Chapter 13
Thirteen
I was supposed to be meeting Thorne for a training session. He didn’t care to attend any of the parties tonight and I haven’t cared to attend any after last weekend.
It should have been my blood she was drinking. My neck her fangs sank into. My body she left a mark on. Not the demigod with his divinity and righteousness and golden blood and fucking thoughts about her scent and body and red lips.
He didn’t even shield his mind. He let his thoughts wonder free and his want and need of her flooded my mind. His fucking pride at her choosing him.
I needed to beat someone and there wasn’t a chance I wouldn’t try to kill Castiel if he and I got into a ring.
So I asked Thorne instead and I expected to find him warming up on one of the training arena’s mats.
I did not expect to find him standing in front of Mavyn with his aura filling every corner of the room.
With her looking like she was about to run from terror.
For the first time I had heard her thoughts. Varian had agreed when I told him I couldn’t read her thoughts and there was a powerful shield around her mind. He said he couldn’t read her either, and unless he wanted to force his way into her mind he didn’t think he would be able to.
But I heard them then.
The scars that cover my body. They. Don’t. Matter.
You don’t matter.
Your worth is designated by what I say it is.
Then she told Thorne he couldn’t bite her but it sounded like she wasn’t entirely speaking to him. She whispered the words with a power as if they were a mantra she was already repeating.
That’s when I stepped in. When I appeared in front of her and wanted to wrap my arms around her. I wanted to protect her, wanted to hold her, wanted her to know she was safe here with me. But I kept my arms at my side as I waited for her eyes to open. I didn’t want to scare her.
Now that they are open, those soft pink iris’s on me, I might just have to kill Thorne too. Why is she looking at me like she’s waiting for me to burn her? Like she’s waiting for me to reduce her to nothing.
No one should have that kind of power over her.
“Firecracker,” I murmur in a soft tone. Her eyes don’t waver or flash or give any indication that she heard me. It makes my chest ache. “Mavyn,” I try.
Her hands curl tighter around the collar of her shirt. Her knuckles white from how hard she’s holding on. Did Thorne try to do something to her? I’ve always known him to be an asshole, but I never thought he would be that kind of asshole.
Ramming into all of his shields I roar into his mind, DID YOU TRY TO TOUCH HER?
His aura still fuming in the room flinches.
Thorne’s shields are the strongest I’ve ever encountered and even Varian has trouble getting through when we’re training our mental shields, but emotions can influence the strength of someone’s aura and right now I’d say I’d be able to get into even Varian’s mind.
Not like that. His voice is quiet in my mind. Lethal. She has a scarred bitemark on her chest from the devil who had adopted her when she was younger.
Castiel’s one saving grace was that he did not bite Mavyn back. He did not leave a mark on her. Because for someone else to have already done it. . .
In the hierarchy of power, the gods are above all. Demigods and devils are right below them with angels and demons right below us. So when the aura of my magic fans out in a tidal wave of pure wrath, exceeding the bounds of Thorne’s magic, it doesn’t come as a surprise.
For a moment I’m worried it will terrify Mavyn even more, but instead of terror she looks at me with a sort of awe.
Her mask of stone finally cracking and she takes a full, deep breath before relaxing her body.
She drops her arms and the collar of her cleaners uniform drops a couple inches to reveal the mark Thorne said would be there.
A pale white scar with fang imprints. Seeing it makes my magic pulse.
“You are not the Sun Devil,” she states. “I remember the feel of his aura that was always wrapped so tightly around him. His power was barely mediocre. You feel closer to a god than he ever did.”
Taking a step back, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small device. It looks like a music player and she presses a button before pulling the wire connected to it up. She stuffs it and the wire back into her pocket and then heaves a sigh as she looks around.
“You can stop expelling your magic. I’m fine now.”
She wraps an arm around herself to scratch the forearm of her other one.
She has scars on her forearms she gave to herself because the devil would bite and drink from her.
There’s a bitemark on her wrist and I assumed that was the only one.
The devil was able to embed blue belladon into his fangs and that’s why they’re still potent scars on her and why she smells like the flower.
