“MIKAYLA! Listen!”
Blake wasn’t sure what to say. He was struggling to think of something, anything.
“Remember!” He screamed getting her attention enough the scales climbing and transforming her skin slowed. It wasn’t until then he got an idea of what to say, what might bring her back to him.
“Yeah, that’s it Mikayla. Remember, when I had to skin and cut up that deer for you to eat in the cabin.”
She tilted her head, frowning in either confusion or concentration. Either way the scales now stopped fully. Blake glanced back at Anock and the twins knowing they could hear him, but the flick of a finger on Anock’s right hand proved something was working so fuck it. Fuck what they thought. Everyone knew of their past life together.
Blake continued trying to calm her. “You had just woken up after I took you with me into the apocalyptic times through my cube.”
He glanced back to Cander watching the snake tail shrink and unwind from his legs slowly. Cander nodded in approval before glancing at Anock. They both knew Blake would have hell to pay for the things he was saying. Blake looked forward now watching Mikayla continue to slowly go back to normal.
He chuckled at the next memory he was going to reveal. “You were such a brat. I had left you alone, vulnerable, all to sneak into the human compound, kill a deer and drag the damn thing back for you. It took hours, I was exhausted when I got back and all you did was take one look at it stomp your tiny foot and declare you weren’t eating that. I knew from that moment on you had me wrapped around your finger.” Blake looked up watching her beautiful eyes go back to their original dark brown, and they held a frown, this time it was clearly in confusion.
He waited another beat, stepping forward reaching out and putting his now uncut hand on her soft cheek, stroking it softly with his thumb, elected a shiver through her. He fought the urge not to respond to that.
“I had fallen in love with the biggest pain in the ass known to man.” Blake whispered it, but he was sure everyone in the whole realm heard it. The words he never got to say before it had been too late last time…before everything reset. The words he shouldn’t be saying with Anock at his back.
When she was completely back to her normal self, Blake felt, more than he saw the power of three figures no longer kneeling and now at his back.
“Blake?” She asked looking around in confusion, glancing down at where he held her intimately.
“It’s okay now.” He said stroking her cheek one last time unable to help himself, he watched her full lips open to speak so he continued on. “It will all be better now.” He said gripping her face holding her in place before bringing up his bleeding palm pushing it over her mouth. He hated this. He hated what he was doing to her. But he’d rather it be him, than anyone else.
She struggled and shook her head back and forth trying to get away, her eyes portraying fear before they rolled back in her head. He lunged forward catching her body weight as she passed out hating the way she had looked at him. It went against everything in his nature to ever discomfort her let alone make her fear him, but with Anock at his back, the time for showing comfort was over.
When Mikayla woke up, her powers would be activated and not a single being in this life or her last life would know how she would react. He just hoped his love would continue to be enough to calm the storm until he could save her and correct the mistake he had made. He lowered her to the ground looking up into the angry eyes of the prince. Her betrothed. They all saw the one thing that could control her above all else, the thing that she was made for that no other being could possibly understand or replicate. Apparently the one thing that could scare a demon prince.
Blake and Mikayla’s love.
Blake tilted a half smile to his master. Rising from the floor he licked his wound shut, as Cander stepped up to his side leaving them both to face off with Anock. He didn’t need to say it out loud, but thought it anyways, making Cander smile and Anock growl.
He was back in the game.
11
Broken
Mikayla watched as Blake stood up licking his bleeding hand. An attractive bleached blonde demon, obvious from his red eyes, wearing a black leather jacket stood next to him. They both faced Anock with cocky grins on their faces, while Anock growled back at them with a deadly scowl on his. The twins, at Anock’s back, had their own dangerous expressions aimed at Blake and the blonde. It looked foreign on them. Having no idea what was going on, she glanced around seeing a hallway full of demons lying unconscious or dead. She slowly rose from the ground feeling shaky, and more than a little confused.
She silently cringed when she tasted a foreign salty substance on her tongue. She reached a shaky hand up wiping at her wet lips. The red that covered her fingertips shocked her; it was blood. Before she could ask what had happened or what was going on, she was assaulted with an onslaught of painful memories that stabbed her brain, making her vision swim and knees weak. Her heartbeat suddenly erratic, her skin burned, and her feet ached for some reason. She closed her eyes to fight off the crazy feelings, but as soon as she did, she was taken from the mansion and into a different place and time.
The Blake that was coming for her, wasn’t the Blake that had been in the hall a few seconds ago. This version of him looked younger, and frantic. He ran towards her in a forest, darkened with a black and blue hue, as he screamed, “NO!” A sharp, cold pain in her stomach had her looking down to see her sheer white nightgown blooming with a spreading dark red. A thick warm feeling sliding down her thighs. Her hands flew to her stomach realizing she was wounded somehow, she held the wound, and the trauma so severe the blood flowed even through the fabric of the gown and leaked passing through and over her closed fingers. She tried to hold in the blood, making it stop but it was no use. Her body tingled and she fell to her knees, just as Blake reached her sliding on his knees from the fallen leaves and loose debris on the forest floor. “No, no, no. Mikayla stay with me. Don’t. Just breathe, please. Just…” Right as her body surrendered to the weightlessness and her eyes started to roll back into her head, she watched Blake reach forward to catch her and then, nothing.
