calling of the blades and other practice weapons that hung from the walls.

The monster wanted him to escape, to use this opportunity to run. But it was the one need Diel always fought back. Despite the evil inside him, despite his monster’s ever-growing need to be untethered from the collar and set free to kill whoever and whenever he wanted, these men were Diel’s family. These men were his brothers. They were all he had—that was what kept Diel willing to take the frequent electric shocks. He didn’t know who the hell he was without them. He never planned to find out.

When Gabriel had freed them from Purgatory years ago, when he had brought them home, baptized them “the Fallen,” implemented their rules and purpose, he had also made sure they all knew how to fight. He had brought in experts to teach them. The Fallen had stealth. They could fight. They could exist in darkness and rid the world of people it was better off without. They were as trained as any military unit would ever be. But where others killed to keep people safe, the Fallen killed because, for them, there was simply no other choice.

“Diel,” Gabriel said after an hour of pushing through moves. Diel looked at Gabe. He was drenched in sweat—they all were, but Diel’s blood was still rushing through his veins, adrenaline still coursing through him at a blistering speed.

Gabriel nodded at the rest of the brothers. They all turned to the wall, taking practice weapons in their hands. One by one they surrounded Diel. Diel’s blue eyes locked on each of them in confusion.

Gabriel held up the remote. Diel stopped breathing. “I know you’re finding things hard right now.” Gabriel sighed, and Diel saw what looked like sympathy, and maybe guilt, flash across his face. Diel’s attention snagged on the collar’s remote again. “I know the darkness inside of you is stronger, more persistent than ever before. Since Purgatory …” On cue, the monster prowled inside Diel, waiting for whatever was about to happen with teeth bared.

Gabriel stepped back, and Diel’s gaze fixed once again on his brothers. “We want to help you.” Diel’s head twitched as he took in Bara’s sadistic smile and the chain he held in his hands, Uriel’s tattooed neck cracking and the metal pole in his grip. Raphael’s golden eyes and the rope he repeatedly made into a noose, then unraveled it only to start again. Michael, who wore metal claws, blunted for training, on each of his fingertips. Then Sela, his best friend, holding a wooden katana and nodding encouragingly at Diel.

“I’m going to turn off the collar. Completely,” Gabriel said, and Diel froze. Gabriel moved in front of him until Diel was forced to meet his older brother’s eyes. “Get it all out,” Gabriel instructed. “Here, with your family, exorcise the darkness inside. The rage that has been building too high of late. You can’t go on like this.”

Diel scanned his waiting brothers. He was being cleaved in two. His monster roared in victory, counting down the seconds to his bout of freedom. But Diel’s skin grew ice cold as a slither of fear crawled over his body. This wasn’t like normal, like when he had been given a Revelation in the Tomb, to carry out a kill on some fucked-up person outside of the manor. Since Purgatory, something had changed between Diel and his monster. It was stronger, more insistent. It was getting too hard for Diel to fight back.

Diel wanted this exorcism, this reprieve. Needed his monster to release some of his pent-up rage. But he knew what happened when that collar was switched off. He knew what he became. What he would need—death. Death and blood and his brothers’ screams of pain.

His monster wrapped its hand around his throat to try to stop him speaking, to make this happen. But Diel forced it back to hiss out, “No.” His hands balled into fists as he fought against the need to accept Gabe’s offer. “I’ll kill them.” He took a step back from Gabriel as his collar started to crackle and he could feel his resolve against his monster waning. “I’ll kill you.”

“Aw, it’s cute that he thinks he can take us,” Bara said to the others. The taunt instantly boiled Diel’s blood.

Uriel looked at Bara, his pierced and tattooed muscles twitching with the need to fight, then met Diel’s eyes. “Collar off, blue eyes. Let’s go.” He smirked. “Unleash the fucking beast.”

Diel vibrated with irritation. He tried to fight back the fury, the rage the monster was conjuring, but it was a losing battle. Rolling his neck, he closed his eyes and gave himself over to the bloodthirsty monster inside. “Gabe,” he growled without looking at his leader. “Turn the collar off.”

Diel heard a click, then the blissful sound of the collar losing its hum entirely. It was dead, just like the monster wanted his smirking brothers before him to be. Like a deadly plague, the monster spread through his body at breakneck speed, possessing him, taking full control, and Diel melded into the pitch black that came with his complete surrender to evil.

As if his body had been commandeered by a sadistic puppet master, Diel lifted his head and smiled coldly at his brothers. It was euphoric, the surrender. The freedom of dropping his continuous fight, to become one with the evil inside. A roar ripped from his throat, and he charged.

He ran for Uriel first, swiping the attractive blond’s legs from underneath him. Uriel crashed to the ground, a blur of dark tattoos and metal piercings, but he thrashed out and cracked the metal pole against Diel’s back as he jumped back to his feet. Diel charged again. Because this was what got him hard—the fight, the spree. The need to take not just one life, but many, one after the other, the greed, the binge of pure murder. Uriel swung the pole; Diel caught the end and yanked the blond to him. Diel crashed his head against Uriel’s. Blood burst on Uriel’s face, but the blond just smiled and let the blood pour down the perfect face that Uriel himself detested.

Diel lashed out and cracked Uriel across the jaw, then a flash of red appeared in front him. Before Diel had even realized Bara had come for him, a chain wrapped around his torso, yanking him to the side. The heavy metal bit into his waist, threatening to crack his ribs. Bara’s sadistic smile came into focus, and pure rage ignited inside Diel. He spun, unraveling himself from Bara’s hold. Gripping the end of the chain, Diel brought it down on Bara’s back. The redhead buckled to his knees.

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