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Do they have much involvement with the Academy?I asked, my hackles rising.
Not that I know of. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some informal relationship, but no formal treaties exist in the Guild repositories.
What’s wrong?Felix's voice cut in on our private connection forged through nearly a millennia of friendship.
I smell shifter and brimstone,I replied curtly, my tone tense.
Brimstone? Do you think they hurt a hell beast in the area?Felix's concern was evident in his words.
I’m going to find out,I affirmed, determination ladened in my voice.
Walking to the intruder's location would only offer them time to pick up my scent, so I cloaked myself in shadows to quickly move to where I needed to be. I felt all my body's tension melding into the mist that momentarily drew in the light from the world around me to power my transition. It was an odd sensation traveling by shadows - as if all the air evaporated from my lungs in a whoosh, rushing out through an invisible sieve in the center of my chest. It takes time to get used to for those of us gifted enough to be able to do it, and fewer still ever master it as the feeling can cause the subconscious mind to panic, being momentarily without a host to cling to. In rare cases, the mind never snaps back to the body, and the demon is left as a vacant shell upon arrival at their intended destination.
I however, had never had such a concern and stepped out from the shadows as if descending the final step of a flight of stairs. I tugged at the lapels of my tailored Armani suit, checking to ensure it was still neatly in place. I then pulled up a glamor of shadows, suppressing my aura and masking my scent through a subtle weave of distraction. Shifters had far too acute a sense of smell to be tricked by a scent mask, but a distraction weave could drive them to ignore the scent for just long enough to position for an offensive attack before the mongrel’s natural prowess repelled the trick.
What I came to find when I looked down from the trees was far more intriguing than a mere flea-bitten canine. Hidden within a simple but effective privacy screen lay an old blue and white truck, its front passenger door wide open. On the tall cloth seat perched an entrancingly beautiful woman nibbling on the pinky of one hand while absently flipping open and then snapping closed what looked to be an old Nokia flip phone from the early 2000s in the other.
I had become all too familiar with this female, even though we’d never met. I could never forget the long ashen locks from my vision that reminded me of a newly crafted blade before it was polished, with a slight darkening at the roots before cascading to a near-brilliant silver shine at the tips. If it were not for the essence-derived shields that surrounded me, I would swear she was one of the deadly Ash Nymphs who used their exquisite beauty to draw men to their earthen beds, only to burn them alive to fertilize the vines which housed their earthbound spirits.
After a few minutes, she pushed herself from her seat to pace back and forth on the moss-covered ground, giving me a front-row seat to her delectable bite-worthy curves. She was tall, encroaching on five ten with long legs hidden beneath baggy blue fatigues that did nothing to hide the rounded pertness of her ass. Ample braless breasts were tucked neatly into the confines of a white tank top which was just translucent enough to make out the outer lines of rose-colored nipples which hardened to the most suckable tips in response to the cool breeze that pulled at the mussy bun on top of her head.
She smelled of men’s body wash, likely to cover the brimstone and shifter that poured from her skin in diametrically opposing scents. I felt a strange pang of something that I refused to admit may be jealousy as I considered where she might have picked up that repugnant set of odors as she was definitely not a mongrel. The scent of iron still lingered, but it was of human origins, with no hint of the cinnamon aroma that Lucifer had mixed with hellbeast blood. This meant that, at least for now, the hellbeast was likely alive, as the scents would be much stronger had the hellbeast been killed through either decapitation or the destruction of the heart. As I doubted this little beauty capable of such a feat, she likely had come across the hell bear victim dragged into the keep earlier barely clinging to life.
She began to release some rigid tension as she walked, allowing a natural sway to come to sweetly curved hips. She had a slightly rounded waist below those too perfect breasts, a bow atop an already nearly flawless package. The only thing that detracted from her utter perfection was the dark forest green shade that appeared misplaced in such ethereal almond eyes, as if a piece from a different puzzle was forced to finish another.
