Chapter 135: Angelic Torture
The white marble floor felt like ice against Adam’s bare skin, a stark contrast to the deep, throbbing agony radiating from everywhere. Breathing was a jagged, wet struggle; each shallow gasp scraped raw tissue where Zadikiel’s armored fist had shattered ribs. Blood, old and new, crusted his lips, chin, and matted in his hair where his head had cracked against the stone. The chains of light around his wrists and ankles hummed, a constant vibration that felt like grinding bones. He lay curled on his side, unable to straighten his broken legs, every movement sending fresh waves of nausea through him. He’d stopped trying to speak; his throat was ruined from screaming, his tongue swollen from biting back other screams. Consciousness was a fragile thing, clinging to the edge of a black abyss.
Zadikiel stood over him, a statue of gleaming silver and cold judgment. He hadn’t moved far since the beating. Now, he slowly removed his gauntlets, revealing long, elegant hands that seemed too pristine for the violence they’d just inflicted. The clatter of the metal on the marble echoed sharply. Adam flinched.
"Still breathing, filth?" Zadikiel’s voice was calm, almost conversational, as he unfastened the intricate clasps of his armored breastplate. "Good. Your purpose isn't served yet." The breastplate followed the gauntlets, revealing a form-fitting, silver-gray tunic. He moved with deliberate slowness, each piece of discarded armor a signal of terrifying intent. "That reeking hole you let the demon rut in…" He tossed the vambraces aside. "…it needs purging. Sanctifying." His pale eyes, devoid of any flicker of compassion, fixed on Adam’s broken form. "His filthy seed defiled you. I will scour you clean."
Adam squeezed his eyes shut, a whimper escaping his battered lips. He knew what was coming. Knew, yet the sheer, monstrous inevitability of it carved a new layer of dread beneath the physical pain. He tried to curl tighter, an impossible task with shattered limbs.
Zadkiel knelt beside him. The cold air hit Adam’s exposed skin even harder. Fingers, surprisingly strong, grabbed his shoulder, rolling him roughly onto his back. Agony screamed through his ribs and fractured legs. Adam cried out, a broken, wet sound.
"Quiet," Zadikiel commanded, not harshly, but with chilling finality. He straddled Adam’s hips, pinning him effortlessly. The weight, even without armor, was crushing on Adam’s damaged body. Adam thrashed weakly, a futile struggle that only ignited fresh flares of pain. Zadikiel merely watched him struggle, that cruel amusement back in his eyes. "Still some fight? Or just reflex?" He leaned down, his breath chilling Adam’s ear. "Does thinking of him give you strength? Does imagining your demon savior make this easier?" His hand slid down Adam’s bruised abdomen, ignoring the flinch. "Pathetic." Adam turned his head away, squeezing his eyes shut tighter, trying to retreat into the blessed numbness threatening to overwhelm him.
Zadikiel’s fingers found Adam’s hip bone, tracing it with a mocking gentleness before gripping hard. The other hand forced its way between Adam’s legs. Adam tensed, every muscle screaming in protest. "No…" It was a breathless plea, barely audible.
Zadikiel ignored it. His fingers probed roughly, intrusively. "Dry," he murmured, almost clinically. "Tense. Still expecting pleasure? Or just terrified?" He chuckled, a low, unpleasant sound. "Good. Fear is pure. A start." He spat onto his fingers, the sound obscenely loud in the vast silence. The cold wetness against Adam’s entrance made him jerk violently. Zadikiel held him down. "Hold still, beast. This is your penance." The fingers pushed in, hard, without care or preparation, tearing through tight, resisting muscle. Adam gasped, arching off the floor, a silent scream tearing at his raw throat as blinding agony ripped through him. It felt like being split open with a blunt knife. Zadikiel worked his fingers callously, twisting, stretching, the friction a torment on unprepared flesh. Tears streamed freely down Adam’s temples, mingling with blood and sweat. It was violation distilled, a brutal claiming devoid of anything but pain and contempt.
