Hands clung to my shoulders. The darkness snaked around my fingers and cried for more of Julius. At this point, I’d grown to be wary of his whispers in my ear. I realized when he spoke, a darkness in me grew until the manifestation lingered even when he wasn’t touching me. The darkness made a home in me and that was exactly what he wanted.
Every touch, every kiss, every time he was inside me, he left bits and pieces of something horrid.
When I wasn’t succumbing to the darkness, I had a moment to think, and I’d remember a dead demon’s face from nights ago, and it made me wonder why I only had time to think of all the bad things Julius did when he was away from me.
Then it was somewhere around that night when I finally realized that every feeling I felt toward him was a mirage; a manipulation because when he was away, I felt disgust roll off me in waves. I looked down at my frail body and I tried to understand how I survived off darkness and deceit. The more I thought, the more I couldn’t remember the last time I ate or if I even did eat anymore. I ran to the mirror and looked at myself and gasped. I wasn’t the little girl I remembered, but I wouldn’t call myself a woman either. I was hollow—skinny and lifeless.
What was he doing to me?
I needed to see more of myself, but there were no lights. Searching the room, I found a lantern, flicked it on, only to scream. Something ran all over my skin like tiny black snakes. I backed away, but I couldn’t escape myself. What was I becoming? My hands smacked over the lines but they were everywhere, and not only that, it hurt. The light was torture to my skin.
In the middle of my panic, my bedroom door opened and Julius stepped in. His hair, I swear, was bathed in flames. I’d never seen anything quite like him. Even the monsters dimmed in comparison to the glint in his eyes and the way he carried his shoulders. His skin sometimes looked white, other times it was almost the color of his hair.
“What have you done to me?” I screamed at him.
“Calm down,” he said as he came for me. I backed away. He smiled. “Why do you always do this? Why do you fear me? I take care of you. You’re becoming like me.”
“No. No.”
He reached for me. I tried my hardest not to let him touch me, but I was so strangely weak until he gave me his touch… And when he did, the fear dulled. Everything faded away. His hands gripped my shoulders roughly as he leaned down and whispered into my ear. “There, there,” he soothed me.
The darkness purred, and all my worries became nothing at all. I sagged into his arms and sighed happily. Whatever had weighed heavy on my heart… Was there such a thing?
“Look at you, you’ve taken so well to my power,” he purred into my ear. “There’s something we must do.”
“What?” I asked.
“There’s something I need you to harvest.” I nodded, and he grinned. “I’ll let you stay in my world when it is all that’s left. Just you and me. Then we’ll dance on the Devil’s grave when his future is stolen by me.”
_______
I sat on my knees in a dark room. For how long, I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t aware of some of the things I did. Sometimes I was a blank slate. Only when I did become something that had thoughts, I was left confused and afraid. I glanced around the room trying to figure out where I was.
For some reason, I thought of family. I had a family. Then I’d remember they gave me away to Julius—a monster in disguise of a man, but they made me equally bitter. Still, I missed them. I wanted to go home. Did I say this to Julius?
The room I was in was so hot I could hardly bear it. I sucked in a breath and the reality came tumbling down. My vision had been nothing but a mirage. I was surrounded by flames. For some reason, my mind was crystal clear as my childhood home came into focus.
I heard someone scream and recognized one of my sister’s voices right before it was cut short.
“Isabella, please.” I turned my head to see Mom crawling on her belly toward me. I blinked, tears stinging my eyes.
What was going on?
“Mom?”
“Please,” she begged. “Make him stop.”
Julius stepped through the flames in front of us with the lifeless form of my sister dangling in his grip. I stood and anger consumed me.
“Julius? How did we get here? What’s happening?”
“Aren’t you happy?” he asked as he dropped my sister. “I’m hurting the ones that gave you away.”
“You’re the one that wanted me!” I screamed.
“Why do you keep waking?” He stepped forward. “Why does a part of you continue to resist me after all these years together?”
I’d been with him that long already? Why could I not remember things?
“We had no choice. He’s known of your birth long before you were born,” Mom coughed. “He formed a blood oath long ago in our family ancestry so that he’d have you.”
“No matter,” Julius said, placing his boot on her skull and crushing it.
“NOOOOOO!”
I called to the fire, and it came to me. My body absorbed it all. He looked at me in awe while I was in tears for the family that I lost and all the things that were happening to my body and mind that he controlled.
“You have no idea what your existence means, my little harvester.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Oh, but look, the darkness is begging me to.” Julius pointed toward my skin and while the change in my skin mesmerized me, he reached up and touched me. The darkness moved for him, making it so that I arched into his touch as well.
Just like that, I was a blank slate again. But I recalled my last thought, and I told myself to remember it well when I could again.
Escape.
________
Who I was or who I could be flickered in and out with whom Julius tried to turn me into. He came for me when I was ten, but that didn’t mean I didn’t realize what he did. The way he thought, was all wrong, yet I couldn’t escape the hold he had over me. The darkness grew inside me, but sometimes I’d make sense of myself and my thoughts and…
I became Isabella Wen again, now lone survivor of the Wen clan. When I became aware of what was happening around me, an imp was holding my hand and leading me forth. He flew and made weird flapping noises with his wings. When I tried to tug my hand free, more imps flew around me encouraging me forward.
