Raphael (Deadly Virtues #1)(86)

Raphael sat beside Maria as she slept on his bed. His muscles still ached from the doctor’s visit. Maria was hooked up to an IV of antibiotics. Gabriel had had to restrain him as the doctor assessed her naked body. Uriel and Gabriel had pinned him against the wall when he refused to leave and let the doctor work. But as the doctor touched the puss-ridden upturned cross on Maria’s chest and she screamed, Raphael had lunged. His vision had misted with red, and the anger inside him had torn him up from the inside out.

But soon Maria was sedated. “For her own good,” the doctor had said. “So she can heal.” Raphael had moved beside her and taken her hand in his. The string that he forever wore around his finger was firmly in place. As his fingers entwined with Maria’s, the warmth in his chest was back again. He wanted her to open her eyes. He wanted her to smile. Raphael believed the constant ache in his chest would go if she did.

Raphael listened to Maria breathe. He hadn’t even showered since they’d arrived back at the manor. “Heal, little rose,” he whispered into her ear as he lay down on the pillow beside her. “That’s an order. I won’t repeat myself. Do you understand?”

But there was no Yes, my lord to this demand. There was no obedience. Maria was too deep in sleep to open her eyes.

Raphael placed his hand on Maria’s hair. It was full of sweat and knots. He needed to clean it. He needed to brush it and dry it; it needed to smell of vanilla and rose. Then she would be perfect again.

Raphael’s eyes dropped to the brand Father Murray had seared onto her flesh. Raphael wanted to run his finger down it. He wanted to take the pain away. But as he looked at the brand, he couldn’t help but feel his chest grow tight. Not in anger, but . . . With the brand, Maria was now like him. She wore the sign of the devil on her chest . . . just like him. Just like his brothers.

Like she was one of the Fallen.

But as quickly as the tight feeling in his chest came, it was replaced by seething fury at remembering Father Murray’s fingers in her pussy. At his hands around her throat. Raphael ran his finger over her neck. Finger marks that didn’t belong to him were imprinted on her flesh. Blue bruises and red scratches marred her perfect skin. Raphael looked down at his hands. They were shaking. But as he stared at those hands, he remembered them wrapped around Father Murray’s throat.

Raphael licked his lips as his cock grew hard in his jeans. Father Murray’s eyes had met his, never moving away as Raphael had drained him of life. Raphael sighed as he recalled the priest’s slowing pulse, his blue face . . . and his severed dick, his blood gushing onto the floor. Raphael’s jeans were still stained with the blood. He wouldn’t wash them. He would frame them and hang them on his wall in his room so he would be forever reminded of the cunt he had killed.

Raphael heard the door to his room open. Michael walked in, still covered in blood. His hands were stained; Raphael knew his brother wouldn’t be washing them anytime soon. Silently, Michael walked into the room and sat on the chair next to the bed. His best friend smiled, his fangs still coated in his victims’ blood. He would have gorged on his new collection as soon as they returned home. Michael’s eyes were dilated from the adrenaline of the kills they had all made. Raphael knew his would be the same.

Raphael settled into the pillow again. Michael took out a vial of blood from his pocket and, dipping his finger into the open top, began to suck on the blood. “She going to live?” Michael asked.

Raphael met his brother’s watching eyes. “The doctor said so. But she’ll take weeks to heal.”

Michael nodded, then went back to his blood. The door opened again. Sela and Diel walked through. Wordlessly, they moved to the couch against the wall and sat down. Sela rested his head against the backrest. “I’m beat.”

Diel’s hands twitched on his knees. His eyes closed, and Raphael saw him taking deep breaths. It took his brother hours to calm down after a spree. Too much energy in his veins. It was a high they all struggled to come back from—Diel most of all.

Twenty minutes later, Bara and Uriel walked in the room. Bara cocked an eyebrow at everyone present. “Seems like we’re late to the party.” Bara and Uriel pulled chairs from the dining area to beside the bed, on the opposite side to Michael. Bara watched Raphael hold Maria with a smirk on his face. Raphael curled further into Maria’s warm body.

“You calm now?” Uriel asked.

Raphael nodded his head. Not one of his brothers had showered. All covered in the blood and guts of the priests. Bara opened his mouth to say something, when the door opened one final time. Gabriel paused when he saw his brothers. His blond hair was wet, and he was back in his black clothes and white dog collar.

Gabriel moved a chair beside Michael. His blue eyes tracked over Maria, checking she was okay. “You need anything, Raphe?”

“No,” he replied.

Gabriel sighed as he slouched into his chair. He winced as he sat. Then his hand ran down his face.

“So, Purgatory’s done,” Sela said from the couch.

Raphael and his brothers looked one another in the eyes. He felt something in his stomach relax. A pain he never knew he carried until that moment.

“Burned to the ground,” Michael said, then, frowning, looked to Gabriel. Gabriel’s face was pale and his eyes rimmed with red. Raphael didn’t understand why. “All that wasted blood.”