"See?" Zadikiel whispered, leaning close again, his eyes fixed on Adam’s contorted face. "This is purity. Pain. Suffering. Not the filthy debasement you crawled for in Hell." He withdrew his fingers. Adam sagged, trembling uncontrollably, gasping shallow breaths that hitched with sobs he couldn’t contain. Before he could draw another ragged breath, Zadikiel was positioning himself. Adam felt the rigid, unforgiving pressure against his ravaged entrance. He braced, every fiber screaming denial.
Zadikiel thrust.
It wasn't penetration; it was impalement. Adam’s world dissolved into white-hot, shattering agony. He convulsed, a strangled shriek finally tearing loose, raw and primal. It felt like his pelvis was breaking apart, his insides tearing, burning. Zadikiel didn't stop. He drove deep in one brutal stroke, bottoming out with ruthless force. He held himself there for a moment, a statue of condemnation atop broken flesh, letting Adam feel the full, invasive stretch, the searing pain radiating outwards. "Sanctification," he breathed, his voice tight with exertion or perverse satisfaction, Adam couldn’t tell. "Burn out his filth."
Then he moved. Withdrawing slowly, almost completely, then slamming back in with piston-like force. Each thrust was a calculated act of violence, jarring Adam’s broken bones, tearing at the raw, protesting muscle inside him. Adam couldn't scream anymore; he could only make choked, guttural sounds, his body a vessel of pure torment. Spots danced before his eyes. Vomit rose in his throat, tasting of bile and blood. He was pinned, violated, utterly powerless. Time lost meaning. It was only the relentless, agonizing rhythm, the tearing friction, the crushing weight, and Zadikiel’s cold voice, a litany of hate.
"Feel it? His stain being scraped away?" Thrust. Adam’s head cracked against marble. "You were made for divinity, not demon cock." Thrust. Adam gagged. "You’re nothing but a vessel for sin. My duty is to break you." Thrust. Tears blurred everything. "Scream for him! Cry for your precious Prince of Filth!" Zadikiel’s pace became faster, harder, losing even the pretense of ritual, driven by fury or sadism. Adam felt something tear inside, a hot gush that wasn’t just blood. His vision tunneled. He was floating, detached, the pain a distant roar, Zadikiel’s words a muffled buzz. The world faded to shades of gray and red.
Zadikiel’s rhythm hitched. A low groan escaped him, different from his previous sounds – primal, possessive. He drove deep one final time, grinding hard against Adam’s ruined flesh, his body rigid. Adam felt the hot, viscous flood inside him, a final violation, a desecration marking the depths of his degradation. Zadikiel shuddered, holding himself buried deep for a long moment before sagging slightly.
He pulled out abruptly. Adam felt the emptiness as another wound, a gaping tear leaking warm fluid onto the cold marble. He lay utterly still, barely breathing, shivering violently. Consciousness flickered like a dying candle. Above him, Zadikiel rearranged his clothing with fastidious precision, his breathing quickly returning to normal. He looked down at Adam’s broken, bleeding, and soiled body with the same detached contempt as before.
"Pathetic," he murmured again, wiping his hands on a pristine white cloth he produced from somewhere. "Utterly broken. Perfect." He kicked Adam’s shattered leg lightly. Adam didn’t react. He was gone, retreated to some small, dark place inside himself where the pain and shame were muted echoes. "Rest, beast," Zadikiel said, his voice echoing as he walked towards the chamber’s exit, leaving behind the discarded armor pieces. "We’re not finished. Your demon will want proof of life, after all." The heavy door sealed shut with a sound like a tomb closing.
Deep within the obsidian heart of his palace, in a chamber thick with the scent of ozone and scorched brimstone, Dante Morningstar knelt on a sigil etched into the floor with molten silver and volcanic ash. His eyes were closed, his breathing a slow, controlled rhythm that belied the inferno raging within. Blood – his own, thick and dark – dripped steadily from a deep gash across his palm into a black obsidian bowl. The blood smoked where it hit the bowl's surface. Power, ancient and terrifying, thrummed in the air, warping the light around him.
