Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

Ravenna De Vríes was out of sorts at the angel's proclamation. Her mother had never cared before to send a herald. Why now? To offer an olive branch, or to upend the life she had so carefully crafted for herself. Or perhaps, her father had told her about his letter which had gone two weeks now without a reply. Ravenna didn't want to hurt her head over them.

In the wide area of the lavatory, she moved for the soft taps and pumped a few times to get water going. She washed her hand under it, her green eyes rising up to the mirror. She caught the pale iris of the [Brass Saint] in it.

"I ask again, what the fuck do you want? . . .uh, what's your name again? And can you fold those wings please." She scoffed. "I get that some people literally worship you guys but I'm not one of them.

Hell. For divine beings, you lot are pretty vain."

"Aariel." The angel frowned. "My name is Aariel." His voice went harsh, like he couldn't believe this spoiled princess forgot his name. He folded his white wings at Ravenna's cold stare and dropped to the bathroom's stark floors. Much to Ravenna's chagrin, he eyed the ground, lifting each heel of his gilded battle-sandals to stare under as if he was expecting to see some dirt.

Aariel folded his arms across his impressive chest and continued to tell her about 'himself'.

"Those who worship us are wise. We are the personification of all that is holy. All that is pure. All that is true. The Martyr and the creator. His presence and His holiness.

I, Aariel am one of His servants. A Virtue." He pointed to his glowing halo, even though Ravenna had seen better. "Angels are not vain. We are merely ourselves. This glory and splendor," he ran a self-absorbed hand down his shining body, "should not be hidden. Does the sun hide from the earth?"

Ravenna blinked incredulously.

Did he just equate himself to the fucking sun?

With every passing minute, she was liking this bright person a lot less. By the gods, how had her mother chosen this Aariel to be her messenger. But she was guessing they were all like hard. It was pretty hard not to be full of yourself when your skin spun as snow and light bounced off your eyes. Still, not an excuse.

Did the female Angels not wear shirts too? If Aariel was to be believed, the 'holy ones' did love to show some skin. If the men were this beautiful, then the women surely had to be supernatural.

Ravenna shut off the pumps on the tap, shaking her hands in the sink and wiping them off. Despite the Corynthian Academy for Witches boasting a state-of-the-art boarding hold—with places like the lavatory she stood in making use of loos rather than the chamber pots at the realms north of the Cold Sea—it lacked the futuristic avoirdupois of Atlant and the underwater colonies.

She heard the Atlanteans had invented toilet seats that blew cool air on the behind. How strange?

Ravenna said to Aariel in the mirror. "Holiness is overated. I know Vicars and nuns who have done terrible things under the guise of the Lord's work. I don't believe in moral perfection. And you can't convince me either."

"I see that." A vein bulged in his forehead.

"So, are you going to answer my question? Or pretend like you aren't looking at yourself in the mirror?"

"Go–oosh!" Aariel sucked in his teeth.

"Sounded like you were gonna say, 'God!' there. Is it still called blasphemy? Would you have to burn, or be stoned to death? I mean as an angel, surely your punishment must be much worse. Lucifer still suffers his, and it's been what. .

.a billion years?"

Ravenna chortled, having the time of her life when she spied the vein in Aariel's temple nearly burst out of his forehead. He was about to lose his angelic cool. He all but roared his reply to her.

"Samael got what he deserved for plotting a putsch in Paradise! Your mother told me you'd be something of a smartass—" What he really wanted to say was bitch. He held his tongue. This girl was still crown princess and daughter of a Seraphim. He went on. "Now that I've met you, I believe her.

That aside, the reason Aariel appears to you is because you mother sent me. I am ordered to remain your Guardian Virtue until such a time as you are returned to her."

Ravenna gave a short laugh. "Do you always refer to yourself in the third-person?"

"Your mother cares." He ignored her. Aariel moved a step forward; the wings on his sandals breezed as if alive and his iridescent skin glowed. Ravenna wondered how his loincloth hadn't yet fallen off his waist. Must be angel magic or something, she concluded. Aariel said in a stern voice, luminous eyes reflected in the bathroom's mirror:

"Your mother is Yuriel Yellowstone. One of the strongest Seraphs of Paradise. She is a [Gold Saint]. A nine-star Arch. She is very, very noble and well-respected in our heavenly courts. You should be on your knees, begging me to take you to her.

Hers is one of the purest bloodlines since we walked the earth. Frankly, I think you're not worthy of her. She, who is lofty and definitely not in need of some halfling daughter still sent me to this bland part of the world to protect you. And all you can't even recognize and accept her love?"

Ravenna turned sharply from the mirror to face Aariel's hard eyes.

"All the purity and holiness in her didn't keep her from lying to me! All the magnificence didn't stop her from abandoning me. From letting me mourn, scrounge and damn near whore myself out living with a drunkard father! You hear me? It didn't stop her. So fuck her.

And fuck you too."