“Where are you taking me?”
Of course, they didn’t answer. Their language was vastly different from any human language. It sounded more like clanking, followed by guttural squeaks.
Touch, take. Touch, take.
My fingers twitched as we came into a huge open room. The darkness in me was begging and crawling all through me for something as we grew closer.
I had a terrible unease in my chest. Flashes of dead demons and animals, merged and mutated bodies of Julius’s creations haunted me, and I tugged at my hand again.
“Stop.”
“There you are,” an unfamiliar male demon called to me. There were a lot more like him all around. “We need you to harvest this one’s power too.”
Too?
How many had I? Once again, glimpses of things I did while under Julius’s control bombarded me. I shuddered and stepped away.
“He wants to see how much of her power you can hold,” he informed me.
I glanced between them and saw the figure of a woman curled up. A circle of demons was around her. Blonde curls tumbled over her shoulders. They wanted me to hurt this female with my touch? This darkness Julius had created had stolen the breath of so many already, to kill another? No… no. Not while I was present inside my own mind.
Only I didn’t have to worry about that because a shadow of death swept over us so quickly all I heard was screaming. The last fearful cry of every last demon in the room but me. The chill that ran up my spine was there for days after. One by one the demons’ blood bathed the room in every color—green for the fallen imps, black and red for the demons. The twists and cranks of bones breaking had me foll
owing the shadow around the room with my eyes as it sought to kill everything in its path.
I was quite a distance away when the shadow stopped and in its place, a man of coal black skin surfaced… Not really a man. More like a monster. Horns rested on his head and although it wasn’t the first time seeing a demon with horns, there was something truly frightening about him in a way that Julius dreamed to be.
I feared the breath I needed to breathe would give me away, but he knew I was there because his eyes landed on me before focusing on the woman unconscious on the ground.
The darkness in me didn’t care about my fear, it still slithered and crawled inside of me.
Twitchy fingers. Twitchy fingers. It wanted to go to the woman. It didn’t care about the monster, despite the vast amount of power that rolled off him.
“I need you alive, Isabella.” I shivered from the thickness of his voice, the thrum of power his voice alone wielded. There was a thud, and I looked down to see a portal chip at my feet. I just looked at it momentarily stunned, blinked, then looked up at the authoritative monster. “You’re the start… but not this way.” His eyes trailed over the female again. “Leave.”
When I didn’t do as he said, he added, “I know her sin calls to you, so leave.” I still waited and his eyes flickered red. “You’re only alive because this isn’t the day I need you to die.”
Ignoring his own haunting words, I finally found my own. “What about her?”
“Her family is coming for her. They’ll be here soon.” His gaze lingered on her. “She’s safe…for this day.”
He disappeared after that, but only I knew he wasn’t truly gone. I felt his presence in the shadows as if he were watching me to make sure that the darkness inside me didn’t win over and seek out the girl.
It didn’t. I picked up the portal chip, and I was gone, imagining a world, a better place far from here. I’d never gone to the human world. I had no clue how I’d live or survive on my own, but when I ported to somewhere random and stepped into a place that sold food, I manipulated the person into giving me a burger with my magic and that first bite was heaven. I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually eaten real food unless it was what the darkness fed me.
Still…
The darkness was a part of me. That meant Julius was too. My hope faded, and I slumped in a booth alone while the burger rested heavily in my stomach… Unless I didn’t use my magic…
But how could I make it in this world?
I stood quickly, manipulated the sales lady out of ten more burgers before I hurried outside and snuck into the bed of this huge thing that moved on rubber circles that I’d later learn was called a truck. While I hid in the back of the truck, eating another burger, leaving the place where my magic had touched, I tried to remember what reason there was for me to be alive. And then it hit me. Because I had never lived to know what it was like to be alive.
I awoke to a weird sensation rolling around in my mouth. Why must old memories always come to haunt me while I slept? I barely knew what I did when I was with Julius and wasn’t sure why my dreams thought I should know them now. I blinked my eyes open and found myself nibbling on an arm covered in blond hair… That would explain the feeling in my mouth and the flood of desire rolling through me. I raised up and wiped the drool from my mouth. Only now that I wasn’t touching a part of Sebastian in some way, the desire should have faded into nothing, but it hadn’t dulled, not in the slightest.
He sat up against the bedpost with one long leg stretched out over his other and his entire focus was on me. I patted my head in hopes that my bedhead wasn’t as bad as it most likely was and in the process, my gaze drifted down to the long thick shaft trapped in his jeans. I was comfortably flushed as I met his blue eyes and the warmth in my stomach was quickly turning into fire. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Are you okay?” He tilted his head and studied me as he asked.
“Yeah, I think so… Why?”
“You looked like you were having a nightmare there for a while and then it quickly turned into you nibbling my arm.” He pointed toward the wet spot on his arm where my mouth had been. I covered my lips and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Not that I mind. At all. But you did cause this in the process.” He tipped his chin up to make me look at his obvious erection a foot away from me.
