FicWad

Drystan awoke to a sharp pain in his side. He couldn’t remember falling asleep, nor could he recall where he had been before everything went blank. Glancing down at his legs, he saw he was still fully clothed—thankfully—and his cross necklace was still hanging around his neck.

Although he wasn’t restrained, it was obvious that the room he found himself in was locked. There were no windows, just concrete walls and a metal door, giving it the feel of a grim, makeshift prison cell.

He shivered in the cold air.

He was about to try standing when the grating sound of the metal door scraping against the concrete floor drew his attention. His eyes snapped to the door.

A woman stood in the doorway, towering and imposing. Her long black hair cascaded over her chest, and she wore scant clothing. Drystan frowned.

His first thought was dismissive.

Whorish.

It was an instinctive reaction to her appearance.

Her voice was low and quiet, carrying an undercurrent of menace that the dim lighting of the room seemed to amplify. For a brief moment, she appeared almost intimidating, but Drystan quickly dismissed the notion. The idea of the son of God being intimidated by a mere woman was absurd.

The sharp clack of her heels against the concrete floor echoed through the room, reverberating in Drystan’s ears until it became almost unbearable.

He felt… dizzy.

He must have been drugged, he thought. There was no way a woman could have managed to lock him in this room without his knowledge while he was conscious.

“What do you want?” he thought he said.

The woman didn’t react at all. Only then did Drystan realize that the words hadn’t made it past his lips, replaced instead by a pathetic whine.

His throat burned. He winced at the sensation.

“What was that?” the woman asked. She was standing in front of Drystan now, bent down to his level. Her eyes—red and daring—bored into his. “Were you trying to speak to me?”

He made another attempt to speak, but again, only a pained noise escaped his lips.

“Poor baby,” the woman whispered, her hand reaching toward Drystan’s neck. She tilted his face up, gently and slowly, as if she cared, examining the damage.

There was a bruise in the shape of a handprint—a man’s handprint, large and imposing—wrapped around his neck. It was hot, like a burn.

“I told them to be gentle with you. Imps never listen.”

“Im… Imps?” Drystan finally squeaked out.

“Yes, dear, imps. Do you know where you are?”

The woman reached her hand toward his chest, wrapping her fingers around his cross. The metal was cold against her skin as she examined it. She flipped it over to see the back, and sure enough, his initials were burnt into it. They had captured the right angel.

Drystan shook his head, unable to comprehend his surroundings.