by B M Griffin
Aurora rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. She was considering how difficult it would be to strangle her sister in front of a room of high Council members and warriors. A bit ironic given the shit she’d just laid down on Silas, still, she considered it all the same.
Deciding it wouldn’t be worth the fight it would land in her lap, Aurora faced the music. “Thank you for that, dear sister.” She shot Annalise an annoyed look, but her sister just smiled like she believed she’d helped in some way. “Annalise is making reference to the human male that my visions have shown me on repeat for the past five days.”
Everyone in the room, except for the warriors at Aurora’s side and Annalise, sucked in a sharp breath all at once. Karlotta found her voice before the rest, “My beloved Maharani, please tell us you do not wish to seek out this human from your vision.”
“Ignoring my vision won’t make it go away,” Aurora said. “I must find this male and learn the significance he poses for me and our people.”
“It is forbidden!” Silas barked.
Before anyone could blink, Aurora had Silas in the air, her hand wrapped tightly around his throat as she held him more than a foot off the ground. He was pulling at her hand, trying to force her grip to loosen, but it was no use. Aurora was the Maharani, the queen of the Tanzahar, and as such her power was nearly unlimited. A serpent like Silas was no match for her, even if he was nearly a thousand years old. She could feel him trying to shift, trying to morph into his oversized version of a snake-the vilest of all the species in Tanzahar in Aurora’s opinion, but her hold was too tight and Silas couldn’t calm himself enough to make the change.
Aurora brought her face within a couple inches of Silas, her eyes locked on his, and her jaw clamped shut to keep her from ripping out his throat and ending him right then and there. Through her teeth she said, “You, serpent, will not forbid me from anything or anyone. You will watch your tongue or I shall remove it.”
Aurora released her grip on his throat and Silas dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, clutching his throat and coughing as he sucked in large gulps of air. Aurora turned back to face the rest of the Council. She wasn’t at all surprised to see several smirks on the faces of several Council members. Didrik was honestly the only one who tolerated Silas with any semblance of friendliness, and that was because Didrik was simply kind to everyone. Didrik just sighed and shook his head. She knew he didn’t approve, but today was not the day for Silas’s crap, not with this vision hanging over her head.
“Listen,” Aurora said, “I know that no one is happy about getting involved with humans, but, there is a reason I’m having this vision and I must follow its lead.”
Didrik stood and faced the Council members. “Aurora is correct. A vision is not something to be ignored. Doing so could lead to inconceivable consequences. If she’s being shown this human, then she must find him.”
Aurora was relieved to have Didrik’s support. She might be the Maharani, but Didrik was an elder known for his amazing abilities as a Seer. He was one of the most highly respected people in all of Tanzahar. Aurora inclined her head to the Council leader. “Thank you, Didrik.”
Etienne stood and glanced around the room before looking Aurora in the eyes. “I think I speak for us all when I say we shall help you however we can.”
Aurora took in the many head nods and mumbles of agreement coming from the remaining Council members. Looking down at her feet Silas was still rubbing his neck, a bruise already forming in the perfect imprint of Aurora’s hand, but he didn’t dare utter another word. “Great,” Aurora said. “I’m glad to have you all on board.”
Annalise grabbed Camille by the hand, turned, and motioned toward the door. “Camille and I will do some research on the human. See what we can find out that might help you find him and figure this vision out.”
“Thank you, sister.”
Annalise waved her off. “No need for thanks. We’re in this together. Besides, the sooner we figure out this vision, the sooner we will both be able to get some sleep.”
Chapter Two
Aurora
Aurora looked around the break room and listened to the different conversations taking place. She overheard a couple of women complaining about their husbands never helping around the house, some men at another table complaining their girlfriends need to put out more, and a trio of women arguing over who was better looking: Damon or Stephan from the Vampire Diaries. What she wouldn’t give to have such simple “problems” to worry about. As it stood, she was at odds with the underworld Council about her wish to work amongst the humans. As far as they were concerned her getting a job as a secretary at Books Unlimited Ltd. was a waste of time, valuable time that they feel she should be spending sparring and preparing for the nightly battles she fought. She was the first of her kind to ever truly mingle with the humans, entering their world in disguise as one of them. Hell, the Council was probably right. She couldn’t think of one truly good reason why she should be working amongst the humans, but there was a reason that vision had been sent to her, and as much as she hated it she needed to figure out what it was all about.
When Annalise and Camille came back after researching the human from her vision and told her this place would present the best opportunity for her to meet the male, Aurora had considered scrapping the idea and going back to her attempted ignoring of the vision instead. Annalise wasn’t having it and threatened to make Aurora’s life hell if she didn’t do what was needed to find the male from her visions. Sometimes Aurora wondered what it would be like if she were an only child. That had been one of those times, and as she looked around the break room waiting for the male to walk in, she grew curious about being a single child all over again.
