Summon Me Chapter 3
Serena washed her hair again...for the third time. Not to pull the remaining blood out of the strands, she had had to many bloody battles to care much that it stained the tips of her silver hair. Instead to delay walking out of the small bathroom. She had been all bravo when she had swayed her way past the massive Lykan.
Time to think underneath the steamy shower had lessened her courage to face the man outside. She had been alone for such a long time, removed from contact of mortals and immortals alike. Sure she talked to the nice lady who rang her up at the grocery store and smiled meekly at the cable man who had installed her internet in the small apartment. But they were moments in time, a point to point contact in her otherwise lonely life. Outside those small contact points she was completely devoid of a relationship of any kind for so long. It had made her feel safer. Lonely but safe.
It made her anxious on how to continue with the Lykan waiting for her.
Regardless, lonely was better than controlled.
Swallowing past the lump in her throat she got out of the shower, dried her hair the best she could and wrapped the damp cloth around her body. Running her fingers through her damp hair, she pulled lightly at the tips hanging to her hips. Most of the blood had come out. It was a start.
Bravely, Serena stepped out of the bathroom.
The large Lykan sat sprawled in an overstuffed chair, midnight blue eyes intent on her as she made her way forward. Like before he swallowed the room whole with presense. Slowly, she took her time to study him with her eyes, roaming each piece of him. Oddly enough, she had the strangest feeling that he was enjoying it, encouraging her inspection even.
Blushing, Serena padded softly into the room.
"You aren't what I expected," Darian murmmered in the quiet.
Neither was he but she choose to ignore the comment, "Do you have extra clothing?" she asked, indicating to her current attire.
Those eyes narrowed on her, clearly displeased that she had brushed him off. Mmmm...temper temper.
He nodded and pointed towards a small dresser on the back wall. Inside she found a couple pairs of jeans, socks, and shirts. The sizes varied greatly. It was clear that the cabin wasn't a family place but rather a pack place. It made sense that things would be left to acommadate everyone who came and went.
Darien watched intently as Serena dropped her towel when she turned her back towards him and began to dress. The clothing was all but swamped her. She lacked female Lykan height but certainly matched them for curves. The little demon was a contridiction.
Studied his body boldily, but blushed at the end.
Fought demons naked with no problem but yet kept her back to him while she dressed as though modesty had won out.
He was so stealthy on his feet that she made no indication that he had risen from the chair. Oblivious until he place his hand on her newly clothes hips. Leaning in he ran his nose the length of her small shoulder, breathing deep he tickled her ear when he exhauled. She smelled like moonlight on the night of the full moon, like freedom, and running. She smelled like the hunt of all things wild but pure.
Serena swallowed thickly, her tounge sticking to the roof of her mouth, "W-what are you doing?" she stuttered.
"Taking in your scent," he said softley, his breathing russeling her silver curls at the base of her neck. Serena's breath caught and came shuddering out of her. With more certainity than she felt she neatly stepped to the right side out of his reach and turned to face him.
He looked confused by her. His dark brow furroud in contemplation, regardless his dark eyes stared hard at her. She had a feeling he was trying to cateloge her into his knowledge of the world and couldn't make her fit. A too large circle meant for a square box.
"Why?" she asked, the question was driving her insane.
He arched a brow, the look of confusion gone.
"Why were you taking in my scent?"
Darien grinned, "To hunt you."
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"Mal!" Mina screamed, reaching out in front of her to grab the hands of her mate. Fear made her body quick and she shivered, her hearted pounded so hard she could hear the tempo beat wildly inside her head. She had barely grasped his finger tips before his body was snatched from sight, a single imprint marred the hard floor, just an echo of the portal from below.
An image where they took him from her.
"Mal," she screamed again, her body racked with sobs as she pounded against the floor. Desperate to bring him back, desperate to reach him before their torture left a broken man and not one that was hers any longer.
"Mal! Mal! Mal!" she chanted. Each word puntuated with her fist slamming to the floor. Magic swirled around her, gathering tight around her body, called from fear, from love, from anger, from hurt. Unstable it lashed out around her, crashing unfocused into the surroundings. Lamps shattered apart, tables crashed to the floors, the room shook with the force of her power. When she opened The Below they would tremble before her, she vowed. Rage gained momentum over the other feelings, so blinded by it she continued to slam her fist pulling back a bloody mess but felt nothing.
"MAL!" she snarled this time. Head swam with power...and...then...there was darkness.
Mina opened her eyes, her chest tight, her hands shaking, and her body drenched in sweat.
