A Crying Devil

DONNA

Creak...

I open my eyes to the sound of a door swaying faintly, the tiniest crack of it inviting a subtle candle glow from the living room inside the bedroom.

Aside from nimble, muted footsteps, silence reigns. It's a unique kind of silence, wanted and cared for.

I don't move. Only my head does, adjusting to a different sort of firmness, the pillow too soft to be mine. Then I blink a couple of times and recognize a cutout of bookshelves... Fay's. I'm in her bed.

I shut my eyes, hoping to fall back asleep. To forget what I did, said... saw.

I'm unable to make sense of what happened. One minute, I'm sitting; the next, I'm slammed against the front door. It was like she catapulted me across the living room, the couch flipped.

A rustling sound emanates from the movement of clothes and breathing.

Someone's coming.

I hold my breath.

The bedroom door opens further, and as a thin spear of light stretches over the bed, a black-winged silhouette with golden swirls enters, holding a smaller one in his arms. Fay must have fallen asleep on the floor...

Something sulfurous crawls up my throat. I don't know how or if Fay will ever forgive me. She must have been mentally tainted by what I said, and the thought of being unable to lift herself to her bedroom hurts.

A cumbersome feeling passes through me. As I catch the source of this terrifying energy, a pair of heavily charged eyes storm into my very core, allowing me to witness the glow of black for the first time in my life, knowing perfectly well it's impossible.

Yet, I don't believe Deon's gaze was on me...

As my eyes narrow to thin slits, I watch him enter.

"The magic you hide in you, little fae... do you even know?" my mate... er, he whispers softly. He lifts a backpack off the bed with a duet of struggling fingers as the rest are loaded with my best friend.

I just hope she still wants me as hers...

He places the bag on the floor, then lays her down and swaddles her.

My heart thumps, and something akin to an avalanche courses through me as he clasps her hand. I muffle my protests when his forehead rests on this bundle of fae/gargoyle fingers.

As murmurs emanate, I discover what Deon hides beneath his shenanigans. "Beautiful things await you, Fay. We need to walk through some dark woods first, but a magical place is at the end of the path. It will be worth it. I promise..." His hand hunts blindly for her skin, maybe for contact, maybe for warmth, only to find a long blonde thread flowing over the cover. He lets it slide between his fingers like satin, and I wish it were mine. "For now, we just need to keep walking."

Then he stands and walks out, leaving the door open.

And I breathe.

This is the second time we kissed today. In less than twenty-four hours, Deon managed to break my barriers. I feel weak, unmotivated, and stupid at the same time. Tonight was just an embrace—one I didn't know I needed so much. I honestly was willing to feel him inside me. Predominantly from abdication, seeking comfort in any way one can... And now Fayra's past coping mechanisms come to mind, and I feel even worse.

Why exactly? Why had it to be Deon, the chaser, the charmer, the collector. Besides being delicious, he eased me to sleep with soothing words. I expected dirty talk and annoying stuff from him, but no, he was soft in every way.

Still, his presence bothers me.

As emotions collide and crash against each other, their effects cancel one another out, and there is no heat or coldness in me. Instead of jealousy, there is gratitude, and shame is replaced with fragility, acceptance, and perhaps even repentance. I need forgiveness. Deon's, Fay's...

I push myself up, tuck my legs under me, and take a minute.

Grizzly sounds can be heard at the foot of the bed. My attention is drawn to a dark fiery mass on the ground. Cerberios is—are?—fast asleep, well, two of them, one is chewing on the bed's leg. I'd unleash hell on this beast if I still had my wits about me. However, I'm at this point where Fay's bed can take in an extra pair of incisors. Why? Because fuck it. It's not even my bed, anyway.

I glance back at the door, hoping Deon is not sleeping on the dirty couch. I mean... he can. I don't mind. A thin strip of air blows out from my lips, making my cheeks puff up. It's a catastrophe because I do mind very much.

I get up, feeling filthy.

Filthy because wine calls me. That's how it always is.

"Deon?" Fay's bedroom door opens to chaos, my hand slanting down its smooth surface, yielding at the mess.

