by G. Bailey
“There is a price for being fallen,” he tells me, almost sounding human with real emotions until I see his eyes. How I ever thought they were handsome, I don’t know.
I see nothing but empty pits of darkness now. Empty and cold. Just like his soul that clearly was the price as much as his wings were. It makes me wonder who ripped them out or if they just fell off. “Wait for me in the living room. I am going to dress.” I don’t reply, keeping my eyes on his shoulders as he walks through a door and leaves it open for me to follow. I clasp my clammy hands together as I walk into the large dome-shaped room. It is pretty similar to the room I have, the same style kitchen on the one side and the same sofas facing a glass wall. I walk to the glass, looking out at the almost calm sea. How can it be so calm when my emotions are anything but?
I think this is the most still I have ever seen the sea since I came to the academy, though rain still falls down on us. I look down and regret it the moment I do. Standing on the edge of the cliff are four Hellers and a pile of bodies. Some wolves, some who did not shift, and each one of the bodies is smothered in blood. The Hellers pick body after body up and throw them into the sea, like they are nothing more than a fish that escaped the water. I gasp as sickness fills my throat, and I turn around, rushing to the kitchen sink before throwing up. Not much comes up as I shakily turn on the tap and slide down to the floor, wrapping my arms around my legs and pressing my forehead into them, wishing I could erase this whole evil fucking academy.
“Alexandria, how depressing it is to see you like this,” Lucifer states as he squats down in front of me.
“You killed them all for fucking sport, and I’m depressing!” I scream at him as I raise my head and meet his green eyes that are the perfect shade of moss. They remind me so much of Morgan’s eyes, but there is a big, big difference. I see nothing good in Lucifer’s eyes, nothing but cold contempt for the world he sees as his.
“Death is a blessing for creatures like them. Don’t you see that?” he asks me, tilting his head to the side like I’m an interesting creature. He holds a hand out, and he has to be fucking crazy if he thinks I’m going to take it. After a long pause, he seems to finally get the memo and crosses his arms as he stands up. “Fine, if it pleases you, I promise not to harm another wolf in this academy until we leave.”
“Leave?” I ask.
“When we are mated, we will not live here. I do detest this place,” he remarks so casually. “I want your demon to appear, and being around me as well as going to hell will give her more power. She is my mate after all.”
“I’m not ever going to be your mate, Lucifer,” I spit out, feeling a sharp pain in my head as he goes blurry for a second.
“Ah, I see your demon is closer than I thought,” Lucifer comments. “We will not be waiting for your eighteenth birthday or going to hell after all. You are stronger than expected.”
“Fuck you,” I bite out as I shake my head, the pain disappearing.
“And call me Luc. We are friends, no?” he asks with a laugh.
“No!” What is flipping wrong with this guy? “We are not friends. We are nothing other than one guy who thinks he owns someone that hates him.”
“Tut, tut, Alexandria. I don’t think I own you; I know I do,” he replies, and an almost sweet sounding laugh escapes his lips. “Now, stand up, and we will talk about the next few weeks. Including your parents’ trial.”
“What?” I scramble to my feet at the mere mention of my parents’ trial, and he damn well knows he has me as I follow him into the living room. He waves a hand at the only chair in the room as he sits on the sofa and spreads his legs and crosses his arms. His eyes drift up my dress, from my legs to my chest. Every second of it makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I have to restrain my urge to hit him with something. His eyes fix on my chest, and before I can tell him he is a rude bastard, he begins talking.
“That necklace, why do you wear it? Do you not want your demon to be free?” he asks me. “I wondered what stopped the change back then; I see what it is now.”
“It’s just a gift from my uncle,” I reply, lifting it up with one hand. “What do you mean?”
“You know nothing. It is really very annoying,” he replies and shakes his head. “I have decided I do not wish to interrupt your tutoring here, but in the next month, there are many events I wish you to attend at my side. It will give us time to bond, and when I don’t need you, you may carry on with your tutoring.”
“What events?” I question.
“Your parents’ trial, for example,” he says, and I struggle to keep my excitement and nerves about that one under wraps.
“You could free them tomorrow if you wanted to be my friend,” I say.
“I could, but I won’t. They took five souls from me, souls that are meant to belong to me, and they are gone. I want to know how they did that,” he muses, and I grit my teeth. Bastard. “We must spend a week at the wolves’ pack. I want a new agreement, and they are celebrating. It will be fun for us to attend.”
“What could they be celebrating after you killed all the wolves here?” I ask.
“They don’t see the wolves here as their pack members. Their souls, their bodies, their everything belongs to me from the moment they are sent here to serve,” he replies, talking about the dead wolves like they are nothing.
I hate it.
“The funny thing about belonging to someone is that you have to choose them first,” I reply. “And I know not one of their souls ever would have chosen you to serve.”
“Not if you are born to a debt, Alexandria,” he tells me. “And only I can release them from that debt. No one else, especially not your lower-class demon parents. We will find out the truth, one way or another. The trial is my way of respecting you, Alexandria. If they were anyone else, I would drag them to hell and torture them to find out the truth.”
“If this is your idea of respect, it is sorely lacking in many areas, Lucifer,” I reply.
