Ruler of the Righteous, page 18
part #9 of Hell Hounds Harem Series
Uriel was a piece of shit. A useless coward. A worthless sack of meat.
And the fun had only just begun.
“Why don’t you give another howl?” Michael tempted.
Uriel’s head lolled to the side, his gaze not falling on any one face. He didn’t deserve to look Divinity in the eye.
“Go on, brother. Howl. Let that cry of unity breach this realm and descend into Hell for Lucy to hear.”
Uriel refused.
“No? Well, I have something that might help you,” Michael unsheathed a thinner, longer blade from his bag of tricks. “This should make you sing.”
Every hair on Uriel’s body stood on end when he saw that thing. His eyes widened. Body tensed. “No, no, no-no-no-nononononono. Please, please, please, no!”
“You remember this then. Oh good. Let’s see if I remember your body as well as you remember this blade.” Michael shoved the weapon into Uriel’s side, only barely missing his kidney… just like always.
Uriel sucked in a ragged breath. Lucifer, Constantine, Gabriel, Eve…. He would never cry out for them. Wouldn’t give Michael the edge nor the hope of their possible capture.
He swallowed their names along with all the hopes and joy he’d gathered in his lifetime. Gulping them down, Uriel concentrated on the spikes that pierced his neck from that fucking collar instead.
Michael stabbed him again. This time right over his heart.
Uriel sucked in another sharp breath. In one’s final moments, when all hope is gone and darkness eats your light, you gotta decide if you’re going to go out with a bang or a whimper.
Uriel wasn’t going out a whimpering little bitch.
He stared at the faces of each Angel who stood back and watched and did nothing to stop it. Each of them was a traitor.
They. Learned. Nothing.
The fall of the brotherhood had been a waste. Not a single Angel here had learned their lesson about standing up for what was right. And the new Angels that came later hadn’t learned a damned thing from the legends told of the first of the fallen.
“Coward,” Uriel said through a mouth of blood. His gaze locked on the one he trusted longest: Anthony.
And wouldn’t you know it, that bastard looked away first. Uriel moved onto the next traitor. Then the next. Then the next. Uriel held each of their gazes until they looked away first. All the while Michael proved how well he remembered Uriel’s body and all his fucked-up thresholds and triggers.
Uriel hated this. Hated Michael. Hated everyone… including himself. Soon, Uriel turned to ice. Became so cold and hard, he wondered if his frozen state might chip the thin needle-like blade Michael used so well.
But like ice left out in the sun, Uriel eventually began to thin. Apply pressure to thin ice, it cracked and split. Fissures on thin ice fractured and webbed… and eventually chipped apart…
Drifting away until it was nothing more than a melted puddle…
That would dry up in the sun…
Leaving nothing behind…
To show it ever existed…
Chapter 23
Lucifer all but crashed through the door and back into Hell. His body rejected any good intentions of staying calm. His beast side clawed up to the surface and took over in one loud, ferocious bark. On all fours, the Devil raced towards his pack, howling while running.
Praying while running.
Desperate while running…
Constantine bolted into sight first. Clutching his chest, struggling to breathe, Con braced himself against the wall.
He felt it too.
“Uriel,” Lucifer’s voice was deep and deadly. His nails elongated to talons that gouged the stone floor. His body swelled with every breath he took. The darkness plaguing him rode Luce so hard he was almost blind with the hate surging through him. “They’re gone. Laz and Uriel are gone.”
Constantine’s hands balled into fists. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He punched the wall and his fist crushed the solid stone.
“Where’s the rest of our pack?”
Con lead the way and Lucifer followed on all fours. His ego for going primal burned away with sheer fear of what Uriel’s disappearance meant.
Eve rushed forward, holding her arm out and screaming. Uriel’s sigil, the one he’d inked into her skin, lit up like a fucking beacon. “What’s happened to him? Why’s this happening to my arm?”
“He’s in distress,” Lucifer growled. He could feel the evil banging against his fortified control. It was like a battering ram trying to crack him open and lay siege upon his soul.
