by Tillie Cole
That calmness only came from a predator who knew he would catch his prey.
Maria turned and found a large stairwell. She foolishly cast a look back. Raphael was walking toward her, long strides eating up the carpet beneath his bare feet. His golden stare was locked on her. His tattooed muscled chest was strained, his fists clenched at his sides. Dark eyebrows were pulled down, and his wet hair was falling over his forehead and dripping water onto his olive skin. “I’ll catch you,” he promised.
Maria forced herself to move. She fled down the stairs. When she reached the impressive marbled foyer at the bottom, she looked up to see Raphael calmly descending the steps. Giving herself no time to think, she ran again. Turning right, she powered her bare legs down another hallway. The house was a rabbit’s warren, endless hallways twisting and turning and leading to nothing but more never-ending passages. She was lost, but at least she could no longer hear Raphael behind her. Hearing the low hum of voices from beyond two tall ornate wooden doors, Maria felt the first flicker of hope swell in her chest.
She burst through the doors, turning and slamming them shut behind her. Maria was breathless, her chest aching from exhaustion and the adrenaline surging through her veins. Backing away from the doors, her eyes fixed on the doorknob, keeping watch in case Raphael followed, Maria barely heard the sound of a chair leg scraping on the wooden floor behind her.
She froze. Pulse racing, Maria slowly turned around. Her eyes widened. Around a large dining table sat four men . . . four men who all had their eyes locked on her. Maria stepped back, and back and back until her shoulders slammed into one of the doors behind her. She scanned the table. A man with bright red hair was smirking her way, drinking a large glass of red wine. The man beside him, a blond man with gray eyes, curled his lip in disgust when his gaze dropped to her bare legs. Maria tried to pull down the hem of the shirt she still wore, aware she had nothing on underneath. Her eyes next found a man with long brown hair that fell below his shoulders, eyes as dark as midnight. He was licking his lips as he drank her in, his head tilting as he studied her every inch. Finally, her eyes fell on a man with black hair and ice-blue eyes. Maria almost cried out loud in horror as she watched him cut his wrist with the bladed ring on the tip of his thumb. Blood sprouted from the vein, and he dipped another of his fingers in the blood, as if it were paint, and smudged it onto his lips, sucking at the wound and swallowing the blood down. His lips curled back and revealed pointed teeth . . . teeth of a vampire.
Maria scrambled against the door, as if she could disappear through the hard planes. What is this place? Who and what are these men?
Another man with dark hair and blue eyes came through one of the other two doors leading to the room. He wore a strange collar around his neck. He stopped dead when he saw Maria. She watched him close his eyes and take a deep breath, as though he were fighting for control.
“Well, what do we have here?” The red-haired man got to his feet, the first to speak. He kept his wine in his hand. He wore a green dress shirt that was open to the middle of his chest, and black slacks. The shirt matched the color of his startling eyes. He took a step forward. Maria’s nails tried to find purchase on the door. It was no use. They scraped against the solid wood, digging into it. “It seems Little Red Riding Hood has lost her way and found herself in the wolf’s den.”
One by one the men got to their feet. But Maria felt no sense of good coming from this room. Instead the air was thick with malintent, shrouded in darkness. The looks and the hungry eyes made only one promise—death and pain . . . They are just like Raphael.
As if he’d heard Maria’s thought, the man with the collar around his neck opened his eyes, blatant hunger in his disturbing gaze, and charged in her direction. Maria held her breath, unable to move, paralyzed by the stark fear spiking her blood. She tried to breathe, to find some strength to make her feet move. But just as she knew it was fruitless, the man dropped to his knees, the cords in his neck protruding as he threw his head back and roared out a pained scream.
Maria scurried away to the safety of the flocked red-wallpapered wall, then she looked up. Her heart jump-started to life when she saw a blond man with gentle curls framing his face watching her in utter dismay. But that wasn’t what made her almost cry in relief. That belonged to the shirt and collar he wore. The collar that brought her more comfort than anything else in the world.
That of a priest.
“Please . . .” she begged as she met his bright-blue eyes. “Help me, Father . . . help me.”
The door to her right burst open, and Raphael stormed through. Maria watched him take in the man on the floor. Raphael’s face flamed with rage. His head whipped to her cowering by the wall, and he moved to where she stood, blocking her with his body.
