by Tarisa Marie
“Then why do you?” I demand. I’ve seen the look in his eyes before. Especially when he was speaking with his siblings about himself when they were locked in this very basement. “Aiden feels things towards the people he kills. I know he does.”
“I don’t. It’s not that I feel these things. It’s that I know I should. I know how I should feel after killing someone.”
I suck in a breath. What do I do? What now? I don’t want to be this soulless monster, but how can I bring myself to commit suicide, when I know that there’s nothing for me in the afterlife? I won’t ever be reincarnated without my soul. It’s my ticket to anything after life. This can’t be happening. I curse. Aiden lets go of me again.
I get this gut feeling full of anger, frustration, annoyance, and pain. It makes my vision begin to go red again. It makes every nerve ending in my body ignite. It makes me want nothing more than to kill Forrest and Maxwell. I will kill them. The red tinge begins creeping into my vision again and I lunge at Aiden, surprising him and actually knocking him down for the first time ever. He looks as surprised as I feel. He springs up, once he catches himself and throws me into a wall, a wicked grin on his face.
“You might be faster now, you might me stronger now, but you still have nothing on me, Megan. Nothing.” He says this in a playful tone, like he found my knocking him down amusing. A wave of lust washes over me, and I push it off. It’s no time for me to be jumping all over Aiden. What is going on with me? My emotion is all over the place. I focus on my breathing again.
I relax and Aiden let’s go of me wearily this time. I sit down on a plastic chair in the corner. “Now what?” I say out loud through a rushed breath.
“Whatever you want. You know the rules. You know the laws. You’re choice wasn’t much of a choice and it came sooner than expected, but...you still get a choice, it’s just even shittier than the last one you were given. You can still pick death, but if you pick remaining a demon, then you’ll be monitored by me until you can control yourself well enough. Then the council will assign you a job, and you’ll have to do it.”
I feel empty. I feel wrong. I feel scared. Aiden’s right. These options are even shittier than the last options I was given.
Aiden takes in my expression, and a small smile plays on his lips. “You could come stay with me again in hell. I’d like that. I enjoy your company. Even after you’re in control, I could find something for you to do. You could continue living with me,” he offers. I know that since I’m done with being mentored, I’m done with being a halfling, Aiden doesn’t have to do a thing for me. He can tell me to piss off and let some other pure blood keep me until I’m in control, but I know he would never do that.
I don’t want to go back to hell, especially now that I know it can affect me in the way that it does all demons, yet I don’t think I’m ready to die. I’m still not ready to give up my life. I’m such a coward.
I need someone to help me through this. I need Aiden. My decision is made up. I have no choice. I have to go back to hell with Aiden. At least for the time being, until I can decide what I’m going to do in the long term. In the back of my mind, I think of Crispen. When he finds out that I’m not longer a halfling, he’s going to be outraged, even more so than he already is. What a disaster. I can’t believe this has happened.
“Yes, I’ll come with you,” I answer Aiden with a weak, forced smile. I brush my hands through my hair, hitting far too many tangles. I’m in desperate need of a brush. I probably look like some sort of barbarian.
Aiden lights up and more warmth slowly enters his eyes. He looks surprised by my decision, like he thought for sure that I would choose death over remaining a demon and going back with him to hell. He looks relieved.
“You seem to be holding up well,” I state carefully, changing the subject from me. I have to think about something else before the rage comes back.
He looks at me, squints, and tilts his head to the side. “Me holding up well? Shouldn’t you be worrying about you right now?”
Probably, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t worry about him too. Worrying about him takes my mind off of myself and my own problems.
Aiden chuckles and pulls me into an unexpected, tight hug. “When I couldn’t find you in hell, I thought I’d lost you. You scared me to death. If Terry hadn’t come and found me as soon as he did, I would have torn the whole place up looking for you. I nearly ripped the heads off of a few guards in a rage fit.”
“I couldn’t have been gone that long.”
