Mated By The Demon Collections: Paranormal Romance

by Riley Moreno

  The school bell went off again before she could reach the faculty room. The speaker phone in the hallway which was one of many connected to each, and every class as well as the faculty room came to life, with the voice of the principal coming across smooth as silk. All staff and students were expected in the auditorium for an impromptu meeting immediately.

  A few minutes later the hall was packed to overflowing, idle chatter rising to the high ceiling. Students love nothing better than a legitimate excuse to miss class.

  The appearance of the principal on stage brought silence over the crowd like a blanket however, his shoes silent against the concrete of the stage. While not yet breaking into the category of the aged, at fifty-five, the principal, Walter Granger had a quiet air of authority about him. A man of few words, he relied more on action and body language to convey his meaning. The staff certainly respected, and liked him; the kids were not so sure about what to think. He adjusted his half-moon spectacles on his nose, scratched the minuscule white stubble on his chin, and adjusted the microphone like a preacher on a pulpit.

  “An investigation is underway, orchestrated by the district police into a recent mauling in the woods,” he went straight to the point. An excited murmur erupted in the seated crowd, rippling through it from one end to another like a Mexican wave. “Without aiming to satisfy the popular demand for gore, I have been instructed by the police to inform you that it is likely to have been an animal attack, and special caution is called for when going into the woods.”

  Peri Heights was bounded in the north by woods so ancient that the state government had been mulling over the idea of making it a state reserve. The process would have moved along faster, if the town itself had not been so far away. The woods also served as a home to a whole bunch of people, mostly living in trailer parks but also in small communities comprised of log houses spreading out from some common center. These people, while not hostile, kept mainly to themselves. Their kids attended school in the town, but were never social balls of fire. They would often be seen together, but were never overtly affectionate with one another. They were like the town gypsies only less so.

  At the mention of the woods, several eyes turned towards these students, and Patrick Dillon-the teacher’s pet shrunk in his seat, blushing.

  “This is not to frighten anyone but to keep us all on alert. Nothing ever happens in this town, and some of you might think of becoming heroes: forget about it!” A ripple of laughter, light as a feather, caressed the crowd at his last comment; a rare moment of levity from Principal Walter Granger. “And now on a lighter, yet equally serious not, we have here to visit us in our school a member of the founding family of our esteemed locality. Ladies and Gentlemen I introduce to you Mr. Lucius Sloan.”

  A round of applause went up in the crowd. “Mr. Sloan’s father pretty much built this school thirty-five years ago, and now his son has come to see how his father’s legacy is being handled more or less.” Principal Granger echoed at the microphone, over the applause.

  A tall, lithe stranger walked across the stage from behind the curtains. He more like bounced, without seeming to bounce, his feet barely gracing the floor. Yuri felt a ripple of excitement as she observed that he always seemed to be in state of constant poise, something which could only be the product of an unassailable confidence. He was handsome, devastatingly so, and the crowd swooned at his gaze. His eyes had depth, and seemed to go on forever in their greenish gold hue. Like jewels set within his perfectly sculpted face. The voice, in which he addressed the crowd, carried an air of dignity, which made even Principal Walter Granger to seem tame by any standards. It bordered on the aristocratic. He had blond almost orange tinted hair, with every strand immaculately kept in place. It looked almost statuesque. The town was known for its absolute ordinariness, nobody expected the founding family to look this good. Sublime was more the word for it.

  Lucius spoke to the enthralled crowd, encouraging both students and teachers alike in their endeavor to make their community a better place to live in. He gave a brief history of the town as his parents had passed down to him, supposedly as had been passed down to them going back across the generations. More or less it was about a group of hunters, braving the cold of the great outdoors in the prairies. Their courage and resistance against the odds of nature, deep inside bear country was the invisible seam that held the town together. In his words, this bond had to be protected at all costs for the benefit of all present and future generations.

  Yuri thought there was a lot the speech left unanswered, and was just a clever bunch of fluff, even as the crowd went into applause. As the school body filed out of the auditorium however she had to admit that there was within her an uncomfortable desire to get to know this man, Lucius Sloan. It was a sentiment shared by several, unabashed, whispering groups across the hall, all the way to the esteemed faculty room. Nobody was talking about the victim who had been mauled in the woods, Mr. Lucius Sloan had seduced them all, and they had unashamedly gone with him into fantasy. It was an excitement that lasted all though the day, and unto supper tables all over the small city.

  Chapter 3

  It was already getting dark when Yuri arrived at the quaint wooden gate that enclosed her grandfather’s house. The sky, once golden, was now streaked across by grey clouds that ran in long lines across, and towards the horizon. The shadows of the trees, and shrubs lay long, inching away to the East along the front lawn, and the leaves whispered in a silent conversation with the wind. The house looked lonely, and grey from afar; just another fixture in the dull fabric of Peri Heights; the roof, reddened over the decades, had the defeated look of age that had come without the dignity. Up close, it remained an old house, without much fanfare; yet her grandfather had called it home from back when his father had bought it, and that was enough to give it a homely gleam for those to whom that bit of history mattered.

