by Ivy Asher
I roll my eyes. Demons.
“Flyin’, weapons, and then sparrin’ sounds good to me,” I tell Echo in answer to his question.
“While our mates are training, why don’t we do some training of our own?” Flint throws out there a little too innocently.
There it is.
There’s the master plan I was waitin’ to reveal itself. Can I get a little trainin’ with a large side of mate retribution?
Delta shakes her head, and I can see in her eyes that she’s picked up on the undercurrent of tension too.
Well, this should be interestin’.
###
I bring my practice scythe out and strike at Delta’s side. It has a curved blade on each end, just like my real scythe. Delta has a weapon in each hand, one practice sword, and one practice scythe, which also looks like her real scythe—sportin’ a curved blade at the top and a short dagger at the bottom.
As I swing my weapon closer, she blocks it with her practice sword and jumps back to clear herself of my reach. With her other hand, she brings down her curved blade toward me. I twirl my weapon to intercept the strike while usin’ my wings to thrust me forward, inside the range of her pretend curved blade.
“No, Delta, you only engage your scythe if you have no choice but to reset someone. Otherwise, you need to strike with your sword,” Jerif yells out, the big fiery-haired demon stridin’ forward from where he was watchin’ on the sidelines.
“I know,” Delta grumbles. “But I can’t help the instinct to use it when it’s sitting in my hand,” she tells him, clearly frustrated.
I step back and take deep breaths to pull oxygen into my lungs. We’ve been sparrin’ for hours, and Delta’s mates are relentless in their push to get us as ready as we can be, as fast as possible. I reach behind me and rub at my back. I’m lovin’ this whole wing thing, but man, my shoulders and back are sore.
“Go again,” Jerif barks out, and Delta and I move back into position like the good little Annuli-in-trainin’ that we are.
Delta releases her frustration in a burst of activity that forces me to retreat as I counter her blows. She’s strong and fast, and her dummy sword and my dummy scythe smack together loudly over and over as she brings the heat.
I have a grin spread across my face from ear to ear as I work to keep her from gettin’ a hit in, and I breathe deeply and evenly to feed my muscles with the oxygen they need to match my sister’s furious pace. For some reason, I love this. I’ve never been a brawler, and aside from pickin’ up a Nerf sword when I was younger to battle an imaginary dragon or a cousin, I’ve never been into weapons really.
I’ve been shootin’ with my daddy a couple of times, but it never made me feel like I do now with a scythe in my hand, gettin’ stronger and more capable with each swing to fend off foes and make them rue the day they messed with me. I never knew I could be a rue’er, but just like my demon side happened to fall in my lap, a tough vengeance has also creeped its way into my blood.
Delta spins, pivots, and changes directions like a tornado that can’t make up its mind which trailer park it’s goin’ for, but I match her, rotation for rotation. We’re both storms of movement and action, neither of us able to hit our mark and pushin’ to find a way inside the other’s guard. It’s the best.
My trainin’ scythe is double-sided, makin’ it a very good replica, and I took to it just like I did with my real one that night against Mickey. Every strike and counter strike feels natural, like just holdin’ the weapon is all the key I need to unlock some dormant warrior that’s been hidin’ in my marrow. I learned that night against Mickey that one side will ash someone, while the other end will strike to cut, and I’ve been workin’ on how to implement both when needed.
Delta complains that she doesn’t like sparrin’, but the gleam in her eyes as she searches my defenses for a way in tells me otherwise. She swings low, but I’ve already caught on to her Karate Kid move. I leap up into the air, my wings spreadin’ out and workin’ to fill with air. I rise, and Delta takes flight too.
Instead of runnin’ and lettin’ Delta give chase like she thinks I’m gonna do, I feint like I’m gonna book it, but then at the last minute, I flip up and around. I don’t quite clear her aerial charge, so my wing clips hers. We get tangled up together, and it sends us both whirlin’ and fallin’ toward the ground. Instead of preparin’ for my all too quick and impendin’ crash to the ground, I bring my scythe around and mimic deliverin’ a fatal blow to my sister.
