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.
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