Pregnant by the Prince of Lust(BL)

Azriel

"You are Castiel." It was not truly a question. I already knew the answer before I asked it, had known it the moment he spoke my father’s name aloud, the moment that voice, the very same one I had heard once in Elysium centuries ago, fell from Seraphel’s borrowed lips.

And yet I asked it regardless, staring at the god wearing my mate’s face, silver eyes gazing back at me from beneath silver hair, needing to hear it confirmed all the same.

"What happened to Seraphel?" I demanded, my frown deepening by the second. "How is it that you stand here, and he does not?" I searched the face before me for some trace of him, some flicker of blue beneath the silver, anything that might tell me he was still there, still safe, still mine.

The last thing I wanted was Elysium to Use Seraphels body for their own use.

Castiel only smiled, and my frown grew heavier still, because even now, wearing another god’s light and another color in his eyes, he still looked so achingly like Seraphel that it unsettled me. "I know you are troubled for your mate, but do not fear. He rests within his own sea of consciousness even now, and hears every word that passes between us. I wanted to tell him alone but you also deserved to hear it.’’

I stared at him, weighing whether to trust the claim, until the memory surfaced on its own, the words that had carried me and my brothers through our darkest years locked away, words I had never once forgotten in all the centuries since.

Release Ophaniel’s children. They have suffered enough. Their father Sacrificed his life for them to survive.

They had been carved into my mind long ago, every syllable of them, because they had meant far more to me than I had ever let myself admit.

"Then tell me why you are here," I said. "How is it you came to possess Seraphel’s body?"

"A fair question." Castiel folded his hands before him. "Many years ago, when my brother Celestian grew wary of me, uneasy that I had held the throne for so long, I stepped down and yielded it to him. But that is not the whole truth of it."

I felt my brows draw together, already bracing myself for what I suspected would follow, some tale of betrayal, of Celestian and the rest of Elysium turning against him, casting him out the way they had once cast out so many others before him.

"I gave everything I had to seal Draca," Castiel continued. "And having spent so much of my power in that sealing, I descended into the mortal realm to recover what remained of my strength. There, I found a human." His voice softened, distant, as though the memory still pulled at something within him even now. "The most beautiful human I had ever laid eyes upon. A gentle omega, pure of heart, with the bluest eyes I had ever seen."

At the mention of blue eyes, something in my chest tightened, and I felt my own eyes widen before I could stop them.

"A deity cannot possess a human’s body," Castiel went on, "unless that human is either the deity’s own reincarnation, or bound to them by blood."

My fists, which I had not realized were clenched at my sides, slowly loosened. I raised a hand toward him, my voice catching in my throat. "You... you are bound to Seraphel by blood."

Castiel nodded, something almost tender passing behind his silver eyes. "I gave him that name myself, after my own beloved mate. Seraphel."

I paused, blinking rapidly, certain for a moment I had misheard him entirely.

"You committed a sin as well, then?" I asked slowly. "As OPhaniel did?"

Castiel shook his head. "After I gave my power to seal Draca away, I fell. I became a fallen god, nothing more, and unlike Ophaniel, who lay with your mother and the mothers of your brothers and fathered sins upon this world, I committed no such transgression. My story ran a different course entirely."

"But he carries your light," I pressed. "How can he carry it still, when you yourself have long since died?"

"Because the power is his by inheritance, not by borrowing." Castiel’s expression grew solemn. "A fragment of my soul remained within him from the moment of his birth, for I wished to watch him grow into command of it himself, exactly as his other father, the human I loved and called Seraphel, wished for him as well. He was born already carrying my light, though it lay dormant within him, sealed away, hidden even from himself, so that Elysium would never sense it and come hunting for what remained of me through him. It stayed buried that way for years, quiet and safe. Then he met you, and the light woke."

I let out a long breath, still turning over everything I had heard, still absorbing the weight of knowing I myself had been the one to stir that sleeping power into wakefulness. "Then that is why he survived your agressive rut. Why he could carry the child of prophecy at all. Because he carries the blood of a god within him."

Castiel inclined his head. "As for the prophecy concerning your child, I foresaw it centuries ago, in the very hour I sealed Draca away. I was told then that something powerful would be born of my lineage, and for a long while I believed that meant Seraphel himself. It was only after his birth that a second vision came to me, one that showed him carrying a child of his own."

Carrying a child. The words echoed through my skull, over and over. If Castiel had seen this vision, had seen our child in it, then it could only mean one thing, our child would live. The future, I had been taught since I was young enough to first draw breath, never lied.

"Do not let yourself grow too pleased," Castiel said, watching my face with something close to worry. "I can see it plainly on you."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, my brow furrowing again. "Is the child’s survival not the very heart of this prophecy?"

Castiel nodded slowly, then folded his arms. "You should turn your worry toward Draca instead. He already knows of the child of prophecy."

"But he remains sealed, by your hand and by the whole of Elysium, has for centuries, and—"

"And you broke that seal yourself, the night you woke his son." Castiel’s voice sharpened, though not unkindly. "The power stirring in the demon bloodlines, joined with the power of Draca’s own son, feeds directly into the seal that binds him, and it is weakening with every passing day. Soon it will shatter entirely, and the very first thing Draca will come for is your beloved child. He will not suffer anything more powerful than himself to exist in this world. He will see to its end, whatever the cost. ’’

My worry rose in my chest like a tide I could not hold back. My hands curled into fists at my sides once more, nails biting into my palms, before I forced them to loosen again, forced my breath to slow, though nothing about what I felt inside matched the calm I tried to wear.

"And Elysium," I said. "Are they not meant to—" My words died in my throat as Castiel lifted a single finger toward me. A thread of blue light shot forward and struck me square in the head.

For a moment, I felt nothing at all. Then my head snapped upward on its own, and memory poured into me all at once, images crashing through my mind faster than I could catch hold of them.

A figure standing over me in the dark, cloaked in shadow and violet light, a voice smooth as silk promising he would go after Seraphel, that he would see to it the light within him bloomed properly. The same figure’s hand pressed to my chest, and the curse of Mirevale lifting off me like smoke burned away by sunlight. Then that same hand pressed to my temple, and darkness swallowing the memory whole, erasing it, folding it away where I would never think to look for it again.

My eyes flew open, wide and unseeing for a moment, before the flood of images finally slowed and stopped.

And there, at the center of it all, I saw his face. The same sharp jaw, the same deep violet hair, the same knowing, predatory smile I had seen only hours ago on the grandmaster who had wrapped his hand around my mate’s throat in the training arena.

Master Paziel.

I lowered my head slowly and met Castiel’s eyes once more, my voice low and even, though something far darker than calm was building beneath it.

"I met Pazuzu a while ago." My jaw tightened. "I am going to kill that bastard."