He focused every shred of his consciousness, every ounce of his fury, down the fragile, almost-severed tether that still connected him to Adam. It was like trying to grasp smoke with burnt fingers. He pushed deeper, past the static of pain and despair, searching for a spark.
Show me, he commanded the blood, the spell, the darkness itself. Show me where he is.
The blood in the bowl shimmered, then swirled violently. Images flickered on its surface, fractured and chaotic: blinding white light, the cold gleam of marble, a brief flash of silver armor. Dante snarled, pouring more power, more will, into the scrying spell. The image sharpened, stabilized. He saw through Adam’s eyes. Blurred vision swimming with tears and blood. The white ceiling. The cold chains on his wrists. The overwhelming, crushing sensation of violation and agony. Then, movement at the edge of the vision. Silver boots approaching.
Dante poured his focus, his rage, into that point. The perspective shifted violently, wrenched sideways as Adam’s head was turned by force. And there he was. Zadikiel. Smug. Cruel. Gleaming with sanctimonious malice. Dante’s vision burned black for a second, a surge of homicidal fury threatening to shatter the delicate scrying link. He forced it down, channeling the rage into the spell, using Zadikiel’s image as an anchor. Show me what he sees.
The perspective shifted again, violently. Now Dante looked through Zadikiel’s eyes.
He saw Adam.
Not just hurt. Broken. Utterly devastated. Naked, bleeding from multiple wounds, one leg bent at a sickening angle. Bruises mottled his skin in deep, ugly purples and blacks. Blood smeared his face, his chest, pooled beneath his hips. His eyes were glazed, unfocused, trapped in a haze of unimaginable pain and humiliation. The stench of blood, sweat, and the coppery tang of semen seemed to reach through the scrying bowl, assaulting Dante’s senses. The evidence of brutal sexual assault was horribly, undeniably clear in the raw, torn flesh, the viscous fluids leaking onto the stone.
Through Zadikiel’s eyes, Dante saw his own mate reduced to a ruined doll of suffering.
A sound escaped Dante. Not a roar. Not a scream. It was the low, guttural rumble of the earth itself splitting open. The obsidian bowl shattered instantly, exploding into razor-sharp fragments. The molten silver sigil on the floor vaporized in a flash of searing light. The heavy stone walls of the chamber groaned, cracks spiderwebbing up from the floor with terrifying speed. The air pressure plummeted, then exploded outwards in a silent shockwave that extinguished every infernal sconce and shattered panes of enchanted black glass.
Kj burst through the reinforced door, sword drawn, face pale. "Dante!"
Dante slowly rose from the center of the devastation. Smoke curled from his clenched fists. The air around him shimmered with visible heat. His eyes, when they opened, were not molten gold.
They were pits of pure, absolute darkness. The darkness of the void between stars. The darkness where light and hope went to die. An ancient cold radiated from him, colder than the deepest circle of Hell he commanded.
He didn't look at Kj. He stared straight ahead, through the ruined wall, through the miles of rock and dimensions, seeing only the image scorched onto his soul: Adam, broken and violated on white marble.
When he finally spoke, his voice was the scrape of glaciers grinding continents to dust. It held no fury. Only a promise of extinction so total, so absolute, it froze the blood in Kj’s veins.
"Zadikiel."
The name hung in the shattered air, colder than the void between stars. Kj flinched, the sheer, annihilating promise in that single word freezing the marrow in his bones. Dante didn't move towards the door. He simply ceased to be there. One moment, a dark monolith radiating primordial cold amidst the wreckage of his scrying chamber; the next, only swirling dust motes caught in the dying light filtering through cracked obsidian windows. Kj stared at the empty space, the echo of Dante’s vanished presence a physical pressure against his skin. "Fuck," he breathed, the word swallowed by the groaning stone. He knew where Dante had gone. He knew what followed.
