AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Caelan!” I interrupt. He’s getting way too worked up about it all over again, and his rage is scary. It hits far too close to home. “It’s okay. What’s done is done. I know he regrets it. And I think you made your point clear. The living room sure knows it…” I pause, sighing as I look at the mess again. It had been a really nice room too. “What exactly did you do?”
Caelan shrugs. “Beat the shit out of him. He let me. Only pissed me off more.”
“Okay,” I say. It doesn’t feel okay, not really, but they’re demons. Elias is fine and Caelan clearly didn’t do any permanent damage. Maybe it’s best just to let the matter lie. That’s an argument they need to work out between themselves, and I’ve sure learned better than to get in the way of their anger now.
I retreat to the kitchen, which feels like safer ground. Elias probably heard every word Caelan and I said, but he makes no comment on it.
“Here,” Elias says, guiding me to the dining room and laying a plate on the table in front of me. There’s a chunk of meat in thick gravy, cooked enough to be almost falling apart, served with carrots and broccoli and roast potatoes. “Eat, if you feel able to. You still look pale, and it’ll do you some good.”
Even though it is still a little early for lunch and the meal is excessive, I eat as directed. At first just to please him, but the moment I get some food in me, I realize just how famished I am.
He brings water too, and I finish off two glasses by the time I’ve finished the meal.
That feels a lot better, honestly.
Elias watches me the whole time, and I glance up at him once I’m done. “Please stop looking at me like that,” I request quietly.
“Like what?”
“So damn guiltily. It’s making my heart ache.”
“Darling. I deserve to feel all the guilt in the world.”
“Yeah, well, I can feel it too,” I say. “And ithurts.”
He frowns. “What do you mean you can feel it too?”
I stop and realize I let on more than I meant to. I shake my head. “I… don’t know.”
I don’t understand anything I’m feeling.
Looking down, I toy with my fork, biting my lip. “I can… sense you, I think? I don’t know how strong it is, maybe it’s only because you were close by, but when I was upstairs, I could sort of…” I try to work out how to describe it, “… feel your presence, even from afar.”
“That’s not unexpected. It’s something that will be easy enough for you to learn to tune out.”
“What about… emotions? Thoughts?”
It’s obvious where I’m going with this line of inquiry. Elias covers my hand with his, squeezing gently. “If I am close, yes. Somewhat. Nothing so specific as thoughts, but general emotions, particularly if they are strong ones, you may be more sensitive to. But again, it can be blocked out.”
I turn my hand so I can twine my fingers together with his. “I keep feeling emotions that aren’t mine, and it scares me. I think it scares me. I can’t even work out how I feel because there’s all thisnoisein my head.”
Numbness, guilt, anger, fear, loss, relief. A cold, possessive satisfaction. Closeness.
“I suppose it’s the other way ’round for you, ain’t it?” Caelan comments from the archway.
He brought me dessert as well, but now that this conversation is happening, I can only pick at it.
“What do you mean?” I ask Caelan.
He leans against the table next to where I am sat. “We went from being fully-fledged demons to having some stupid part of us human. And, honestly, that was so damn long ago and so messed up that it’s not like I even remember it properly. You’re a human who’s got a touch of demon in you now. Wonder which is worse for your sanity?”
Elias gives him a hard look. “Caelan. That’s not helpful.”
Caelan seems to realize maybe his statement about sanity wasn’t the most prudent and reaches out to rub my shoulder. “Sorry, doll. It shouldn’t be so shitty for you. The fragmentation isn’t half as bad, and we’ll be here to help. Elias is good at manipulating energy. If it keeps flickering around like that for you, I’m sure he can probably help stabilize it.”
“Wait. Doing what?”
“Humans have very limited interactions in an energetic sense. Your minds and souls are restricted to your material plane. Some are more sensitive than others, people you consider psychics or who can see auras or such. Given your current situation, you’ve been given far greater energetic capacity and sensitivity. Not enough to see the flow of energy yourself, although perhaps that is something that will come to you, but I have noticed your energy is still fluctuating rather significantly within its new capacity.”