Gabriel rushed forward. “Michael’s doing exactly what we talked about. He’s plucking away at your weaknesses, Lucifer.”
“Uri’s not a weakness of mine.”
Gabriel’s brow arched. His gaze raked up and down Lucifer. “I beg to differ, brother.”
Luce rose to his full height, his vision hazed red. Gabriel accepted the challenge and slung the Devil against the wall. Flaring his wings out, he nailed them into the stone and caged Lucifer there. “Don’t do this, brother. You’re letting him win.”
If he moved a muscle right now, he’d kill Gabriel. So he stayed still. Very… still…
“Breathe.” That directive came from Eve. “You’re no longer in a cage, Lucy.”
Yeah, she said that before to him. But unlike the last reminder, which was for comfort, this time it was a warning. There were no bars. No chains. No collars and short leashes to hold him back and keep him from destroying anything in front of him.
Lucifer’s eyes slowly fixed on Gabriel. He needed to reel in his wrath. Bury his hate.
It was harder than it should have been. With his pack surrounding him, Lucifer should have been able to find purchase on the cliff he dangled on. But he failed.
“He’s not a weakness. He’s my strength.”
Gabriel looked pained. “Michael’s going to kill him. He might have already.”
“He’ll torture him first,” Constantine said.
Lucifer’s knees buckled.
You’d think he’d be used to this by now. Wanting to help and having no way to do it. Wanting to run but staying caged.
“He’ll pluck at Uriel’s confidence,” Gabriel whispered. “Break his mind.”
Lucifer clung to that horrible fact like a life line, “That’ll take a while, right? Uriel’s so fucking strong. His mind… his soul is so damn strong.”
Uriel was the strongest, kindest, brightest Angel ever created. Nothing got Uriel down. Nothing broke that male.
“You don’t remember, do you?” Constantine whispered. “Holy shit, Gabriel, he doesn’t remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Uriel was Michael’s torture toy. That’s why—”
“I KNOW!” Lucifer roared. Shoving Gabriel away, Luce put some distance between himself and everything with a pulse. “You think I didn’t hear those screams? Think I don’t remember how it all began for us?”
Con was dead calm when he said, “Michael will break him in a blink.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“He’ll tell him he’s nothing and Uriel will absolutely believe it.”
“Not possible,” Lucifer refused to believe that words could tear a male down like that. “Uriel knows how strong he is. He knows he’s a survivor. He should be proud.”
“Pride never got an Angel anywhere good, Lucy.” Eve’s hand shook when she swiped her tears away. “And Uriel left here thinking he was not worthy to be in this pack.”
It wasn’t Lucifer who flipped out next. It was Constantine.
“The fuck did you say to him?” He rushed over to Eve. “Start talking right now, Eve. What the flying fuck would give him the impression he wasn’t worthy to be in our pack?”
“Bottom line?” she crossed her arms, “He thinks it’s cheating if you love him back.” Her dagger-glare stabbed Constantine and pinned him in place.
“What?”
Eve cleared her throat, “He thinks you can’t ever love him back because you made a promise to only love me.”
Constantine’s color drained from his face.
“He hates his body, says it’s too mutilated and proves how weak he is. He’s resentful that we always used him then pushed him away.”
Okay. What the hell was this? Lucifer’s eyes darted from Con to Eve, back to Con, back to Eve. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on?”
Eve ignored him. “I tried to tell him otherwise, Con. I tried to convince him that what he thought wasn’t true.”
“Damn straight it isn’t true. Fuck!” Constantine unraveled. Right there, in front of his pack, the Angel unraveled like a sweater with the yarn pulled. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have…” he punched the wall again. “Shit!”
Taking off at a dead run, Constantine headed for the exit doors.
“I’ll go with him. You stay back,” Gabriel ordered Lucifer.
“I’m not staying behind,” he growled. “Not with something like this.” Lucifer didn’t know what he’d do without Uriel.