“I came to find you to tell you that Forrest had found the weapon shortly after supper. You weren’t in your room, and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
Aiden squeezes me tightly for a moment longer before releasing me. “Forrest killed Lucian, Megan. He had the weapon the entire time. He killed him, because he knew that I would connect the dots and link the weapon to the murder. He knew I would ask him to find the weapon, and when I did, he would make the deal for his brother’s freedom. When he brought me the weapon, I already had my suspicions. Forrest is good but not that good. He brought it to me so quickly. I asked him questions about where he got it, and his answers seemed…just wrong. I know Forrest well, and I knew he was lying. It all seemed too coincidental. By the time I put the pieces together, I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I couldn’t find you. The thing Forrest wants most is his brother’s freedom, he’d do anything for it. A deal is a deal. Forrest brought me the weapon. They’re both free, but they’re also broken many laws. They are in over their heads. They will be trialed as demidemons and that makes things look bleak for them.”
Aiden mutters something under his breath that I don’t hear. He runs his fingers through my disgusting hair. I need a shower so badly. I don’t know what to say in response to what he’s just said. Forrest killing Lucian? I guess Aiden and I were both set up.
“Where is Terry?” I ask, feeling like I owe him an apology.
“Upstairs. I am going to take you back to hell right now where you’ll be safe, okay?”
When I’m back in hell, I wait for the well-known influence of the place to bombard me, but it doesn’t. I feel no different. Well, I feel no different besides the fact that I’m starving constantly. I’m not allowed to be around any of the humans or even leave my bedroom, because Aiden fears that I’ll hurt someone. Humans and halflings have been banned from the entire section of the building I am in. I feel like I have a disease or something, and I’m being quarantined.
I think the biggest issue for me is my new eye colour. Every time I look in a mirror I scare myself to death. I’m surprised by how much I still feel like me, and yet how much I feel different. I know that I’m still going through the transition of becoming a demon. It doesn’t all happen at once. It takes usually just under a week for someone to fully become a demon. I feel myself getting faster and stronger. I feel myself getting more and more bipolar. Once second I’m ecstatic, the next I could literally rip someone’s head off without a second thought. This side of me terrifies me.
Aiden doesn’t leave my side the next twenty four hours. It’s like he think I’m going to just up and disappear or something if he goes to deal with something more important. I’m sure he has something more important he could be doing. After all, he is the boss of hell.
Aiden lies in bed next to me drawing pictures on my arm with his finger. I wonder if he’s getting sick of having to pull me out the murderous trances I go into now and then, where I suddenly go nuts and get the strength of an elephant. It comes and goes like a heat flash and I never remember the actual time while I have these fits. I just remember how the room looks afterwards, how Aiden looks afterwards. He looks sad, worried, scared even.
“Megan, how are you?” he asks, pure warmth in his expression. If there was any coldness in him yesterday, it’s all gone now. I’m getting a little tired of his asking how I am doing every five minutes like he thinks I’m suddenly going to have a mental breakdown.
“As good as I can be, I gu
ess,” I answer, unsure.
Aiden nods and rests his head on my stomach “Isn’t there a million other things going on in that brain of yours?”
I stare at him and grimace. “Of course.”
Aiden stares back at me, unmoving.
“What are you so worried about? I don’t get it,” I admit almost annoyed.
He bites his lip in thought. “I’m waiting for the moment you finally lose yourself, lose you humanity.”
I look at him questioningly.
“I lied to you before. I do feel things that I shouldn’t, Megan. I don’t know why, but I do. I always have. I’m unlike any of the pure bloods. I’ve never met one like myself. Something is wrong with me. I asked Terry about it once, and he said he’s never heard of a pure blood being able to feel before either. It’s just me. To answer your question, I’m worried, because I know that at any moment the Megan I know is going to disappear, poof, gone forever. I’m scared, because I know that I’m going to lose you at any moment.”