A bright light ripped open her eyes. She gasped at the sudden change, looking around to see she was back in the mansion hallway surrounded by Anock, Blake, and the twins with concerned looks. They were trying to talk to her, but she could only hear a whining high-pitched squeal. Her legs still tingled from the memory of the blood loss she was just previously suffering from. It made her stumble into the wall behind her, and she reached out trying to grab hold of it to steady herself. Before she could feel stable though, another vision hit her, taking her away once more.
James laughed loudly, “Please, please just let me once.” She felt herself roll her eyes and say before looking down at their entwined hands, “If you call Ander that he will kill you!” She laughed, looking forward at the dark suburban neighborhood as she and James walked down the sidewalk. “Seriously, he hates it when I call him that and he loves me, but he hates you…” James pretended to be wounded holding a hand to his chest making her giggle before continuing. “I bet you one molten brownie on our next date that Ander would lunge and attack you if you try to call him that.” James chuckled, breaking their hands apart to roll up his white dress shirt sleeves to his elbows. His forearm muscles showed, and she glanced away before he caught her admiring him. The night was warm, but the cool breeze felt nice in her summer dress and heels. “You’re on. The next time I see him I will make a point to call him, Army-Navy, and when he doesn’t attack me, I get a kiss or twenty kisses if I win.” Done rolling up his shirt sleeves he paused their walk twisting her towards him before pulling her into his arms. She felt butterflies erupt in her belly as he leaned forward giving her a slow, soft kiss. When they broke away it left her breathless. “You’re on.” She whispered.
The piercing sound of someone screaming stabbed her ears and she shook her head trying to make it stop, and it wasn’t until she heard Bla
ke’s frantic voice that it did. “MIKAYLA!”
Waiting for the pain to ebb, she blinked slowly, and closed her mouth realizing it had been her screaming. Not breaking his stare she tried to ask him to explain what she saw.
“You were there, and then James.” Her voice came out slurred, and she swayed as a sea of dizziness took over. Before she could fall though, two strong hands reached out held her steady.
“It’s okay love. I have you.” She looked down into the eyes of Anock who was on his knees in front of her before glancing back to Blake, who stood emotionless next to the twins along the wall. He looked away when their eyes locked. It made her chest clench. She wanted Blake to explain what she saw, but when he refused to look at her, she looked back to the man holding her instead.
“Anock?” She asked. His black wings twitched; the feathers looked tattered at odd angles behind his back. Looking at him more closely she noticed his skin was covered in sweat. So different from all the times she saw him so put together and a perfect version of calm.
“What happened?” She asked, causing him to look away, and he almost looked embarrassed.
“Anock, what happened!?”
When he looked back to her, she noticed his honey colored eyes were decorated with tiny black specs that only their current nearness was able to reveal. For as distraught as he looked, he really was extremely handsome. He had been an angel after all.
“You stole our powers. All our powers.” He paused, a tick moving in his jaw. “At once.”
Bringing her shaky hands up gripping hard at his forearms, she shook her head back and forth in denial. “No. What do you mean?” Her voice shook, along with the rest of her body.
No, she couldn’t steal powers! She was human! Hadn’t she been trying to tell them that? There was only real and make believe, this was fake! All of it! She wanted to scream at him that they were wrong! They had the wrong girl!
“See for yourself.” Reaching up he pressed his palm to her forehead shooting the memories throughout her mind. They tickled her eyes as they fluttered over her iris’s, keeping her eyes open, playing against the hallway wall like a movie only she could see. The memories started with Anock running up to her before dropping to the ground in pain. A gasp flew from her before she could stop it. She watched the rest of what had transpired, feeling dread crawl up her stomach and limbs.
If this was real…
She was a monster.
Shaking her head, she tried to step out of Anock’s grip, only to realize her naked state. A pile of black smoking fabric laid at her feet in a smoldering pile that hissed. Anock stopped her from moving completely away when she tried to move again, gripping hard at her hips.
“Mikayla, look at me.”
His caring voice brought on an onslaught of emotions. All it took was for her to be on the brink of losing it, and as soon as someone asked, or gave notice to her sea of emotions, she lost it. The tears gathered and fell faster than she could sniff them up. What the hell was happening to her? Or what the hell had happened to her, was the better question? She tried to stop the tears, but it only ended up making her sob harder. Blake stepped forward temporarily, before stepping back looking away from her like he remembered he wasn’t actually supposed to care. From Anock’s memories that she saw, there was more to his emotions than he led on. A hell of a lot more. He said he loved her, but he also said a whole bunch of stuff that didn’t make sense. He was talking about another time they’d been together, like the memories she saw, could she have a past life she didn’t know about?