The sterile white marble chamber reeked of blood, sweat, semen, and despair. Adam drifted in a grey haze, pain a distant throb beneath layers of blessed numbness. Consciousness was a fragile raft on a sea of agony. The heavy door groaned open. Silver boots clicked on marble. Adam didn’t flinch. He couldn’t. More pain. More humiliation. It was inevitable. He kept his eyes closed, retreating deeper into the numb void. The footsteps stopped nearby. A familiar, hated voice, laced with its usual contempt, cut through the silence. "Still clinging to life, beast? Good. Your demon master seems… delayed." Zadikiel chuckled, a dry, unpleasant sound. "Perhaps he values his own skin more than his little fucktoy."
Adam didn't respond. He focused on the cold stone beneath his cheek. Anything but the angel.
"Or perhaps," Zadikiel mused, his voice closer now, "he simply can't find you. My sanctum is well-hidden. Shielded." A pause. Adam felt the Dominion’s gaze like a physical weight. "But we can remedy that. We can send him a little… encouragement." Adam sensed movement, the displacement of air as Zadikiel likely raised a hand, perhaps to inflict fresh torment. He braced inwardly, muscles tensing despite the agony it caused.
The air didn't move. Instead, it shattered.
Not a sound, but a visceral tearing of reality itself. A pressure wave slammed Adam sideways, cracking his already broken body against the unforgiving floor. He gasped, pain flaring bright and sharp, shredding the numbness. Light, not the sterile white of the chamber, but a searing, violent crimson, flooded the room. It pulsed with heat that instantly banished the bone-deep chill. Adam blinked, vision swimming. Through watering eyes, he saw a figure coalesce out of the boiling light and swirling dust motes. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Clad in dark, smoke-stained leather that seemed to drink the light. Wings, vast and leathery, furled tightly against a powerful back. Obsidian horns curling from temples slick with sweat or blood. And eyes. Eyes that burned with the molten fury of a collapsing star.
Dante.
Adam’s breath hitched. A choked sob escaped his ruined throat. Disbelief warred with desperate, agonizing hope. He couldn't speak. Could barely move. He just stared, tears carving clean paths through the grime and dried blood on his face.
Zadikiel had stumbled back several paces, his perfect composure fractured. Shock, raw and undisguised, flashed across his sculpted features, quickly replaced by a surge of defensive fury. He recovered swiftly, drawing himself up, his silver armor seeming to gleam brighter against the hellish backdrop Dante brought with him. "Morningstar," Zadikiel spat, his voice tight, lacking its usual smooth disdain. "You found your way. Impressive." He gestured dismissively towards Adam’s broken form. "As you see, your pet is… intact. Mostly."
Dante didn’t look at Adam. Not yet. His burning gaze remained fixed on Zadikiel, utterly devoid of anything resembling negotiation or mercy. He took a single, deliberate step forward. The marble beneath his boot cracked like thin ice.
Zadikiel’s eyes widened slightly. He took an involuntary step back, his heel scraping on the stone. The nervousness was palpable now, a sour tang cutting through the stench of blood and ozone. "This needn't escalate further, Morningstar," he said, his voice gaining a fraction of its former smoothness, laced with a desperate edge. "The First Man is yours. Take him. Leave. Consider this… settled. No more incursions. A truce."
“A truce?” Dante’s voice was a low vibration that cracked the marble floor beneath them. Molten darkness churned in his eyes. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? FUCKING EVEN? EVEN FOR WHAT?”
Zadikiel’s perfect composure slipped further. Sweat beaded above his sculpted brow. “YOU REALLY DON’T REMEMBER?” He gestured vaguely, silver gauntlets flashing. “The Accord? Before the Fall? Before you became… this?”
Dante just stared. His silence was louder than a scream. The air thickened with the promise of annihilation. Adam, gasping on the floor, saw the raw, incomprehensible fury radiating off Dante like heat from a forge.
“OF COURSE YOU DON’T,” Zadikiel said, a sliver of genuine disbelief cutting through his panic. He vanished in a blink of pure white light. Gone.
