Chapter 126: Silver
Adam awoke to the suffocating quiet of the penthouse. The bass from the Inferno Club below was a distant, muffled thudding, more felt through the floor than heard. Dante lay pressed against him, the demon’s breathing a shallow, almost imperceptible rhythm against his back. The warmth was there, the solid weight, but something felt… off. Adam shifted minutely, trying to ease a kink in his neck without disturbing Dante.
Then it hit him. A smell. Coiled beneath the lingering antiseptic tang, the scent of their bodies, the faint oud of Dante’s sheets. Something metallic. Coppery, but wrong. Too bright. Too… clean. Sharp. Like ozone and old coins left in the sun. And underneath that, a faint, sickly sweetness of decay. Death. Celestial death.
His eyes snapped fully open. Dante hadn’t moved. Adam carefully, slowly, began to extricate his arm from beneath Dante’s waist, the movement agonizingly measured. Dante murmured, a low sound of protest deep in his throat, his brows knitting slightly, but he didn’t wake. Adam slid his arm free.
He sat up, the silk sheets whispering. The dim neon bleed from the window sketched Dante’s profile in sharp lines of shadow and garish color. Adam’s gaze swept over him. Bruises mottled his exposed shoulder and the curve of his neck, deep purples and sickly yellows. The bandages Adam had carefully applied over the worst wounds on his chest and back were still clean. It wasn't coming from there.
Adam leaned closer, nostrils flaring. The scent was strongest near Dante’s right hand. It rested limply on the pillow beside his head, palm up, fingers curled loosely. Adam’s breath caught. There, dried in the creases of his knuckles, crusted dark against the pale skin of his fingers, were streaks and smears of faintly luminous silver. Angel blood.
Cold dread slammed into Adam’s gut, hard enough to steal his breath. Azrathiel. Images from the cell flashed through his mind: the chains, the ruin of the angel, the pulsing heart wrenched free. Dante hadn't just stabilized. He’d gone down there. While Adam slept. And he’d ripped the angel apart. Again. The silver gleam on Dante’s skin was confirmation, a visceral, brutal signature.
"Dante," Adam said, his voice hoarse, barely louder than the hum of the air conditioning. He reached out, not to touch the blood, but to grasp Dante’s uninjured shoulder. He shook him, gently at first, then with more insistence. "Dante. Wake up."
Dante’s eye flew open. Not groggy, not disoriented. Instantly aware, instantly guarded. Adam saw the flare of recognition, then the shutters slam down. He pulled his hand back from Adam’s touch, tucking it instinctively against his chest, hiding the stained knuckles. "Wh-what?" he rasped, his voice rough with disuse and pain.
"The blood, Dante," Adam said flatly, his eyes boring into Dante’s single visible one. He pointed at the hand Dante was trying to hide. "That’s angel blood. Silver. You went down there." It wasn't a question.
Dante’s jaw tightened. He looked away, towards the dark window. "Yeah." The word was clipped, final. Defiant.
"Why?" Adam demanded, leaning closer. The smell of celestial gore was thick in his nostrils. "Your father was handling it. You were fucked. You are fucked. Why risk tearing yourself apart again?" Anger warred with a sickening wave of protective fear. "Did you get what you wanted? Did he tell you why he wanted me?"
Dante flinched, a micro-expression of pain tightening his features. He turned his head back, meeting Adam’s gaze. His eye was hard, shadowed, but beneath the defiance, Adam saw a flicker of the raw terror that had gripped him when he’d confessed about the children. "He talked," Dante ground out. "Before he stopped… permanently. He was hired. A mercenary. Zadkiel. Archangel fucking Zadkiel sent him."
The name landed like a physical blow. Zadkiel. The Right Hand. Heaven’s Executioner. Adam felt the color drain from his face. "Zadkiel?" he echoed, disbelief warring with a rising tide of dread. "Why? Why me? Did he say?"
Dante shook his head, a sharp, frustrated jerk. "No. Just… the name. Before I shut him up." His gaze dropped to his own stained hand, a grim satisfaction warring with the fear in his eyes. "Permanently."
Adam stared at him. The image was vivid: Dante, broken and bleeding, staggering down to that sub-basement, driven by a rage that overrode agony, tearing the answer from a dying angel with his own claws. The brutality of it was staggering. The sheer, reckless will. And the danger… Zadkiel wasn't just any angel. He was a fucking Archangel, obsessed with purity, with eradication. And he wanted Adam. Why? The question screamed in the silence.