But he damn sure knew what would happen if he stayed cooped up in Hell.
“I’m out of my cage and I’m staying out of my fucking cage.”
“You’re unstable, Lucifer.” Gabriel’s gaze kept returning to the door Constantine had just run through. “You go out there a hair-trigger, what do you think is going to happen?” Lucifer tried to fight him but Gabe slammed his ass, “You’ll kill innocents, brother. You know it. We all know it.”
“I have the best hunting skills. I can hunt Uriel down. Track his scent. None of you can do that.” What did Gabriel think they were going to do? Post a Missing Persons report with the cops? “I’m your only goddamn hope of finding a scent trail and you know it.”
“We can’t risk it.” It cost Gabe to say that. Lucifer could see the hurt in his eyes. Didn’t touch the pain in Lucifer’s heart though. The jagged knife that twisted with each minute that ticked by and Uriel was in danger.
“Michael’s most likely using Uriel to lure you out,” Gabriel whispered.
“Then I’m taking the bait.” Lucifer shoved past Gabriel, and was hauled back immediately. The Devil’s teeth clacked together in an effort to keep from biting through Gabriel’s jugular just to drop him.
“There,” Gabriel shoved his finger in Lucifer’s face, “That right there. You want to kill me right here, right now. The only thing stopping you is…”
“A carefully protected conscience.” Lucifer gritted out.
“You want to track him?” Eve said with a trembling voice. “Then your beast side must be tame, Lucifer.”
But it wasn’t tame. That was the point. And fuck them both for throwing it in his face right now.
Lucifer knew he was dangerous. Knew he was perilously unbalanced. Knew fire was dripping off his hands and spilling onto the floor and climbing up the wall behind him right now.
Did he give a shit? Nope. All he cared about was finding his mate. If the world needed to burn in order to smoke out Michael and Uriel, then so be it.
“I’m coming with you,” he growled. “Try to stop me and I will make you regret it. Indefinitely.”
There was a long moment when Gabriel and Lucifer both clutched each other. If ever there was an equal to Lucifer’s wrath, it was Gabe. This wasn’t going to end well. Not unless...
“Chain me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. If I’m an animal, put a collar on me and chain me. I’ll come to heel for Eve.” That confession would have hurt Lucifer’s pride, if he had any left.
“Are you being serious?”
“I am,” he deadpanned Gabriel. “You’re right. I’m too deadly to be set loose. But I’m also too deadly to stay in Hell. You leave? I will tear my kingdom down. I’m too close to losing what small grip I have on my self-control. And I need this hunt.” He couldn’t possibly expect Gabriel to understand this compulsion.
“Fine.” Gabriel looked over at Eve, “Go get something to harness him.”
She gasped. Walking backwards, anger and abhorrence blazed in her eyes at Gabriel.
When she came back carrying a hefty chain and lock, Lucifer showed no emotion when they placed it around his throat. Didn’t flinch with the lock clicked shut. Didn’t bristle when Gabriel handed the chain over to Eve.
With a heavy heart, Lucifer dropped back down to the ground and hated how morphed his voice sounded. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 24
Every once in a while, you need a sign. A signal from the powers that be that you’re down the right path. That Divinity sees what you’re doing and supports you.
Signs can be anything - a vision, a message, lyrics in a song – if you’re really trying to stretch it – but sometimes those signs practically dropped into your arms.
“Lazarus,” Michael’s smile was anything but welcoming. With all the struggling and running and hiding Michael’s had to do these past few years, all that trading and experimenting and grappling for something to work out just the way he wanted it to, ended now.
Lazarus had returned.
“I’m disappointed,” Michael said. “You went to Lilith before coming to me.”
As the All-Knowing Angel, Lazarus knew damn well where Michael was at all times. Just like he knew the exact moment Michael crawled his frail and boney body out of that awful imprisonment.
Laz knew better than anyone that Michael was made to survive the test of time. Built to last.