I don’t want to believe what Aiden says, because if I do, that means that pure bloods can’t feel, and they truly are the terrible creatures from horror movies, legends, and religion. I don’t want to believe that. I don’t want to believe that I will end up like Adison or my father or any other pure blood I’ve met. Aiden’s the only one that I’ve met that isn’t so terrible, but I’ve always thought that if Aiden isn’t so evil, then there must be others like him. The last twenty four hours, I’ve been holding onto the hope that maybe I could turn out like Aiden after my transformation. This hope, it’s just been shattered.
Aiden stares at me like he’s inspecting me. Feeling awkward, I switch the subject before I break into tears or go off again in one of my fits. “How is Terry?”
“Terry found Forrest and Maxwell. He’s brought him here,” Aiden answers, surprising me.
As if Aiden reads my mind, he says, “I didn’t demand it of him. He just went out and found them. He brought them back to me. He had no choice. He knew it was what I wanted. Serving me is engrained in him to the core. It’s kind of sad really that a changeling can’t even break the bond with their master to save their child’s life.”
Aiden is right. It is sad. Very sad. I can’t imagine what Terry is going through. He must be so torn. Does he feel guilty for turning his own children in if he’s always completely loyal to Aiden? For some reason, I think the answer is yes.
“Do you really think the council will sentence them to death?” I wonder, still not able to come to terms with this.
“I don’t know. Turning a halfling before they’re trained is against our ways, but it’s not illegal. A demigod tricking a halfling to get out of hell is illegal. A demidemon leaving hell, also illegal. If they’re not killed, then they will likely be put back into servitude. I haven’t mentioned to anyone that Forrest also killed my father. Terry knows, I told him. I can’t bring myself to take this information to council if not needed. For Terry. Killing Lucian would be enough alone for Forrest to be sentenced to a long death. Not just the usual torture and kill, it’d be centuries of torture, before he got to rest.”
The thought of this makes me shudder.
“The bond between pure bloods and the changelings is so strong that Terry would turn in his own son knowing that it could lead to his death?” I just can’t believe this.
“Yes, but I’m sure he is going out of his mind thinking about Forrest right now. He probably feels he had no other choice. It’s not a good life that the changelings lead
I ask Aiden why he thinks that Forrest got Maxwell freedom before escaping even though Maxwell didn’t need any compulsion removed because it doesn’t affect him. He tells me that Maxwell was probably not affected by compulsion in the same way most humans are, but he was still likely partially affected by it and Forrest probably wanted to make sure it was all gone from Maxwell’s head before trying to escape with him, in case he decided to change his mind and ruin Forrest’s plans, getting them both in trouble.
I then switch the subject to a lighter note. Why is everything so depressing? I ask him about his dog. I nearly forgot about the poor girl the past few days. Did she survive the hunter attack? Aiden tells me sadly that he was forced to put her up for adoption, because hell is not place for a canine. This stirs something deep inside of me. I was starting to bond with that dog after all the mornings we ran and played together. I will miss her.
We are interrupted by a knock on the door. Aiden opens it and one of his guards stands in front of it. “Sir, the council is ready upstairs with the boy in question of your father’s murder. They are ready when you are. Also, there is a changeling here to see you. He claims he is your brother. We were going to send him away, but Terry insisted we inform you of his presence and tell you ‘it’s Mason’.”
I swallow hard and glance to Aiden. Aiden’s face drops and goes completely white. He looks like he’s just witnessed an axe murder.
“Bring the changeling to me, and put the council session on hold for thirty minutes,” Aiden demands gruffly. I can tell that he’s struggling not to snap. Mason is here? He’s a changeling? That means that his soul was torn out. My mouth is suddenly dry.
It’s only seconds later when two guards escort a man into my room. Aiden’s eyes have yet to leave the doorway, since the first guard left.
The guards nearly push the man they drag into my room.
“You may dismiss yourselves,” Aiden says to the guards. They shut the door of the room behind them.
Mason struggles to stand. He looks so weak.
“Oh my god,” I whisper without meaning to.
Aiden’s expression mirrors what I’ve just said.
“Aiden,” Mason breathes. “Help.” He falls to his knees, seemingly too weak to stand.