"Mina?" Rei whispered, coming to the beside of her sister-in-law, "Are you alright?" she asked with great concern. They both knew she already knew the answer to that question.
Mina closed her eyes, drew upon her last remaining will power and sat up. They both ignored the last remains of her night terror and beginnings of a panic attack. What use would it do either of them to bring it up?
Mina nodded and looked around at the was not the cabin. Instead the two were standing in her room at the Manor. Mine felt the fear begin to swell in her chest again.
Scenting the panic Rei spoke quickly in an attempt to cut it off, "I moved you here after the battle. I thought you would rest better in your own bed," she said, sitting down next her.
"Darien?" Mina questioned, rubbing her ribs.
"At the cabin. Alive, angry with us, but alive and handling negogations with the demon you summounded."
"Rei," Mina gasped in horror, "The summouning ring was broken! It is free! Why would you leave in alone in there with that...that...thing." She bounded from the bed, avoiding the fall as she stumbled only because Rei was so quick to grab her as she started to go down. Mina felt damn right mutanious as Rei lifted her with the ease of a wolf and re-positioned her on the bed.
"I hate it when you wolves do that?" she growled, the last emotions of the day making her snap like a rubber band pulled to tight.
Rei's eyes narrowed, "Well next time I'll let you hit the floor and crack your head to go with your cracked ribs," she snapped in return.
The silence was deafening.
Just as quickly as her anger had came it left. Leaving Mina to feel as a deflated balloon.
"I'm sorry," Mina said, her voice muffled in her hands that covered her face. Her shoulders were shaking viloently and the bed rocked with the force of her small body as she sobbed quietly into her own arms.
Rei felt helpless as she curled next to her sister and held her tight as she wept. With in moments they were both clinging tightly to one another, silence tears streaking down their pale cheaks.
"I'm so scared," Mina confessed between sobs.
Rei said nothing, she felt the same way. Rutterless, confused, and to afraid to hope that their bad idea might be what saves them all.
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The little demon cared naught for his announcement or what she considered a very poor attempt at humor. Darien couldn't help himself, he found the shock on her face highly amusing. He chuckled as she scowled crossly at him. Instantly he felt like he was betraying his brother some how and stopped smiling.
Serena studied the Lykan infront of her. His moods seem to change on a whim. But he was facinating.
"Tell me about the Lykan you wish me to gain information on," Serena requested, slidding into one of the two chairs at the table.
"The vow we made before," Darien questioned first, "Does this keep you from using the information against me? To hurt those I love?"
Hurt flashed across Serena's features before she could tamp it down.
"No," she answered honestly, the Gods Above & Below forbid he should find out at a later date, "But the freedom I want after I have completed my task most certainly will."
He looked as if he was trying to decided to believe her or not. She tried not to be unreasonably irriated by that.
She was commonly untrusted by her own kind and others. After all Demon hadn't made their mark in history by treating others well and being great fluffy bunnies to deal with. In fact, those who came off that way were always the most powerful, they had just learned to disguise it better. So big fluffy bunnies became monsters.
The rest of the magical world did well to remember this. She came from a long line of monsters who hunted other monsters. What did you call the thing that even monsters feared?
At least that was her father's side. Her mother? Unknown, but whatever she had been she had been powerful enough that when she had been born she had been gifted with a soul. She was unusal that way. Her soul gave her a choice, the free will to decided if she would follow down the path of all the monsters before her or carve out her own fate.
A halfing demon with a soul was a rare thing. Rare things were coveted. Hence, a life time of service for those who had learned of her existance. It was odd now that she thought of it, while there had been several summoners over the years who had called her forth and chained her to their will. No one from either side of her blood lines had ever found her.
Whatever her mother had been the woman had not had the power to escape The Below. Serena had been born there, ran the caverns of The Below, discovered the dementions that littered the planes from their till The Above. She had survived a childhood that should have been an instant death sentence and a adulthood rife with masters who thought they could chain her.
She was an oddity.
Even knowing nothing of her past, he was right to abide the stories of her kind. To tread carefully before offering her a sad excuse of trust. Only fools trusted demons.
The powerful Lykan before her looked to be anything but a fool.
Still...just once to not be judged by her blood lines but by her actions. To be given a chance that she was worth trusting. That she was worth more than the sum total of her blood line.
Darien nodded. An answer neither way.
"He is called Malachite the Risen," Darien answered, declaring his brother's moniker with some pride. It was well earned, and the those of Lykan Clans knew it well.
"Risen to what?" Serena couldn't help but ask. She understood the moniker. Many beings from the Betweens used them. Given for a single trait, talent, adventure, for ability that ranked high above any other if its kind. Always given never sought. She supposed if she was to have one it would be Serena the Oddity.