“No one comes near her,” he said, calmly, but each word was laced with threat. “Brothers or not, I’ll kill you if you do. She is mine.” Raphael’s eyes slammed to the man on the floor. The man in the collar who was now looking his way. “Try that again, Diel, and you and me are done.”
The man on the floor’s eyes switched from coldness to sadness within seconds as he looked at Raphael. Strangely, it made Maria’s heart ache.
“Raphael.” The blond priest stepped forward. He was holding something in his hand. A remote of some description. When the man on the floor flinched at the priest’s closeness, Maria realized it must control the collar around his throat. “What have you done?”
Raphael backed Maria against the wall with his body. Maria felt the heat from Raphael’s back seep through her shirt as he tried to block her view. His scent surrounded her, invading her senses like a conquering army. She closed her eyes in shame and confusion when, somehow, it seemed to calm her frayed nerves.
“Gabriel, get back,” Raphael threatened.
Maria frowned. Gabriel? Raphael? She recalled the men around the table. There were seven of them all together.
Seven.
Just like the archangels.
“You’ve broken the commandments,” Gabriel said. “Why? Why would you do that? You’ve . . .” Something seemed to occur to him. His eyes widened and flickered to Maria, then moved back to Raphael. “The rosary you found,” he said, and Maria stilled. The rosary? Gabriel came closer still. Raphael backed into Maria until he couldn’t move anymore. She struggled to breathe with the weight of him pressed against her. But Maria idly noted his body wasn’t as tense around Gabriel as it had been the others.
He trusted him. Raphael trusted this priest.
“Where did the rosary come from, Raphe? Tell me.” Gabriel came close enough to study Maria behind Raphael’s wide chest. Gabriel closed his eyes. He seemed to be fighting a battle of some description on his face. “The hair.” Maria couldn’t help but hear the strained sadness in his voice. “Her hair . . .” Maria glanced down at her long hair, now clean and smoothed out by Raphael’s hands. What did Gabriel mean? “Raphael . . . they knew about that preference.”
Raphael didn’t say anything. Maria dropped her eyes, lost as to what was happening. But this close to Raphael’s back, the only sight that met her were the marks she had seen in the shower, now in full, close view. Her stomach fell on seeing his back completely ravaged. The flesh was littered with red mark after red mark. There wasn’t a piece of skin that wasn’t touched. His face was perfect, his chest, but this . . . It was where Raphael’s imperfections lay, clustered into one masterpiece of mutilation. She wondered what horrors were trapped under the heavy scarring of the rough skin and scarlet welts.
The rush of empathy she had felt toward him when she saw him in the shower returned, so thick and fast that she fought the need to reach out her hand and place it on his scars.
They are like mine, like Jesus’s stripes. Just as that image came to mind, she glanced at the upturned cross that still hung in his ear. Saint Peter’s cross. An image of humility and heroic martyrdom. But neither of those things bore any relation to the apparent evil that ran in Raphael’s veins. The
malevolence that smothered his soul. But the lash scars . . . the pain he must have endured to get them . . . Why had someone hurt him in such a way?
Maria felt too much. She always had. She couldn’t bear to see another person in pain. Even this man . . . even the man who wanted to kill her.
“I’m taking her with me,” Gabriel said, pulling Maria’s attention from the nature of Raphael’s soul to a fellow follower of Christ.
“No,” Raphael snarled.
“Raphe, you’ve defied the commandments. You’ve put us all in danger. Do you understand that? Can you even comprehend the severity of your betrayal?”
It was obvious from Raphael’s livid expression that he didn’t, or he simply didn’t care. “You’re not taking her,” he spat. Gabriel’s eyes immediately filled with sadness, with pity.
Gabriel didn’t look back at the men behind him as he said, “Restrain him and take him to the cell in the Tomb.” Raphael’s body went rigid as the redhead, the blond man, and the man with long brown hair reluctantly took hold of his arms and pulled him away from her.
“No! NO!” Raphael tried to fight the men off, but they held him captive and removed him from the room. The man with the collar got to his feet, watching Gabriel with cautious eyes.
“You good?” Gabriel asked him.
“Yes,” he replied with gritted teeth.
Finally, the man with blood staining his lips followed the others without a word.