My gaze settles on the couch. It's turned over, with a burn on the armrest. My attention then wanders to my feet, where a small ring of soot marks where Fay sat.

I remain still, the haunting image of this flash of light still blinding me.

Fay seemed so out of touch with her magic, like she wasn't even aware it came from her—a detachment like it never happened.

There's a shower raging, the music of water droplets dancing in my ears. I exhale. Showers are the kings of comfort, whether you're witnessing one or taking one. At this moment, you simply know there is a well of peace nearby, which is nice.

I smile.

Tack. Tack. Tack.

And it breaks just as fast. Outside is a reminder to never let your guard down.

Heavy weaponry is cracking the night across New Orc. This time around, a few blocks from us.

They come and go, and this sequence is enough to soothe me a little. Neither is it getting closer, nor is it intensifying...

Still, I can't tame my heart, hands and knees shaking as I sweep my eyes across the room. My metal clubs are calling me, particularly the one that is covered with sharp spikes.

On my way to my wall of trophy weapons, a slight glare of candle and glass flashes in the corner of my eye. My drink and the coffee table have survived this epic night.

My hand reaches for the cup, and as I raise it to my lips, a slow realization dawns on me: I don't have pink wine.

I exhale wickedly. Deon, for the love of life!

Running a frustrated hand in my hair, I try digging in my cluttered mind where I can find some anxiety medication. Some chill pills are in my bag, and I cringe because it's still on the tarmac of Goldfae Sacks, probably trampled, flipped open near the blood-dripping grids of a manhole somewhere. The shower stops, and I tense as the sound of water is replaced by ghostly screams haunting my brain. All those people. Fuck. It makes my chest hurt. The taste of my blood on my lip, the bruise behind my thigh... and my shifting. I didn't want to come to that. My eyes had fallen on a few dead bodies, and from there, I knew a tase would be the least of my worries.

The day went from 100 to 0, removing the only thing that pushed me out of bed in the morning: my job.

Maybe it's a good thing.

I've missed out on so much of what life has to offer—the shitty clubs, the so-in-love moments with anyone I could have met any other night, and the heartbreaks they bring.

I won't even have the chance to live that. Everything went from glory to regret.

I take a sip and gag.

I rush to the kitchen and ditch the remainder in the sink.

I focus on the backsplash, my glass shattering in the overstuffed sink.

My past.

It's catching up.

Running in the grit, saving orcling, smuggler ships from New Orc to Wolf Island to Orcana... the smell of sweat and shores, determination and rapidity to put a future far from harm... To know there is a community in The Hydras...

Tears creep into my eyes. I don't regret anything. It smelled of purpose. The Dolphinaedes, sea creatures, took them, pushing the embarkation and the gold. I'll never know if they made it, and I don't want to know. And then, all that mattered afterward was to blend in...

I shouldn't think about it. I was to be a future leader—the daughter of an Alpha. I did my best.

A searing pain needles into my chest.

I didn't. My mother, sister, and I ran like cowards, leaving everything behind, not even checking on whether my brother and father had survived. Yes, like cowards, to never speak about it again. Fuck, I hope they're okay. I tried to send them texts messages, but the network is down.

Dog whimpers pull me out of my thoughts, and I turn my head toward Fay's bedroom.

She must've moved enough to flail the sheets and get Cerberios's attention.

Tyke probably took the dog in for her. The dog was a lost cause at the academy—wouldn't sniff out the slightest danger, drug, explosive, or that's what Tyke told me. I wish he would've scented a fae fucking up her own country, though...

Fidr has lost her mind. Not one sane leader would authorize the National Guard with the right to kill and shoot on sight. I grab a sponge, a sudden need to clean dishes, and my hand freezes over the faucet's handle before I can lift it to a string of grated whispers pleading their way up the corridor.

I stare at its darkness.

I push away from the sink and go for a knock at the door.

Nothing...

Again.

"Deon, are you done? I need the bathroom." It's a lie, an excuse, and I don't care.

