Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

Diel’s head rolled under Noa’s hold; he didn’t know if he was preening under her touch or trying to wrench himself away. Everything was a fucking thick fog. A great fog of black smoke that choked his lungs and eradicated anything from his sight but her. Noa with her pink-hued hair that shone like a fucking sun blazing in the middle of a nuclear winter.

She only kept hold of him tighter.

Lowering her head to his, nose to nose, she said, “He stepped forward when you were a child to shield you from all the pain.” She shook her head. “He isn’t a fucking demon. He’s you. He’s the warrior within you that, as a child, you didn’t even know you could be. He became the warrior you needed. He doesn’t deserve your punishment or censure.”

Diel’s heart smacked against his ribcage, almost like it was trying to escape too. But he knew it was just her words penetrating deep that was breaking him apart. Crushing any excuse he had ever given himself as to why the monster had appeared to him in Purgatory, how it had crawled from the darkness in the depths of night and protected him from the agony of the rack, the pain of the priests’ cleansing punishments and the evil members of the Brethren fucking him over and over like a dog.

Noa’s hand moved into his hair and pulled harshly. “His blood is your blood. His breath is your breath. His thoughts are yours. His needs, his lack of fear, his incredible strength, his fucking roars, they are all you.” Noa yanked at the strands even harder. “Embrace him, Diel. Fucking embrace him. Feel his darkness seep into your bones and make them stronger. Feel him invade your muscles and see them grow. Let his thoughts splice with your thoughts. Let his fucking half-soul merge with yours. Light and dark, both you and him. Embrace him. Protect him. Fucking love him!”

Diel shook so hard at the crescendo in Noa’s voice that he screamed. He thundered out a bellow so fucking loud he thought it would shake the world down to the final circle of hell. But as he released years and years of pent-up frustration of fighting the monster in his heart, and with Noa holding on to his hair, he rid himself of the chains that held him and his monster back from one another, two fighters circling the same ring, forced to tear the other apart, only to find out they’d been allies all along. He fucking ripped down the walls that kept them separated, and they crumbled to rubble at their feet. And with every brick and every piece of cement that fell away to gray dust between them, he felt the consolidation of his two individual parts. He felt the unification, the amalgamation of fear and strength, of evil and good, of light and dark—monster and man. One fucking formidable beast that enemies should fear and loved ones should hold close.

Diel’s vision grew dark as he collapsed to the ground, depleted. Noa’s hand slipped from his hair, and he felt her take several steps back as his body splayed out on the cold hard ground. Recovering. He heard Noa’s rapid breathing even from across the room, like it was a living part of him too. Like she was another beat to his heart, a secondary throb to his pulse.

He lay motionless on the frigid stone, legs tucked into his stomach. His limbs throbbed and his head swirled with dizziness. But second by calm second, that dizziness ebbed and the throbbing in his limbs became a numb kind of slow burn.

Diel blinked. The room filled with the low light from the wall lamps, and its features became clearer the more he blinked—clearer than he had ever seen anything look before. He breathed, and his lungs filled with rejuvenating air, the expanding flesh crying out in sweet relief. As he exhaled, the muscles in his body that always ached and burned, twitched and jumped, filled with soothing life.

No pain. No aches. No more feeling like they existed in skin that wasn’t entirely theirs.

His torso wasn’t clenched. The monster no longer paced in its cage, causing Diel to be tense at all times, guarding against any attempted breech. He looked down at his hands. His fingers were relaxed, no longer curled into fists, and he could see every mark on them. He could see the texture on his broken nails, where before it had been like looking at life through a dirtied, blurred lens—all grayscale, no color. Everything was a riot of color now. He lifted his hand into the air. He could feel the mixture of warm and cold air kissing his damp skin, swirling in the atmosphere around him.

He … felt.

Diel had never felt much before. There’d been a tourniquet wrapped around his senses, depriving him of their full effects. He hadn’t known he’d been so numb to life, to emotions and senses and everyday fucking mundanity, until that very moment.