Aurora had been alive for 323 years, and she became the leader of the underworld when she reached full maturity at the young age of 115 years. She had learned in her many years as the leader to never ignore her instincts or her visions, and that is why she refused to ignore her vision despite not wanting anything to do with a human who would probably run and hide the minute he learned her true nature. Looking around she considered for a moment how the people in the room would react if they could see the real her if she dropped the facade and allowed them to really see her physical form for just a moment. With a small smirk on her face, she pictured people knocking their friends down in an attempt to get as far away from her as possible, as fast as they could; she imagined a whole lot of screaming. Her human form was beautiful, at 5’10” she was tall, she had beautiful womanly curves in all the right places, long silky black hair hanging just past her middle back with a natural wave that gave it a sexy tussled look. She had a beautiful, flawless pale skin, big beautiful golden eyes, and full pouty lips; she was most men’s dream when it came to the humans’ admiration of physical beauty. Over the past three centuries Aurora had heard countless stories about the different creatures of the night, seen the plays, watched the movies, and honestly, she found a lot of it to be entertaining; almost completely inaccurate, but entertaining nonetheless. The truth was, there were creatures of the night, only they were not necessarily restricted to the night. The sunlight did not kill Aurora or her people. They did however, prefer the night over the day, but this was a result of her kind being driven into hiding by the humans. Funny right? The humans who make up bad portrayals of the evil her kind poses on the world being the ones who ran them into the darkness. Aurora felt a chill run through her as a feeling of pure anger washed over her as she remembered her father telling her of the great divide.
“You see Aurora, we didn’t always keep to the shadows. The humans and the creatures of the underworld, as we’ve been deemed, used to peacefully coexist. Until a couple centuries ago, our people were creatures of the light just as the humans are, but then the humans turned on us. I think it was fear of the unknown. Although we lived amongst each other, the humans never really understood our kind. They saw us as immortal creatures who could easily harm them and take ove
r their world. Eventually, they came together and started a war. Sadly, our losses were great. What the humans didn’t understand, and would not stop to hear, was that our purpose on this world is to protect them, so when they attacked; we didn’t fight back. We tried to reason with them but they just tore through us. Eventually, we went underground, hiding in the night, becoming creatures of the shadows, creatures of the underworld, until we were no longer real to the humans. Centuries passed and with it so did the humans and the stories of our people were warped in to folklore, nothing but fiction for their entertainment. This is why we remain hidden because it is the only way to secure our safety from those we were created to protect.”
“Mind if I sit here?”
Aurora came out of her memory and stared up at the man hovering by her with a takeout bag in his hand. He looked nervous as she stared at him. Finally, she pulled herself out of her fogged mind and realized he was waiting on her to respond. “Um, what? I mean, yes, sit wherever you want.”
As he took a seat, she stared at him, unable to tear her gaze away. He was tall, she’d guess 6’4”, with black hair cut short on the sides and combed over with gel or something, but not perfectly flat, mussed up like he just used his fingers to style it. His eyes were a unique blue, almost purple, something she had never seen in a human, and his body was defined and muscular.
“Hey, I’m Gregor by the way. I just started a couple weeks ago, takes forever to meet people here. I saw you sitting alone and thought that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to say hi.”
Aurora felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on its ends. She knew those eyes and that voice. She’d been looking into them every time she had closed her eyes over the past five days. And that voice, yeah, there was no question that the male’s voice was the same as the one in her visions. There was something about him; something that made her feel drawn to him. He smelled good, like his scent was intoxicating to her, and Aurora had to fight the urge to reach across the table and touch him. She had not expected to feel anything towards him, well nothing other than contempt for him and his species, instead she felt something stir deep inside of her that she had never experienced in all of her life. Aurora felt like there was something drawing her towards him, an undeniable spark, and it was causing her heartbeat to go into overdrive and she couldn’t pull her eyes away from him.
Gregor was staring at her like he was waiting for her to do something. Did he feel the urge to touch her too? Aurora took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She didn’t know what had gotten into her. The male wasn’t craving her touch. He’d spoken, and she was still sitting there starring at him like he was a meal… a delicious meal… no, she had to get it together. He was human. She wasn’t here to be his friend, she just needed to keep an eye on him long enough to figure out his relevance when it came to her.
With her head back on straight, partly at least, Aurora offered him a forced smile. “I’m Aurora. It’s nice to meet you.” She didn’t know what else to say. She needed to find out their connection, but that was clearly not something she could do in the break room of his job. She hadn’t really thought this part through. She was used to giving orders and having others follow them. She doubted this human, whom she’d just met, would just follow her instructions and do whatever she said.
Gregor smiled at her and she felt something tug at her heart, and a flitter in her stomach. What the hell? Maybe he wasn’t a human after all. Maybe he was a witch. That would explain the visions-a witch calling out to her in her dreams. She’d never felt drawn to anyone the way she felt drawn to him in that moment. She hoped it was witchcraft because she could think of no other explanation for the pull to be near the male that made any sense.
“Are you okay?” Gregor asked.
