Chapter Three
Later, he'd say he'd planned for things to happen as they had.
He'd say that he planned for Alec to fall as hard and deep in love with him as he had. That he'd set things up so that the boy would feel like he could confide in him.
He'd pretend his own heart didn't clench in his chest when the younger man smiled at him. Pretend that the way Alec would sometimes say his name didn't make him smile.
He'd lie, as he had for so long, that his heart was long gone. Lost in his quest for power, his hunger for justice. He'd be the monster they portrayed him as and he would relish in it.
But, in that moment he couldn't.
As he lay in his latest safe house, Alec sleeping peacefully beside him, he couldn't help the small warm smile that crossed his lips. It was an expression he'd gone so long without he'd almost forgotten how it felt to wear one and mean it, and yet… Yet, with each passing day the young young shadowhunter gave him a new reason to do so.
Whether it was that dry wit and humor that sometimes escaped his shy lover, or the soft, happy smile he tried so often to hide when Valentine complimented him, he couldn't fight the way the other made him feel.
It was quickly becoming a problem.
When he'd originally approached Alec, nearly nine months ago, he'd done so with the intent of recruiting him. He'd been careful not to use his real name, sticking to the pseudonym he'd created using his former parabatai's name and his true one. He'd hoped to sway the teen's alligances then reveal himself.
Then he'd made a mistake.
He'd continued to approach the younger, growing closer and closer to him. He'd become his friend, then his confident, noticing everything the other would never dare to say out loud. He'd noticed the heated looks from beneath those sooty lashes, the faint hue that colored those aristocratic cheekbones. He'd noticed the shivers when they stood closer than normal and the way the teen seemed to both yearn for his presence and dread it.
Even worse, he hadn't noticed it when his own feelings had changed.
He'd barely acknowledged the jealousy that curled low and vicious in his gut when Alec talked about Jonathan and how well he was doing, the longing hidden in his voice speaking of unrequited feelings.
He hadn't noticed the way his mood would drop when Alec was leaving, not until the teen had pointed it out.
Nor had he realized just how handsy he'd been getting with the other.
Not until he'd kissed him.
He'd pinned him to that mat with the intention of clarifying the elephant in the room, of addressing the way that Alec's feelings were distracting them both.
It was only when he saw how much the younger man was enjoying his touch, the way his own blood was singing, a wild roaring rush in his ears, that the idea crossed his mind.
Any thought of revealing himself to Alec was gone.
After all, there was little chance of his love going against the Clave, not when his siblings would be at risk. From the way the younger shadowhunter had spoken of them, he sounded less like their brother and more like their parent. He told of their accomplishments and fretted when they were ailing or injured, spoke proudly of their advancements as shadowhunters while saying very little of his own. He had very little doubt that with Valentine being considered an enemy of the Clave, discovering his identity would run Alec off. Hell it might even turn the beautiful archer against him, a thought that turned his stomach in a way he'd never believed possible.
Tightening his grip on the young man, he pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and vowed that he'd do whatever he could to keep the other from discovering the truth.
Anything to hold on to him, forever. He would not be like Michael.
No, he would never be as foolish as the angel who'd facilitated his mate's Fall from the Silver City.
*/*
How had things come to this?
Michael stared blankly at the shackled form of his mate, who was glaring back at him with wet starburst eyes. Betrayal burned in the smaller angel's eyes, the once shimmering curtain of his hair slicked with his own blood and that of those who'd fought against him.
"Why?" His love rasped brokenly. "Why would you choose them over us?! Why?!"
"Because It is what was Ordered." He replied coldly. "The law was to love Humans as if they were Our Creator. You may not like it, but to question it? Lucifer-"
"Helel," Lucifer breathed forcing all emotion from his face. Had he not known his mate so well, he'd never have been able to see the way the proceedings were breaking him. "If you are going to sentence me, at the very least call me by my true name, Samael."
Michael felt his grace constrict, and his resolve faltered only slightly. Then he was reminded of the creatures his lover had created, the way he'd gone against their Creator in effort to prove humans inferior. He was reminded of the way his mate had started to pull away from him, the way the others whispered of plans for a rebellion.
His resolve hardened. "Archangel Lucifer, you are charged with High Treason. Your punishment is as stated. You are to be cast from the Heavens, never to return, and into the infernal realm now known as Edom."
Lucifer's eyes widened, then he looked away. "So it shall be."
Michael pursed his lips, trying to ignore the way his Grace screamed in despair at the impending loss of its mate. Instead, he turned sharply in his heel and left before his composure could break.
"So it shall be."
*/*
It's only when he dies, only days after their one year anniversary that he realizes just what the dreams mean.
Alec had been sent on a diplomatic mission in Spain for the week and he'd decided to use that time to progress his plans. It had started off fairly easy, as he'd been able to check in on his…investments as well as plan a few raids his men needed to get done. It wasn't until he'd joined in on one of the raids that things had gone wrong.
They'd been told that the pack would be a small one, only six men or so. Unaware of his impending attack and easily accessible.
The pack was easily accessible...but they'd also been waiting for them with over thirteen wolves, fully shifted.
His men were massacred on arrival.
His own death was much slower.
The alpha had plunged his claws into his gut and decided to gloat as he bled out, however, he'd gotten the last laugh.
His seraph blade had found itself buried in the beast's throat.