Gabriel held up his hands. “I won’t hurt you. I promise. But please, follow me.” Maria didn’t really have a choice. She followed the priest out of the dining room, across the vast foyer and to a locked door. A day room was on the other side. Gabriel handed her a bottle of water. “I need to speak to Raphe. I’ll lock you in here. No one has the key but me. You’ll be safe.”
“You’re not like them,” Maria said as Gabriel turned to leave.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “Don’t let the clothes deceive you.” He ran his hand over his shirt. “I’m more like them than you know.” With that he left the room, leaving her alone. Maria curled up on the chair. The blue and white floral wallpaper in the large room seemed to close in on her. Clutching the bottle of water to her chest, she prayed to God for guidance. What was she meant to do? Stay and try to minister to Raphael’s darkness? Or beg to leave? To escape this strange and dark place?
I’ll leave it to you, Lord, to show me the way. Whatever you decide, I will obey.
As Maria endeavored to remain calm, she couldn’t get the sight of Raphael’s back from her mind or the echo of his words in her head . . . She is mine . . .
She is mine.
Chapter Six
With every step Gabriel took toward the Tomb, Raphael’s roars of fury grew louder. When Gabriel reached the top of the spiral stone staircase that would lead him down to his brothers, he reached out his hand and took a deep breath. His eyes closed, and the choking feel of dread attacked his chest. He rested his back against the cold stone for strength and opened his eyes. He stared at the commandments written in black calligraphy on the stone wall opposite. The rules the Fallen must adhere to in order to make their system work. The system that kept innocent lives safe, but allowed his brothers to satisfy their murderous urges. One line in particular seemed to pulse from the stone in bold.
Thou shalt not kill an innocent.
He thought back to the young woman in the day room. The woman with hair that reached her thighs. She was pretty, slight, innocent-looking, perhaps submissive in nature . . . and that hair . . . She was Raphael’s ultimate fantasy made flesh.
Gabriel smacked his hand against the wall. “I should have known,” he whispered to no one but himself and God. He should have known that his brothers, when face to face with their fantasy kills, wouldn’t be able to resist. In that moment, no commandment or edict given by him would be obeyed. The truth was, the darkness that lived inside them controlled them. It indulged Gabriel’s pathetic attempts to keep it on a leash for a while, making him feel like their system had some kind of authority over their baser desires. But all this time the darkness had simply been waiting to break free.
Gabriel pushed his fingers through his hair. He didn’t know what to do. In ten years, even before that in Holy Innocents and Purgatory, Gabriel had always been able to think of a way to protect Michael, then his new brothers. But right now, he didn’t know what to do. Raphael needed to be punished. His golden-eyed brother would know this. But Gabriel had no idea what to do about the woman. She was so young. Looked barely twenty-one. And if she had been sent by the Brethren, what color was her soul? Was she another unrighteous member of the group who had inflicted nothing but pain on Gabriel and his brothers for too many years, changing them all in ways they could not repair?
“Let me out!” Raphael’s lethal voice climbed up the stone staircase, as vicious and ungodly as a demon scuttling up from the depths of hell.
Gabriel barely recognized his brother. Raphael was always calm. Controlled. Composed. Right now, he was anything but.
Gabriel descended the steps, and as he drew closer to the Tomb, he felt the evil he tried to keep at bay begin to chip at the small amount of goodness left in his soul. When Gabriel entered the Tomb, he saw Raphael in the cell in the corner. In ten years, the only brother who had had to occupy it was Diel, and only when he couldn’t control himself. On seeing Gabriel, Raphael wrapped his hands around the bars and yanked on the metal. “Let me out, Gabe. She’s mine. You won’t take her from me. She’s mine, and I’m having her whether you approve or not. You’re not taking this from me. Not after I’ve found her.”
Gabriel could feel the eyes of his other brothers on him as they stood around the room, watching his every move. For once they were all silent. Even Bara had nothing to say. Raphael’s eyes were wild, showing Gabriel just how close his brother was to the edge. Gabriel stopped in front of the cell but out of Raphael’s reach. It saddened Gabriel that, right now, he couldn’t trust Raphael. He had always trusted his brother.
