Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

SLEEP ELUDED ISRAFEL that night. He had a deep and very annoying nagging feeling that someone or some 'thing' sent by his Auntie would come to capture him again—was watching him as he laid down—or those he loved. So his iris remained like a puma's in the tent: yellowed, iridescent, alert.

He had destroyed one enemy, and ten more had risen in his place. A tyranny like a fucking Hydra.

It didn't matter that the death of Mephistopheles, the Usurper, King Thebault de Vríes should have put an end to the reign of the Fallen, brought down the Morningstar banners from the castle at Darkwake and the city's walls, and all the regions of the Empire where the masses of faerie folk had been reduced to wilding camps, out in the forest.

No. It didn't matter.

Not with Lilith still at the reins of Titans Landing.

Rafel felt the Continent would never be truly free of abyssal rule with the Dowager at its fore. It was extremely disappointing; dissatisfied him that with her too was Giselle Van Imperia—the one that got away. The one who should have, even now, being leading the forces of good against to push the Fallen out of their courts and lands.

But apparently, Giselle had fallen in love. Worse. With the one bitch who couldn't love her back. His aunt had never loved anyone he knew of, besides him. But it wouldn't matter to the faerie [godling], he knew it. Whatever corruption or [Eros pill] Lilith had used on Giselle, it clenched around her heart like tendrils of a bramble; squeezing and bleeding her out. And poor, poor Giselle would not free herself of the spell.

Rafel acutely remembered when all that turmoil of love passion, like an [amoré vial], had been directed at him. He knew the wildling royal would never be a part of his harem, but he liked her too much to request coldly of her to have some fucking dignity.

—That, and she had tits like a diamond whore. Banging her was like sleeping with an angel.

'That should have been her maiden name: Angel.'

Alas, Giselle's weakness in loving too hard was just about keeping literal demons on the throne. Her throne—where a dozen Van Imperia regents had ruled all the realms. Her legacy. He wondered why she couldn't just pick a good man to love and wed.

Perhaps, the young stock of the Lord of Frostholm. He had heard good things about the North prince, who was now of marriageable age. Then again, Giselle didn't like easy and amicable. She liked hard. Even when they fucked.

And back then, when he was pounding her raw out of breath and the earth, he liked to think it was because she was damaged; you know. But what could damage a princess of the most prominent Noblehouse in the Empire?

Israfel soon quit contemplating the things that should have been. That should be. When he'd first said he wanted to try the 'surface' all those Hel-years ago, the other Lords of the Underworld had made it look like he was crazy.

"A mortal lover," they called him. "Why would the offspring of Lucifer, Lilith, and Asmodeus, and godson of a hundred other Hel principalities want to ascend from the Abyss?"

And then they had laughed and laughed. But look at them now, he mused, frolicking in the mortal world like it was theirs. And he whom had first ascended they had banished from his estate, his motherfucking school... into the Badlands.

He, the Apollyon. Wielder of the [Infernal System]. Bearer of [Bloodthorn]. His Eminence, the Soul Collector. Champion of Hel's arena. His promise to them was silent: a reckoning. A retribution, swift and accurate. "My sword shall strike sure. My blade, true—"

"Do you always lay awake after hot sex, Rebel Lord?"

Rafel blinked and moved his eyes downward.

Dementa was staring up at him.

He found a bit of comfort in her coffee-brown eyes, loving the way her thick dreadlocks stroked against his thigh. Her legs were entwined with his, and she lay on top of him. Slithered on his feline body along with Aya, Ravenna and Cora, all of whom slept soundly. Rafel offered the Junker queen a small smile and retorted.

"Do you always watch your lovers not sleep?"

Dementa made a light chuckle, careful not to rouse the other girls. She moved her neck up a bit and kissed the underside of his jaw. She told him with deep truth shining on the inside of her brown eyes. "You might not believe it, Rebel Lord, but you are the first one I have taken to my bed in forty lifetimes.

I was not kidding when I said I've been waiting for you all my lives." She ended in a whisper, with emphasis on the 'lives'.

"Go back to sleep." It was the only thing he said, the only way he knew how to reply.

He had his cult of Principality family to thank for his diehard ability to not love. Fallen angels didn't do romance.

Rafel waited until the soft breathing of Dementa let him know she was asleep again before he rose and dipped out of the sprawling bed. He moved naked, catching a glimpse of a golden, strapping man in Dementa's mirror—which was him by the way—as he fetched a loose silk wrap from the cloth pile and covered himself like some foreign emissary would.

Rafel dipped his head under a flap and stepped out of the desert tent. In a way, in the Badlands, he was an Ambassador.

A wanted man. Kingslayer. Exile. Just as ruffian as these bandits. Who was he to judge?

The moon on this night was out and full. It made the desert sparkle. Sands glimmered like sugar crystals, and the faroff dunes rose like pillars of the Ancient. Rafel walked some distance from the circle of tents. Flickering fires lit the Deathlies camp in amber light, but no one sat by them. He was the only one awake. His system had gotten it right: he was [Solitary Survivor] indeed.

