Chapter 16 Raphael
Raphael
I HAVE A PURPOSE FOR HER.
Citizen Soldier Playlist
“Face to Face”
“The Devil”
Iadhere to a framework—not one of moral monstrosity but simply a different brand of monstrosity to prevent me from becoming the monsters who created our bond.
I am the only one here who was born a monster.
Jude, Vincent, Seth…were all made into monsters. Rory is half and half. But I am the Beast who overthrew the Devil and took his place on hell’s throne. The demons are mine to command.
And now, we finally have ourselves a little she-beast. And what a beautiful beast she is.
She’s still unconscious as Seth and Jude trade off with the hose on a gentler setting, washing away our essence, cleansing her from head to toe. Jude already injected her with a mild sedative—enough to keep her relaxed and under for an hour while we deal with things.
We already washed ourselves and cauterized any deep wounds. Scars upon scars. They do not simply heal. They remember. Within every one, her name is carved.
And our names are branded into her flesh forever.
“Think she can come like this?” Seth says with amusement in his voice.
I narrow my eyes as he trains the nozzle along the sweet, swollen nodule of flesh, still a beautiful shade of red from the Initiation. Her vulva, her pubic lips, and the heat of her vaginal channel—everything is a feast of flesh and fantasy, flushed and swollen, healthy with rosy labia.
I may be a psychotic son of a bitch with no capability of empathy, but my cock still throbs for her. Even now, it jumps in my pants at the sight of the warm faucet on her throbbing clitoris and puffy folds.
She stared death in the eye countless times during the Initiation. She didn’t tell it to fuck off. She met it like an old friend she could share a cigarette with.
Not one member of the fairer sex has ever aroused me to such a degree. I may have freed many from the hell we grew up in, but most didn’t survive on the streets—just as none survived our Initiation.
They were too strong. Too whole. They fought tooth and nail for their dignity, begged, screamed for the right to die rather than be broken. But strength wasn’t what we needed.
We needed someone who could hold their own insignificance like a weapon.
And Briella? She knew she was nothing. She knew she was broken.
She stared death in the face with something worse than fear—with indifference. Like she had already died a thousand times and didn’t mind doing it again.
The others before her had begged. Had fought. Had screamed for something better. She didn’t. She simply let it happen. Let herself be unmade.
We needed someone who could kneel before us—not simply in surrender, but in understanding. Understanding that only by breaking apart could she ever become something divine.
Briella understood the art of ruin.
During the Initiation, she learned what it meant to be nothing. And from that nothing, she made herself into something untouchable.
Jude rubs healing oil into her breasts, circling his thumbs around her nipples.
“Fuck, Jude!” Seth exclaims as her hips rise even in her sleep, her back arching. He stabs two fingers inside her. “She’s squeezing my fingers, little pulses. Hell, she’s coming from this.”
Even Rory tilts his head, intrigued, eyes heady, but his muscles are relaxed. One of few times I’ve ever seen Rory fucking relaxed.
Jude chuckles as he squeezes her breasts tenderly. “There must be something wrong with me. I’m still hard.”
Seth rolls his eyes. “We’re all still hard. Even Raphael.” He throws a look toward me, and I don’t deny it.
“How is her anus?” I ask, and Jude shifts her over gently and pulls apart her cheeks.
“It’s still red, inflamed, but the bleeding stopped. I added an extra dose of numbing meds to it.”
Having a former army medic is a tool in our arsenal.
Everyone serves a purpose. Even Rory.
Seth is good with his hands, from chopping wood to fixing anything from the generator to the fences.
Vincent is the caretaker. He handles the animals. And he handles the messes. Whether it’s burning, burying, or feeding remains to the animals, he takes care of the “problems” no one else wants to deal with.
Jude keeps the cabin and mine in order while tending to the majority of the chores. Echoes of his military routines. He’s also the one willing to go out and find supplies, trading, looting, or stealing whatever we need.
He’s more than a crafty devil and a charming bastard.
He’s my partner.
And my sociopathic brother, Rory…
He’s a damn good cook. And everything encompassing the definition.
Rory gathers eggs, culls the aggressive roosters, and swears the hens gossip about him behind his back.
I’d say his greatest amusement is chopping off their heads, but his real fun is watching them run headless afterward—claims it’s a metaphor for life.
Or the sheer chaos of wrangling the little bastards when they escape the coop.
He calls it “training for the apocalypse.”
Regardless, it wears out his violent energy.
In his butcher shop, Rory is his own god. He carves, strips, and portions like an artist. The bones, the hide, the meat. Nothing goes to waste.
And I? I am the hunter.
I know the land better than anyone, reading the earth like scripture. Every snapped twig, every shift in the wind tells me a story.
I don’t just hunt to survive. It’s in my blood. The chase, the kill, the power of it all makes me feel alive.
In the wilderness, I am the apex predator, the reaper.
I never miss my prey.
I don’t just kill. I have a purpose for my prey.
I have a purpose for her.