As it did, a burning sensation spread from his wound through his body, more intense than anything he'd ever felt. His blood boiled in his veins, heart racing like it was ready to beat out of his chest, and he couldn't-
He couldn't do anything but scream.
Millennia of memories flooded his mind, each vivid and bittersweet, familiar and not.
He was Valentine Morganstern. Rogue shadowhunter, leader of the war against downworlders.
He was Samael, later known as Michael. Seraphim then Archangel, former mate of the Archangel Lucifer and leader of Heaven's Armies.
He was neither.
He was both.
Just as he thought he could take no more, blessed oblivion embraced him and he was distantly aware of his (their) grace exploding out of his vessel (body).
When he awakens, hours later, he smiles.
A wide bloodstained grin baring too many teeth.
He smiles, and tells himself that the way his grace is screaming and reaching in the direction of his home is just an illusion.
He doesn't quite believe himself.
*/*
Alexander was waiting for him when he returned.
With Michael's memories and his own merging, he could easily see the resemblance between the young shadowhunter and Helel. The two bore the same ivory skin and dark hair. Worse, he knew that under the glamour the younger never dared to remove he bore the same stardusted shimmer that his (Michael's) mate had once borne, the same nebulous gaze. It makes him love the boy more, something dark curling possessively around his heart, as those worried hazel eyes locked on his battered appearance.
"Are you alright?" Alec breathed, his hands trembling as the fluttered over his tattered clothing, the blood staining them.
He caught the hands, pressing a kiss to the raven's fingertips. "I'm fine, my love. My iratze healed the majority of it."
The archer nodded, a slight flush dancing across his cheeks and Valentine felt that possessive part of him rear its head. Beneath his skin, his grace was reaching for the smaller man, connecting with something cold and dormant, bright, and suddenly he knows.
He knows.
Alexander is Helel.
His love in this life and that are the same, and he wants to reclaim him. He wants to ensure that he knows he's returned to him, that he belongs to no one but him. But-
But.
Helel's grace has yet to awaken. It lay dormant beneath Alexander's skin and after their last encounter all those millennia ago, he is unsure of how the other would react to him forcing it awake.
So he draws his grace back, and presses a chaste kiss on the lips of the shadowhunter before him tries not to feel cheated.
He fails.
And deep within him, the hatred that had fueled his crusade...burns brighter than ever before.
*/*
He can feel his grace growing more restless with each passing day.
Alexander is able to slip away from the institute less often than before and in the dark of night, he reveals that his parents are spending more time in Idris leaving his as the acting head of the institute. The teen confides that his siblings are becoming harder to keep in line, seeing his appointment as a boone for their activities.
Even his own operations begin to pick up speed and eventually it becomes harder to separate Valentine Morganstern from Lucian Valentine. He finds himself growing colder, especially as his grace grows more restless, as Alec begins to grow sympathetic to downworlders and eventually it all comes to a head.
It happened shortly after Alec's eighteenth birthday. His lover had began to speak of the ways he wanted to help downworlders, the way he was hoping to one day create a center for young "Shadowworlders" as the younger called them. With each word his anger had grown because didn't Alexander understand that downworlders were the enemy? They were the reason Michael had lost Lucifer! The reason Valentine had lost him the first time around.
They were a plague.
Alexander had argued against him, and before he knew it...he'd struck him.
His angel.
He'd struck his younger lover in a way he'd never dared to strike Jocelyn, a way he himself had sworn never to strike anyone that graced his bed.
Alec had frozen, staring up at him wide-eyed, then he'd looked away, flinching when Valentine reached for him.
"Alexander, mio angelo, I-"
The archer shook his head, standing swiftly. "I should leave."
"No." He replied, grabbing him before he could reach the door. His lover cringed away, wincing as the elder tightened his grip, but he hardly noticed.
All he could feel was his grace lashing out inside of him, screaming in despair at losing its mate once more.
He couldn't let him leave.
"Don't. You- you can't leave."
"Lucian-"
"I said, no." He snapped, his tone reminiscent of the one he used when his subordinates disobey him. His raven swallowed thickly, fear glittering in those hazel eyes and he could feel something in him, crack. Something that relished in that expression in a gaze that normally burned with rapture and love.
"Okay." Alec whispered, and he pretended not to feel the tremor in his arms as he settled back onto the sofa they'd been sitting on. "I'll stay."
He smiled, a brittle, warm expression, and tried to push away that part of him. "Good."
It isn't until they're lying in bed that night, Alexander's ivory flesh stained with blooming lilac that he realizes he wasn't able to.
*/*
He can't stop.
The violence becomes more common place as the darker parts of his personality begin to overshadow the persona he'd built for Alexander. He watches in equal parts despair and rapture as his fists paint his lover's flesh in shades of reds and violets, as his angel begins to shatter. He watches as his love grows ill, as he starts to withdraw into the shell he'd spent so long drawing him out of, timid in a way he'd rarely been. Even their love-making is affected, rougher than he'd ever allowed it to be when he'd been with Jocelyn and full of a power imbalance that's almost heady.
It becomes their new way of life, and whereas once he'd have been tempted to change it, he finds himself unable to. Not when he's suddenly closer to having Alexander join his side than he'd ever been. Not when he's almost completely broken Maryse's eldest.
It becomes so comfortable, that he finds himself completely unprepared when Alec arrives at their home, his face withdrawn and cold.
"Alexander?"
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't turn you in, Valentine Morganstern?"
TBC...