  Tuesdays were the hardest, and Yuri was tired when she arrived. Stepping out of the car, she thought she heard two voices coming from the house. Her grandfather did not receive many visitors, and when he did, they were invariably octogenarians like him who loved nothing better than to reminisce about ‘the good old days’. She contemplated going in through the back door to avoid them, but decided that if she was heard, a move like that could scare the old timers. She crossed the wooden porch in two tired steps, and pushed gently through the wooden front, to step into the living room.

  She immediately felt a tenseness, no a freshness in the atmosphere in the house, the moment she stepped in. She could see her grandfather, sitting in an easy chair, laughing harder than she had ever seen him laugh. His uproar was infectious, and she found herself giggling along with him. There was another person in the living room, seated in such a manner as to have his back facing the door. Yuri could feel an excited chill run up her spine as she recognized the blond hair with a near orange tint.

  “Your granddaughter I presume?” Lucius asked without turning in his seat.

  “Yes, yes it is. A little later than usual but she is finally home.” Jacob Jansen replied as he climbed down from the heights.

  Yuri felt her cheeks grow hot in embarrassment. Her gramps was too old to keep it in his head that she always came a little bit later on Tuesdays. She joined them at the center of the living room. Lucius rose to take her hand in a confident assured handshake. Yuri’s cheeks grew even hotter under his stare, she was light-skinned, and hoped her cheeks were not flushing red at that moment. The manner in which he moved was not like that which she had become accustomed to during her stay at Peri Heights-or anywhere else for that matter. For example when he rose to greet her, she could tell it was not because of any need to neither be nice nor out of a need to please or impress. He did it out of habit. This was how he had been taught a lady should be treated, and he had abided by it.

  “Lucius this is my granddaughter, Yuri; Yuri meet Lucius my good ol’ friend.”

  Yuri giggled at the remark, a bit uneasily because Lucius did not gi
ggle. He found the remark totally adequate and sensible. His gaze was unwavering and unflinching, and Yuri thought she would melt beneath the full glare. He seemed to be seeing into her soul. This was no ordinary man. He was still holding her hand, but now he let go.

  “Uh so how did you end up here in the first place? I mean are you lost or-I’m sorry I don’t know what I am saying. I am just a bit overwhelmed. You made quite a splash at the school today.”

  In the semi-darkness of the gloom encroaching into the living room, Yuri thought she saw him smile just the tiniest bit. “Did you not hear your grand pa? I am catching up with old friends today as it appears. Right now I must be off however,” and he turned to leave. The mention of her grandfather had jogged Yuri’s brain back to remembrance for she had quite forgotten him, and she turned to look at him. On turning back a second later, she could already see him a ways through the door. She wondered how he could move so fast without seeming to hurry.

  “Let him be; he’s surely had a tiring day, even for somebody like him.” Old man Jacob said from behind her.

  Yuri stopped in her tracks, not quite sure why she was out of breath, nor why she was out of breath. What she was sure of however was that her heart was throbbing, straining out of her chest for this stranger. She was not sure anybody else could make it beat quite the same way again.

  She tossed, and turned through the night, her unsettled mind restraining her body from ever really going to rest. The overcast sky that greeted the small town the next morning reflected her mood. She felt absolutely puerile, as she mulled over the possibility of calling in sick and not going to school that day. She forced herself through the motions, and was ready for school in time to make a brisk walk to the campus. She thought a walk would do a lot to eradicate any lingering cobwebs from her brain. The cold lingered that morning, and she traced words with her breath to amuse herself on her way to school. She appreciated the icy feel of the wind upon her face, and tried to put away any thoughts of Mr. Lucius Sloane from her mind.

  Chapter 4

  At the end of the school day, the kids from the north of the city, those who lived by or in the woods themselves lingered. Since the mauling, parents from that part of the town had decided on taking the precaution of escorting their kids from school back home. This was going to continue till the whole debacle of the wild animal was over. The front area of the school was alive with new faces, most of them somber, ready to take their children home. Those whose parents could not make it had arranged for their kids to hook up with other groups. Patrick Dillon fell into this category, and was huddled with another group that numbered seven. Most of these people had hardly ever been seen at the school premises, and looked uncomfortable standing there in the middle of the yard. The whole debacle seemed a bit too much, and caused giggles among the other kids who did not live up north, to the obvious embarrassment of the older kids from that area. It was clear that the parents and escorts took the activity serious, however, and were stoic in the performance of their duties. Without further ado, they split up into the different groups, and headed out to their various modes of transport.

  The route from the school passed through the busy town square, which contained all the necessary accessories that made a town, before swerving out from the fracas to go down to the south. The route became lonely after that, the pavement cutting through the forest, so that tall trees rose up like giant cohorts on guard as the vehicles containing the children rode past.