Raphael was breathing heavily, the muscles on his bare torso strained and tight. Gabriel’s eyes dropped to the sword-and-angel-wing emblem they all wore. The one they all had had branded on them when they signed their oaths to the Fallen brotherhood. The brand that eradicated the upturned cross the Brethren had scarred on their flesh when they were kids. It was his and his brothers’ way of taking back some semblance of control from the priests who had chipped away at everything they were, who’d played with their bodies like toys and crushed their spirits until there was little left to be salvaged.
It was the emblem that bound them in their odd brotherhood. Right now, Gabriel felt it only mocked who they were, how far they had all come.
“You’ve made a mockery of that brand,” Gabriel said aloud, purging his inner thoughts. He pointed at the sword and wings on Raphael’s chest. “You have taken everything we are, the blood oath, our brotherhood, our commandments, and turned your back on us. All for a woman.”
“She’s not just a woman,” Raphael said calmly. Calmly, but darkly. “She’s my one.”
Gabriel resisted the need to run his hands over his face or show in his expression just how much Raphael’s actions had hurt him. Instead, he kept his face neutral. From the minute his brothers had escaped Purgatory years ago, Gabriel had had to be their leader. They could never see him weak. Gabriel took a step closer. Raphael watched him intently. Gabriel couldn’t equate this savage with the man he knew. Raphael had always been one of the closest to Gabriel. Right now, that friend appeared lost, focused on one thing only—the young woman with pale skin, a slender neck, and thick hair that fell to her thighs.
“Was she holding the rosary?”
Raphael clenched his jaw and gripped the bars tighter.
“Was she holding the rosary, Raphe? Was she holding the rosary of the Brethren when you met her in the club?”
Raphael glared at Gabriel; Gabriel didn’t break the challenge. Finally, Raphael
exhaled a furious breath. “Yes.”
Gabriel heard the low murmurs of anger from his brothers behind him. His heart sank. He thought back to the woman, how terrified she had been when Diel attacked. Her wide eyes, the way she cowered, the way her eyes dropped to the floor, a victim alerting her attacker to her utter submission.
How could she be working with the Brethren? Or was she just a pawn they used to lure and trap Raphael? Gabriel didn’t think her meekness was a ruse. Too many thoughts clogged his brain, making it ache.
“They knew of your predilections, Raphe. They must have discovered where you were hunting and laid their trap.” Gabriel looked at his brother, who was pacing the ground of the cell. “But you discovered their trap before they could get to you.”
Raphael stopped. His face had lost some of its anger and he seemed to have regained some of his sanity. “She wanted to play.”
“You had another target,” Gabriel reminded him. Raphael had been sent for the trafficker. The Fallen had been paid handsomely to ensure that kill would be made.
Raphael’s eyes lost focus. “Not after I saw her, I didn’t.” Gabriel felt nauseous at how quickly Raphael had forgone his self-restraint and thrown himself into the path of the Brethren’s bait. “I found the rosary in her bra. Hidden, until it fell to my feet.” He didn’t smirk when he said, “Maybe your God wanted to save me after all.” Gabriel believed that, but that was by the by right now.
“And you thought to bring her back here?”
Raphael glanced down at his hands, then wrapped them around one of the metal bars. He began to squeeze, and his eyes seemed to lose focus again, taking Raphael out of the Tomb and to somewhere else in his complex mind. The metal groaned under his hands as he squeezed the bar tighter and tighter and tighter, his fingers turning white. “I wrapped my hands around her throat,” Raphael said, voice deepening and growing hoarse. “I squeezed her slim neck, felt her pulse slowing under my thumbs.” Raphael’s breathing grew more rapid. “I stared into her eyes as I watched her drain of life.” Gabriel ignored the shameless sexual gratification Raphael was obviously gaining from the replay. Raphael pushed himself against the metal bar, hissing as it pressed against his bulging groin. “She fought me. She clawed at my arms.” Raphael’s pleasured tone quickly turned into anger. “It wasn’t how it was meant to be. She isn’t meant to fight back. She gives herself to me willingly. When I’m deep inside her, she whispers my name. Loving me. Needing me. Obsessed and consumed by me. I’m the only thing that exists in her world.” Raphael’s eyes snapped to Gabriel, fully present again. “I have to complete it the way it was meant to be. I have to have her in the right way.”
