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Waiting. Waiting.
Minos Prime didn't know how long he had been waiting.
All around him, walls of flesh pressed against his incorporeal limbs, sickening and disgustingly warm. Even the King of Lust had his limits.
Swirling somewhere in the mass of flesh were his two loyal serpents. Minos Prime's chest ached at the thought of his sweet Truth and Love trapped in this torment with him.
He'd never known Gabriel to be cruel enough to kill them, too. But then again, it seemed he had never known Gabriel at all.
A memory struck him — bright, sweet, and infuriating.
Laughter in the palace halls. Candlelight flickering on golden armour. Minos and Gabriel together upon the city of Lust, sharing wine, secrets, and whispered desires. Gabriel’s lips brushing his in the quiet of the night, his fingers learning the contours of Minos’s body. Truth and Love coiling around them like a knot of unity. The nights where everything was perfect, lit by pink-purple light and perfumed by flowers.
And then — that night.
My dove, he had whispered, hands sliding under Gabriel's armour as the angel stood in his doorway. Thou has returned from Heaven. What did thy Council want this time?
Gabriel had kept his helmet on. That was the first warning.
Nothing you must be concerned about, my king. Gabriel had whispered tenderly. Close your eyes.
And then the cold bite of metal slid across his neck. His snakes had shrieked as Gabriel snapped their spines like lifeless twigs, discarding them as if he'd never cared for them.
In a single motion, everything had changed. The King of Lust had fallen, his city shattered. Gabriel’s hands — which had once traced him like a lover — were now instruments of ruin.
The angel hadn't even had the grace to remove his helmet. To watch, with his stitched eyes and magical sight, the destruction he had brought down upon the one he had claimed to love.
The memory seared like a spill of wax. Rage curled around his chest like a roaring fire. He ruined me. My city. My life. My soul.
Gabriel ruined everything.
He'd given himself wholly to the angel, let him see him at his most vulnerable; exhausted, bare, crying, sick. For a few centuries, Minos could fool himself into believing a holy angel could love a filthy sinner like him.
Gabriel had stomped on it all.
Regrowing, regrowing. In loops over and over, Minos relived his entire existence in his mind as his soul regenerated into an incorporeal body. Somehow, it always came back to Gabriel. The words they had exchanged. Every touch, caress, and bed they had shared.
I will kill him. I shall find him and make him regret every day, every year, every century he hath played me for a fool.
Abruptly, the silence cracked away like the snap of a tendon breaking.
The tight walls of the prison vanished, and Minos Prime found himself suddenly dropped onto a floor of Hell Mass — solid stone, after so long of being caged by rubbery flesh. The hisses of Truth and Love reached his ears as they raced over to coil back around his wrists, rubbing against him amiably. For a second, all he could do was stroke them, dazed.
What could have . . . ?
A familiar golden glow illuminated the prison, and Minos Prime's lips twisted in a snarl.
'You!'
In twin flashes of silver, Love and Truth lunged forward, their scaled bodies coiling tightly around the intruder and binding him tight. He fell to his knees with a cry, gasping for air as Truth twisted her coils around his throat.
'Minos,' he wheezed. 'Minos, please . . . ' That voice.
Minos Prime stood slowly, his gaze sliding coldly over the form of the intruder.
Gabriel.
Gabriel, the Archangel, the Righteous Hand of the Father, the Weapon of Heaven. Titles poured into Minos Prime's head like flowing wine. This angel. This traitor. He had seen it fit to return like this?
Minos Prime advanced on the sprawled angel, flicking his hand almost imperceptibly. Obeying his command, Truth and Love constricted tighter against Gabriel's skin, causing him to cry out and writhe.
'Thy hast come to laugh over my fallen corpse.' Minos Prime hissed, clenching his fists. 'Does thou have no shame?'
Truth hissed as she loosened her coils around Gabriel's neck, allowing him to speak louder. Her fangs glinted dangerously as she bared them in warning.
'I'm not here to mock you.' Gabriel bowed his head, chest heaving. 'Minos. I come . . . for mercy. However slight.'
'MERCY?' Minos Prime’s voice cracked under the weight of his roar, filled with scorn and disbelief. 'Thou hath taken everything from me! My flesh, my people, my snakes, and now — now thou dares ask for thy mercy?'
'I obeyed the orders of Heaven. But I was wrong. I — ' Gabriel’s hands trembled under the snakes' coils. 'I dont ask for my life, but for forgiveness. I see what I have done. I cannot undo it, but I can . . . I can bear the weight. Let me make it right.'
Minos Prime recoiled, fury and grief battling in his chest. 'Thy speaks as if thou hast ever known me. Like thou ever truly loved me. Thou art blind, a mortal fool in angelic skin!'
Gabriel pressed forward, voice breaking. 'I thought obedience was right. I thought I was serving the Council. But I see now; I was protecting nothing but my own fear. Minos . . . I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'
The prison shuddered, flesh writhing around them as if watching, witnessing. Truth and Love twisted around Gabriel, their gazes fixed on the angel.
Minos’s eyes flared, a storm of anger, grief, and something that could almost be recognition. 'Words are flippant,' he said, voice low, poisonous. 'But . . . your tears . . . perhaps they mean more than thou can imagine. Speak, then, angel. Prove thy remorse.'
Gabriel flinched as Truth slithered around his shoulders, jaw unhinging as she struck forward and sank her fangs into his neck. Venom pumped into his bloodstream, a sudden wooziness spreading through his limbs like lead. Lies and excuses dried up in his throat, the urge to speak the truth flowing over him like warm honey.
This, Gabriel realised, was only the start of his journey to forgiveness.