Uriel grabbed Bara’s hand and launched him back to his feet. Bara’s smile widened, showing pure white teeth. “My dear Jegudiel, don’t you know that kind of rough play just excites me?”
Bara cracked the chain over Diel’s chest. The pain was like a bolt of lightning to his flesh. Diel snarled and went to retaliate, but Sela’s katana plowed straight into his stomach. Red-hot fury blazed through him. His hands rolled into fists, and blackness descended. His sharp gaze roved over his best friend, and all his brothers around him. Raphael’s golden eyes met his and he lashed out with his rope, hooking a noose around Diel’s throat. Michael bared his metal-tipped claws and attacked.
With a manic laugh, Diel fought back. The monster was unrelenting—slicing, punching, striking. It was a fucked-up melee of violence, blood and pain. But Diel reveled in it. All the brothers bar one basked in its rapture.
But with every strike, every flash of his brothers’ weapons or fists, he was transported from the gym and thrust back there. Back to the underground hell that was Holy Innocents’ Purgatory. The torture room that the Brethren would lead Diel into by the chain they kept him affixed to. The racks, the strappado, the hot irons they pressed onto his skin as they exorcised the demons from his soul, the evil that never went away.
The memories penetrated the monster too as Diel was mentally taken back to the stairs that led to the hallway in Purgatory. Both monster and Diel heard the echo of his brothers’ footsteps behind him. Smelled the damp and mold of the old bricks that kept the Brethren’s depravity sealed away from the wider Catholic Church, from anyone who could help. Felt the hard stone of the floor as the Fallen were forced to their knees. And he felt the chain weighing heavy around his neck as he was forced to take a Brethren priest into his mouth, only to be pushed to the ground afterward and taken from behind.
Diel felt his fingernails snapping on the ancient stone as he tried to find purchase against the pain. But the worst memory … the worst memory was the sound of the Brethren “exorcising” the evil inside of him and his brothers, their grunts and growls as they released inside them.
Diel was no longer present in the gym. He was fully back in Purgatory, only this time he was older, stronger, and he was driven by hatred and the need for revenge.
His collar was off.
Diel broke their necks; he drove his twin blades into their hearts, kidneys, lungs, meeting their terrified stares as the blood and life drained away from them.
“Diel!” A voice called his name in the distance, but Diel was trapped in Purgatory, surrounded by the cult of priests who had hurt and tortured him for too many years, who had kept him chained to a bed like a motherfucking dog.
“Diel!” Hands tried to grab him, but Diel saw Father Brady before him, that ugly face he would never forget taunting him to come closer. Snarling, Diel charged. The priest stood his ground as Diel wrapped his hands around his throat and slammed him against the wall. Diel hissed in his face, his monster salivating at finally having one of them in his hold.
Diel didn’t hear the other men behind him, coming to the priest’s defense. He didn’t hear anything until electricity wrapped around his neck like a charged noose and pierced his skin with hundreds of volts. He squeezed Brady’s neck harder, trying to hold on, to fulfill this kill, but the volts increased and brought Diel, screaming, to his knees.
Diel wouldn’t let go.
“Diel!”
He blinked, his gaze coming back into focus. His monster had no choice but to retreat, leaving Diel—panting, bruised and bloodied—behind. He blinked again, clearing his eyes of the rest of their red mist, and a head of golden hair came into view. Blue eyes were fixed on his. But these eyes were nothing like Father Brady’s. These ones were watching him with something that Diel thought could be kindness … no, sorrow.
It was a trick. This was a motherfucking Brethren trick.
With a savage roar, Diel shot to his feet, slamming the blond Brethren imposter back against the wall. The ring of electricity around Diel’s neck burned so fiercely that Diel smelled the singeing of skin, of body hairs burning. His teeth ground together so hard at the pain that they threatened to crack. “Di …el …” the priest pleaded under Diel’s hold. His voice was broken. The haunting timbre circled Diel’s fogged-up mind. The voice … Diel knew that voice. He recognized that voice.
But before he could think harder on whose it was, he heard a bellow of “Michael!” from behind him. Suddenly hands were wrapped around his throat from behind, and sharp points pierced his throat above his collar. The pain was too much to withstand. Diel screamed as his hand slipped from the Brethren priest’s neck and he was slammed to the ground. As he looked up, ice-blue eyes stared down at him from above, lips covered in blood … blood that was slowly dripping down crimson-coated fangs.
The collar crackled as it eased its attack.
“Michael. Stop.”
Diel’s eyes darted around him. The sight of familiar walls cut through his brain. The smell of sweat and wooden floors sailed into his nostrils, grounding him, hurtling him back home. The man who hovered above him had porcelain skin, and a tattoo of a sword and wings that moved up and down with his rapid breaths.
Jet-black hair. Ice-blue eyes rimmed with dark liner. Long fingernails that were painted black.
Then, “Michael. I’m okay. Listen, I’m okay. Step back. Please.”
Diel knew that gentle voice. A new face suddenly looked down on him. Blond curls fell around his eyes, and he had the same tattoo—a sword and wings.
“Diel. Are you back with us?” the blond asked.
Other faces came into view, all of them familiar. None of them belonging to the Brethren. No Father Brady. No Father Quinn. No torture room or burning pillar candles. Diel’s hand twitched. The one with black hair stepped in front of the blond, teeth bared, ready to bite.
“Michael,” the blond said, carefully placing a hand on the dark-haired man’s arm. “It’s okay. Let me talk to him.” The dark one’s ice-blue eyes narrowed on Diel, but he moved to let the blond back through, although he stayed close to his side.
Michael. The one with fangs was called Michael.
Diel looked at the blond again. Gabriel.
Diel looked at the others who were now coming closer. Red hair—Bara. Tattoos—Uriel. Golden eyes—Raphael. And long dark hair—Sela. Sela, his closest friend.
“You back, brother?” Sela leaned down a little, meeting Diel’s gaze.
Diel closed his eyes and breathed. These men weren’t the Brethren. They were his family. Diel felt his monster pacing, wanting to keep up the fight, continue the spree. Wanting to punish Michael for even fucking daring to touch him, wanting to rip out his fangs and pierce his throat. But when Diel opened his eyes, Gabriel was crouching beside him, studying him. Gabriel’s face was pale, and there were bright red marks on his neck—finger marks. Diel’s finger marks.
“I want the Brethren,” Diel rasped, for once his own desires aligning with that of his monster’s. Gabriel froze. The room went completely silent.
Eventually, Sela reached down and offered Diel his hand. Michael hovered behind Gabriel, his gaze never leaving Diel, tracking his every move. Diel took Sela’s hand, and Sela helped him into a sitting position. “I want the fucking Brethren,” Diel said again, and Gabriel took a deep, frustrated breath.