Everything was so messed up. Everything that they had said, the angel blood, the demon powers. It was real, or based off what she saw happen, it was. She had those abilities, and now she didn’t have a choice but to live with the reality that not only what they’d been saying was true, but that she was a monster like them. Under these circumstances was there any point in trying to escape? Did she belong with them, here in Hell, or was she supposed to be in heaven because of her angel side? Did this all mean her parents weren’t her real parents? Unable to help herself, she dropped to her knees, still trying to sniffle up the falling tears. It was too much to process. Too much to take in.
The demon prince’s voice broke through her despair. “It’s hard to believe all this could be real, when you grew up believing you were human, but love…it’s real. All of it, and you’re not human. That fact is your supernatural powers are stronger than even those of us in this hall. Look around you.”
She did as he said and looked around to the hall littered with fallen demons.
“Everything I showed you happened. It happened because you’re of age, and your powers are trying to break through. No one knows your other half. We know for certain who your father is, but we can only assume your mother held demon blood. So with that being said you are either a dream walker like Blake, which from what we saw tonight that’s not the case, or you’re something completely different. Something new. Something no one has seen before, meaning your mother is an unknown to this equation. We didn’t know leaving your powers locked up would cause this reaction or we would have gone about this differently, tried to train you, and lead you into your powers but the fact is we’re out of time now.
“We had to unlock your powers so you wouldn’t do more damage to yourself in the end and now we need to find a way to maintain them. You have to accept this, and it would be better if you do so quickly.” He paused, taking in her confused expression. Why did she have to accept the ten tons of life changing baggage quickly?
“The Breaking Ritual is in two days.” He reached up squeezing her shoulders slightly before standing up and stepping back from her. She swayed slightly not having the support.
It was one thing hearing them tell her what she was, and another experiencing and seeing it. All these people, demons, just expected her to accept her fate and newly found supernatural powers, and she couldn’t. Not this fast. It was too much. How could you expect someone who’d gone through their whole life not only thinking they were human, but ordinary and a failure at that, to jump in and become a demon/angel in a split second.
“Two days?” Her question was exasperated. She couldn’t believe the severity of her situation. They wanted her to marry him, a stranger, and rule in Hell in two days?!
Anock nodded, as Cain walked over draping a blanket over her bare shoulders.
“What now?” She asked wrapping the blanket around her.
Their eyes landed on her no longer looking away like they all had been. So she looked at Blake. He’d believed they’d had some type of past and obviously it had been enough to break her out of her demon craziness. With the visions, or memories, or whatever they were, maybe they did have something so why would he sit by and watch her be married off to someone else. Why help kidnap her and keep her prisoner in Anock’s realm, if he really did love her. It didn’t make sense.
Anock clearly done with the chaos turned to the twins. “I expect her ready and in the garden in one hour.” He turned stalking down the hall away from them, not even looking at her.
Her mouth dropped. Was he kidding? They were still going on this so-called date after everything that just happened. Good lord this place was nuts. She needed a good soak, and about seventy-two hours of constant uninterrupted sleep. Her stomach grumbled and she grabbed at it realizing she couldn’t remember when the last time she ate was.
“He really expects me to go on some date with him. Now?” She asked closing her gaping mouth.
The twins looked sympathetic at her dilemma but just nodded, it was clear they didn’t have a choice but to listen to Anock. She scoffed. This place sucked.
She threw her arm out making her blanket fan out dramatically, “Let’s go then.” She said unable to stop from rolling her eyes, with so much attitude flowing through her. What an arrogant, self-serving prick. Couldn’t he see she was going through something? Big fucking things?
The twins turned heading down the hall and it wasn’t until she start
ed walking after them, that she felt how weak she really was. Yawning she watched as Blake fell back into step with her and she wasn’t even sure where to start with the situation with him. His hair which normally he kept styled back, was a mess, a sexy mess, but still not his normal look. His black fighting clothes looked wet in places and there was tear across his left ribcage that showed some of his tanned skin that had dried blood smeared on it.
“Listen.” He said, and she looked over into his eyes that had turned brown. “It’s a lot to explain. A lot more than we can get into, but…What did you see when you were freaking out holding your head and screaming?”
She wasn’t sure if she should tell him. Would it help her in anyway or just confuse her more? “Does it matter what I saw?” She asked, hoping maybe his reasoning for wanting to know would help her decide if she needed to reveal her newfound craziness.
Anock had said they’d unlocked her powers, and she watched at the end where Blake had forced his blood down her throat. So it was clear that unlocked them, but did it work that fast?
Maybe those visions she saw were her newfound powers.
But were those future visions of past ones? Blake talked like they’d known each other before, and she had always got the feeling that she’d known both him and James before but couldn’t place it. All the speculations in her own mind were making her dizzy again.
Blake answered as they turned another corner. “Yes.” He reached out lightly grabbing her elbow through the thick black wool blanket, making her stop. She looked up watching the twins walk on, and she had a feeling they were walking ahead on purpose to give them time alone.
“Those things I had said.” He paused running a hand through his hair. “I meant them, every word. There are things that you would never forgive me for if you knew. I had to make a choice and I didn’t make one fast enough, and you suffered the consequences. I just don’t have time to explain it all.”
The Beloved Fire Page 14