“Maybe you are not as stupid as I thought you once were,” he moves so quickly off the sofa and is in front of me in the next second, his large arms boxing me into the chair. He grabs the necklace off my neck, and it snaps, hurting the back of my neck as he takes it. “Though you are stupid to have kept this on as long as you did. I want your demon to come out to play, and you can’t have this on to do that.” I flinch as he finally moves away and slides the necklace into his trouser pocket.
“Can I leave?” I ask, not liking him so close to me.
“Of course, Alexandria,” he says. If he is trying to put me at ease, it isn’t working. I stand up and quickly walk to the door, but he stops me. Of course it wasn’t that easy. “One more thing.”
“Yes?” I ask, reaching out and gripping the door as I turn my head back.
“If you try to disobey me. If you touch any other male in a way I don’t like, I will make sure your parents lose the trial, and I will take them to hell to find my answers. Their freedom rests solely on your shoulders, Alexandria. I suggest you do as you are told.”
“Do threats always work for you, Lucifer?” I ask.
“Yes, because I always act on them. Don’t test me, I do not wish to see you cry over your parents’ dead bodies.” I grit my teeth so hard that it hurts as I walk through the door and pull it shut behind me.
Fuck.
Chapter 3
The demon has come out to play
“Who the hell are you?” I ask the Heller in my apartment when I shut the door, seeing him in the kitchen…cooking some bacon by the smell of it. His sword is resting on the counter, his hood still covers his face, and I wonder if the material is fireproof. They look like the grim reaper, and it’s a weird thing to see one of them cooking bacon.
“Your personal Heller for protection and any other services you may wish. I will stay in the slave room as there are no more wolf slaves in the academy for the time being,” he says so neutrally, so closed off that it makes me more irritated than ever before. My ski
n itches, my hands curl into fists as pain sparks inside my head.
Killing the fool who entered our home would be so easy for us, my demon suggests, her voice is happy and excited at the prospect of murder. No surprise there though.
“Don’t be mad at him, he is cooking me bacon,” Amethyst says, running into the room and jumping on the counter. “Where have you been? I am starving.” I ignore Amethyst altogether as I keep my eyes on the Heller while he slides the bacon onto a plate and hands it to Amethyst. She pauses before eating, looking directly at me with her bright purple eyes. “Okay, I’m happy. Now you can get rid of him.”
“So Hellers are replacements for the wolves that were murdered here?” I ask the Heller. “In fact, I don’t even care. Get out of my room.”
“I don’t have to be told twice,” Amethyst says, running out of the room looking very freaked out. What the Heller is wrong with her?
“Miss Cameron, I am entrusted by his highness to—” he sputters at the end of his sentence, his eyes widening in fear as he reaches for his sword, pressing his back against the counter. I can hardly focus on him as anger is making everything blurry, and the pain in my head is rising ever so slowly.
“I said get the fuck out!” I shout, but my voice doesn’t sound like me at all. I cry out as I fall to my knees, hearing the Heller running out the door in the distance, but I can’t focus on anything but the searing pain in my head as the floor and my hands go blurry in front of me. My heart pounds so loudly in my ear, blocking out all the sounds of the world, and I struggle to breathe, feeling a stabbing feeling in my heart. A part of me just wants to give up, to give into the pain and warmth slowly taking me. I have no one at my side, my death would make everything happy and light again. I’m nothing but a threat to the world. I’m nothing to anyone.
“Lex, look at me!” I hear a voice I know through the haze, a voice that calls to me more than I ever thought anyone could. One I trust…even when I shouldn’t. Warm hands rest on my shoulders, but I can’t reply. The warmth of his hands makes the world seem real once again. It feels like he is holding me back from death, not letting me go. I want to go. I want to slip away into nothing, where there is no pain.
Where there is no heartbreak.
“Don’t you dare give up on me, Alexandria Cameron! There is nowhere your soul can go that I won’t follow. Don’t you dare give up!” The voice shouts at me, demanding I give in to his commands, making me want to fight away the darkness that lulls me. I can’t speak as my head shoots up, meeting the gaze of Nikoli, who doesn’t exactly look like Nikoli right now. His black hair now has two horns circling out of it, pointing up into the sky, and his eyes have lost the purple touch they once had; now they are all green.
Like Lucifer’s eyes but so, so much more beautiful and enchanting.
Nikoli covers my hand with his, and I watch the movement, noticing how his fingers are black with long sharp nails, and as he lifts my hand, I see mine are just the same.
“Hello. I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time. Are you like Lexi?” Nikoli asks, his gaze set on mine, his voice the same as the Nikoli I always have known. They are one in the same, his demon and him.
Working together.
That isn’t the same for me right now, I don’t have any control, and I know my demon has no interest in giving me control back. It makes me wish my parents were here to guide and help me through this, or any family for that matter.
A weak part of me is thrilled it is Nikoli with me, a part of me that still sees Nikoli as my own.
“She is weak,” a voice speaks out of my lips, a dark, seductive voice of a woman that is not me. “She wanted to give up her life, let the darkness take her with no fight.” I feel guilty for a second as Nikoli looks angry and lost for words. I should have fought, I should have never thought giving up was the right thing to do.
