Page 40 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

XATHANAEL

T he wards had been freshly established when Simiel and I had walked in on Cadriel feasting on the nephilim.

They’d descended into hunger much quicker than I would have thought, and I didn’t know if it was the situation, the timing, the utter exhaustion that gripped me for eons, or something unknowable, but the moment I’d seen it, I was done.

Done waiting, done controlling myself, done holding myself back. I wanted. I wanted viciously and with my entire being. I couldn’t fight it anymore, and I really didn’t fucking want to. Destroy, consume, corrupt. It filled me with a heinous purpose, and I’d thrown myself off the cliff once more.

I’d fallen once more.

Thankfully, this landing was much smoother than the last one.

After some time, during which the nephilim had passed out, the three of us had carried her into what we’d be using as sleeping quarters.

I’d initially intended to have Faith sleep on the couch or something, the two fuckers with me using their shared bed like always, but now…

Simiel had insisted on shoving all the mattresses together to create one giant pallet for us all to rest on, and I hadn’t stopped him. Damn out of character for me, I know .

“You think she’ll wake up soon?” he asked.

Shrugging, I lay back against the mound of pillows behind me, putting my arms behind my head and closing my eyes.

Faith was still out, sawing logs next to me as she instinctively burrowed into the soft fabric beneath her.

I was genuinely surprised she was still alive.

But she did have angel in her, so it was apparently pretty damn hard to break her.

Which just means I’ll try harder next time.

A nearly soundless chuckle left me, and I dimly noted Simiel and Cadriel shuffling around on the cushions. They settled after a moment, and I cracked a lid to look over at them from where they’d circled around Faith’s other side. We were a pile of naked bodies covered in dried blood and filth.

And my cock twitched at the sight.

I’d been thinking about doing that with them both since I’d first felt the flock connection. What the hell had made now the moment to go for it? I hungered for more, and something that had felt like a discordant itch in my brain had eased when I’d stopped fighting what was between us.

I suppose it doesn’t matter what’s out there, what tomorrow holds. We’ve all got a wicked taste for each other, and Lucy knows we’ve got the time to kill.

Cadriel stretched. “If she’s even a fraction as tired as I am, I imagine it will take her a moment to recover her strength. She’s half human after all.”

“And you’re very loud,” Faith grumbled. She rolled over onto her back, wincing slightly.

I smirked, happily to see the reminders of our presence were scarred into her flesh and aching for me.

Roaming my stare over her, I appreciated the dusky brown of her nipples, the way freckles smattered over the entirety of her skin, nearly invisible beneath the layers of blood and sex.

“Guess that answers my question,” Simiel teased, flopping his arm across her stomach as he chuckled.

Faith was between us, with Cadriel nuzzling between Simiel’s legs and hers. She looked over at both of them, and then finally at me. There was still a potent dose of fear there, which was delicious as hell, and I held her stare, letting my fangs descend into my mouth as I smirked.

She narrowed her eyes at me, her jaw muscles working. “You need to get other snacks around her for those of us who don’t eat people.”

“Only if we have to, darlin’. We much prefer deep-fried angel wings. Crunchy.”

Rolling her eyes, Faith still chuckled at Simiel’s admission, which wasn’t far off. If we were attacked by angels, which had been a rare occurrence before her arrival, we’d all chow down when the fight was over. And deep fried? Well, holy fire did have a way of crisping things up.

“So humans are a last resort, angels are dessert, what about a nephilim?” The scent of Faith’s arousal flared through the room again, and we all growled low.

Grabbing her chin, I pulled Faith’s face toward me, using my thumb to pry open her mouth as I dragged it down.

“I’m pretty fucking sure we did plenty of devouring, little nephilim. No?”

A warm pink flooded the skin of her cheeks, making her golden tan skin look like a bruised rose. “Why did you fall? ”

The words came out of her mouth with the force of a breath, and still they punctured through me sharper than an angel blade.

I snatched my hand back, my guts tightening and threatening to fling themselves inside out.

Faith’s expression dropped as she realized what she’d said, and her eyebrow shot to her hairline.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—Dammit.”

Simiel sat up taller, Cadriel following along, and they both looked at me silently. It hated the concern that I saw behind their eyes, but another traitorous part of me appreciated that they understood that I didn’t fucking talk about this shit.