I laughed awkwardly. “I tend to relive some dark moments of my past when I was trapped with Julius,” I admitted, not meeting Sebastian’s eyes. “And if you think that those nightmares scare me, they don’t. I’m used to them. The way I see it. I was lucky to escape his grasp when I did… What does scare me is landing back in his clutches.”
“Do you know why Julius made your touch into a weapon?” Sebastian leaned up and asked me.
I finally met his gaze head-on and was met with softness. There was no underlying judgment or fear… But he hardly knew enough to fear me just yet, right? I hated that the thought of him looking at me in disgust was quickly becoming a haunting theme in my head.
“I wish I knew, but I only remember bits and pieces of my time spent with Julius. He kept me in some sort of trance over the years. I’ve managed to recover fragments. Sadly, when they return, I wish they’d stay gone forever.” I shuddered, and Sebastian placed a hand on my bare leg. I grabbed the sheet and lifted it to my neck when I realized I was naked and Sebastian’s eyes were devouring me whole. It was weird how oddly normal and comfortable this felt sitting in a bed with a guy I barely knew. I cleared my throat. “I remember Julius taking me to random demons. He’d always say something about harvesting their power. I think that’s what I do to demons, I steal whatever magic or power and abilities they have along with their lives.” I paused. “Is your brother okay?”
Sebastian nodded. “He’s fine, and I think you’re right about you stealing the power of others, only instead of taking August’s power, you took some of his curse and even though you can’t kill him, you still brought him down for a short while.”
“That makes sense… It’s this,” I pointed to his hand resting on my leg, “that doesn’t make sense to me.”
His touch was but a soft, dull ache of desire this time around and I wondered why. I didn’t feel so crazy and out of control. I just felt like snuggling up to him, which was just as weird.
He smirked, gripping my leg lightly. “Well… While you slept all night, I’ve had time to think about that. My curse is different from August’s in the way that it affects me. You end up helping me instead of hurting me when you take my sin which explains why my cock knocked you out like a heavy dose of Nyquil.”
I felt my entire body burn with heat and embarrassment. “That doesn’t explain why it feels so…”
“So…” He waited for me to elaborate with a slight smirk.
I looked away again. “You know how it feels when we touch.”
“Oh, that.” He chuckled before he yanked me toward him. I caught myself with both my palms slapping his chest—then could do nothing but gasp as he leaned off the headboard, twisted us around so that I was on bottom, and got between my legs. “That’s letting you know that you are meant to be mine.”
He went for my sheet, but I gripped it tighter against me. He leaned down closer, his breath hitting my neck and face. I shivered with yearning. “Keep yourself covered up if you think that’s enough to separate what you feel.”
And I realized what he meant as his eyes traveled over my lips before greeting them with a gentle, teasing touch. He kissed me softly, leisurely until I was lifting my head up to meet him halfway, then he invaded with his tongue, dove straight in, pulling me into an inferno of passion and greedy hunger for more of what he offered. He ground his erection into me as he kept my mouth occupied with his. This might be my new favorite thing—no, this was my favorite thing, his lips on mine. I couldn’t think of anything better than the swarm of butterflies that resided in my stomach because of him. We went on like that forever until I was gasping for air and clinging to his defined shoulder
s. He slid his hand up the sheet and ran it over my hip possessively, or at least I was willing to beg him to lay claim to me with the way he ravished me with kisses alone. And in this long, drawn-out make-out session with Sebastian, I felt thoroughly pleasured in a way that had my chest tightening at the thought of us breaking apart. I couldn’t explain it, the bone-deep sadness that washed over me at the thought of parting our lips, disconnecting our bodies, even for a moment.
I wished to stay here, drowning in the confines of his mouth and arms, and become anew again when he brought me back with a kiss once more.
Even the darkness was utterly silent inside me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and teased and tasted him with my tongue, over and over until I could no longer see myself anywhere else but next to him.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled us apart, taking a gulp of air for himself as he smothered me with an intense expression before moving off me.
As soon as he checked his messages, he sighed, then asked, “Ready, Izzie?”
“Am I coming too?” I asked in a slight daze. I felt feverish and achy.
“Do you want to stay or come with me?”
This was a pivotal point in the relationship between me and the Reaper. Or at least for me. I just knew he was worth whatever this feeling might be. Letting the sheet fall off me, his eyes blackened as he took in every nook and groove of my body. “I want to go with you,” I told her.
His pupils went back to normal before he spoke, but the intensity was still there. “With me is where you’ll stay.”
Fourteen
Sebastian
I had to leave the room as Izzie got dressed so I wouldn’t pounce on her. I could still taste her on my lips. I rubbed my hand over my chest absentmindedly.
No need to keep touching her, yet that was all I wanted to do.
My phone buzzed. It was another text from Payne telling me to hurry. I sighed and shoved it back in my pocket. It would be great if I could lick every inch of Izzie’s body and bury every inch of myself in her, but reality had a way of knocking you off your feet, not in a good way either.
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