Aurora just stared at him. He was nice to look at, well, nice was a bit of an understatement. Okay, a major understatement. She actually found him attractive, and that made her mad at herself and the world. In over three hundred years, Aurora had never found anyone who affected her the way that Gregor was in this one, brief interaction. She had to get herself together. She didn’t know why she was having visions of Gregor, but it certainly couldn’t have anything to do with the attraction she was feeling toward him, and she damn sure wouldn’t be acting on that attraction. Above all, he was a human, and Aurora didn’t want anything to do with him.
Gregor was still staring at her, true concern growing in his eyes as she continued to look back at him without reply. “Aurora?”
He reached his hand toward her and that was when Aurora finally found the words to speak. “I’m fine.”
Aurora got up, moving away from Gregor and his touch. She turned and began walking toward the exit before he had the chance to say anything, but she still heard him when he whispered a sad, “goodbye” as she quickly exited the break room.
Aurora spent the rest of the afternoon racking her brain, trying to figure out what could have caused her to be drawn to Gregor. It didn’t make any sense. She supported the law that forbade human interaction. It was necessary for her people’s survival. Still, she just couldn’t get Gregor off her mind. Why this human had been able to get in her head, why he had wanted to even come near her in the first place, and why she had a nagging feeling that he was somehow important she couldn’t understand. Stupid visions! If she had never had those dreams, then she wouldn’t be here now watching for Gregor to get off of work so she could get him alone and get to the bottom of, hell, she didn’t even know.
****
It was already dark by the time Gregor left work thanks to daylight savings, but Aurora was at home in the dark being a creature of the night. With her night vision, she could see better than most humans during the day, so keeping an eye on Gregor was no problem. Walking past the alley outside of the building, heading to the garage in the direction she’d seen Gregor walking, Aurora saw something flash out of the corner of her eye. Smelling the air, she recognized the horrid stench. It was a smell so grotesque that most would confuse it with a severely decayed corpse. Aurora knew the smell immediately; it was the stench of the Shaitan. The Shaitan were the very demons she and her people fought nightly, trying to protect the world, and the human race. They were demons controlled directly by the devil himself with one sole purpose: to corrupt the humans of earth and literally create hell on earth where they would be free to feed and torture all for their everyday entertainment. Ironic, she knew, that her people would put so much effort into protecting the humans who didn’t know they existed, but this was their world too, and despite everything the humans had done to them, her people were good. They couldn’t sit back and watch the Shaitan take millions of innocent lives knowing they could have helped prevent such carnage.
Aurora took off down the alley, leaping into the air as she shifted forms, and just as quickly she snatched the two Shaitan off of their victim. The Shaitan were disgusting even in the eyes of Aurora and her kind. Demons that stood eight feet tall, with skeleton like frames, and black rotting flesh that hung from their bones like it had already been mostly ripped off of them and was hanging by a hair. They were oozing black blood as thick as oil, blood that was toxic to humans rendering them paralyzed, and unable to fight off the Shaitans’ attack.
Without a moment’s thought, Aurora clawed open the chest of the first Shaitan essentially ripping him completely in half, and as the other charged wrapping his arms around her, she placed both hands on either side of its head and dug her sharp teeth into its neck, clamping down and yanking back, effectively decapitating the monster. As death took them, the Shaitans’ corpses went up in flames leaving no trace of them other than a black burn mark on the ground where she had tossed their dead bodies. Caught up in the adrenaline from the kill, Aurora forgot that the Shaitan had been lurching over someone when she attacked, until she heard a man moaning in clear agony. Turning she froze as her eyes locked with the purple gaze of Gregor. When she recognized the familiar look of terror that crossed his features, she was rem
inded of what he had just saw. Not only had he been attacked by two Shaitan demons, but he had witnessed her in her true form rip those demons apart without even breaking a sweat. She took a moment to think about what Gregor must be thinking as he was looking at her right now, seeing the real her. He definitely did not seem intrigued by her like he had at lunch, but she couldn’t really blame him. Aurora stood seven feet tall as a dragon. Her skin was made of thick scales that were basically impenetrable, made up of shades of grey with hints of gold at the outer edge of each scale. Her teeth were sharp, her eyes glowed in the night a bright shade a gold, and her hair was black and messy. Of course, this was only one of the many forms she could take, but by far her favorite, especially when fighting the Shaitan alone since they would not be able to penetrate her scales.
She felt this strange need to comfort Gregor and relieve his fear. Waving her hand over his eyes she placed him in a deep sleep, one he would not be woken from as she hauled him over her shoulder. With a quick shift in form, freeing her large, golden wings, she took off flying for her home with Gregor in tow. Dreading the reception, she would receive for bringing a human into her world, but unable to leave him behind. She had no idea why but she couldn’t leave him behind like they did all the rest. It wasn’t just the vision, no, it was something deep inside of her that told her she had to make sure he was going to be okay. Something that pulled her to him, likely it was the same thing that set her visions in motion in the first place. Aurora was just as clueless as to the reason behind the pull she felt toward Gregor, but in that moment, her resolve to deny it was lost. She sensed that Gregor was important somehow. Something that spawned the connection shared between them that drew her to him, and human or not, she needed to explore this connection more.