I'm about to test the handle when, "Just a minute," drifts through the door.

I titter, overdo it, in fact. "Do you have something stuck around your horn again?"

Approximately one minute has passed since then. I won't hide it; time management is my forte. "Deon?"

My foot thumps, five times, to be exact. I'm trying to suppress the bitch in me, but she won't stay inside. Honest. Anxiety has taken hold of my body, and I don't know how to hold it back.

Fully gripped, the handle starts to bend because it's late, and I'm tired of waiting.

"Deon, I'm sorry bu?—"

The door swings wide and damn, do I regret my move.

The scene seems familiar, except I provoked it, and there's a slight glitch in the matrix. A naked, crimson-colored demon is leaning over the sink. From there, nothing out of the ordinary, aside from a golden glow radiating from Deon's skin, rendering the bathroom ominously lit, as if only one candle was burning in a corner. It's luminous enough to find an ink-stained sink.

I am engulfed in his gaze, feeling the color in my face evaporating.

Shaking his head, Deon exhales, frustration rippling between us. "Donna."

His cheeks and chest are covered in black streaks, which seem to come from his eyes.

I leap forth and swing around the door for a towel hooked behind it. "Are you okay?!" No, he's not. He's having a massive meltdown in the dark, Donna!

"What's happening? I'll talk. We can talk. You can speak, I mean—shit. We can talk about it."

He leans over the sink, pouring water over his chest and rinsing off his dark tears.

"I'm sorry, Deon. I didn't realize that?—"

"I'm good, little wolf." His smokey voice trails in trembling notes, and it breaks my heart. I don't know why seeing a male cry always hits harder. Probably because I know society ridicules males if they do...

He buries his face in his open hands, and I notice a shudder waving over his back.

I clasp his wrist. "You're not."

There is a hunch on Deon's shoulders as he holds both sides of the washbasin. "Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom. Because from then on, there is only one way up." He swerves his head low in my direction. And my hung-up self cringes as he looks down, concentrating on the tips of my toes. I curl them inward; there's something a little uncomfortable about people watching my toes.

"And it's time for me to start climbing." Deon drags his sad, crooked gaze on me, and my heart rattles slightly. "It's just that I never faced a steeper wall than this one." His lips wave as soon as he stops talking. "Hey, don't look at me like this. I'm okay..."

I simper.

Deon returns my smile.

Gently, I curl my fingers around his wrist and pull it toward me. It's more of an invitation than a tug.

His mouth opens a little, perhaps surprised, and it's cute.

He drifts a foot forth, a shimmer at the rims, and as I watch him blink, a black tear drops. "Heard about the Revolutionary Monster Brigade?" he asks, oblivious to the line staining his cheek.

I stiffen.

Don't answer.

He's a cop.

Only our breath fills the room, mine growing insanely loud.

Clicking his tongue, Deon releases a faint, "Fuck," that no regular monster would have been able to pick up. But I'm were, senses heightened in hearing. There is a rift between us, it's not visible, but god, is it perceptible.

Deon's gaze on me darkens.

"I saw them today," he grates.

What does he know about the Revolutionary Monster Brigade?

I should play coy, pretend not to know what this cop's talking about. That he's not referring to resistance so early in a conflict that might not even happen. What am I talking about... It is happening.

I want to catch his gaze, but his attention suddenly bounces everywhere but on me, perhaps embarrassed that I could see him this way. Possibly fearing I may have no interest in the RMB, or maybe that I do...

"Good. It was about time," I dare out.

Deon quivers a mutter as his head droops in a flash, followed by a chest pulse, a violent spasm.

We're fucked. Fucked, because now, both sides of the line have been identified. And now there's a visual, it's lodestar, and it has a name...

Resistance.

A slight tremor with an inaudible suppressed sigh crushes me. "Donna..."

"What did you tell me? Fear deafens us," I whisper, enlacing his neck. I just listen to something that isn't reason. An impulse that feels so fucking good. I bring his head to hide in my shoulder. It breaks in suppressed tears, trembles, and grunts.

