She lowered her chin to her chest and touched her hand to her forehead. “I want answers, too,” she said. “I loved him as a brother, too. But we have to learn to move forward. I know you loved him, but you love me, too. And I need to know that there’s a future for us beyond this search. Can’t our love be enough?”
She looked up, her green eyes shimmering with tears.
I pressed my lips together to keep them from trembling. Sorrow and guilt pinched the back of my throat. “No,” I said. “It will never be enough.”
Lea’s breath hitched and she clamped her hand to her mouth, then shifted into black smoke.
I clenched my fists and let my head fall back. I didn’t mean to let that slip out, but she was pushing me too hard.
I had to follow her.
She had left the main road and flown into a dark wooded area. I followed the trail of her magic, flying fast through the trees to catch up to her. The forest was dense and dark with gnarled trees that split off in many directions, and I had to force my focus onto her trail, blocking out everything on either side.
And when the trail broke through the barrier of trees and into a clearing, I stopped, finding her staring out into a field.
“I’m sorry, Lea,” I said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Shut up,” she said, gripping my chin between her thumb and index finger.
I stepped back in shock. She’d never spoken to me so firmly. I didn’t understand until she turned my head to the side, forcing me to really look at the clearing here in the middle of the dark forest.
I gasped and fell to my knees.
Spread out before us were more than a thousand black roses.
A Red Dragon
The pattern here wasn’t the same circular pattern as what I’d seen in my vision, but this was the first real break we’d had in ten years.
Lea leaned down to touch one, but a voice spoke from the darkness just inside the trees to our left.
“You don’t want to touch that,” he said.
Lea stood and I moved in front of her, my hand out to the side to shield her. These roses were well hidden. Anyone who knew about them was likely partnered with whoever killed my brother.
My free hand went to the sword strapped to my back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lea reach for her bow and arrow.
“Show yourself,” I said.
Laughter sounded from the darkness.
“I’m not your enemy,” the voice said.
A figure emerged from the cover of the gnarled trees. He was hovering in an in-between state, half shadow, half solid form. For him to hold onto both so steadily, he had to have tremendous amount of control and power.
He was tall and straight, his confidence obvious from the way he carried himself. He lifted his hands into the air, black shadows swirling around them.
“Who are you?” I asked. Every part of my body was on high alert, ready to react at any sudden movement or attack. Aerden had been one of the best warriors I’d ever known. For someone to have gotten the upper hand, they had to have been strong. Or very smart.
He did not answer.
He took several more steps toward us, keeping to the edge of the sinister flowers. His eyes moved beyond me and he lowered his eyes, bowing slightly at the waist. “Princess.”
Behind me, Lea lowered her bow.
So he recognized us. Or at least her. Did that mean he was just a citizen of the city or one of the nearby villages? If so, what was he doing here by the roses?
“How did you come by these flowers?” I asked. “What do you know about them?”
He glanced toward the roses, an eyebrow raised. “I grew up in a village near here,” he said. “My mother is an herbalist, making potions from plants and roots. She taught me a few things here and there.”
“No one in the villages near here know anything about these roses,” I said. I didn’t trust this demon.
“Well, that’s because these are my roses,” he said. He took several more steps toward us, and I didn’t know whether to stand my ground or back away.
If these were his roses, then he definitely had some kind of connection to my brother’s death. I just hadn’t decided yet if he was friend or foe. There was something about his confidence that made me feel uneasy, as if I was being handled and manipulated.
He took another step and I pushed my sword out toward him. “You can stop there,” I said.
He smiled and shrugged, lowering his hands. And when he did, a band around his arm came into clear view among the swirling shadows.
My heart stopped beating and the vision of Aerden’s last moments came back to me in a rush. Someone wearing the same insignia had run toward him, but they had been cloaked in darkness.
Cloaked in shadows.
This demon wore the same insignia on a band around his arm.
A red dragon.
He was there when my brother died. I lifted my sword to his neck, my hands gripping the hilt so tightly my palms burned.
“You were there,” I said, my voice strained in fury. “Speak, demon.”
He stared at the sword, then raised his hands again and backed away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Liar.” I nodded toward his armband. “The dragon you wear on your arm. I’ve seen that before.”
He glanced at his arm, then tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Where?”
I took one hand off of my sword, but left the weapon outstretched toward him. I lowered my pack to the ground and dug through it until I found the right drawing. I shoved it toward him, then backed up again.
The demon gripped the page, his nostrils flaring. “Where did you get this?”
“I drew it,” I said. “Do you deny that this is you?”
He studied the page harder. He brought the page up close to his eyes, taking his time looking at every single detail. This was my best drawing of the dragon, but I had enlarged it so that you couldn’t see much of what else was going on in the background.
“This isn’t me,” he said.