“Weak is a word more fitting for someone who does not want to fight. Lexi is fighting for what she believes in, so how can she be weak?” he eventually asks. “Lexi might have had a short moment of doubt, but it was brief and gone. She fought for her life.” My body moves on its own accord, my demon doing it all as we stand up and away from Nikoli. My demon doesn’t trust him, not like I do.
“Why do you still stand here?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. “We are not yours.” That makes him angry; it makes him frown and almost glare in response.
“You should talk with Lexi and make a connection. I see in your eyes that you are stronger than anyone could know and that you mean me no harm,” he warns, stepping closer, and we watch every single movement. And we are not impressed.
“Do. Not. Tell. Me. What. To. Do.” The voice is so cold as it responds, and in one swift movement, my body jumps up and kicks Nikoli hard in the chest, and he spins through the air, smashing into the glass and flying out of it to the cliff.
“Nick!” I shout in my head, fear making everything seem so much worse.
“Can you hear me?” I ask, but no real sound leaves my lips. It’s just me speaking to me in my head.
Which is all kinds of fucked up.
“Of course I can. We are connected,” my voice says, speaking to herself. She doesn’t look once more at the smashed window to see where Nikoli is, but I do try to turn my head that way. It doesn’t work, and my lips only laugh as we walk into the bathroom and to the mirror. It’s all kinds of weird to see yourself…and not recognise yourself. My brown hair is now black and circled in thick locks around my shoulders and down to my stomach. I have two silver horns with beautiful etched swirls and stars all over them. There are black symbols running up my cheeks at the side, and they meet in the middle of my forehead before disappearing into my hairline. My eyes are black, an endless, empty black that makes me want to look away.
“I heard we have to bond for this to work,” I tell…myself. My demon. A part of me that has been hidden away, waiting for me to be strong enough to accept her.
“We will,” my demon softly replies, kindly almost. “But I will have what I want.”
“And what is that?” I ask nervously. If she wants a mass murder or something flipping messed up, this isn’t going to end well. Please, please say she is saner than she has appeared so far.
“A throne,” she whispers to me. “My throne in hell, with who I choose at our side to protect us.”
“With Lucifer, the crazy fallen angel?” I nervously ask.
“No…he must die,” she all but growls. “I will not be challenged by a pretender.”
“Oh, well, we are in agreement on the important things then,” I say, feeling some relief. I can get on board with her plan.
“If you need me, only say my name,” she tells me. “And never wear the necklace. I must be able to protect us both. You are too weak for such things.” I try not to take insult at that, but it’s not easy.
“What is your name?” I ask, feeling stronger than I ever have before. I’m not alone, I never have been because she has always been here, waiting for me. Supporting me. Whatever happens, I can never truly be alone.
“Dakallan.” The name fills my mind as everything goes fuzzy, and I feel myself falling only to be greeted by darkness.
Chapter 4
The heart is an easy thing to break
As I wake up, I hear the soft tune of someone humming, a tune I’ve never heard before, but I really do like it; it is enchanting as much as it is melodic. It sounds sad, lost almost, as I breathe in the scent of the person I’m being held by.
Claus Lucifer. One of my half demon, half angel guys who left me when I needed them the most. I’m disappointed in Claus as much as I am in Nikoli, but a stronger part of me is just happy to be close to him. I like to think I made them better people, better demons and less destructive than they were when we first met.
I made them human.
And now they aren’t even mine anymore. Their father has taken that from us both. My heart hurts in my chest the more I think about it, the more I realise this might be th
e last time Claus holds me in his arms. It makes me not want to wake up and instead keep my eyes closed, my breathing heavy so that I can enjoy his embrace a little longer. Just a little longer.
It’s strange how I can tell who he is from just how he smells, but the distinct and seductive scent of peppermint and traces of lavender is part of who Claus Lucifer is. I open my tired eyes to see I’m lying on Claus’s chest in my bed, his hand stroking my hair ever so gently. The motion is soothing, relaxing me back into a false sense of safety and comfort. I’m still fully clothed, and to my surprise, so is Claus. I guess it’s because I’m not his mate anymore. No need to impress me.
“Where did you learn that song? The one you were humming?” I softly ask Claus, wanting to know. It sounds familiar to me, but I’m not sure from where exactly.
“I don’t know. I’ve always had it in my head since I was a child. It’s a haunting melody, huh?” he enquires. I only nod as I sit up, my brown hair falling around my shoulders, and he looks at me in a way a friend should not. His eyes burn with desire and want, mimicking my own feelings. “You will be happy to know we got all the wolves out, the ones who were still alive that is. That was what Nikoli came to tell you this morning, but he found you turning into your demon. It’s impressive that you are doing so well.”
“Is Nikoli alright?” I ask as everything rushes back to me, and Claus’s lips pull up in a grin as he sits up.
“Other than his ego being sorely damaged beyond repair, he is fine,” he tells me, and I sigh, nodding, knowing I need to make it up to him somehow.
“I didn’t mean to…well, she might have wanted to hurt Nikoli, but I didn’t have control—” I pause as he rests a finger against my lips.