Ten years later . . .
Eden Manor, Massachusetts
Gabriel straightened his clerical collar. He flattened the white card against his black shirt and ran his hand through his ear-length blond curls. The bell for dinner rang, and Gabriel took a deep breath. His back ached in pain, and the metal cilices around his thighs dug into his flesh as he walked. But Gabriel clenched his jaw and endured the walk from his room and downstairs into the Nave—the Fallen’s dining hall. When he entered the room, his brothers were already seated.
Gabriel took his place at the head of the table. Gabriel cast a glance around his brothers. Bara sat opposite him at the other end. Like all of the Fallen, he had grown his hair longer than they were ever allowed to in Purgatory—a rebellion against the beaten boys they were made to be. Bara’s red hair fell to his shoulders. His haunting green eyes roved over the brothers, and the smirk that seemed permanently etched on his lips was firmly in place.
Uriel sat to Bara’s left, his blond hair a similar length to Bara’s. Uriel was broader in the shoulders than the rest of the brothers. The tallest too. Sela sat to Bara’s right. Sela’s brown hair fell down his back. His dark eyes were fixed on Gabriel. All of his brothers waited each night for a Revelation to be delivered. For the order to go to the Tomb after dinner . . . for a kill to be given out, for a desire to be fulfilled. They hungered for it. Thirsted for it.
It was the lifeblood of their existence. Little else mattered.
Diel sat beside Sela. His shoulders were relaxed, his messy black hair falling over his blue eyes. He wore a metal collar that never came off. A collar Gabriel had had crafted specifically for him. A collar made with electric currents running through it. One that, with a press of a button, would incapacitate Diel the minute he lost his grip on himself—Gabriel held the only control to administer the blow.
Raphael sat opposite Diel, wrapping the same string around his finger as he had for years. His golden eyes watched Gabriel, his dark hair brushed forward over his forehead. Long messy hair, but not as long as the others. He was searching for any sign that the next kill would be his. Gabriel could feel his quiet desperation.
And to Gabriel’s right was Michael. Dressed in a black silk shirt that was unbuttoned to his navel and tight leather pants, Michael played with the vial of blood that still hung around his neck. One side of his dark hair was shaved, and the other side hung in natural waves to the bottom of his ear. Michael’s blue eyes focused on the red wine in his hand. His tattoos—imitation veins, lines and lines of veins smothering his body—covered every bit of bare skin. Most of his brothers were tattooed in some way, most expressing the echoes of pain that haunted their disturbed hearts. Sela was an artist of the highest caliber. He could draw their stories on their skin for the world to see.
“Everyone good?” Gabriel asked.
Bara smiled and sat back in his seat, arm over the backrest. He wore a green shirt that matched his piercing eyes. “We’ll be even better if you tell us we’re going to the Tomb after this.” He leaned forward. “We’re getting tetchy, Angel.”
Gabriel closed his eyes when the temperature in the room seemed to rise. He felt the sting of the cilices around his thighs, the pull of his scourge’s fresh wounds on his back, and nodded his head. Opening his eyes, he took a sip of his wine and said, “We eat as a family . . .” Gabriel breathed, in and out, feeling yet more depravity fill his soul. “Then one of you will get a kill.”