“You’re lying,” I said. “The band is exactly the same. If it isn’t you, then you surely know who it is. And I want answers.”
“Answers about what?” Andros asked.
“About my brother’s death,” I said. This time, I was the one who stepped forward. I’d had it with this demon’s conversation. He either needed to start giving clear answers or he needed to die.
After ten years of searching for something—anything—I was ready for blood.
“Tell me what you know, or so help me, you will die by this sword today.”
The demon’s eyes flicked toward Lea and he shook his head. “You would be wise to move on now,” he said. “I can’t help you.”
I shifted and reformed behind him before he had a chance to move. My arm slipped around his throat and I pressed the tip of my sword against his side. I moved my mouth close to his ear, my teeth clenched tight. “What did you do?” I asked. “I need answers. Why Aerden? What did he do to deserve death at the hands of a demon like you?”
He didn’t struggle against my hold. He didn’t even seem concerned with my anger, which only further fueled my rage.
“Your brother?” he asked. “He’s…”
He shook his head and shifted into shadows, slipping through my grasp like air. With the sword pressed against him as hard as I had it, he shouldn’t have been able to shift completely into shadow form, but his ability to focus continued to surprise me.
“He’s what?” I asked. The more he talked in circles, the more I wanted to see him kneeling at my feet, begging for mercy.
He reformed beside Lea and I barreled toward him, gripping his armband in my fist. I ripped it from his coat and shoved it in his face.
“What were you doing there when he died? I have to know,” I said.
He didn’t speak or even seem rattled by my anger. He simply turned his back on me.
“Talk,” I said. I
pressed my sword against his back, pushing deep enough to draw blood. “Or I will kill you. I swear it.”
Andros turned around, a strange gleam in his eyes.
“I’d like to see you try,” he said.
A True Warrior
Rage flowed through me and ice frosted over the length of my sword.
The demon’s eyes widened and he smiled, taunting me.
I clenched my jaw tight and spun around, putting the full force of my anger into my weapon as it sliced through the air. In the instant before I split him in half, the demon shifted into shadow and flew high into the air, leaving a trail of black smoke behind him.
I shifted and pushed up from the ground, chasing him. He reformed at the opposite side of the circle of roses, then reached out and with his bare hand, he stopped one of Lea’s arrows just before it pierced his skin. He simply closed his fist around it as if it had been moving in slow motion.
The arrow disintegrated into ash and floated to the ground. The demon wiped his hand against his leg, completely unfazed. With a flick of his wrist, vines emerged from the forest and wrapped around Lea’s hands and legs. She screamed.
“I can’t shift. Denaer, run,” she said. “He’s too powerful. Get help.”
The vines tightened against her wrists and ankles, then jerked her backward stabilizing her back against a tree.
I swung my sword over the top of my head, then pulled it forward, sinking it deep into the ground in front of me. The earth around the blade froze in an instant. A frozen circle spread out in layers, going through the flowers on one side and the trees on the other, ice popping and cracking as it crystallized.
It happened in an instant, but the demon acted faster than I could have imagined. He squatted down and placed his hand flat against the ground. My ice path stopped spreading, then rapidly melted.
My chest tightened and I focused my eyes on the demon’s face.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked. I had never sparred with anyone so effortlessly powerful.
“My name is Andros,” he said. He nodded his head. “Nice to meet you.”
He seemed to think this was funny. He didn’t think we were capable of hurting him in any way, but he didn’t understand the full force of my despair and anger. I wouldn’t stop until I had brought him to his knees.
I gripped the hilt of my sword and pulled it from the ground. I secured it into my backpack and with both hands now free, I held them out from my sides. I planted my feet firmly on the ground and lifted, drawing water up from several layers below the surface. A hole opened in the ground in front of me and water poured from it.
I reached forward and pulled thin rods of ice from the fountain one at a time. I threw them toward the demon as fast as I could. One direct hit and the ice would pierce straight through him. He would die in moments.
He managed to dodge all but the last one.
My heart leapt into my throat as I watched the final rod soar through the air toward his neck.
His eyes widened and for a moment, I thought I had him beat.
Then, he drew in a breath and blew outward with a great force. Flames erupted from his mouth and the ice evaporated, not even a drop of water left.
The flames singed my skin and I fell backward, lifting my arms to protect my face from the heat. I scrambled against the ground, panic seizing my body. I was in way over my head. I needed to run, but I couldn’t leave Lea here. I reached for my sword, trying to calculate the distance to her from here and whether I could sever all four vines before the demon could stop me.
But before I even realized what was happening, he pressed a dagger to my throat.
I tried to shift, but he had me locked into form.
I struggled against his grip, crying out when the tip of his dagger pierced my skin.
He leaned forward, his breath hot against my ear. “You have spirit,” he said. “With training you could be a true warrior like your brother.”
“Don’t you dare speak of him,” I said.
