Page 125 of Lustling

Deimos pulls the door open and steps inside first. Not hesitant. Not afraid. But careful. Like a man entering another god’s cathedral.

I follow a few paces behind, every sense sharpened.

The music hits first. Low and slow. Jazz with teeth. It coils through the room. Tables scatter in deliberate disarray. Patrons line the bar, their heads bent low over glasses filled with drinks they may not have chosen for themselves.

And at the far end, behind the counter, a man wipes down a glass. He looks up, and the room seems to still around him.

His eyes land on Deimos first. No smile. No surprise. Only recognition. Old. Certain. Inevitable.

“Well,” Raziel says. “If you’re here, there must be trouble.”

SEVENTY-SIX

The last time I saw Raziel, he stood barefoot on the cliff behind our childhood stronghold—wind tearing at his hair, a flask dangling in one hand, and goodbye written in his eyes.

My only full-blooded brother. The only one who carries the same fire in his veins, the same curse etched into bone. Bastion and Cassiel are bound to me in war and bond, but Raziel… Raziel is blood of my blood. The shadow to my flame. The one piece of family I could never replace.

“I’m not coming back,” he said, not looking at me.

“I figured.”

“I’m done with the blood games. With Father. With the court.”

I only nodded. “Then why tell me?”

At last, he turned. His smile was faint but real, like a ghost of the boy I’d once known. “Because you’re the only one who wouldn’t try to stop me.”

I stepped closer. “And because I’m the only one you trust to keep your secret.”

His eyes burned with banked embers, but his flame was different. Older. Wilder. A wildfire refusing to be contained.“If you ever need me,” he said, clapping my shoulder with the finality of a benediction, “you know where to find me.”

Then he walked into the mortal realm and never looked back.

And I kept his secret. Until now.

Hellbound Hollow hums like a living thing, dim and thick with the press of bodies, whiskey, and smoke. The air buzzes with low music that creeps along the edges of my nerves like something serpentine, coiling tighter the deeper I move.

Cassiel and Bastion follow behind me, sharp-eyed but silent. They know this isn’t their approach to make. This is mine. My task. My risk. My brother.

The crowd shifts around me as I walk, and I keep my pace measured, careful—as though I’m approaching a sleeping dragon and praying it decides not to wake.

Raziel doesn’t look up right away. He stands behind the bar, drying a glass with slow, deliberate movements. Fluid. Unhurried. His long fingers work the rim of the glass like he has all the time in the world. Like the storm we’re dragging with us doesn’t exist. But I know better. He knew we were coming the second our boots crossed into the city. Maybe before.

His presence saturates the place.

Raz doesn’t dress like a god anymore. Black denim. A soft, worn shirt rolled at the sleeves, forearms traced in runes I’ve never seen before—lines that crawl like they’re alive. His hair falls loose around his shoulders, black streaked with silver not from age, but from power that refuses to be dimmed. His jaw is shadowed with stubble, his face carved in hard, ageless lines. And his eyes—dark hematite, gleaming, depthless. They pin everything they touch.

There’s stillness in him that unsettles even the drunkest patrons. Not the stillness of peace. The stillness of a predator in the breath before it strikes.

Beautiful. Unholy. Our kind always are. But where Bastion carries divine fury in his veins, and Cassiel cloaks himself in the hush of death, Raz is restraint coiled so tightly it sings. Calm because calm is efficient. Until wrath becomes necessary.

Finally, he lifts his gaze.

His mouth curves, just barely. “Well,” He finally says. “If you’re here, there must be trouble. You’re not here for drinks.” His voice is low and smooth, neither warm nor unkind. Just knowing. Always knowing.

He sets the glass down, folds the towel with neat precision, and leans against the bar like he’s got nothing else worth his time.

“So. What’s this about, little brother?”