Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

He sighed, growing used to the harsh sting of the cilice as he fastened the buckle of the leather contraption and rolled his sweatpants down over his legs so it wouldn’t be seen. He limped to the chair before his fire and lowered himself to the leather seat. He closed his eyes and breathed through the pain. This act was essential to him, to ease the torment in his soul—a sanguine offering to the God he loved so much but who would cast nothing but punishment on Gabriel for his involvement in so many deaths.

Gabriel thought of the Coven. His stomach turned when he recalled his conversation with Dinah in the old groundskeeper’s house, when she had told him and Maria of the rescues of the children the Brethren kept in their homes. Of the emotional and physical states most of them were found in. Feral and starved and knowing nothing of kindness and charity, only pain and the Brethren’s archaic ways of cleansing their evil souls.

Gabriel knew exactly what was done to them—it had been done to him.

All these years, those men disguised as good people had hurt and tortured and ruined lives and childhoods. They couldn’t be allowed to continue. Again he thought back to his own days in the torture rooms. Being led down the stairs and lined up against the wall, the Brethren priests pushing themselves into his and his brothers’ mouths.

Gabriel shook his head, trying in vain to banish those images from his mind, to not disturb the part of himself that had pushed that trauma down deep simply so it didn’t eat him alive.

The path the Fallen had turned onto, this holy war they were diving headfirst into, may not have been one of peace, but in Gabriel’s eyes, it was a case of good versus evil. And for once, he knew that it was he and his brothers who represented the “good.” Using their darker natures to destroy an even darker, more wicked force that the world viewed as saviors.

Gabriel wanted the rescued children to be safe on his property. He needed to have them near to give them some kind of hope, some chance at rehabilitation and life. Just like his fellow Fallen brothers, they would be absorbed into his flock.

Gabriel wanted this. No, he needed it. His days were death and murder and destruction. With the children, he could rebuild them, repair the damage that had been done. He would try to save them before it was too late. Rather than fill his life with sin, he could fill it with charity and light. He could finally balance all the wrong he had done.

His heart fell when he remembered what Dinah had told him. “Some of them are too far gone,” she’d said, sorrow lacing her voice. “There is a small group, not too dissimilar to your brothers, of children believed to be born evil. Ones who already show they sway to the darker side of life. It was why the Brethren stole them away in the first place …”

Gabriel opened his eyes and looked down to find his hand formed into a fist on the arm of the chair, and it was shaking with the force of his anger. Gabriel didn’t get angry. He refused to submit to his baser desires. To any of the deadly sins.

Reaching out to the fire beside him, Gabriel took hold of a thin poker and pushed the end into the flames. He watched, fascinated, as the iron heated to orange, then he lifted up his shirt. He pulled the poker from the depths of the flames and pressed the tip to his torso. Gabriel fought back the scream of pain that came with the incineration of his flesh. But then the pain turned into pleasure, and his dick hardened in his pants.

Panting for air, sweat dripping down his back, Gabriel reached down and pinched the tip of his cock with his fingers. He bit his tongue as the pain rendered him momentarily paralyzed. He would never give in to any kind of pleasure. His vow of chastity would remain in place until he died. It was the one part of his tattered and immoral life he could still hold on to.

By leading his brothers, he frequently dipped his toes into vast pools of sin and damnation. But his personal vow of chastity … that one he could hold on to with an iron grip. That one could forever remain pure. Something solely for him and God. The one demonstration of subservience he never feared he would forsake.

As the pain subsided, Gabriel slumped in the chair, breathless. The poker dropped to the floor with a clang as it slipped from his weakened hold. He fought to catch his breath, and thoughts of his brothers and their new path sprang to mind. Gabriel could never switch off, barely ever slept. He was always thinking, always trying to find new ways of saving his family. They were everything he had, and he was intent on someday saving their damaged souls.