death—it offered no forgiveness or second chances. It killed without explanation, relishing in any blood it got to spill and any piece of flesh it got to tear. It was feral and untamed. And, in time, it became part of Diel. Inextricably fused to everything Diel was. They were dualistic. Twin souls trapped in one ruined body.
But not right now. For the first time ever, they were split in their desires, opposing magnets ripping themselves apart.
Diel could feel the monster trying to cut its way through his internal barrier to take control, to rise to the surface and bind his hands over this raging desire.
Diel couldn’t let that happen. Not this time. Noa had to die. The act of fucking had only ever brought pain and destruction to Diel. He didn’t care about the joining of flesh or sinking into someone and coming inside them. If it didn’t involve death, he didn’t want to know.
Noa had no choice but to die. He couldn’t let his monster have her like that. It would destroy everything they had built since Purgatory. It would make them vulnerable again. Diel wouldn’t ever be fucking vulnerable to anyone ever again.
Diel felt his pulse speed up as he fought the monster. He held his breath and wrested it back further and further, sweat dripping down his back as he fell to the floor and the collar buzzed a warning. But the fight only grew worse. The collar was designed to stop his monster from attacking someone else—its purpose was never to stop Diel fighting himself.
He gripped his head as the monster slashed at his muscles, agony exploding through him like spilled acid. The buzzing ended, only for a bolt of pain to cut through him, like lightning touching ground and scorching anything in its path.
Diel’s body writhed, and his head hit the floor as the familiar volts rendered him immobile. He tried to breathe through the shocks that made him jerk uncontrollably. A hand landed on his bicep. “Breathe, brother,” Sela said, crouching down beside him.
Diel’s throat felt raw; his chest burned from the internal fight. But his monster was silent. Diel had gained a victory for now. Sela’s hands moved underneath Diel’s arms and he lifted him to his feet, sitting him on the closest couch. Diel’s head ticked as the last of the volts tried to flee his body. His knuckles were white as he gripped the arm of the couch.
He closed his eyes and breathed, searching for signs of the monster’s second attack. Everything was silent. But Diel knew his monster was only buying itself time. Waiting, like an expert guerilla fighter, hidden from Diel’s senses but silently strategizing its next move with absolute precision.
A glass of water appeared before his face. Reaching out with a trembling hand, he took the glass that Sela held. He drained it, but the storm inside of him didn’t lessen. It raged, dark clouds rolling, gaining power and momentum.
She had to die. Noa had to die tonight. He had to stop this internal madness.
Sela dropped to the seat beside Diel. Diel stared at a single drop of water traveling down the outside of the glass. His hands steadied, and he felt a wash of calmness take control of him. This was him without the monster, he realized. This was the silence that came when the monster’s eternal roar was muted.
“She’s gotten to you,” Sela finally said, and Diel’s head twitched again, the tic he’d developed over the years of being trapped underneath the collar.
“I never knew there’d be more of us out there,” Diel said.
Sela sighed. Diel flicked his gaze to his best friend. Sela’s already dark eyes seemed to take on an obsidian tone. “And it was my brother,” Sela said. “When he disappeared on us all those years ago, graduated from Father Quinn’s fucked-up tutelage, it was to go to the Coven.” Not a muscle on Sela’s body moved. He was as still as the statues he often crafted. “We know he’s alive.” He met Diel’s eyes. “I know my fucker of a brother is still alive. And we know he’s somewhere close.”
“You’re going to kill him,” Diel said. It wasn’t a question. He knew it was a truth as certainly as he knew that the sun would bring a sunrise each day.
“Yes.”
Sela got to his feet, clearly still thinking about his brother, if his thunderous expression was anything to go by. Sela had secrets well hidden. Things he had never shared about himself, his