Deon's weight on me takes us down the tile for bent knees to face each other. "How they shoved you on the ground... how my blood boiled." His hands race up my back to the back of my head, caging it. "How can you make me feel this way?"

Would Deon be cupping my head, holding it? It's a gentle clasp, a bulwark of hands my skull cannot break free from.

"I won't go," I say softly, as his fingers tangle in my hair, coppins he can't stop spinning, kneading, as if unsparing the slight curl that could dare spill out of his grasp.

"Fayra," he says. "Something's going on with her."

No, it never surfaced quite like that before, but maybe, just for once, I only want him and me in the discussion. Just my name on his lips. Mine, not Fay's. "Her magic is unstable; nothing new. Sometimes it pops." As I lie to his face, blocking out a pending conflict or lengthy topic, I wipe his tears away and just make things worse. He looks like he dipped his face in motor oil. "Tyke is coming back. We'll leave together. That's what I expect to hear from him."

"She has a wand."

"It's fake." There is nothing I don't already know. I made Fayra expel whatever she went through today, then I explained my day to her and... maybe I should find this representative of my boring life because she spaced out in the shower before I could finish it.

"It's dangerous," he mutters, staring so hard at me I slant my eyes toward our kissing knees.

"Explain?"

"I went to pick her up at her parents' house. The mother lied to her face. They're hiding something from her, and I have a feeling I know more than Fay does..." The shimmers in his eyes dance, glinting like glossy onyx stones.

My mother despised faefolk, but somehow, she always had so much respect for the Jinksovans. When I asked her why they got special treatment from her, she'd say, 'It takes a coward to hide behind brave people, but it takes brave people to stand behind cowards.' I never got it, but I might begin to grasp at something.

And when another string of black mars his face, these stony eyes turn into liquid, and the shimmers then disappear as Deon's face seeks shelter in my hair.

"I've got you." My grip around him is solid. What one-week stranger makes me do this?

"I think about you all the time." It's true, I do. I don't want to, but who controls these things? Nobody.

He sobs quietly as I brush my lips against his throat, taking in his soft, woody scent. "I worried about you, thought you would do something reckless, so I shifted. Maybe I wanted to impress a stranger. Who knows..." I say, stroking his back, burrowing my hand in the furl where the wing bone and back meet.

"When you got shook, I felt it."

"I know. I felt a sting in my back today, a proper shake. I know you also got hurt. That's how it works."

"It's okay if you don't want to bond with me. I won't think anything of it," Deon murmurs, still hidden in my neck.

I drop my chin on his shoulder, watching the drawings of gold carved on his skin. "You don't want me, Deon?" My voice is soft. Anything to make him feel better. Even if I initially tried to cop out, it wouldn't have worked. He has been hitting on me so badly that I can't escape it. And I'm glad he did.

"There's nothing else I want. Can't explain it." Deon drags his hands up my waist, and I breathe to find him regaining his spirits. His lips continue to brush the skin over my shoulders. "Do you think I'm an idiot for saying my heart thunders ever since I laid eyes on you?"

He pulls himself back and clasps my cheeks. "We have so much in common, pretty wolf."

I smile. He's just so...

"You think about me as much as I do about you. Your cheeks turn red like my skin. The smell of your arousal kicks in as soon as I'm hard for y?—"

I press a finger to his lips. "Okay, Deon. Yes, we have a lot in common." My eyelashes become heavy from tiredness and, perhaps, old tears, the salt of them latching on the tendrils. Maybe it's him, and everything slows down. What really matters is us.

I shut my eyes, the pull of his skin on mine strong until everything meets, lips and tongue cradling in perfect harmony.

Fingers fork softly up my nape, the flick of desire kindling warmly between my thighs. It nests in my lower belly, and I wish this moment would never end.

"I need to release my mind," he says, taming my tongue in soft strides.

"Do so." I smirk against his mouth. He can't lie, and for the first time, I find this so fucking adorable.

"The wand is on the kitchen counter. I shot a guy, Fay also shot someone, and we broke into the war museum to steal weapons."