And nothing stopped a warrior worth his weight in gold when he had a righteous mission to complete.
He’d locked Lazarus in a box. One tiny breather hole at the top was all the comfort that fucker was going to get for a while.
Michael could hear the Angel’s wings rub against the walls of his tight confinement. Of course, adjustments had to be made so he’d fit, but that was no trouble at all. Broken bones made one quite bendy.
Leaning against the box decorated in spells and enchantments, he wondered how perfect Laz’s timing was. “This will go easier with your help, brother.”
There was a thud in response. Nothing more.
“Why did Lilith do it?” Guilt wasn’t something Michael suffered, so this twisted feeling in his belly wasn’t from that weak ass emotion. But his curiosity was a terrible taunting little addiction that needled him to no end. “Why’d she kill herself?”
“What,” Laz’s muffled voice was hard to hear, “did you give her?”
“Nothing really,” Michael ran his hand along the top of the box. “Only what she needed.” He chuckled, half-amused, “But you know that already.”
Thanks to Michael, Lazarus had the power of knowing all there was, is, and would be.
“How will it happen, Laz?” he squatted down and caressed the box like a lover. “How will the world say my name before it dies?”
More movement in the box. Really, how was he so squirmy? Michael had to break both his legs, arms, and back just to get him in there.
“You’re holding your answer back from me. Why?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“Then it definitely doesn’t matter.”
The insult made Michael rage. He punched the box; thankful it was reinforced or else his hand would have busted right through it.
“You can’t stop me,” Michael sneered. “My actions are holy. My motives are pure. This is the way it was always meant to be. You coming back here, right into my territory, proves that I have the Divine Creator on my side.”
“I won’t help you,” Lazarus whispered.
He was bluffing. How many times had this Golden-winged nutjob said those exact words to him? Hundreds. Thousands. The trick was to give him a little bone, “I am sorry, you know. For making you the way you are.”
Another movement. Another groan.
“I’ll let you out if you tell me what I want to know.”
Silence.
“I’ll heal your legs,” he lied. “Fix you.”
A small noise lilted from the breathing hole. Michael was tempted to put his ear over it to listen. But he knew better than to trust a lunatic locked in a box. Lazarus wasn’t one hundred percent on his side yet, so…
“I haven’t killed him yet,” Michael confessed. “Uri. He’s still alive.”
There… the faintest of whimpers. God how he loved the sound of that little noise. So small and so powerful all at the same time.
Whimpers meant you struck a chord in someone. Whimpers meant mercy. Whimpers meant Michael was on the right track.
“I’ll heal him too,” Michael lied. “Make him stronger. The three of us could finish what was started and it’ll all be over with so quickly.”
More movement.
“I can’t blame either one of you for turning your wings on me that day in the brotherhood. I was cruel to you both and that wasn’t fair of me. I should have been a better leader. A better brother. But when you told me the prophecies, and I remembered what the Elders—” yeah, no, he was saying too much.
Why was he saying any of this at all?
“Fuck it.” Michael kicked the box and rocked it back. “If you don’t want to share in this glory, that’s your choice.” He pulled out his sword and blindly stabbed into the breathing hole. It made it a little bigger, but the crunch and scream that ripped out of the box was too pretty to regret.
“I’ll tell Uriel you said hello.” Michael wrenched his sword free and licked the blood from the blade. “Revenge really does taste sweet.”
Uriel came to. It hurt to breathe. Hurt to blink. Hurt to cry.
He didn’t even try to move his body, figured that was out of commission permanently so why bother.
After the Death of a Thousand Cuts game was over, Michael had amped things up with the “Let’s see if I remember your body as well as you remember this blade” thing.
Uri’s balls were still shriveled from what happened after that.
He wanted to give up. Let go. Die.
Holy Divine Light, why couldn’t he just fucking die?
Uriel always wished for death and it never came. Shouldn’t there be some great big hooded dude with a scythe and boney hands who ushered the damned Divine to some kind of holding tank or some shit?
