Fire and brimstone and a thousand other wretched things were what he dreamed of in his waking moments. Memories came and went. Sense of being shifted and undulated like ripples on a lake. Some days he was Samael, and other days he was a plethora of ancient, forgotten demons torn from the pages of story books. Today, he knew where he was. Today, he knew that this was his niece, fathered by his own brother. Even so, he stared through a window fogged and frozen, unclear. Her name escaped him, if he’d ever known it. He’d always been terrible with remembering names. She fell back into the snow and he stood silently, only breathing—his breath a pale plume exhaled from his nostrils on the frigid air.
But she rose, clutching at some unseen injury buried beneath her flesh—or perhaps atop, just beneath the fur, dark and lurid across the sallow skin. His eyes focused momentarily on this, imagining—his tongue caressing the edges of his teeth, enticed by the very thought of weakness. “I do,” he said, voice serpentine. Dear, sweet messenger, with the voice of God behind him, Samael could not forget, for he was the adversary. His beloved was of the highest order, but he and his sibling were meant to murder one another. Good and evil, yin and yang, Samael’s heaven may be another’s hell.
He laughed at her question, her accusation. His loyalty had always been to Kaena, not to the clan that she had created. He’d only remained there for so long as it was a part of her, nothing more. He’d been the dog waiting on the doorstep for its master’s return, but she never had. It’d wounded his heart and he’d fled, only for her to return while his back was turned. He belonged in her arms. He wished to die in her embrace. She was the only mortal alive that he could love, and he existed for her touch. And yet the instant that she returned his affection he was sure that he would burst into flame. “I choose not to be,” he said, for it was true.
He made his own destiny.