by Cara Wylde
“That’s how we found her,” said Alexi.
Lilith sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I don’t know what to say…” Apparently, the little cambion was more powerful than she had thought, but there was no way she could figure out why.
“That’s not all,” said Sophie. She threw a glance around her to make sure she had everyone’s attention. She hated what was happening, she hated that they had brought her here and made her talk about it, but there was no turning back. She would show them this one last thing and finally get some answers. Sophie reached for the hem of her blouse and lifted it slowly.
Lilith raised an eyebrow, which made everyone who was behind Sophie take a couple of steps forward so they could see what the cambion was doing. At the sight of the new, round and flowery sigil on Sophie’s white skin, Lilith’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, and Ke-sar gasped.
“What. The. Hell.” Hebe was the only one who voiced her surprise. The others were staring at the sigil. They were shocked. Dumbfounded. It was clear they had never seen anything like it. Or… maybe they had, but not on a cambion.
“What is it?” asked Sophie, still holding her blouse up. “Alexi and Kain don’t know. I’ve never seen anything similar in the books I’ve studied. But you have to know. So… what is it?”
Lilith forced herself to look up into Sophie’s eyes. Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, then the succubus changed her mind and turned to Ke-sar. The blond-haired incubus had his eerie, golden eyes fixed on Anahit. Lilith had a very bad feeling about this. It wasn’t that they didn’t know what the new sigil on Sophie’s stomach was. They did. What they were trying to figure out was how it had ended up on Sophie and why it was circling her first sigil, the demon one.
Anahit took a step back and that was when Sophie noticed her from the corner of her eye. She turned towards the succubus and waited for her response. None came.
“Well? What is it?” she asked. Her patience was wearing down.
Anahit’s faded blue eyes moved from Sophie’s sigil to Ke-sar. The incubus was staring at her insistently, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed. He, too, was waiting for an answer. Everyone was. So, Anahit did the thing they were least expecting: she shook her head, turned around and left the room. Just like that.
Sophie blinked in shock and confusion. She caught the citrus perfume the succubus always left behind, but this time the cold, fresh aura did nothing to her. Sophie was too angry to be affected by anyone’s aura. Her own was currently burning too brightly. If the people around her weren’t demons or part demons themselves, Sophie’s magic would have probably overwhelmed them. She turned back to Lilith and Ke-sar.
“What the hell? She can’t leave us like this!”
Lilith sighed and stood up. She needed to catch up with Anahit and talk some sense into her. Sophie’s new, improved sigil was a clear sign that one of her immortal parents had… well, had an affair with the wrong… supernatural being. Ke-sar’s attitude was proof enough that he wasn’t responsible, while Anahit’s odd behavior condemned her without any doubt.
“We’ll sort things out, Sophie. I’ll talk to her.”
“What is there to talk about?”
By this point, Sophie was boiling with anger and frustration. Her heavy aura expanded and she noticed how Kain and Alexi winced and took a step back. She could feel they both had their shields up, but something told her that if she wanted to, she could strike them down. She could strike everyone in the room down. She had no logical explanation, no real way of knowing, but she could feel her chest vibrating with power, the tips of her fingers tingling with the desire to hurt someone. She tried to calm down, but to no avail.
“You all know what’s going on!” she screamed. “You know, and you won’t tell me!”
“Sophie, baby, calm down…”
That was Alexi’s soothing voice, but she ignored him. She took a step towards Lilith. “You’re hiding something from me. And Anahit is hiding something from everyone, isn’t she?” Her eyes rose to meet Ke-sar’s. This time, the incubus didn’t intimidate her. “What is she hiding, father?” She emphasized the last word and felt even more powerful when she noticed how Ke-sar tensed.
“She’ll come around,” tried Lilith again. She had never seen such a strong and wild cambion before. Sophie’s hard eyes almost scared her. When she saw the girl squeezing her hands into fists at her sides, the succubus found herself worried that she wouldn’t know how to act in case the cambion would decide to show them just how powerful her new sigil was.
“I don’t have time to wait for her to come around,” said Sophie. “I need answers now! And you know what? If you’re not going to do anything about it, I’m going to get them myself.”
She turned around and stormed out of the office, dead set on finding Anahit and making her talk. She heard Kain and Alexi calling her name and running after her, but she had no intention to stop. When she saw the corridor was empty and Anahit was nowhere in sight, she ran down the stairs. On the ground floor, she stopped to catch her breath and look around her. The succubus wasn’t there either. She opened the door that led to the courtyard and stepped into the blinding sun.
“Shit,” she whispered to herself. “She’s a fuckin’ succubus, Sophie. What did you expect?”
She looked up at the cloudless sky and inhaled the fresh scent of spring and nature coming back to life. She heard Kain and Alexi behind her and suddenly decided that she didn’t want to see them. They would try to soothe her, tell her how everything would be all right. They would caress her hair and promise her that it was all over and she only needed to be patient. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want for anyone to attempt to calm her down or convince her that the succubi and incubi were fussy demons and there was nothing she could do about it.