My wings stretch out and angle themselves as though they have a mind of their own. They go from actin’ like feathered appendages of destruction, to actin’ like parachutes. I grab on to Delta and manage to slow our fall enough that we’re no longer meteorites shootin’ to meet the ground, but mere acorns fallin’ from a tree. It still stings when we slam onto the mats, but I know our demon selves will dilute the small amount of pain in minutes. Yay for fast healin’.
“That’s it. I quit,” Delta pants out from next to me, as all of our mates converge on us.
“Well done, Medley,” Jerif compliments as he reaches our sides.
Delta and I just lay on the mats as though we’re doin’ our best pancake impression.
Delta growls. “And my asshole mate is handin’ out compliments now. Yep, I’m so done that if I were a steak, Gordon Ramsay would send me back to the kitchen. I give the fuck up!”
31
Jerif helps his peeved mate up, while strong arms reach under my armpits and haul me to my feet too. I can already tell it’s Alder. He has a real gift for the whole armpit lift thing he always seems to be doin’. I inhale deeply as he checks me over, appreciatin’ his scent that can only be described as bouquet of man. It’s floral, yet masculine, and...crap. Maybe I’m gettin’ the itch again.
I banish my needy thoughts about how good Alder smells, looks, and feels, and focus back on Delta instead.
“You okay?” I ask her.
“Am I okay? No, I’m not,” she announces as she swipes away the sweat on her forehead with a rueful smile. “I’m jealous as shit. How the hell did you do that? By the time I figured out which end was my ass and which end was my head, you already had a scythe to my neck.”
I smile, and she shoots me a teasin’ glare.
“I would also like it noted that it’s completely unfair that you get a cool, user-friendly scythe that has an Annulus business end and a party cutting end,” she goes on. “I feel for the sake of camaraderie and just because I don’t want to suffer alone that you should also have to call on your inner medieval times and learn how to use a sword. Although with my luck, you’d kick may ass at that too! How are you so good at this?” she says with exasperation.
I shrug, and Delta looks over at Crux, whose gaze is very intent on her.
“I didn’t injure my boobs, so you can stop inspecting them,” she announces with a look. The shit-eatin’ grin that crosses his face is too funny.
“I’m just being thorough, Jeter. One can never be too careful with things that are so precious.”
Delta slaps his hand away with a laugh, and seein’ that she’s fine, Rafferty, Crux, and Echo disperse, goin’ back to what they were doin’. Jerif hands her a water bottle, and she shoots him a witherin’ glare. “You’re all complimentary of my sister, but where’s the love for me?” she challenges.
“I’ll shower you with just as much praise when you get out of your head and embrace your instincts like Medley does,” he counters gruffly.
“Well, excuse me if the sudden plummet to the ground scrambled my brain,” she snarks.
“Next time, trust that your body will be just fine and go for the kill,” he tells her, kissin’ the tip of her nose. His fiery gaze is heated as he fixes it on her; it’s as though her irritation is a potent aphrodisiac to him.
She stares at him for a beat and then sighs. “Fine. We’ll work on that again tomorrow, but you have to promise to massage my wings today and every day until I get it,” she tells him.
He rolls his eyes at her. “When do I not take care of you after training?” he asks evenly, but there’s a hint of heat in his tone that tells me they’re not talkin’ about simply rubbin’ out sore muscles here. Maybe Delta gets the itch too?
“Now get back to it.” He turns and slaps her ass hard, which elicits a squeal from her, and then walks off to join her other mates.
Alder chuckles next to me, and I whirl, immediately coverin’ my ass with my hands. You’d think my wings would be enough protection, but Jerif just proved they’re not. That butt slap was so loud I know Delta will have his hand print on her cheek for a while. That’s probably what the gruff demon wanted, but I’d like to sit down on my ass with zero discomfort, especially after the hours and hours of trainin’ we’ve been doin’ today.