So much for trying to calm down. Mavyn squints at me as another wave of power rolls through the room. She looks like she’s almost chastising me. As if I didn’t just learn she has another scarred bite mark on her skin from someone who used to abuse her.
I remember she had said the devil who adopted her was generous. Did she mean it as a snide remark? That he wasn’t generous with his charity but generous with his punishments?
She said Varian was nearly just like him. Is that how she views us?
“Callahan.” That’s the first time she’s said my name. It makes my heart trip. “The room had already felt suffocating with Thorne pushing his aura into every corner of the room, can you both just chill? I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal about this.”
She’s got to be kidding.
“You have a scarred bite mark – “
“That doesn’t matter,” she snaps at me. “It’s a stupid scar I get to live with for the rest of my life. I don’t need you or anyone else pointing out what is very clearly fucking obvious to me. It means a shitty devil used me as a blood bag for a few years and nothing else.”
So she does know about the significance of scarred bitemarks. The type of claiming they are and the primal nature of them for those of us who have fangs. She knows exactly what it means. . . and she’s shoving it away as if it means nothing because she wasn’t given a choice in being marked.
Is that why she was so upset when Castiel flaunted her bitemark on him?
I’m going to beat his fucking ass.
The devil tried to feed her his blood as well, Thorne adds.
Our minds still linked meaning he can hear every thought.
And because of the blue belladon that was within the fangs and the knife she used on herself, she not only smells like the flower but her body is continuously acting to survive against it.
That’s why she needs regular food as well as blood, and why she apparently sleeps too.
That would make sense. That would also explain why she didn’t die long after she should have when she had been cut with Thorne.
After Castiel took her I couldn’t stand to watch her feed from him.
To feel his pride and lust. For some reason it’s different feeling it from Darian and Thorne – even from Varian too – but I don’t like the demigod.
So I had left, and I had not wanted to hear about whatever else had happened that night.
It must have been afterward when Thorne learned all of this.
“Are you alright?” I ask cautiously.
She flashes irritated light pink eyes at me before giving us her back and surveying the arena. “Is there a reason you both are here? I have a job I need to finish.”
I almost forgot the whole reason I was supposed to be here in the first place. There’s a cart beside her I hadn’t noticed before. Cleaning supplies, buckets, rags all are piled on it and I fully comprehend that she’s wearing the same jumpsuit the cleaners around the school wear.
“You got a job?”
Her shoulder stiffen. “So?”
Unable to stand still, I shove my hands into my shorts pockets and shift my weight from foot to foot. “It won’t be a lot with school and all the assignments?”
Her hand grips the stick of the mop as she huffs.
“Not all of us are blessed with access to our mommy and daddy’s money,” she snaps.
“If I want to be able to finally afford basic necessities, not to mention actual food over the weekends, I need money. I can’t ask my family because they don’t even know I’m here so I don’t really have a choice, Callahan.
Now is there a reason you both are still here or will you be leaving? ”
Back to all her fire and sass. It makes me wonder where it had went before. Why it comes and goes.
“We’re training,” Thorne finally answers. “You can clean later.”
A beat passes, and instead of snapping back her shoulders drop an inch and she turns to face us. A solid wall of nothing greets me and I’m so close to trying to push past her shields to figure out what she’s thinking.
“Will you be using the machines upstairs?” she asks cordially. “I can clean up there until you’re done?”
I test her walls. Run invisible fingers around her mind to see if there are any cracks or fractures I could slip between.
For most people there’s always something.
A weak link, an area they can’t fully shield.
Especially when their emotions are raging, most people can’t deal with their emotions while holding a strong enough shield to prevent a devil from going in.
Not all devils can infiltrate minds, but most can.
And yet. . .
A small, barely registered pulse ripples from her.
Vampire’s don’t have a lot of magic as is, aside from their gained strength and occasionally they can pick up bits of magic from whoever’s blood they drank that turned them if it’s strong enough.
It’s why she feels like she doesn’t have any magical energy and barely any aura around her.
However, that single, small pulse was pure wrathful power.
Slowly, she turns and pale pink eyes lock on mine with so much darkness. So much violence and I have no doubt she’d be able to pull through with the threats she had spoken to Thorne and Darian last weekend. Her controlled fury rivals even Thorne’s.