“It was centuries— eons —ago. It’s not important.” I started to stand, but Faith reached out, grabbing my arm and keeping me there.

“Don’t. Okay? I won’t beg you to talk or something, but don’t go. It was an accident. I…I’m not good at beating around the bush or being subtle. Never have been.” She began chewing on her lip, a repetitive pattern of gnawing that I recognized as similar to Cadriel’s little soothing behaviors.

“Xathanael, perhaps—” I cut Cadriel off with a stare, and they swallowed hard, dropping their eyes to the bed. “Bottling it up serves none of us, Xath. And if the angels find this safe house as well, I know that you’d be fighting with a clearer head if you got a few things off your chest.”

A small hand squeezed my arm, where it was still holding me in place, and I glanced toward Faith, swiveling my gaze across to her.

Fear was unmistakable in her eyes, this steady thrum in her energy, but she didn’t back down.

No, the little nephilim didn’t appear to take anyone’s shit, even mine. That really should annoy me more.

“It’s not fun to talk about our trauma, Xath.

I get it. But I’ll admit ever since I went ‘super nova,’” she raised her hands to make finger quotes around Simiel’s term for angelic wrath, “I’ve actually felt a little better.

Bottling really doesn’t help, apparently, and acknowledging that some horrible fucking shit happened when I was young at least took some of the weight off.

It’s not this blockage, you know. I killed some assholes who killed my adoptive father. That happened. I…acknowledge it.”

This self-help shit wasn’t for me, and yet, looking at Faith I could hardly find something to argue against. She wasn’t wrong, which I was plenty annoyed about.

“Ugh, none of you are going to drop this, are you?”

Simiel reached over Faith to pat my cheek, and I had to restrain the desire to snap my jaw at him. “Nope. So spill the tea, fallen.”

Looking across the room at nothing in particular, I let out a heavy breath, letting out so much more really.

“I was kicked out of heaven by my brethren, the battalion I helped to lead, the angels I’d known since my own creation, because I wasn’t keen on the idea of becoming a guardian for a mortal.

It was an assignment I’d never requested or expected, and it should have been given to anyone else besides me. I’m not exactly?—”

“Approachable? Friendly?” Simiel smirked, muffling a laugh behind his closed lips. “No, wait, pleasant?”

As an archangel, I’d outranked that little shit, and as far as I was concerned, I still did. And I could still lock him down, so it was incredibly satisfying to do so now and then shove him off the pallets.

“Anyway—”

“Xath!” Faith swatted my arm, her eyes wide. “You’re really just going to leave him like that?”

We all looked down at the floor, and all I could do was smile. Simiel was locked up good, no blinking, making one of his fucking faces, and no moving from where he’d landed. Oh, and no sounds. That was probably the best part.

“Yup.” I shrugged, a wicked idea coming to me. “Until I want to play with him anyway.”

A flash of arousal surged through all three of my flock, and it was so much crisper, so much easier to pick up on. Well, that’s something. Hmm…how can I use that to my advantage ?

“I believe I was set up to fall.” I’d always wanted to say that out loud since the fall, and doing so now did have that unburdening effect Faith had mentioned.

“No one in their right mind could have believed I’d make a good guardian or that I’d accept the change willingly.

I believe the battalion did it on purpose, and the order did not come from ‘His Holiest.’ If the fucker is even real. I think they just wanted me out.”

I’d told the archangels to their faces that was my suspicion, and bam.

They sent me right on down the ultimate death drop.

There was no coming back to the fold or redemption for a fallen.

That was it. And then Simiel and Cadriel joined me because Simiel had spoken up in my defense, and then refused to kill Cad.

“In the long run,” I looked over the people who were with me—my flock, “I think falling was probably inevitable…and for the best. I like making my own rules.”

“I’ll say,” Faith mumbled, rolling her eyes.

It didn’t take much to set me off in any given situation, and when it came to the need to punish Faith’s backtalk, it was even less.

I snatched her face between my fingers, pushing her jaws apart as I had before.

She hissed, sucking in a breath as she tried to reel back.

She couldn’t, though, trapped by my hold.

Cadriel’s switch flipped just as quickly, and he was slinking across the bed closer to Faith, worming his touch over her skin.