Flint cracks up at my alarm too, and I back away slowly, not fallin’ for their charmin’ smiles and too innocent eyes.
There will be no monkey see, monkey do. With crooked grins, they both saunter off to join the others. Delta rubs her ass and laughs at me as she hands me a water before gingerly sittin’ on the ground, her wings and back against the gym wall. I slide down next to her and chug the deliciously cold and refreshin’ bottle in a few gulps. Delta hands me another one, and I drink about half of that one too before my body decides it’s not gonna die of dehydration and it can chill.
“So...you didn’t run when they announced that you were a demon, you didn’t freak out when Flint and Alder claimed you as their mate, and you also seem to take to this whole training for battle thing like a total badass,” she muses. “I’d be jealous that you’re beautiful, but luckily, we look alike, so at least I have that going for me too,” she announces on a sigh.
I chuckle. “Oh, please, you kept me on my toes the whole time, and I saw that smirk that snuck over your face several times today. You’re better at this than you think, and you like it a heck of a lot more than you thought you would too,” I tell her.
“It is easier sparring with you, I’ll admit that much,” she says. “For some reason, watching you work through the moves helps me do the same.”
“Maybe your grumpy mate is right, and it’s simply about gettin’ out of your head more,” I offer. “It’s about not thinkin’ like a human or givin’ human limitations to our angel and demon abilities.”
She nods in thought. “Yeah, the guys have been on me about the same thing, but I told them it was easier said than done. But then I saw you doing it, and I don’t know...it’s starting to click. I just want to know how you got so good at this so fast and how the whole you’re a demon bomb didn’t freak you the fuck out?” she asks, bumpin’ my shoulder with her own playfully.
I shrug. “I honestly don’t know why I’ve been so acceptin’ of everythin’. I think I have my parents to blame—or thank, dependin’ on how you look at it,” I tell her with a smile.
She chuckles and sips her water, waitin’ for me to elaborate.
“Ever since I was little, my mama has always talked about angels and God and Heaven as if they were real parts of our lives. She constantly told me the story of the angel who dropped me on their porch, and I just grew up understandin’ that there was more out there than most people knew. Heaven and the angel-stork story were just part of the fabric of who I was,” I explain as I rest my head back against the wall.
I can see the guys on the other end of the room, workin’ out and probably tryin’ to one-up each other. I’m lost to thoughts of all the bedtimes I begged my mama to tell me about the angel again. I recall all the moments she and my daddy spent explainin’ how special I was, what a gift I’d been.
“I really only thought about Heaven when it came to explainin’ who I was, and then I had my first tribulation.” I pause for a moment and try to sort through the best way to explain what I’m feelin’ and thinkin’. “I don’t remember much other than what my parents told me about it, but the older I got, the more I started to accept that with Heaven, there’s always a Hell, and when the blackness took me over, it wasn’t an angel that came out to play.”
Delta nods and sets her water down, her eyes lost in thought. “I get that. I always had a darkness that seemed to underlie all my intense emotions too. My mom called it impulse control issues and simple naughtiness, but now looking back, I see it. Something must have happened to your blocks, since you were tapping into the other side of yourself that Nefta tried to hide.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured too,” I agree. “Anyway, my point is, I’d already embraced my light and dark, my differences. Alder and Flint didn’t drop a bomb so much as they gave me a name for somethin’ that I’d been dealin’ with my whole life. Well, aside from seein’ actual demons. That I didn’t do so well with. I tore up their bar like I was on one of those business renovation shows, and everythin’ just had to go.”
Delta laughs and looks at me with a warm gaze. “It’s so weird that we’re strangers but alike in so many ways. I did a little home renovating myself before I could finally start to come to terms with what I was and what that meant.”
I laugh at that, recallin’ the story she told me about how she got such a beautiful kitchen.
“Did the mate thing bother you?” I ask her as we both watch our demons workin’ out and gettin’ ready to spar with one another.
