Curse of the Fallen by Eve Archer

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Dominick

“I hope the accommodations are to your liking, Danjal.” I stood in front of the rusted iron bars, breathing in the dank air that held traces of loamy soil and sweat. There were no windows in the castle’s dungeon, the only light flickering from wall sconces and casting my prisoner’s face in shadow.

Dan sat on a battered bench, his elbows on his knees and his shoulders hunched. He hadn’t even flinched when I’d used his ancient, angelic name, although I was fully aware that he didn’t like to be reminded of it. “In all the thousands of years I chained enemies to these walls, I never imagined I would be inside one of the cells.”

My gut tightened into a hard ball, the rage that had flamed so hot turning cold as I eyed him. “I never imagined one of the Fallen would betray his own.”

Dan swung his head to face me, his eyes flashing. “I am not the one betraying the Fallen.”

I held his gaze for a moment. He wasn’t mad. He was livid, but completely sane. That almost disappointed me. I would have rather my brother had gone mad than betrayed me. Dan had fallen by my side, fought by my side, and been the steady voice of reason during chaos. And now he’d committed an act of treachery.

I wanted to fly at him, tear the bars away, and rip the flesh off his bones. Anything to make him feel the pain I felt at knowing he’d turned against me. Instead, I clasped my hands behind my back. “You believe me to be the treacherous one?”

He stood and walked to the bars, gripping them until the bones of his fingers showed through the skin. “You’re willing to sacrifice everything we’ve built and sacrificed for, and for what? One pretty little human?” He sneered at me. “The Semyaza I knew would never have been swayed by a piece of ass, no matter how good.”

I flinched at both the name I’d had when I’d been a holy Watcher, and at his classifying Ella as a piece of ass. I clutched my hands harder behind my back. “It’s been a long time since you’ve called me that.”

“And it’s been a long time since you called me Danjal.”

Touché.Silence stretched between us, and I finally exhaled a breath. “I am no longer that angel who acted on impulse and desire.”

Dan laughed, the harsh sound echoing off the damp stones and low ceiling. “That angel is the one we all followed into banishment and to whom we swore our allegiance. You have ruled over human desires and dark impulses for millennia. I cannot believe she has changed you so quickly.”

“I have changed because it has been thousands of years of damning desires and dark pleasures of the flesh that have left me hollow.”

“That is our curse. Immortality in the mortal realm. I thought you enjoyed stoking your lust to forget about the inevitability of our fate.”

“You think it inevitable?” I asked. Despite the bars between us, Dan had always provided me with sound advice.

“The prophecy is a fantasy to torture us,” Dan growled. “If it was truly said, it was said to give us false hope. The archangels have nothing on our former brother Lucifer, when it comes to torment.”

I clenched my jaw as I thought about the archangels. It was possible that I felt more ire for them than I did for the demons who were our constant irritation. At least the demons did not hide their intentions cloaked behind piety.

“Lucifer was an archangel,” I reminded Dan. “Perhaps that is where he learned it.”

Dan’s mouth twitched slightly before his face became a mask of anger again. “There will be no redemption for us, Dom. But your attempts could destroy everything we’ve built.”

I didn’t fully understand his reasoning. “You think I will walk away from our empire because of Ella?”

His eyes flicked away from me. “Look at what you have done so far. You’ve dropped everything, jetting across the world to find her and putting everything else on the back burner. If this is how she’s changed you in a matter of days, I am afraid to see how she will bewitch you further.”

“None of this is Ella’s fault. She didn’t even know about her angelic trace.”

A spasm of regret contorted his face. “I don’t blame her. She is clueless to her effect on you and her potential to ruin everything.”

I stepped to the bars and closed my hands over his. “But you still tried to kill her.”

He flinched at my touch, attempting to tug his hands away from mine, but I held them tightly in place. “It was never personal.”

I squeezed my hands around his. “Killing the woman I love and the potential savior of the Fallen wasn’t personal?”

His breathing became shallow as I pressed the flesh of his fingers into the iron bars. “I didn’t want to kill her. I thought getting her away from you would be enough. That once you were away from her angelic spell, you’d snap out of it.”

“There is no spell.” I gritted the words out, watching pain twist his mouth into a grimace. “I love her.”

Dan shook his head even as his knees buckled. “Impossible.”

His hands snapped beneath mine, the bones of his fingers cracking from the pressure. He screamed, but I didn’t release him. “You think me so irredeemable that I couldn’t love or be loved?”

It was what I’d thought about myself for so long that it was strange to shrug it off like a worn coat but seeing myself through Ella’s eyes had given me hope. I was not so damned that I couldn’t be redeemed. If not by the divine, then by her.

Dan’s gaze met mine as he let out another piercing scream. Beneath the pain, I saw self-loathing. The same self-loathing that had been my constant companion for endless years. I released his hands, and he dropped to the ground, cradling his mangled fingers and moaning.

“It’s you that you believe cannot be redeemed, isn’t it?” I asked.

“There have been so many centuries of punishing demons and satisfying my lust with females that I can’t even remember who I was before I fell. If there is a restoring of the Fallen, I do not deserve to be a part of it.”

Pity washed over me as I watched my fellow Fallen in agony. He feared being left behind. After so long together in our banishment, did Dan believe it was only our status at castoffs that kept us together?

“Don’t you know we would never abandon any of our Fallen?” My voice cracked as I spoke. “I pledged myself to you all, just as you did to me, when we signed our pact. Nothing has changed. We go together or not at all.”

He lifted his face to mine, his mouth gaping. “Even now?”

I’d meted out punishment to demons for so long it was second nature, but those were demons. They were truly unredeemable creatures. Dan had been a holy Watcher, a celestial being. More importantly, he was one of those who’d been cast out by my side and remained by my side since the fall. Despite my rage at his actions, I could not kill him. I wouldn’t have the blood of my brother on my hands.

I pressed my lips together. It would be a long time before I could trust him or allow him into my sight again, but I, who had betrayed the will of God, could not do what had been done to me. I could not banish him or torture him with the loss of his brotherhood. Not when I worked for the redemption of us all. But I also could not forgive so easily or release him from the dungeon.

“Always,” I whispered, turning from him, his choked sobs following me as I walked away from his cell and back through the arched corridor.

“You continue to surprise me, Dominick.”

I paused outside another cell, but I didn’t turn to face Jaya. “And you continue to disappoint me.”

She laughed. “These bars won’t hold me for long, you know.”

I twisted my head to peer into the dark cell but could only see a hint of her standing against the back wall, her black clothing melting into the shadows. “Have you acquired special skills aside from seducing me?”

She stepped forward, smiling at me as if we were not on opposite sides of a dungeon cell. “Do you think I need more than that?”

I might not want to kill Dan, but I would gladly wring this succubus’ neck. Knowing her proclivity for bondage, Jaya would probably enjoy it.

“I’m afraid there’s no slippery escape for you this time, Jaya. This cell is the last place you’ll ever see.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You aren’t the first angel who’s tried to capture me, although I must admit I’ve enjoyed you more than the others.”

“I should kill you now,” I growled, taking a step toward her.

“In front of your sweet, little human?” She wagged a finger at me. “I don’t think you want to show her just how vicious you can be, do you?”

I stilled, turning on my heel. My stomach sank when I spotted Ella at the end of the corridor, staring at me with wide eyes.