“I’m so tired of all this bullshit,” she said and started walking towards the front gate.
“Sophie, wait!” Kain called after her. “Where are you going?”
She ignored him and started running. If she couldn’t find Anahit and squeeze the truth out of her, then she wanted to be alone.
♥
The light in Erah’s office was dim, and Sophie appreciated the intimacy. It wasn’t the first time she was seeing the Academy’s therapist, so she felt comfortable in the presence of the blue-haired incubus. He had been silent for a couple of minutes now, waiting for Sophie to answer his question. She looked at the heavy curtains covering the window and sighed.
“I don’t know, I just don’t want to see them…”
Erah drummed his fingers on the table and studied her face carefully. “You do know, Sophie. Why don’t you want to say it out loud?”
“I can’t say it out loud because I don’t know why. I just don’t feel like being with them, spending time with them…”
When Erah didn’t say anything, Sophie knew he was still waiting for a proper answer. If she didn’t try to give him one, he would probably refuse to let her out of his office. She really didn’t want to be there, and she was tired of everyone asking her how she felt, how she was dealing with it, and if she needed help. She didn’t need anyone’s help, that’s why she had been avoiding Kain and Alexi for the past few days. She had spent most of her time in her and Lamia’s room, reading old magazines and going through the course books she had already read one too many times. Since the meeting in Lilith’s office, Sophie had tried to find Anahit, and after she finally accepted she wouldn’t find the succubus unless she wanted to be found, she had tried to gain access to the huge library in Septentrio. Unsurprisingly, Tarini refused to help her. With nothing else to do, Sophie isolated herself more and more, reaching the point when she wouldn’t even get out of her room to eat. The only reason she hadn’t starved was that Lamia, her friend and roommate, seemed to be the only one who understood her and respected her choice. She would bring her food three times a day, along with the gossip which went around Lure Academy and was, most of the time, related to Sophie, Kain, Alexi, and the c
ase they had just closed. Everything had been going moderately well until Erah summoned her to his office. Per Lilith’s dispositions, Sophie was to go to therapy twice a week. This was their first session.
“Take your time. Don’t forget that I’m here to listen to you, Sophie. And help you… If I can.”
Sophie took a deep breath and released it slowly. There was no other way. He wouldn’t give up.
“I’m not sure… I think I don’t want to see them because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that I might hurt them.”
There. It was out. The reason why she didn’t want to spend time with Kain and Alexi was that she knew they would try to help her, distract her from her dark memories of Casimir D’Argyle, and the only way they knew how to do that was through making love to her. Would she be able to control her powers then? Would she be able to keep her demon sigil in check? Could she even refer to the sigil on her stomach as a demon sigil anymore? She shook her head to clear her mind of all these unanswered questions, and looked into Erah’s dark eyes. He was waiting for her to go on.
“I don’t know how to control this new thing I’ve become… I feel like I’m different and I’m not sure how. I’d rather stay away from anyone who might get hurt if they come too close to me.”
Erah leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. Finally, they were getting somewhere.
“Why do you think you could hurt them? Kain and Alexi are two very capable cambions.”
“You don’t get it… What happened with the Count… I just can’t get it out of my head. I don’t know how I did it. One moment he’s in front of me, pulling me after him down the corridor, and the next moment he’s lying on the floor, lifeless. I don’t know how I did it, I can’t even remember most of what happened. You have no idea how scared I am that it will happen again and there will be nothing I’ll be able to do to stop it.”
She waited for Erah to say something, hoping he would let her know that he was satisfied for now and she could leave. When that didn’t happen, she sighed and turned her tired gaze back to the heavy curtains. She didn’t know when she started thinking out loud, but once the first couple of sentences were out, she couldn’t stop.
“I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to hurt him that badly. I was just protecting myself. I never thought I’d be able to… to do something like that to him. I mean, a month ago I was just an apprentice. I was actually afraid that if I attacked him, I would only manage to make him mad, and this is why I focused all of my strength in that one blow.”
“You did nothing wrong, Sophie.”
“But I did, and it blows my mind that no one else sees that! I killed a man.”
“You killed a demon. That was not a man, Sophie. That was an old, powerful demon who had been feasting on human souls for centuries!”
The blank stare Sophie gave him made it clear that she didn’t agree with his reasoning. He leaned towards her and placed his hands firmly on the desk.
“You have nothing to blame yourself for. Casimir D’Argyle doesn’t deserve your pity, and he didn’t deserve your mercy.”