A thrill goes through me at the thought of watchin’ such seasoned fighters do their best to take each other out. I should take notes as they do their thing. Is that nerdy? I shrug. Who cares?
“I took a minute to come to terms with that too,” Delta confesses with an incredulous snort. “I was attracted to them, of course. I didn’t quite understand it since they are all so different from what I was raised to see as beautiful, but the draw was definitely there.”
I nod in understandin’, thinkin’ back to how I felt about Flint and Alder in the beginnin’. Even before I could see through their wards, I was strangely comfortable in Alder’s office the day I lost my job. I never really gave it much thought, but now I can see that for what it was.
“And then I thought I lost them,” she tells me, her voice layered with so much emotion that my throat feels tight as she speaks. “I thought they were gone, and all I could think was how stupid I had been for not seeing what they were to me. It went against what I was raised to think, you know, one person out there for you and all that,” she tells me, and I hum a noise of undertsandin’.
“But I just didn’t care anymore. I had the wings, the scythe, the Abdicated sperm donor and the angel womb, plus the need for revenge burning through my veins. So when I saw them again, when I realized they weren’t dead like I thought, that was the moment I truly accepted what I was. I didn’t care about anything else other than the fact that they were alive and they were going to be mine. Fuck my human concerns and hang-ups about it. I was a demon-angel hybrid, and I was going to take what I wanted.”
She gives me a wide smile, and I return it. “Hell yeah,” I tell her, puttin’ my knuckles out for her to pound.
“Fuck yeah,” she answers back happily, touchin’ her fist to mine.
We both turn and watch as Flint and Jerif step on the mats, facin’ each other. I guess the show’s about to start.
“My guys brought me to meet your mates, back when I was struggling to accept things,” she tells me. “They wanted me to hear Flint’s story and how he came around to accepting the role he was called to.”
I look over at Delta with surprise in my eyes. He mentioned before that he didn’t want the Guardian job, but he never went into detail about how he came to terms with it.
“I never did hear his story though. There was an attack, and then we left to go back to our own gate to make sure it was okay.”
I look back to Flint and make a note to ask him about what happened. Rafferty counts down, and then as fast as a viper, Jerif and Flint go at each other. Jerif’s body language seems to indicate that they’re gonna wrestle, but Flint has his elbow cocked back, and then his fist smashes into Jerif’s face
so fast that I don’t even have time to squeak out a warnin’.
“What the fuck was that?” Jerif bellows, a hand swipin’ over his cheek.
“Oops,” Flint says casually, obviously not in the least bit sorry.
Delta and I shoot up from our seats as both groups start to merge, shouts and accusations flingin’ this way and that all over the trainin’ area.
“If you want to really go, Nacre, then let’s go!” Jerif challenges, callin’ Flint by the type of demon he is.
“My fault,” Flint half-ass apologizes. “I just thought you should know what it feels like to get blindsided by a world of hurt because no one clues you in on what’s really going down,” he accuses.
I groan as I close the distance. Called it. Flint and Alder were just bidin’ their time.
“You think we knew any more about what was going on with Delta when we first met her?” Rafferty asks, steppin’ between them with a frown.
The big blue demon has had an even temper up until now, but I can see it’s startin’ to wear thin.
“Do you think we had any idea what was coming for her, what we’d have to protect her from? We apologized for not clueing you into everything that occurred, but you have to stop blaming us for what happened,” he snaps at Flint, frustration curlin’ his words. “We were doing the best we could. We had no idea that Delta had sisters. We couldn’t even fathom that any of the other Guardians needed to be alerted after the battle. We thought Morax was solely after Delta.”
Echo moves in to stand beside Rafferty, and Flint’s hard glare flicks over to him. “We get that you’re pissed,” Echo declares, his shadows moving over him jerkily like they’re equally as agitated. “We were pissed too when we realized that Delta was a target. But cheap shots and harbored grudges aren’t going to change anything. We need to work together.”