  Lucius stood hidden up in the trees, and he watched the procession go past. He was about fifty feet high, standing on one of the sturdy branches of one of these trees. In the dark gloom that pervaded the lower branches of the forest canopy that overcast day, his eyes shone bright-the glass eyes of the cat, staring ahead and not missing anything.

  He was aware the precautions being taken by the largely bear community had a lot to do with him. Rather, it had everything to do with him. He could understand why they would go to such lengths. One could never be sure. However he did not attack that man in the forest that day. How could he? It had occurred a day before he showed up. That meant the question remained: who did? Was there another tiger in the community-his community? If so, how had he slipped past the bears for so long? The last thing Lucius wanted was a full blown war erupting in the town square, and he had long made up his mind to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  When the procession of cars had gone past, he got down on all fours, still on the branch, and bounded to the next. In the semi-darkness up among the trees, he barely made a sound as he bounded from branch to branch, and from tree to tree in the direction of the town square. It was late in the afternoon now, and a good time to check on his old friends still living in the area. Most of them were in the seventies, and eighties-there were a few nonagenarians too. Most still lived at their old houses, a few had moved to the old people’s home. He had hoped that apart from catching up with decades past since he had last been here, they could help him trace exactly who was new in town or at least behaving strangely. It did not help that most of them were well in to the stages of senility. Seeing his old friends had been refreshing, especially Jacob Jansen, whom Lucius had been particularly fond of. Thoughts of Old Man Jansen invariably brought up thoughts of his granddaughter. Lucius purred softly as her light-skinned face, voluptuous curves filled his thoughts. He stopped just a few trees short of the clearing that lay after the forest in that direction. Jacob had called her Yuri.

  Lucius licked his lips unconsciously; a tiger had seen the perfect prey. Yuri Jansen set his appetite on edge as had not happened in decades. Her seductive, questioning eyes, like liquid pools of caramel set his teeth on edge. Her full lips, brown and round thrilled him to the point of ecstasy. She reminded him of the trill he used to experience before setting after his prey, back in the old days, when Tiger-shifters used to hunt flesh. He would have her, and he would keep her. He thought so with the same self-assured confidence with which he bounded down the 60 meter tree. He first let himself fall, then midway through the air, he turned, took one agile step along the tree, and landed on the ground the next second-on his four feet.

  There was no breeze, at the level of the road, and the dark, slightly greenish overcoat that he wore in a bid to hide better in the trees, lay still on his back as he walked back into town.

  By the next week, everyone at school with an old person at home had a story to tell about how Lucius had visited their home. Yuri found it strange that Lucius was so interested in the senior community. She did not find it amusing in the least like others did. Above all she was jealous. She could not explain why, and she felt absolutely childish being so, but she could not help it. He had come into her house that first day and set her body on fire. She would have loved to feel that in some way she had impacted his mind, imprinted herself-or that they had shared a moment. Alas, she had not heard as much as a pip from him. She carried this burden on her mind, throughout the first two days of the week, and by the end of Wednesday she was livid. She was going to his place to give him a piece of her mind.

  Old man Jacob had already told her that traditionally people hardly ever went up to the old house on the hill, and when they usually did it was on invitation. She had smiled politely as he said this, having already made up her mind to go there at the first opportunity.

  Chapter 5

  It was already gathering dusk on the Wednesday after school when she set her face hard as flint in the direction of the mansion upon the hill. The road, as opposed to the road that led to the Northern woodlands, swerved to the right from the town square, winding aimlessly through two suburbs before setting itself on a straight course that ran between two areas of scattered trees that stretched for about three hundred meters, before climbing steadily, and winding steadily for about a half mile before opening up to a plateau that led to the house fifty meters away. The house stood on a hill that over looked the entire city, like a beacon. It was certainly not a house that could be walked up to easily, and people suspected
that defense was the raison d’etre for the location.

  Yuri parked on the final bend before coming up on the fifty meter plateau before the house. She had not been invited, and the utter loneliness of the place, seemed a reproach to her for trespassing. The house stared at her sternly. She approached the door carefully, wondering if she should knock. The door was old, but sturdy; a product of a bygone era. It even had a knocker on, in the middle.

  The day was getting chilly at that point, but she could not be sure whether it was the weather or the absolute violation she had embarked upon that made her hands shiver slightly. She shoved any qualms aside, and moved to bang the door.

  Somebody grabbed her firmly from behind. Firm but not harsh, and spun her round. She stared into the forever eyes of Lucius the landlord, and her scream died in her throat.

  His arms were stronger than she would have ever thought. His face was stern, but not unkind. He gripped her shoulders, and held her against the door. Yuri thought she could stay there forever, but that was not her aim of coming.

  “Let go of me, sir,” she began pushing him away.

  “Lucius” he said. He let her go, and took a step back to give her room.

  “Lucius, yes. I don’t know how they do things where you are from, but it is rude to just waltz in and waltz out of people’s houses and lives like you do,” She began all self-righteously, while also aware that she was making absolutely no sense. “I would have thought that you would have come more often seeing as grandpa gets lonely most of the time and he is your friend, and-“