“Your brother isn’t dead,” he whispered.
I kicked against the ground, but wasn’t strong enough to pull myself from his grip. I grabbed his arm, sending what was left of my magic through my hands and into his body. He should have frozen like a statue, but instead, a tiny layer of ice frosted over his clothing, then melted in an instant.
“Kill me if you must,” I said. “But don’t tell me lies.”
“It’s not a lie.”
“I saw him die,” I said. “I felt him ripped from me.”
The demon loosened his grip and I scrambled to my feet, my hands going to my new wound. It burned so deeply, I felt feverish and ill.
“Not dead,” he said. “Merely taken from this world.”
I shook my head, not believing him.
“Impossible,” I said. “Portal magic has been dead for centuries. There’s no way to leave this world.”
“It’s been rediscovered,” he said. He sheathed his dagger in a strip of leather at his waist.
I charged him, but he shifted. I lost my balance and stumbled against a tree. I didn’t have the power for this kind of fight anymore. Without Aerden, I was nothing. Weak and helpless.
Even after ten years, I was broken without him.
I leaned my head against the tree, my throat constricting and my eyes hot with anger.
“Why, then?” I asked. “Why did you take him?”
The demon appeared behind me and I braced myself for pain as he reached out. But instead of hurting me, he placed a comforting hand on my back. I looked up, confused.
Compassion softened his dark eyes.
“I told you, I am not your enemy,” he said.
“Then why were you there on the day my brother was taken?” I asked.
“I didn’t take your brother,” he said. “But I know who did.”
She’s My Future
The Human World – Present Day
Behind me, something moved in the woods at the outer edge of the clearing.
I stood, expecting to see my brother. Instead, it was Lea who emerged from the darkness.
“What are you doing way out here?” she asked. She’d taken her hair down and it flowed like black silk down her back.
“Just thinking of the past,” I said. “Do you remember the day we first met Andros?”
Lea smiled. “I remember he kicked our asses,” she said. “He could have killed us both if he’d wanted.”
I shook my head. “If it wasn’t for him, I wonder if I ever would have found out the truth about what happened to Aerden,” I said. “If you hadn’t found those black roses—”
“You were never going to stop searching for the truth,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “Even if you’d never met Andros that day. Losing your brother changed you. Once it happened, there was never any real path back to the demon I used to know. Believe me, I searched.”
She said it with a laugh, but her pain was still obvious, even after all these years.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I said, the golden locket heavy in my pocket.
Lea kicked at a cluster of crushed stones. “I know,” she said.
But she didn’t know. All this time, I had kept my promise to Aerden. I had never told Lea that the heart stone I gave her on the day of our engagement was not my truth.
It was his.
My truth belonged to someone else. My heart was destined for another. It always had been.
Lea turned and brushed at her cheeks. She was so tough and hard these days, but I knew better. I knew that once upon a time, she had been soft and beautiful and full of hope.
I felt partially responsible for how drastically she had changed in the past hundred years.
What would our life had been like if Aerden had never been taken? What would she have been like?
I sighed and reached into my pocket. I curled my fist around the golden case, rubbing its smooth surface between my fingers. There was something I’d been wanting to do for a while and now, I r
ealized this was the moment.
It was time.
I had already been the cause of so much of her pain, I hated to hurt her again, but there was only one path to my future. And in order to move forward, I had to remove certain obstacles from my past.
According to demon tradition, I was still engaged to her. Her desperate kiss to lower the veil had been enough to secure our promise and as long as I held her heart stone, I also held her heart.
It was time I let her go.
It was time we both moved on, once and for all.
“I never really said thank you for everything you did for me back then,” I said. “You were there for me when I thought I’d lost everything, and I know there’s nothing I could ever do to repay you for that.”
She turned toward me, her eyes gleaming with tears.
“I loved you,” she said. She lowered her head and another tear escaped down her cheek. “I still love you.”
I took my hand from my pocket and opened my palm flat. The golden locket gleamed in the moonlight. “I need you to let me go,” I said.
She lifted her hand to her throat and took a slow breath.
“You’re going to propose to her?” she asked, raising her chin and straightening her shoulders.
“I love her,” I said. “She’s my future.”
She bit down on her lip and took several deep breaths before she finally reached out and took the golden locket from my outstretched hand. “And I’m your past.”
“Yes,” I said, guilt like a rope around my heart.
Lea reached around her neck and pulled a thin gold chain over her head. Hanging on the end of it was the matching locket I’d given her when we met inside the veil one hundred and one years ago this day.
She unclasped the chain and slid the locket off into her hand. She lifted it to her lips and kissed it gently, tears streaming down her face.
It had been decades since I’d seen her show such emotion and vulnerability. I hated that I was the cause of such a deep wound in her heart.
A Demon's Wrath: Part I (Peachville High Demons) Page 6