Dante’s head snapped left, then right, predatory focus momentarily disrupted. Lost. A fraction of a second. Adam choked on a warning that wouldn’t form.
White light flared directly behind Dante. Zadikiel reappeared, angelic blade already materializing in his fist, aimed at Dante’s spine. Dante moved faster. He whirled, not away, but into the reappearance. His hand shot out, claws – black and razor-sharp – erupting from his knuckles. They sank deep into Zadikiel’s throat, just below the jawline. Blood, shockingly bright crimson, sprayed across the sterile white floor. Not a killing blow. A brutal claim. Dante yanked the angel forward until their faces were inches apart. Zadikiel’s eyes bulged, gagging on his own blood. Dante’s breath was furnace-hot against his skin. “FUCK YOUR TRUCE.”
Zadikiel’s free hand jerked. The angelic blade, forgotten in Dante’s rage-focused grip, plunged upward. Its tip, shimmering with celestial poison, punched through Dante’s leathers and deep into his gut, just below the ribs. A sickening, wet thunk echoed. Dante’s roar died in a grunt of pure shock. His claws retracted instinctively. He stumbled back, staring down at the ornate silver hilt protruding from his abdomen. Blood, thick and dark, welled instantly, soaking the leather. Zadikiel dropped to his knees, clutching his mangled throat, wheezing.
Dante looked up. His eyes weren't molten gold anymore. They were pure, liquid blood red. He touched the hilt, almost curiously. A low, disbelieving chuckle rasped out of him. “Ok.”
He lunged. Zadikiel scrambled back, blade reforming instantly. The fight descended into brutal, close-quarters savagery. Dante ignored the blade in his gut. He moved like smoke, feinting low, then hammering a fist like granite into Zadikiel’s armored ribs. Silver plate buckled. Zadikiel gasped, retaliating with a vicious slash that opened Dante’s shoulder to the bone. Dante didn’t flinch. He grabbed Zadikiel’s wrist, bones grinding, and slammed his forehead into the angel’s perfect nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood bloomed.
Zadikiel twisted free, dancing back. He stabbed again, low and fast. The blade sank into Dante’s thigh. Withdrew. Thrust again, into his side. Each strike left a trail of searing, corrosive light in the wounds. Dante staggered. Slowed. The unnatural poison working. His movements lost their terrifying fluidity.
“This blade was made for you specifically,” Zadikiel panted, wiping blood from his shattered nose. He circled, watching Dante sway slightly. “You feel your force fading yet prince?” A grim satisfaction twisted his lips. “Good.”
Dante’s blood-red eyes locked onto him. Raw fury battled the creeping weakness. Then, pure, feral adrenaline surged. A second wind born of apocalyptic rage. He roared, spitting blood, and charged. Not with strategy. With pure, unstoppable momentum. He crashed into Zadikiel like a landslide, ignoring the blade that sliced across his chest. They went down in a tangle of limbs and wings. Dante rolled on top, pinning the angel beneath his immense weight. He seized Zadikiel’s head, massive hands cupping the skull and jaw. Zadikiel's eyes widened in primal terror. He saw his end. With a desperate shriek, he drove the blade upward one final time. Not for the body. For the throat. It punched deep into the side of Dante’s neck, grating against bone. Zadikiel left it embedded, handle jutting obscenely.
Dante grunted, a wet, gurgling sound. Blood bubbled from his lips. But his grip didn’t loosen. One hand clamped firmly on the crown of Zadikiel’s head. The other, fingers like iron talons, dug under the angel’s jawbone. Zadikiel thrashed, wings beating frantically against the marble. Dante’s biceps corded. Tendons stood out like cables on his neck. A sickening, wet CRACK-TEAR echoed through the chamber. Not a snap. A brutal ripping. Dante ripped Zadikiel’s head clean off at the jawline. Sinew, vertebrae, and ragged flesh shredded. He held the decapitated head for a split second, Zadikiel’s expression frozen in horror, before dropping it with a wet thud beside the twitching body. No remorse. Only grim finality.