Rafel stared out from the Canyon, stopping by a drop into the gorge. He could see the endless stretch of the Bonelands. The night was cold. Different from the afflicting sun just hours earlier. Dementa's domain, Helladeep covered a great deal of the wilderness. Through ravines and highway, she was country queen. His desert mistress.

Rafel let the cool breeze ruffle his white shawl and run under his skin. And he watched ground moles squeeze and dip into earth as they chased sand-worms in the distance.

"They look upon me and see a symbol, Peitho. I have no idea how to be what they want."

He almost thought his Luciferan AI didn't hear him, but then she pinged up with a soft voice, chilling as the desert wind.

[Ding!]

[I do not think anyone is born a hero, Lord Host. The act of chivalry is not learned. It is a character. An attitude, not an aptitude. The greatest of heroes: Heracles and Achilles, Caesar and Aurelius, Spartacus and Shaka Zulu... they were made not because they wanted to be hailed so, but in their very characters, they were. . .heroes.]

[True quality of heart cannot be learned.]

[And so, Lord Host, I do not believe the faith of these people is misplaced in you. When you took the head of the Usurper, you might not have intended to free the Continent, but it does not mean you weren't thinking about them.]

"And how do you know this?" Enjoy exclusive chapters from empire

[I live in your head.]

"Hmm." Rafel reasoned. She was right. He had long since stopped thinking of Peitho as a mere advantage to his evolution in [Hell Circles]. Now, when he talked to her, the image he had of her in his head was quite revealing. It perplexed. He saw Peitho as a woman: robust and refined. And not just some [infernal system].

Peitho went on:

[A true hero is one who has the capacity to affect the minds of barbarians and sinners, without the intent to do so. You have inspired these den of thieves, Lord Host. You have carved a path of redemption in a wilderness of robbers and whores, and exiles.]

[I have yet to see a Fallen manage this.]

"So you think the Badlands are some sort of stronghold now? For revolution? Oh come on, Peitho! Not even you can believe that these Deathlies and fucking NURs will leave their riders for me. The Skullriders are a triumvirate. Dementa is only one of them. Even if I agree to this idea of being a Rebel leader—and I'm not saying I do, there's still two hardcore desert madmen to convince.

And in case you haven't noticed I'm still a ward of the Junker queen. Fucking me doesn't mean she'll rally her Deathlies if I say so. There are many, many constricts."

Peitho gave the equivalent of bubbly laughter in his head. It sounded robotic to Rafel's ears.

[You have always been a hard man, Israfel. You do not believe in gods, despite being born one. Yet, your cynicism aside, what I believe is that in a Continent where dynasties fall with a finger's click, perhaps, a demon is the only one fit to save it. And a horned prince the best bet to restore peace.]

She had called him Israfel, not Host. Rafel didn't hate it. He reflected as she continued.

[Do you really think you chose to run off to this place? Of all the lands in the realm, the Badlands, really?]

[Nay, Lord Host.]

[It was the roaming that called. You heard the cry from the wilderness. Same as the spark you felt in the hope of General Noguri's execution. The light of revolution. The same when you smote the crusade of the Nephilims to dust. The same when you pounded Mephistopheles to ash.]

[This is the call of the wild, Apollyon. You didn't choose it. It chose you.]

Rafel gazed out in the withering wind. His clothes funneled out behind like a flag. Clarion as the moon above. Atop the canyon, he was like a ghost of the desert. He latched onto Peitho's words some, 'the Roaming called. . .'

And he just had to ask.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Is the purpose of my exile here to rally a horde of bandits and highwaymen into a desert army to take the Empire's throne?"

[Ding!]

[To that, Lord Host, I will beg no answer.]

"I thought you're supposed to know everything. You can't give a speech like that and not the fuck have solid evidence."

Peitho's weird laugh came again.

[Calculating the future travels to spin a gazillion possibilities. I could solve for the most chance, but I doubt you'd believe in numbers to guarantee your destiny. I do not know a thousand years, Lord Host. But I know you.]

Rafel placed his hands deep into the pockets of his white shock. "And pray tell, wise Peitho, what do you know about me?"

[—that you're a fucking legend.]

Before Rafel had a chance to reply, a bright pulse of radiance came off his left. The full desert moon above was briefly obscured in the luminous glow. It sparkled off the Canyon's rugged terrain. Rafel didn't understand it the light before he was swallowed by it. He was transported in this [radiant pocket] off the cliff.

The light dimmed and he found himself inside Dementa's large tent. And four hot girls smiling down at him. Somehow, he was on his back without a shirt. Ravenna's smile was the widest.

"Off course," said Rafel. "The angelic pulse. I should've guess, huh, my Redeemer." He joked to her.

Ravenna blushed and batted her pretty green eyes at him; even when she wasn't trying she was really cute. "It's the only way I knew to get you back to bed." She told him.

Dementa slid up on him again. Her red dreads spread on his chest. And this time, Rafel forgot all about Lilith and fucking barbarians. He slept sound as a babe. 'Damn, it sure is good to be a Rebel leader.'