Gods but she was exactly what I looked for in a bedmate - healthy, but with ample curves that I could grip tightly as I thrust my cock into her warm, wet sheath from behind, marveling at how that fuckable peach-shaped ass jiggled with each pound of my hips. I could already see how her breasts would sway, and her pearl skin would redden as I pulled back her tranquil hair to hear her scream my name. For the first time in months my cock twitched, eliciting a guttural sound from deep in my chest; my beast calling to play with the delectable creature before me. The horny bastard.
She should not have been able to hear me, the sound’s frequency restricted almost exclusively to demons, but from her subtle tells it was clear she had. She slowed in her strides, nostrils flaring as she narrowed her eyes for the shortest of moments before tilting her head with the subtlest hint of movement, angling it gradually closer to my direction. Even the way she nibbled her finger changed, becoming more rhythmic as she dampened the clap her phone released when she repeatedly snapped it shut. She was trying so hard not to let on she was monitoring for something - or rather someone. Me.
She may be trying to hide her knowledge of my presence, but my demon had no such desires. He rumbled deep inside my chest once again.
A bolt of red sparks struck me, the essence of wrath burning the ground a mere foot from my feet after bouncing harmlessly off my chest. I turned to find my attacker, only to see that they had come directly from the palms of the exquisite beauty who’s previously dark green irises now appeared a messy combination of shades. She had heard my demon’s challenge and had chosen to play along. And even though I should have been focused on her new onslaught, I couldn’t help but feel that those eyes were a step closer to the proper crowning glory that would fit her consummately.
A second spark was released, only this time it singed the shoulder of my suit before bouncing off my skin. It shouldn’t have been possible, but as I studied the spark that fizzled next to me, I could see tiny golden filaments of justice intertwined with the red hues of wrath.
Justice was my immediate polar opposite - the other half of my Cardinal Tier that I was responsible for balancing. Justice was the only natural way to counter wrath, and vice versa—the only proper way to harm me.
And she controlled them both.
Chapter Three - Here There Be Monsters
Aeryn
Minutes earlier
I sat sideways on the front seat of Zane’s truck, my legs dangling out of the opened driver’s side door. An old crumpled shoe box perched precariously on the edge of the passenger seat, with its distinctive outdated blue and red tri-sweep Reebok logo still prevalent despite how many wrinkles and cracks existed in the cardboard.
I’d taken a few moments when I first arrived back near the Academy grounds to reinforce the subtle distraction weave my old mentor had taught me to keep curious onlookers from easily discovering my earthen sanctuary. I shouldn’t have bothered as I was already running late and was probably wasting some perfectly great distraction Ness had cooked up at the keep. But something kept me from going inside. I felt agitated and antsy, which in and of itself wasn’t exactly unexpected, considering I was about to go up on the auction block like some prized brude mare. But that wasn’t just it.
No - it was more. And somehow, I knew that it was tied to the copper bracelet magically encased around my wrist since birth. It had even grown throughout my life as I did and routinely burned when emotions ran high or nightmares plagued my mind. Despite the countless hours that Ness and I had spent pouring over aged texts and dull computer screens from the early 2000s, we could not find a single suggestion of what spell had been used to place it there or what purpose it was to serve.
The skin below my bracelet began to warm, and I felt the urge to move as it did. Energy hummed through my body in a constant state of unrest. It felt like a static charge ready to release on the first light switch my fingers would happen upon...but about a thousand times worse. Seriously, my restless leg syndrome had nothing on this.
I needed to prowl, a basal instinct warning of a predator nearby. But rather than be nervous at the prospect, I felt joy - a need to show my powers and to exercise their truest extent, a dangerous prospect to be sure. If anyone at the Academy, outside of Ness, knew I could control both sins and virtues, I would earn myself a one-way ticket to the inside of a lab before landing in a breeding camp to produce more little freaks like me.
But still, some part of mewantedto show myself to whoever was out there. A dark part of me deep inside my chest drew forth the sudden urge to sway my hips and lick at my bottom lip, but I resisted, unwilling to relinquish my knowledge of their existence.
The first low rumble had caught me off guard, enough to distract me from my attempts to appear calm momentarily. There had been something unearthly beautiful in the tone, and it had traversed through me as much by thought as by sound. It had touched deep within that dark animal side of me that I relished in the game of cat and mouse, and I wanted to answer it with a growl of my own.