Dante shifted, trying to push himself up. A choked gasp escaped him as the movement pulled at the deep wounds in his back and chest. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Adam instinctively reached out to steady him, his hand landing on Dante's uninjured bicep. Dante didn't pull away this time. He leaned into the support, his breath coming in short, pained bursts. His gaze locked onto Adam’s, intense, burning with a frantic energy that crackled between them.
"Adam…" Dante’s voice was a raw scrape. He lifted his blood-crusted hand, not to hide it now, but slowly, deliberately, brought it towards Adam’s face. Adam didn’t flinch. Dante’s thumb, rough with dried silver grit, brushed Adam’s lower lip. The scent of ozone and death intensified. "He wanted you." Dante’s thumb pressed harder, smearing a faint trace of silver onto Adam’s skin. The touch was possessive. Claiming. Feral. "He wanted to take you."
The silver smear on Adam’s lip burned like a brand. He wanted to take you. Dante’s words, raw and scraped thin, hung in the sulfur-scented air, vibrating with the bassline thrumming up from the Inferno’s depths. That faint, sickly-sweet stench of celestial death clung to Dante’s hand, stark against the lingering antiseptic smell of his healing wounds. Possession radiated from his single, fever-bright eye, a feral glare born of pain and the primal urge to claim what had almost been stolen. The terrifying revelation about Zadkiel, the Archangel’s inexplicable target on Adam’s back, the visual of Dante tearing out an angel’s heart – it all compressed into a single, white-hot point behind Adam’s ribs.
Something snapped.
Adam didn't think. He surged forward, closing the scant distance between them on the rumpled silk sheets. His mouth crashed down onto Dante’s, not with brutal force, but with a desperate, claiming pressure that demanded an answer. It wasn't gentle. It was necessity. Dante froze for a fractured second, startled, then a ragged groan tore from his throat, vibrating against Adam’s lips. He didn’t fight back. He yielded, parting his lips, his uninjured hand flying up to clutch desperately at Adam’s shoulder, fingers digging in.
Adam’s hand slid into Dante’s sweat-damp hair, fingers tightening at the nape of his neck, pulling him deeper, demanding more. Dante responded in kind, his own grip on Adam’s neck mirroring the urgency, shaky but fierce, his thumb rasping over the pulse point under Adam’s jaw. The kiss deepened, turning messy, frantic – a clash of tongues, teeth scraping lips, the shared metallic tang of blood mixing with the salt of sweat. Adam’s free hand roamed, pushing under Dante’s loose tee, skirting the bandages to find the hot, unbroken skin of his lower back, pulling him impossibly closer. Dante’s fingers tangled harder in Adam’s hair, angling his head for a deeper slant of their mouths.
Adam pulled back just enough to gasp air, his forehead pressed hard against Dante’s, both breathing harshly. Neon light caught the faint silver residue still smudged on Dante’s knuckles near Adam’s cheek. Adam’s voice was a low, wrecked growl. “I like how possessive you seem to get over me.” The words vibrated with a dark thrill, acknowledging the danger, the primal claim Dante had staked with blood and fury. Before Dante could respond, Adam captured his mouth again, the kiss turning even hungrier, more consuming.
Dante moaned, the sound low and broken, vibrating directly into Adam’s mouth. It wasn’t just surrender; it was fuel. Suddenly, a jolt of fierce energy surged through the wounded demon. He pushed back against Adam’s chest, not violently, but with startling, adrenaline-fueled strength. Adam, caught off guard by the shift from yielding to controlled force, found himself rolled onto his back. Dante moved with him, leveraging his weight carefully despite his injuries, ending up straddling Adam’s hips, pinning him to the mattress. He broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to look down, his single eye blazing with dark fire, sweat beading on his forehead above the bandage.
“Baby,” Dante rasped, the unfamiliar endearment dropping like a stone into the charged silence between their ragged breaths. He paused for only a heartbeat, the word hanging, potent and raw. “I need you. Right fucking now.” His hand slid down Adam’s chest, blunt nails scraping lightly over skin, heading purposefully towards the waistband of Adam’s jeans.
Baby. The word detonated in Adam’s gut. Feral heat ripped through him, incinerating rational thought. It was possessive, tender, and utterly fucking dominant all at once, spoken by this broken prince who’d ripped an angel apart for him. He surged upwards, meeting Dante’s burning gaze, his own voice thick with want. “Take me.” It wasn’t permission. It was a demand.