Aiden rushes to his side and helps him up. I jump off of my bed so Aiden can rest him on it. Mason’s eyes match mine. He is in fact a demon, or I guess technically in transition to become one like me.
“What the hell happened?” Aiden demands. “Megan, go tell one of the guards in the hall to bring up three souls.”
I rush out of the room and do just that before returning. It’s nice to leave the room for the first time in an entire day, even if just for a few seconds.
“We were out hunting Megan’s dad, trying to figure out where the two of you disappeared to the last few days. He did this to me, and Aria saw and killed Blayne, then she distracted Crispen long enough for me to get out of there, before he decided to kill me next. One of them, a demon, followed me and instead of killing me, offered to help me. When I mentioned Megan and you he told me where to find you. He brought me to this place. I didn’t have anyone else to go to.”
“Who was the man?” Aiden wonders, confused.
“His name was Landon.”
My brother was the one who helped Mason to safety, helped him find us. But why?
The thought of my father being dead sinks in. I didn’t really know the guy. Should I be upset by his death? I don’t know. I feel nothing, and I wonder if it’s because I wasn’t much a fan of him, or if it’s because I can’t mentally feel grief any longer. A spike of panic occurs in my chest. I don’t want to lose my human emotion.
The doors bust open and three guards burst in carrying humans over their shoulders.
Mason immediately leaps up and grabs one, flinging it off of a guard’s shoulder and sucking down the soul like it’s a margarita. I’m shocked. This isn’t Mason, the guy who days ago told me he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, if I became a demon. Mason kills the other two humans while I watch, trying as hard as I can to control my own hunger and not attack the humans like he does. I only ate like three hours ago, I shouldn’t be so hungry again. Noticing how becoming a demon has changed Mason, I see how it’s also drastically changed me. Just hours ago, I killed humans to quench my hunger. Killed. I killed like it was nothing. Who am I? I’m losing myself. I’m becoming, already am, what I feared becoming most. Old me would hate this me.
<
br /> Mason stands, now far stronger, though clearly still starving.
Aiden stares deep into his eyes and says, “Snap out of it.” He’s trying to bring him back into reality like he’s done for me countless times. Is this what I’ve looked like? Have I really looked so terrifying and monstrous like mason does?
Mason blinks slowly and then seems to notice me. He snaps out of it way easier than I do every time. How did he just do that like it was nothing? Is it because he’s a changeling and Aiden is a pure? Is it because Aiden has a hold on him?
“You too, huh?” Mason asks, referring to my eyes.
I nod. “You still wanna kill me?” I wonder, a small smile playing at my lips.
He contemplates this. “No, but I know I should want to. This is so wrong. I should kill myself or something, shouldn’t I? I’ve been killing demons for centuries, now I am one, and I’m fine with it? No. This is so wrong.”
“Listen,” Aiden says softly, but in a demanding tone.
Mason seems to simmer down. “I feel like you’re my fricken dad or something. I know I should hate you, Aiden, but for some reason I just want to help you. I want to listen to you even though I know I shouldn’t.”
“It’s only going to get worse. You’re in transition. It usually takes about a week to fully become a demon. You’re a changeling so you’re loyal to the pure bloods, and mainly me because I am the most powerful.”
Mason doesn’t seem to register any of this. He stares off into space like he’s thinking way too hard. “I just killed people, didn’t I?” He glances at the limp bodies and gasps, a hand running through his messy hair. “Shit.”
“Aiden, why don’t you go to the council thing, they’re all waiting on you. I can stay with Mason while you’re gone,” I offer, even though I was hoping I’d get to go to the council hearing.
Aiden seems torn but nods. “I’m sorry. I really have to go, my vote could be the reason someone lives or dies. I will be back in an hour or so. Stay here with Megan. Don’t you dare leave this room or hurt her.” Then Aiden’s gone. I’m sure he’s told about a thousand guards to stand in front of the doors and monitor the two of us while he’s gone so we don’t go into rage mode and kill each other.
