Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

“No,” Diel spat out, teeth gritted and jaw aching. He tried to push the monster back, but without the threat of the collar’s electric shock, it was as stubborn as the devil, a demon intent on complete possession, finally overriding the last bastions in Diel’s body that had resisted its pull for too long.

Even in the high intensity of that moment, Diel remembered his younger self, the confused boy who dreamed of the day that the chains were torn from his body and he got to embrace the monster. But now that fantasized moment was here, born in reality, a spike of true fear splintered through his skull. He never fucking felt fear. Nothing scared him after the hell he and his brothers had been put through.

But as the monster seeped too deep into his body to ever be removed, like a malignant tumor too advanced to conquer, Diel felt that spark of fear stab down his spine like the plunge of an archangel’s fiery sword.

Diel had spent a lifetime searching for an outlet from who he was. The monster had been his shield against the fucking war the Brethren had raged on his young, fragile body. But now he was in jeopardy of losing all that he was to the monster he had once viewed as his savior, he didn’t want Diel the man, himself, to die. He didn’t want to suffocate under the monster’s fists.

He wanted to fucking live.

He wanted to fucking fight.

Diel realized that his legs had buckled and he was on all fours on the floor. He was wrenched away from his inner thoughts to find himself staring at the folly’s ancient stone beneath his palms and knees. The monster felt like a ten-ton weight crushing down on his back, threatening to snap his spine. He gasped for breath, trying to stop it from taking control, when he heard, “Don’t resist it.”

Those three words were like a rope being tied around his chest, pulling tight and guiding him through the quicksand to stand. Diel’s head lifted, his torso straightening some despite the slicing of claws along the flesh of his back. His eyes clashed with a familiar brown gaze.

Noa. Noa had done this. She had fucking done this! Diel’s head shook with rage, and he bellowed out the full force of that anger, his voice echoing around the room. Noa didn’t even flinch. She stood before him, decked in black leather and heavy black boots, her long pink hair a curtain around her curvaceous body. “You were never meant to be apart,” she said, not one bit bothered by the fury pulsing from Diel in her direction.

She did this. She fucking did this!

Diel heard a crack from the fire and saw the remnants of his collar tarnishing to black in the ever-climbing flames. Gritting his teeth so tightly he felt they would shatter, he fought back against the smothering weight of the monster on his back and shakily got to his feet. His torso unfolded as if it had been hunched over, lain dormant for a century and had forgotten how to offer any kind of muscular support to his body.

The minute he was standing, his monster attacked, thrashing and knocking Diel from side to side. His body was pushed left and right, his unsteady feet stumbling as Diel fought to keep balance. All the time he kept Noa in his sights. She remained unmoving. Just watching him with the dark stare that dared him to try and take her down.

“You!” he snarled, his voice broken and weakened as any energy he possessed drained out of him as if his skin were a sieve. “YOU!” Diel shouted and, despite his unsteady feet, he lunged at Noa. As he approached her, the monster hooked an arm around his neck, wrenching him back. Just as he was about to drop to his feet, Noa’s hand shot out and gripped his cheeks. The monster instantly calmed, groaning as the woman it wanted took him in her firm hold.

Diel’s lips curled back, but as he looked at Noa, he felt it. He felt the monster’s overwhelming attraction to her, its desire to fuck her, to have her clawing at his back and screaming their name. Diel’s throat tightened as he suddenly saw the fantasy the monster conjured in their brain like a movie reel. He felt Noa’s hair dusting across his chest. His dick twitched, and he fought to keep hold of the disgust he felt toward the idea of fucking her in any way. Of anyone ever touching him like that.

“He’s you,” Noa said, voice curt and words direct. Diel’s body stilled, like her voice was another leash he couldn’t escape from, the omnipotent voice of God that he couldn’t unhear. Her long fingers were tight on his cheek, her nails digging into his stubbled skin. She thrust him forward to keep his attention. “You are one and the fucking same. You don’t have a monster living within you. You never have. He is you and you are him.” She wrenched him closer, and a long groan slipped from his parted lips at her forceful action. His muscles heated, and he wasn’t sure from where it came—him or his monster.