The slow bump and grind of music echoed from below as he strode down the empty hallway to his sitting room, where Bjorn and Xerxes waited. Both reclined in plush velvet chairs and sipped at their drinks of choice.
Thane stopped at the wet bar and poured himself a tumbler of absinthe. He turned, leaned against the marble counter. This sanctuary was a study of indulgence, he thought as he scanned the room. Everywhere he looked he saw treasures given to him by kings, queens, immortals and even humans. Intricately carved tables, polished to a glossy shine. Couches and chairs draped in luxurious fabrics, each a different jewel tone. The rarest of rugs, chandeliers dripping with precious gems rather than crystals.
“Has Zacharel begun shagging the human yet?” Bjorn asked. He was, perhaps, one of the most beautiful angels ever created, his skin gilded with all that gold, his eyes like a mosaic of the most expensive of amethysts, sapphires, emeralds and tourmaline.
But Thane remembered a time when the warrior had not looked so pretty. Their captors had chained Thane to the filthy floor of their cell and strung Bjorn up above him. Over the ensuing days, those same demons had peeled the skin from Bjorn’s body, careful, so careful not to damage the flesh. Blood had rained upon Thane in a continuous flow, soaking him.
Oh, how the warrior had screamed…at first. By the end, his lungs had deflated and his throat had been nothing but pulp. The demons had then taken turns wearing the skin as a coat, laughing, pretending to be Bjorn while performing all kinds of lewd acts.
Xerxes had been chained to the wall across from them, his stomach pressed into the stone, his arms shackled over his head, his legs pried apart. He was forced to listen to everything that was done to his friends, but unable to see it. And maybe that was worse. He’d never known what happened around him as he was whipped and…other things were done to him.
The horror of his time in that cell had wiped all color from his once auburn hair and peach-tinted skin, leaving him as white as milk. Blood vessels had burst in his once amber eyes, turning the irises red.
None of them ever spoke of their incarceration and torture, but Thane knew just how his friends really were. After every fight, Bjorn spiraled out of control. After every sexual encounter, Xerxes vomited. But neither one would stop the fighting or the bedding.
Thane had learned to embrace this side of himself.
“Someone’s lost in his thoughts,” Bjorn said. The spiral from this last battle hadn’t yet hit him…but it would. It always did.
“Feed him his teeth,” Xerxes suggested. “He’ll respond, I promise.”
They’d asked him a question, hadn’t they…about Zacharel and the human, he recalled. “What do you think?” he at last replied. “Zacharel was in his office, writing a report about something. Our performance, most likely.”
“Think he’ll ever thaw?” Bjorn asked.
Thane shuddered. “Let’s hope not.”
Xerxes rubbed the scars on his neck. Everyone assumed his immortality had failed him and he’d somehow ended up looking like a poorly put together puzzle, but the truth was, his body was simply always in the process of healing from the damage he constantly inflicted.
“I killed sixteen demons at the institution,” he said. This was one of the only topics of conversation he enjoyed.
“Twenty-three,” Bjorn said, a thread of darkness in his tone.
Thane added his tally in his head—he never forgot a kill. “Only nineteen for me.”
Bjorn grinned, but there was no light in his expression. “I win.”
Xerxes flipped him off.
“Such a sore loser.” Thane tsked. “And now a babysitter, too. So where is the fallen you’ve been tasked with guarding? You haven’t mentioned him once since taking over his care and feeding.”
He saw a flare of panic in those crimson eyes, quickly masked. “He’s chained in my room.”
The panic nearly broke Thane’s heart, for he knew Xerxes would never willingly hold anyone but a demon prisoner. “What are you going to do with him?”