“You really don’t get it,” she said, standing up and starting to pace around the office. “It doesn’t matter who or what he was, and I don’t care what he did. All that matters is what I did, and I can’t live with it. I can’t sleep because of the nightmares. Every night, I’m back in that cold, dark tunnel, leaning over the Count’s body, crying and shaking his shoulders, pleading with him to wake up.” Her voice cracked at the last words, and she took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. “I’m a murderer. The fact that I didn’t mean to do it doesn’t change anything. I can’t control my powers and it can happen again anytime. I can’t be around Alexi and Kain knowing that I might hurt them without realizing. I just… I just want to be alone. I just want Anahit to crawl back out from whatever hole she’s been hiding in and tell me the truth, then teach me how to make this work, show me how to get my life back.” She turned to Erah and fixed him with her big, brown eyes. “But she won’t do it, will she? What gives her the right to be so selfish and self-centered? I don’t expect her to act like a mother because I know you incubi and succubi don’t do that. All I want is for her to tell me what I need to know to get back on my feet, and then she can go fuck herself for all I care.”
Erah smiled at Sophie’s last words. They were getting somewhere, indeed. Even if she didn’t know it, Sophie was handling the situation pretty well. Erah had seen many cambions go through depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after accidentally hurting a demon more than they had initially intended to, and he could safely say that Sophie would soon find her way back to a normal life, as normal as a cambion’s life could be. As far as he could tell, she was much more affected by Anahit’s refusal to show herself and give her the explanations she needed. The thing he really had to work with her on was her fear of hurting her two partners.
“You are perfectly right about Anahit,” Erah said. “We were all baffled at how oddly she reacted, but you have to try and understand that Anahit is the second ranked succubus at Lure Academy, and the only ones who have a chance to persuade her to tell you and everyone else what’s on her mind are Lilith and Ke-sar.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “And when will they do that, exactly? Ke-sar didn’t seem eager to talk to her himself, and Lilith was rather dismissive. I can’t sit around and wait for them to finally decide to do something they should have done three days ago, when we came back to Lure and brought all those demons with us. Actually, you know what? For all the things I, Alexi and Kain have gone through in Ukraine, the least the Pantheon could do is to give me some straight answers. I’m not asking for much. I don’t know who I am anymore, I don’t know how to put the puzzle back together because the most important piece is missing.”
Erah sighed and rubbed his temples. “I know it’s hard to understand, but Anahit… Anahit is important to us. I myself don’t claim to know how her mind works, but I know that she will answer your questions in her own time.”
Sophie huffed. “In her own time? What does that even mean? I don’t care if she’s the second ranked succubus, I don’t care if she’s my mother! In fact, I don’t consider her my mother. She means nothing to me! Can’t you see I’m the one who is being wrong here?!”
She started pacing faster, eying the door every five seconds. The room was getting stuffy and Erah’s calm attitude was starting to get on her nerves. She had always liked the incubus and appreciated the fact that he was at least trying to understand how humans and cambions thought, but right now she was getting the feeling that, after all, Erah was what he was: a demon who could pretend to understand her, even do his best, but nothing more. She couldn’t take this anymore, she wanted out of there.
Erah was losing her, and he couldn’t have that. “Sophie, you’re directing all your anger towards Anahit and losing sight of what really matters.”
“And what’s that?” asked Sophie sarcastically.
“Who you are, what you did, and the way you see yourself now.”
Sophie waved her hands exasperatedly. She couldn’t believe they were going back to that.
“For fuck’s sake, I don’t know who I am! That’s why I need to talk to Anahit!”
“She can’t tell you that… You think she can, but she can’t. No one can tell you who you are.”
“The sigil…”
“That doesn’t matter either,” said Erah in a kind, soothing voice. He shook his head as to emphasize his words. “The sigil, your real parents… Human or immortal… Your new powers and where they come from… None of that matters. Sophie, you are the only one who can decide who you are and what you’re going to do from now on. So, forget about Anahit, and forget about trying to get answers from the outside. All the answers, all the correct answers, are inside of you.”
Sophie opened her mouth to say something, but then changed her mind and shrugged. She was too tired to arg
ue with him anymore. She eyed the door again, then sat back in her chair and hoped the session would be over soon. She had been in his office for over an hour. He had to let her go at some point.
“And the most important thing, Sophie, is that you have all the time in the world to find these answers.” Erah smiled at her defeated expression. He knew she wasn’t looking forward to seeing him twice a week, but then again, this was true of all Lure Academy cambions when it came to therapy.
Sophie threw him a sour look, then slumped in the comfy chair. He had to let her go at some point…
♥
The torch sizzled and died on the wet floor, and Sophie couldn’t even see her own hands in the dark. The only thing she could hear in the deep, deafening silence was her own erratic breathing and her own heart thundering in her chest. She was on her knees, leaning over Casimir’s lifeless form.
“No…” she whispered. “No, please no.”
Her hands came in contact with his forehead, then his cheeks, and finally found their way down to his chest. She pressed lightly, then harder and harder. She had no idea what she was doing, she was just trying to coax a reaction out of him.
“Please… please…” She sobbed and felt tears running down her cheeks. “You can feed off my energy, I won’t struggle. I promise. You can have all of it. Please… please wake up.”
His chest felt weird under her fingers. It was as if she knew every muscle by heart, as if she had touched it many times before.
“No…”
Her hands traveled up his neck, followed the curve of his chin, then stopped over his cheeks. She knew this bone structure too well, and it wasn’t Casimir’s.