“I said you weren’t like the Sun Devil,” she murmurs softly. “Did I speak too soon?”
Such quiet words spoken, but they pierce my chest with so much force. The Sun Devil was the one who abused her. The one who fed and scarred her. He –
Was a devil, I hear Thorne murmur in the back of my mind. The likelihood he was able to get into her mind is high.
And I just fucked up.
Her body fully faces me now and I glance at the bite mark on her chest. I refuse to believe he did it like a claiming mark. The only reason it’s scarred as it is is because of the blue belladon.
“If you ever,” she rumbles with a deadly sort of quiet, “try to get into my mind again. . . I will make you beg for death.”
Oh fuck I’ve messed up. I messed up monumentally.
“Mavyn, I’m – “
Her hand snaps up, silencing me before she turns those death laced eyes on Thorne. “Can I continue my job upstairs and finish down here when you’re done?”
Thorne must nod or acknowledge her because she turns back around and puts her mop and bucket back on the cart before rolling it away. No second glance back, no last words, no care that I am wanting to fuck myself up because I hurt her.
I shouldn’t be this attached to someone after only just meeting them. I know that. Love at first sight doesn’t really exist. Lust at first sight does, enraptured at first sight does, but not love. I wouldn’t call what I feel for her necessarily love, but it is more than just lust or enrapturement.
I want her. I want her more than I should given the circumstances. And I just blew it by doing the exact thing the monster who abused her for years did to her. On top of that, I am what they are.
Devils and demons have always gotten criticism because of stereotypes humans have made up. Despite the fact that we’re not on Earth, devils and demons are associated with Hell, Nihel, damnation, curses, evil, darkness. . . we’re not white shining holiness.
I had been enamored when she didn’t seem to care what I was. When she rolled her eyes at Varian and acted as if a devil was just like everyone else. She didn’t care despite having every right to be afraid of our race. And then I fucked it up.
I. Messed. It. Up.
Like with everything else. I fucking ruined it.
A hand claps on my shoulder but I’m rooted to the floor. I can’t move, can’t process, can’t think of anything other than the hatred in her eyes at what I did.
“Breathe,” a rough voice growls. A familiar voice. A voice that has been there time and time again. “You need to fucking breathe, Callahan. Your blood is rushing too fast.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. I cannot have a fucking panic attack right now. I cannot pass out right now.
I know that.
But my brain won’t slow with thoughts and comments and berating me again and again and again.
“Callahan,” Thorne growls again. Two red orbs glowing against black, two red eyes making a light within the nothingness. A type of grounding. “Good. Now breathe.”
I breathe.
Sucking in a lungful of air before slowly releasing it. His hands that were gripping the sides of my head hold steady until my heart is no longer pounding and my blood is no longer rushing. He stays, eyes locked on me, until the voices dissipate and I’m back in the present physical world.
He takes a step back and observes me. “Do I need to call your mother?”
My mother, a devil herself, has only ever been the serene against the raging storm that I and my father am at times. She knows exactly how to calm us from both anger and episodes like this. But she thinks my anxiety and self-hatred has been getting better.
“No,” I gruff. “She’ll just argue that I should come home. I don’t need to worry her.”
He watches me with a stone solid expression. Powerful red eyes probing.
“Do you still want to train, or do you need to take a break?”
Quiet humming sounds and we both turn our head to face the machinery upstairs. She probably thinks we can’t hear her with how soft it is, but she’s right by the railing that overlooks part of the area. There’s bits of words I can hear her sing.
Her voice sounds faint but gentle. And then her words register.
“. . . got a paper and pen and a page with no space. . . filled the hole in my head. . . forgot how to cry, who am I to complain. . . “
It’s a sad song. It’s something I would listen to.
Thorne’s presence draws closer to me. “Go take some time,” he says, though is sounds more like a demand. “I don’t think it’s good for you to be near her right now.”
Except everything within me is telling me the opposite. I should be with her. I should be doing everything in my power to make her forget about that devil who hurt her. I should be able to take all her pain away.
But that’s the problem. . . because I am also a devil who hurt her.