Depressing thought.
But her lip twitched at the man's obvious pride over the man named Malachite.
"To greatness," came the short reply. Seemed no other information was forth coming on that matter. "He is my older brother, a Lykan, over six centuries old." Darien looked up, uncertain if this was the type of information the little demon needed to extract him from The Below. "He is my height, blond in coloring, croaked nose from being broken to often before he became of age, his left arm is tattooed from shoulder to wrist with old clan markings. To you they would look like wind whisps and strange writing, a gold armlet is worn on his right arm. So thick it would cover much of his lower forearm. It bears the insigna of First Alpha...of King."
Serena inhaled sharply. The demon had dragged the King of the Lykans to The Below! Who the fuck was stupid enough to do that.
That called for war.
A War the Lykans were greatly out matched for, a war that would destroy a vast majority of their civilization. But it was a call that could not be ignored.
Darien studied the little demon across the table, watching her take in and understand the gravity of the situation before them. He saw the compassion in her eyes.
It left him baffled. What demon would...could understand the pain? Yet, here sat one who clearly did.
"How long do I have to find him?"
"I do not know. I have held back the clans from unfocused war for several weeks. What good would it do to rage a demention we don't understand on a people who may not have him?" He said wearily, his eyes flashing with impotant rage. "I have no leads on who has taken him or why. I have a burnt floor with an imprint on my brother as he was dragged to The Below, I have a distraught Witch Queen who is moment from burning us to the ground in order to save him, I have an army that would war for their King, but not knowledge of who to war with, and last I have a silver haired demon who may be the only one who can find my brother. If for nothing more than to give me a direction to lead my men to inorder to savage their world." He glanced up, his eyes boaring into hers, "But I cannot tell you how long you have to find him or if there is a man to find any longer."
Serena nodded, her heart breaking at the pain behind his dark eyes. She had never had any family to speak, none that she knew about anyways. Certainly none that would face down any entire kingdom, and unknown enemy, and such uncertainy to find her.
"Tell me about the night he was taken," she requested.
His voice was gruffily filled with emotion, rough as he spoke, "We were...the clan here were celebrating my mother's birthday. It was her first without my father present. We thought to set a new tradition for her. To keep her from the waning that seems to already be present. No suprising. Most mates often follow with in a short time. It was late when the attack came, un-expected as was the type we were unprepared. The ground within the main hall opened up before us, it was chaos as the Dark Beings poured out."
"Beings?!" Serena interuppted, ghast, "How many?" She could remember seeing the Dark Being soliders of The Below they were terrifying. Hulking beasts that seemed to be made of soild armor. One alone was enough to make any full grown person quake in fear, she couldn't imagine seening a small army desend upon one spot.
"Yes beings," he confirmed, "The rest is a blur," Darien admitted, feeling shameful.
"Why a blur?"
Darien rubbed his temples trying to rid himself of the pounding that started whenever he tried to remember the night clearly. He wasn't the only one who seemed to have trouble. After the demons had erupted from the center all it was hard to determine what had really happened. He remember the chaos, the screamed, the men around him changing quickly, fights surrounding him. The dead bodies at his feet when the portal had closed spoke loudly of his peoples skills and strength. They had killed more than they had lost but at the end it mattered little. They had lost so much in a battle they couldn't know the cause of.
"I'm not sure, many of us are having a hard time remember exactly what occured. I know the jist, I remember the strong feelings, I remember rushing to my family, slaughtering several of the Dark Beings before me. I know I pulled one off of Rei, but I don't fully remember when they took my brother or how. Just that they portal closed and left an imprint that stained the floor, the only indication that they had even arrived on our side of the world," he clarified.
Serena frowned, it would have taken a powerful magic user to befuddle so many people. More power than a standard soilder from the Dark Being forces. The kidnap had been well thought out.
"Can you take me to the imprint from the portal? It might help me gain some information on where to look."
"You stay with me at all times," he commanded, leading the way out of the cabin.
Serena rolled her eyes behind his back. It would appear that trust she wanted would be hard to ever come by. Quietly she followed behind him down the wooden path. It wasn't a bad view if she was honest. He did have a nice shape to look at, his shoulders rolling as though he was prowling and not just walking the path.
The way he moved said he was to be fear.
That he was King.
A title she was sure he would happily give over in the span of a heart-beat.
Following him, she irrationally found herself wanting that type of love.
The love to face all odd when they were stacked against you. The love to be brave in the face of death. Because whether he knew it or not. That was what her freedom was going to cost her.
Death.
