showed him the past, brought him the pain, then together, they turned their gaze back on the priest. He was one of them. One of the ones who’d tied him to racks, who’d burned him with iron bars, beaten him, flogged him, thrown him in iron maidens for hours on end … this priest belonged to the sect that had fucked him to within an inch of his life.
“Please,” the priest begged again, and Diel stopped on the stairs. His head tilted to the side as he observed the piece of shit on the ground. The monster surveyed him, bathing in his terror like holy water, turned on by his begging, the pleading that the monster most relished.
But then the priest’s pleading halted and his eyes narrowed. “I know you,” he said, and Diel began to shake in rage. “I know your eyes.” Disgust rolled over the priest’s face, then terror once more as Diel moved his hand to the hem of his long-sleeved black shirt and slowly lifted it up. Diel and his monster watched, a collective unit, as the priest’s gaze slammed to the brand that they had forced upon him as a fallen boy. The addition of the wings and sword handle Sela had put on each of the brothers couldn’t disguise the original brand that had been burned into his skin, never to be removed. The upturned cross that had branded him a sinner of the worst kind in the Brethren’s eyes, a soul meant for hell. A heretic of the true Brethren faith.
“No,” the priest whispered. Diel released the hem, the material falling back to the waist of his pants. “You’ll burn in hell,” the priest spat, his ideology and beliefs rising to the surface even when faced with the deadliest of killers—a killer they’d had a hand in creating. “You and the ones who came before. The ones with the hoods.”
Diel hadn’t a fucking clue who he was talking about. And he didn’t care—his monster was done with staring at this piece of shit on the ground. This fucked-up priest was the start of the spree, the kill the monster always toyed with the most, before the blood led them into an uncontrolled frenzy and any morsel of rational thought fled their brains.
“Jegudiel.” The priest dropped his eyes to Diel’s scarred and ruined neck. “You’re Jegudiel—”
Diel jumped from midway up the stairs. His feet landed on the priest’s already broken ankle, crushing it to dust. The priest screamed so loud Diel felt it shudder through his body like an earthquake, his cock hardening at the blessed sound, the high-pitched wail swelling his balls to the point of aching. Diel reached into his waistband and pulled out the long knives. The beast inside him struck the priest, the craving for blood overriding any other need, slicing along hamstrings, his Achilles, his groin. When the priest screamed again, the tongue was next. With every stab of the knife into the priest, Diel lost himself to the red mist of murder, the haze of screams, the rainstorm of blood, and the heady sound of skin and muscles tearing.
The monster rejoiced. It bathed in the sounds of horror and pain. It led and controlled Diel’s every lethal movement until they were a perfectly in-sync, sadistic, fucked-up partnership—the very thing the collar tried to stop.
Diel stabbed and stabbed until the monster drew back, satisfied with this kill and already yearning for the next. Diel pocketed his knives and took off out of the house, not even a backward glance for the mangled priest lying in a bloodied, unrecognizable heap on the wooden floor. As Diel burst from the home, the cold air surrounded him like a cloak. His feet pounded the pavement toward the next Brethren house. His breath came out in steady white puffs of smoke as the monster pushed them to run faster, to move quicker, to get to the next priest sooner.
Diel arrived at the next house—smaller than the last, but just as secluded. He burst through the doors, any element of surprise lost in a surge of adrenaline. Diel raced for the stairs and charged into the bedroom. The monster snarled, briefly releasing Diel from its possession as it found yet another priest bound to the bed, gag in his mouth. The monster gnarred in fury.
Someone was getting to them first. But they weren’t killing them.
Why weren’t they fucking killing them?
Diel looked down. He and his monster caught sight of the red collar of the