I inhale, thinking how messed up this is. And yet...

"Was it self-defense?" Tongues don't halt.

"Yes." He's taking me down the tile, and soon, I feel the cold flooring beneath my shoulder blades.

"You're a cop," I say before bringing his face closer to mine.

"Supposedly." Wings fold over us.

"Then you have nothing to worry about." I spread my thighs, allowing his hips to glide over mine.

The border between our lips is now nonexistent. "I need to talk."

"I'm listening..." I can hardly breathe.

"Gods, Donna..."

"I'm shifting."

"I got you."

And as I feel the tingles of his heat on me, I burn, desire soaring through my skin.

He lifts me in his arms and brings us into Fay's bedroom. As he spins to face the unoccupied side of the bed, his right wing hits a shelf, joined with a swipe of my toes against Fay's books. One falls.

"Shh." He scowls.

"We're not doing what you think we're doing!" I whisper harshly.

"Active sleeping?"

I chuckle.

"I'm not leaving one of you unattended," he whispers, voice soaked with hunger.

"She's in the bed."

"Well, keep it low, Sundrop."

He lays me like a delicate sheet of tin. I stare at him. He's like a dream, radiating a golden glow like a god exuding divine power.

Deon leans forth, drops his hands on either side of me, and braces a knee on the bed. Horns brush my stomach as he drifts down, delicately inserting his fingers into the hem of my shorts. I grab his horn as he pulls them down, uncertainty tightening my muscles. I lift my head, panting. "Deon, wait. I'm not quite ready... don't think I'll ever be."

He looks up, a little distraught by what just clicked in his head. "You're a virgin, aren't you?"

I lick my dry lips.

"I won't attempt anything you don't want. But I'll keep trying until you yield, and once you do, I'll kneel to you, and you can do whatever you want with me."

A tail enlaces my ankle softly, slipping up my leg like the ribbon of a ballerina shoe as he brings himself to my level. I flail the sheets, his touch on my skin branding me with heat. Fuck, I crave it.

A violent pain shoots up, bones creak as they distort into something rabid, razor blades filling my mouth. Of course, Deon is my mate, and walking into him has been triggering it even more. Every time my desire will rise, the fur will appear. There is nothing I can do to stop shifting.

His eyes stay black, but his skin goes gray. There's no color; my vision's wered.

"Please." My whisper is hacked. In pain, my ribs are expanding, thickening, with my spine doubling and tearing through my muscles for space. Shifting is rarely something I focus on because it is usually instant. But I'm fighting against it, and the pain is indescribable.

"Donna..." Deon buries in my neck, stardusting kisses, unperturbed by the fur, and I wish I could enjoy them for what they are, but I can't.

A part of me breaks and across the cracks, a sob escapes, "Don't."

"I can channel it. You won't shift." His offering piques my interest, but not enough to strangle the fear of the unknown, and then his lip curls softly as he strokes my head. "No stress, wolf. Please, those tears you shed for me kill my spirit."

"For you?" My crying stops. Brat!

"They aren't for me? Then for who?" He smirks.

"You're stupid." And I bite him. Maybe I like him. Shit.

Slowly, he lifts his arm full of teeth marks, stares at it, then at me, iris tangents to the brow. "You torture me." His arm extends over my body, a hand fastening around one of my breasts. "Please, never stop."

I fold my furry fingers around his wrist. I wish I could scold this bastard because every comment of his is not helping.

"And I'm asking you to!" I grate.

Deon drops to the side, lips slipping over my throat as he does. "You shouldn't fear what makes you. There's no shame in who you are underneath," he whispers. His hands gently grasp my waist, and I'm pulled against him.

"Don't think having you is torture." A significant wing of red drapes over the bed, the tip of it reaching Fay, and with it, pulls her forth against me, and I spoon her in return. Another gritty whisper, "No. It is torture." His lips linger at the back of my neck and sweep over my skin, unrushed.

I smile in the dark.

Gunshots echo outside.

Punctual screams from the streets bounce inside the flat.

And yet, I've never felt so at peace...