The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Cassian’s hand was wrapped around Rafael’s collar.

His fist had gathered the fabric so tightly that the shirt twisted against Rafael’s throat, pressing into his windpipe, cutting the air to something thin and shallow. Cassian held him with one arm, the muscles in his forearm rigid, his knuckles white, his grip absolute.

He pushed.

One moment they were in the Palace. The next they were not.

The world blurred. The walls dissolved. The marble floor dropped away beneath their feet and was replaced by something dry and cracked and ancient. The air changed. The temperature changed. The light changed.

When the world solidified again, they were standing in a desert.

Flat. Endless. A landscape of cracked earth stretching to every horizon. The sky above was not blue but copper, heavy and metallic, as though the sun here burned a different colour. There was no wind. No sound. No life. Just heat rising from the ground in visible waves and the vast, suffocating silence of a place that had not been touched by anything human in a very long time.

Cassian released Rafael’s collar and shoved him forward.

Rafael staggered. His feet scraped against the dry earth. He caught his balance, rolled his shoulders, and straightened. He turned to face Cassian.

He was grinning.

”There he is,” Rafael said. His voice carried across the empty desert. ”The Devil himself. Dragged out of his own Palace by three syllables.”

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

”Ci-xi,” Rafael pronounced each syllable slowly as though tasting them. ”It was so easy. All I had to do was sit in her living room and play with her and you came crawling out of that study like a dog hearing a whistle.”

Cassian’s fist connected with Rafael’s jaw.

The impact was heavy. Rafael’s head snapped to the side. His body followed. He flew backwards, his feet leaving the ground, and hit the cracked earth six metres away. Dust exploded upward from the point of impact.

Rafael lay still for half a second. Then he laughed.

He pushed himself up from the ground. He wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand and looked at it. Then he looked at Cassian.

”Good,” Rafael said. ”I was worried you had gone soft.”

He then lunged and closed the distance in a fraction of a second. Faster than any human body should move. His fist drove toward Cassian’s ribs with a force that would have shattered concrete.

Cassian caught it.

His palm closed around Rafael’s fist, and he twisted. Rafael’s body spun with the motion, and Cassian drove his knee into Rafael’s stomach. The air left Rafael’s lungs in a violent rush. Cassian released his fist and brought his elbow down against the back of Rafael’s neck.

Rafael hit the ground face first. The earth cracked beneath him.

He rolled sideways before Cassian’s boot could pin him. He swept his leg in a wide arc and caught Cassian’s ankle. Cassian stumbled. Rafael was on his feet in the same instant, driving his shoulder into Cassian’s chest, sending both of them crashing backwards across the desert floor.

They hit the ground together. Dust and stone erupted around them. Rafael swung from above. His fist connected with Cassian’s cheek. Once. Twice.

Cassian caught the third punch. He headbutted Rafael. The crack of skull against skull echoed across the empty landscape. Rafael reeled back and Cassian threw him off, rising to his feet with the controlled fury of something ancient that had been provoked past the point of restraint.

Rafael spat blood onto the cracked earth. He stood. His shirt was torn. His lip was split. A bruise was already forming along his jaw.

But he was still grinning.

”You are going to kill me over a pregnant girl?” Rafael asked. He tilted his head. ”Over a mortal?”

”What I do is none of your business.” Cassian’s voice was low. Controlled. Deadly. ”And my business... you should have stayed away from. You have already crossed many lines, Rafael. I think I am done! If you say her name one more time, I will tear your tongue from your mouth and feed it to the desert.”

Rafael laughed. The sound was sharp and reckless. ”You are obsessed, brother.”

”I am not your brother.”

”We share the same blood.”

”Blood can be drained.”

Rafael’s grin faltered. Just for a second. Just long enough for something real to flash behind his eyes. No fear. Recognition. The recognition of a man who had pushed a boundary and could see, clearly, the edge of the cliff he was standing on.

But he did not step back.

”You brought me here to fight,” Rafael said. ”So fight.”

Cassian moved.

He crossed the space between them so fast that the air was displaced around his body. His hand closed around Rafael’s throat. He lifted him off the ground. Rafael’s feet dangled. His hands gripped Cassian’s wrist. His eyes bulged.

”I am going to end you,” Cassian said quietly.

Rafael choked. He clawed at Cassian’s fingers. His legs kicked. Then, through the constriction of his throat, he forced out a sound that was half laugh and half wheeze.

”And yet...” Rafael rasped, ”You will not. She cares for me. And you know it. She will not like you killing me at all... while everyone thinks, including Cixi, that you are the one who killed my elder brother...” and Rafael laughed once more.

Cassian’s grip tightened.

Rafael’s face reddened. His eyes watered. But the grin stayed. Broken and bloody and defiant.

”It was so easy to get you out,” Rafael whispered. ”You have got some weakness, Cassian. And that weakness is beautiful... Although I must say the fake pregnancy, I love the idea....”

Cassian held him there. The desert stretched in every direction. The copper sky pressed down. The heat shimmered between them.

Then Cassian opened his hand.

Rafael dropped. He hit the ground hard, coughing, gasping, his hands pressing against his own throat. He rolled onto his side and spat blood into the dust.

Cassian stood over him. His face was unreadable. His fists were clenched at his sides. His knuckles were split and bleeding.

”Get up,” Cassian said.

Rafael looked up at him from the ground. Blood on his teeth. Dust in his hair. That infuriating, unbreakable grin still clings to his face.

”Round two?” Rafael asked.

Cassian did not answer. He did not need to. The desert answered for him. The ground beneath Rafael’s body began to tremble. The cracks in the earth widened. The copper sky darkened by a shade.

Rafael’s grin finally, finally, wavered.

And Cassian Crown, the Devil who had been pulled from his own Palace by the sound of his obsession’s name, looked down at the man who had used that name as bait and decided exactly how much pain the lesson required.

”Stop horsing around, both of you! It’s evident that you have forgotten the fundamentals of fighting demons!” Came a voice they hadn’t anticipated.....

”The King!” Rafael muttered under his breath....