Dante swayed violently. Blood gushed from the blade in his neck, his gut, his thigh, his side. His life force flickered like a guttering candle. He didn’t look at the corpse. He staggered towards Adam. Every step left a wide smear of dark blood on the marble. He reached Adam’s side and collapsed heavily to his knees. The impact jarred the blade in his neck. He grunted, choking. Adam, still broken and barely conscious, saw him. Saw the impossible will holding his shattered body together. Saw the blood-red eyes dimming. Tears welled in Adam’s own eyes, spilling hot down his cheeks.
Dante’s hand, slick with his own blood, reached out. It trembled violently. He placed it gently, impossibly gently, on Adam’s ravaged chest. His voice was a ruined whisper, forcing the words out between wet, rattling breaths. “You’re ok now baby… just hold on.”
Adam felt the faintest pulse of warmth beneath Dante’s palm. Dante’s eyes, fading rapidly from blood-red to a weak, flickering yellow-gold. Adam knew. He choked out a desperate, ragged plea. “No…”
Dante ignored him. His eyes blazed a final, concentrated yellow. The light wasn't infernal. It was pure, desperate life force. It radiated from his hand into Adam’s broken body. Adam felt the agonized knitting of bones, the sealing of torn flesh, the warmth flooding his icy core. “Dante… Please… don’t!” Adam begged, fresh tears blurring his vision. He could feel Dante weakening, feel the life draining out of him like water from a broken vessel.
Dante managed a weak, bloody smile. His eyes never left Adam’s. “It’s ok sweet boy.” The golden light intensified for a final surge. Adam felt his shattered leg straighten, his ribs fuse, the internal tearing vanish. He was whole. Warm. Healed. Dante’s hand fell away. His eyes rolled back. He collapsed sideways like a felled tree.
Adam lunged, catching Dante’s massive torso before it hit the marble. He cradled him, pulling his head onto his lap. Dante’s breath was shallow, whistling through the blood bubbling at his lips and the wound in his neck. His eyelids fluttered. Adam stroked his sweat-and-blood-slicked face, voice breaking. “HOLD ON! PLEASE! DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME!”
Dante’s trembling hand rose slowly, feebly. Adam bent low, pressing his forehead against Dante’s, their breaths mingling – Adam’s frantic, Dante’s fading. Dante’s fingers brushed Adam’s cheek. Adam turned his face into the touch. Dante kissed him. A whisper of contact, soft as a dying breath, tasting of copper and love. “I love you Adam… so much…” He gasped, his body shuddering. “Take care of my kids… please…”
“You can take care of them!” Adam sobbed, clutching him tighter, feeling the terrifying stillness creeping in. “YOU’RE NOT FUCKING GOING ANYWHERE YOU STUBBORN ARROGANT FUCK!” A ghost of that familiar, arrogant smile touched Dante’s lips. It broke Adam. “I love you too… so goddamn much…” He choked back a sob that threatened to tear him apart. “I’ll… I’ll take care of them… i promise.”
Dante’s eyes met his. Held. The faint golden light winked out. His body went utterly slack in Adam’s arms. The ragged breathing stopped. His eyes stared sightlessly past Adam’s shoulder. Unblinking. Empty.
A sound ripped from Adam’s throat. Not a scream. A raw, animal howl of utter desolation. He crushed Dante’s lifeless body to his chest, rocking back and forth on the blood-slicked marble amidst the carnage. “NO! NO! WAKE UP! PLEASE! DON’T GO! DON’T FUCKING LEAVE ME!” Sobs wracked him, violent and uncontrollable. He buried his face in Dante’s hair, inhaling the fading scent of smoke, brimstone, and him. He screamed into the silence, the sound echoing in the vast, sterile chamber that held nothing but death and the unbearable weight of his shattered world. Dante was gone. Adam held him for dear life, sobbing uncontrollably.