“What was that? Did you have something you wanted to say, nephilim?”

Staring at me defiantly, I watched Faith’s eyes begin to glow that beautiful gold, and her energy hummed hotter in the air, creating that bubble of ethereal essence around us once more.

“You’d make a terrible guardian. You get off on hurting people too much.”

A hard cut of laughter left me, and I squeezed tighter, dragging Faith’s face right up to my own. “I really do. And you know, what? I’m real fucking hungry again. ”

“I—”

But Faith’s words were cut short as I hauled her off the mattress by her throat. Carrying her, I walked to Simiel and then set Faith down on her knees bent over the pallets so that her already dripping cunt was displayed nicely for my little locked-down brat. We apparently had two in this flock.

“Stay.” I released Faith, but she immediately tried to move again, so I planted a foot on her back, keeping her in place as I turned toward Simiel.

“Now, you. I’m going to release your face and get you into position.

You’re going to eat our nephilim’s cunt until you can’t breathe, and then keep going. ”

Simiel couldn’t speak right now, but I was pleased when I dropped the hold and all he did was gaze over at Faith’s pussy hungrily. Cadriel came up behind him on the floor, helping to scoot Simiel on his knees to Faith’s waiting seam.

“This is one order I have absolutely no problem obeying.” Simiel grinned from ear to ear, then drove his tongue deep between Faith’s folds.

Keening loud enough for hell to hear her, Faith arched against Simiel’s onslaught, and my cock twitched greedily at the sight.

I was hard as a damn diamond again, and my knot pulsed, an exquisite ache blooming through me as the need to fuck my mates into oblivion skyrocketed again.

Simiel was perfectly positioned to devour our little nephilim, and his dick dripped desperate precum as he was frozen and unable to touch it.

Goddamn, that’s a pretty fucking sight.

Using every inch of his tongue, all of his face even, Simiel worked Faith beautifully. But pleasure was only half of this equation, and I wanted that darker side in spades.

Summoning my corrupted blade, I held it out above Faith’s back.

The black and silver flames danced, licking her skin.

She reeled, screaming again, and as she did, I reached around her face, driving my fingers into her mouth and hooking her bottom jaw.

I held it open, making saliva pool in Faith’s mouth as I tortured her with the heat from my unholy fire.

She writhed on the bed, trying to get away, but she was stuck there by the power of my grip on her jaw and my foot on her back.

“Stop, Simiel.”

He didn’t, licking away at Faith’s pussy as her body fought to find balance between pleasure and pain.

I yanked his head back by the hair, tangling my fingers in his flaming red locks.

I rested the blade on Faith’s ass, making her scream as the fiery corruption directly wormed into her skin. But Simiel needed my attention.

“I said stop, you fucking brat.” I locked down his mouth when he tried to snark back at me. “Ah, ah, ah. I don’t think I need to hear you right now. No, not until I’m spearing my cock in your slutty fuck hole, baby boy.”

It was work to lock down two angels—or in this case, fallen angels—but I split my focus, keeping Simiel on ice as I got Cadriel moving.

“You’re going to give our nephilim a taste of that unique equipment you’re rocking, but you don’t fucking come until I say so.”

Holding Caddy so that their slit and cock were poised in front of Faith’s mouth as she continued to squirm beneath the blade, I got into position behind Simiel.

“Xath!” Faith screamed, wiggling even though she was trapped by the blade, her skin a vibrant pink beneath it. “Get this the fuck off me! It hurts!”

Manipulating Simiel up onto his knees, I watched his leaky tip brush against Faith, making her tense, her thighs clenching.

“No, nephilim. Like you said, I get off on watching people suffer, and this is far too pretty to ever stop. Besides…” I shoved Simiel’s hips forward, making him fuck Faith’s tight, little cunt and sinking all the way in until his knot forced inside her The screams were delicious.

“...you don’t want me to stop. You want to let yourself break on our cocks like the filthy whore you are. ”

I shoved Simiel’s knees further apart with my own, grateful for the few inches of height I had on him. Gripping his cheeks, I opened him up and lined my erection up with his asshole. Then, mentally, I commanded Cadriel to get their seam right up against Faith’s face.

“Now,” I dug my lengthening claws into Simiel’s hips, “I want you all to scream for me.”