Samael shed his thick robes as soon as he entered the room that had once belonged to his predecessor. It was perhaps what he hated most about these Conclave meetings, these useless habits that deprived his muscles from much earned attention. Still, his representative position earned him a different kind of attention. It did not completely displease him.

Across the room, he watched old Nathaniel's head. It was still where he had left it. Councillors really did enjoy special rights. It had been at least a year since Samael had killed him and taken over, and the archangel’s head hadn’t flamed away as it should have. No matter. Samael liked the old angel’s leathery face stretched with shock from when he beheaded him. In his last seconds, the most venerable Nathaniel had managed a little emotion.

Samael threw himself over the bed, letting his pale blue eyes search the marbled ceiling. The mirth was impossible to erase. Since he had taken over, these gatherings had been tedious and draining, making him believe his decision to infiltrate the Conclave had been useless, but today he'd been proven wrong. Today, she came. After all these years, Samael had smelled her, even past his brother’s stench. His grin widened, unable to contain the giddiness. “She finally came, Diva.”

He turned to the still body strapped on the bed. “Diva, did you hear me? She finally came! She was hiding, and I nearly choked as soon as I realised it. It was her! My real Diva. She smelled the same, you know. So lovely. So angry.”

The Seer strapped to his bed twitched and Samael clenched his nose. “Oh lord, not like you! Ugh, you couldn’t hold it a bit longer?”

His frown was momentary, for the joy he felt trumped everything else. Nothing could ruin this moment. Samael sat himself, removing the last of his layers, exposing his bare chest and finally flexing his wings.

He knelt beside the bed, eyes wide and fixed on the rotting Seer. He rocked the bed they had broken together many months before he had reduced her to her meagre state. She used to cry more, calling for her sisters; calling for her queen, begging for forgiveness for choosing him over her sisterhood. No one came. No one dared to enter the chambers of a Conclave councillor. Now she just managed weak moans. Her black hair had grown almost to Odiva’s length. Samael grabbed thick strands of the Seer’s hair and sniffed, long and hard. It wasn’t the same. He had always suspected it, but the number of years he had last seen and smelled his Diva clouded his senses. Today, he finally confirmed it. With revived memories of her scent, this one was not even close. None of the Seers he'd been with were. All of them, impostors. Diva’s hair; Diva’s smell; Diva’s body was… thicker; shinier. Alive.

What was this one's name, again?

Samael had been calling her Diva, unjustly so. What a fool he had been. Look at her. In her glory days, she didn’t even come to Diva’s heels with her red eyes. In the heat of passion, she had consented and Samael had burnt them; charred them. But even then, they were never as black as Diva’s. Things had never been the same since then. Seers boasted of their magnificent prowess, but cut off their source of nourishment and power, they’ll fade like any other demon. This one lasted the longest, and Samael enjoyed her. She had helped him come this far. Today, however, Diva was back. And now he could show her what he had done for her. What he could still give her. All the things her husband had lost. And then her children would bend their knee to him and call him father.

A pleading, exhausted moan nagged.

Samael cocked his head. Perhaps he needed pity here. He tried and failed. His hand blazed with a blue flame he shaped into a thin line. “Sahri, thank you...so much.”

Perhaps it was the mention of her real name, but like a trapped animal foresensing its doom, the woman’s breaths grew rapid and ragged and her empty eye sockets widened reopening wounds thought to be charred. She uselessly shook her head, refusing her end with growls and indistinct mumbles, no longer in possession of a tongue that could form words.

Samael recalled being taught mercy in Heaven. Not as a feeling. But as a way not to scare human souls before collecting them.

But here, the moans of pain filling his ears and the scent of burning flesh that burrowed in his nostrils as he cut into her throat excited him more than those times they had lay together. With her squirms, something hot bubbled inside him until it exploded.

When it was over, Samael stared at her still form and the cauterising blood on the corners of her severed head. Sahri... He hoped she had felt little pain.