Aariel unfolded his beefy arms. "I get that you're angry—"

"You don't get shit." Ravenna quaked. "My mother has never cared before. Why should I give a shit now?"

"Maybe you shouldn't cuss so m—" Experience tales at empire

"I have lived from age four alone, and I'm damn sure capable of protecting myself. So curl out those pretty boy wings of yours and go on flapping back to heav'n, cuz I definitely don't need ya. And I need not her either! Get it!"

Aariel fell quiet. Her mother had mentioned her accent, but it was quite thick. The wrath in the Virtue stoked when Ravenna denied his protection. No one denied guardianship of an angel. It was a blessing. Thousands prayed for it.

And here was this fucking bitch turning him down. He was no common saint. He had two stars—and that was not nothing. If her mum wasn't a Seraph, he'd...

"I am happy here," Ravenna said, leaning back on the sink in her beryl dress, interrupting his madness, "I have friends—"

"You mean the demon. Demons are not your species!" Aariel bristled at the nerve on her.

"I am half demon you know?" She shouted.

"You are also Angel!" Aariel fired back. He shook in fury. In annoyance. In jealousy. How dare this girl choose a fucking fire-eater over her own kin? Over the glorious?

Over fucking paradise! He stomped toward her, making her fall back on the sink's protruding porcelain. He yelled in her face, his sunny eyes spitting flecks of light.

"Y–You would choose Hel over Heaven? To remain with bastards who'd suck your blood and subject you to an eternity under a red sky. The dismal gloom of the underworld. The horror? The condemned souls? Torment for ages.

You would choose this over the glory I offer? Over the guardian of glory? You pick a FUCKING DEMON OVER AARIEL?!"

"Yes." Ravenna didn't drop her eyes.

Aariel's ire reached its peak. He made up his mind not be belittled. Not even by Saint Yuriel's broken daughter. He was going to teach her a lesson, he reasoned. A good, hard lesson!

Aariel pushed Ravenna deeper on the sink with his mighty form. He growled in a sick voice. "Well, since you love demons so much, your mother won't fault me for breaking you in. I shall give you a taste of what they'll be doing to you forever."

Ravenna looked down and saw the rod extending from his loincloth.

Oh no!

"What the—"

She tried to scream but his firm hand clamped on her mouth. He was stronger. Super fucking strong. And the anger had charged him.

"Come here!" He grabbed her little body and turned her around. He tore at her dress. Ravenna kicked back her legs at him, struggling with his hand on her mouth. She felt his sick thing on her back. It was hot and heavy, and nudged her thigh as he ripped through garters and silk. Ravenna jolted and tried to slip from under him.

But Aariel caged her, slamming her down on the sink.

She fell heavily to it and her forehead hit the porcelain. White sparked behind her eyes and she smelled blood. Pain throbbed in her temples.

"You fucking bitch. . .mouthing off at an angel? I'm going to use you before any idiot demon." The bastard tore her dress up to her waist, finally parting her undergarments. His sick eyes brightened in the mirror at the sight of her young flesh.

Ravenna knew then. He was going to rape her.

But she didn't want her first time struggling and forced. She didn't wasn't to be broken by a mad angel.

'Israfel, I need you. Please. I need you.'

With fresh tears streaming her cheeks, she sent out into the universe, praying that her demon was listening. Ravenna had just felt that vile rod of the crazy man behind her poke apart her slender thighs when there was a sudden quiet. A silence, eerie and disturbing, fell over the bathroom.

The lights flickered and dimmed. And—

BOOM!

A ghoulish cloud of shadows exploded into the space. Aariel's penis behind her dropped and his rough hand loosened in her hair. Out from the rippling darkness, Israfel stepped out. He was furious and fatal, and beautiful. He was breathing fire; fire in his mouth. In his eyes.

In his hair.

"I smelt Angel." His baritone thundered in the room, rattling the glass of the mirror.

Aariel's jaw dropped. He instantly sprouted his wings and moved to fly out the door.

A great crimson hand erupted from Rafel's back, caught him by the throat and slammed him to the mirror. The dark glass cracked in a web pattern and several of the lights winked off. Rafel kept the wanker up by his [Titan Grasp] and pulled a sickle from his pocket dimension. The blade sliced out out of thin air, curved for the harvest.

SLASH!

He sliced off Aariel's wings cleanly.

"Aaatgggghggruld!" The Virtue screamed in pain.

Rafel released his hold, his [Titan Grasp] slipping again into his back. Aariel fell before him on his knees and Rafel pulled the angel's chin up to his. The sod's wings lay bloodied and twitching not far away. Rafel told the bastard in a dark voice. "You do not touch what is mine."

And then he gripped hold of Aariel's hand and cracked it from front to back. The loose head made a swivel on his neck before the body crashed with a sickening thud to the bathroom floors.

"Are you okay?"

Ravenna blinked past the tears when she heard Rafel's welcome bass. She met his infernal eyes in the splintered mirror.

He had just killed her Guardian Angel.