Dante didn’t hesitate. His fingers, still faintly gritty with dried silver, fumbled only slightly with Adam’s button and zipper before shoving fabric down his hips. Adam kicked his jeans the rest of the way off. Dante’s own loose pajama pants were pushed down just enough, freed his already hard cock, thick and flushed against his stomach. He spat roughly into his palm, slicking himself, the sound obscene in the tense quiet. No finesse. No teasing. Just raw, urgent need. He lined himself up, his gaze locked on Adam’s, that single eye holding a universe of pain and desperate, clawing desire.
He pushed in.
It was a swift, burning stretch, not brutal but far from gentle. Adam gasped, arching off the bed, his hands flying to Dante’s hips, fingers digging into the bruised skin above the waistband of his pants. “Fuck, Dante… yes,” he choked out, the praise tearing loose as Dante seated himself fully, burying himself to the hilt with a low, guttural groan that was part agony, part profound relief. Dante paused for a second, shuddering, his head dropping forward, sweat dripping from his jaw onto Adam’s chest. The sheer heat, the tightness, the overwhelming sense of connection after the horror of the past hours was almost too much.
Then he moved. He set a hard, driving rhythm, fucking into Adam with deep, powerful thrusts that spoke of claiming, of reassurance, of drowning out the echoes of violation with this primal act. It wasn’t the careless dominance Dante sometimes wielded; it was focused, intense, each stroke deliberate, driven by a need that bordered on desperation. He leaned forward, bracing one hand beside Adam’s head, his other hand gripping Adam’s hip hard enough to bruise, anchoring himself as his body pistoned. The muscles in his back corded beneath the bandages, sweat sheening his skin.
“Look at you,” Dante growled, his voice wrecked, gaze raking over Adam’s face, his straining body. “Taking me so fucking good, baby. So perfect.” The praise, rough and fervent, sent another jolt through Adam. He met each thrust, lifting his hips, meeting Dante’s power with his own need. The slap of skin on skin, Dante’s sharp grunts, Adam’s ragged gasps, filled the room, louder than the club’s distant pulse. Adam’s hands roamed Dante’s back, avoiding the worst wounds but gripping his shoulders, his biceps, feeling the incredible strength pushing into him, the tremors of pain and exertion Dante fought through.
“Harder,” Adam demanded, voice thick. “Need to feel you everywhere. Fuck, Dante… you feel incredible.” He reached between them, wrapping his hand around his own leaking cock, stroking in time with Dante’s thrusts. The dual sensation was overwhelming. Dante’s rhythm stuttered, a choked sound escaping him as he watched Adam touch himself. “Yeah, baby,” Adam breathed, his eyes locked on Dante’s. “Show me. Show me you own this.”
Dante’s gaze darkened further. He shifted his angle slightly, driving deeper, hitting that spot inside Adam that made stars explode behind his eyelids. Adam cried out, back arching sharply. “That’s it,” Dante rasped, his thrusts gaining a new urgency, becoming slightly rougher, more possessive. “That’s where you need it. Take it. Mine.” He bent his head, teeth scraping the sweat-slick column of Adam’s throat, not quite biting, but a fierce, claiming pressure. The scrape of teeth, the deep, relentless pounding, the filthy words – it pushed Adam to the edge. His body tightened, coiled.
“Dante… gonna come… fuck!” Adam gasped, his hand flying on his cock. Dante growled against his throat, a sound of pure approval. “Do it. Come for me, baby. Show me.” The command, the endearment, the relentless drive inside him shattered Adam’s control. He came hard, hot stripes painting his stomach and chest, his body clenching tight around Dante’s cock, pulling a ragged shout from the demon’s throat. Dante drove into that clenching heat twice more, hard, deep, grinding pulses, before his own release tore through him. He buried himself deep, shuddering violently, a low, broken groan rumbling from his chest as he spilled inside Adam, his forehead pressed hard against Adam’s shoulder.
They collapsed together, a tangle of sweat-slick limbs and heaving chests. Dante’s weight settled heavily on Adam, his breath coming in harsh, pained gasps against Adam’s neck. Adam kept his arms wrapped around him, holding him close, feeling the frantic hammering of Dante’s heart against his own, the tremors still wracking the demon’s battered body. The air reeked of sex, sweat, and the faint, stubborn tang of celestial blood. Distantly, the Inferno Club pulsed on, relentless. Up here, in the aftermath, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the terrifying silence left by a dead angel and the looming threat of an Archangel named Zadkiel. Dante’s hand, the one stained silver, rested possessively on Adam’s hip, fingers splayed.