37. Diablos
Chapter thirty-seven
Diablos
“Dagon!” I screamed, running toward him.
The sound of his name came out broken, raw in a way I've never heard my own voice sound.
He collapsed to the ground, a raw cry tearing from his throat. That agonizing sound sent terror slicing through my veins. I fell on my knees beside his limp body, my shaking hands reaching desperately for him.
My hands didn't know where to go first. His chest. His throat. His face. His hair. They moved on their own, searching for the part of him that was still warm, and I couldn't find it. He was cold. My Dagon. My demon. Cold.
Was he breathing?
I pressed my ear to his chest. I held my hand under his nose. I waited. One. Two. Three. And there it was – a thin slip of breath against my palm, and a sob ripped out of me that I didn't recognize as my own.
He was breathing. He was breathing. He was breathing.
“Dagon! Please, please open your eyes,” I begged, choking on a sob when he remained still. “Please, my love.”
I continued pleading, gently cradling his head in my lap. Blood pooled on the ground beneath him, and he was so fucking cold to the touch. Tears blurred my vision as I brushed his hair from his closed eyes. Helplessness clawed at me. I didn't know how to help him. I felt so useless in this moment.
How do I help him? How?
“Diablos?” I heard Adam’s voice, but I didn’t pull my eyes away from Dagon.
Adam knelt beside us, quickly assessing Dagon's injuries. All the while I kept murmuring to Dagon that I love him and that he wasn’t allowed to leave me.
There was no life that I wanted to live without Dagon.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
He wasn’t allowed to leave me. He was going to be okay. He was going to wake up, and I would spend an eternity gazing at those beautiful gray-purple eyes.
“He’s going to be okay, Diablos,” Adam assured softly.
“How-” my voice broke, and I cleared my throat. “How do you know?”
“The wound is serious, but he’s a demon. He just needs time.”
Time? I'd wait an eternity if I had to, but each second now was agony, tormenting me with the fear that I could lose him at any moment.
"Let me carry him," Adam offered gently.
"No," I snapped. No one else would touch him. Ever.
“Diablos,” he whispered. “Listen to me. It’s for his safety. It’s not a good idea to stay out here. Besides, he’ll be more comfortable back in the house and lying on a bed than on the cold ground.”
I hesitated. Instinct screamed at me not to let anyone touch him, while logic demanded I listen. I wrestled internally, fear gnawing at my resolve.
What if Adam touched him and made it worse? What if he was wrong and Dagon was dying? What if I needed to protect Dagon or help him somehow but didn’t know how?
Ultimately, Dagon's cold skin forced my decision. His warmth was gone, replaced by a chilling stillness. The man who was always so warm to the touch, so firmly stubborn, was now so still and cold. Whimpering quietly, I nodded my permission.
Adam carefully lifted Dagon. My grip tightened reflexively around my bow and arrow, flames igniting fiercely.
“No one is going to hurt him, Diablos,” Adam said.
“That’s what I thought, too, before one of yours turned his back on all of us,” I snapped.
Adam flinched and gritted his teeth but stayed silent. I didn’t regret what I said. It was the brutal truth, and a demon could take it.
I shadowed Adam closely, guarding Dagon until we reached the car. Observing the other Starborns, I kept a close eye on them. I wasn’t allowing another betrayal to result in Dagon getting hurt again.
Once Dagon lay across the back seat, I crawled in beside him, settling his head gently into my lap. My fingers pressed against his pulse, the steady beat offering minimal reassurance.
The ride back was agonizingly slow. I spent the time with one hand over Dagon’s chest and another on his neck, checking his pulse. I needed the reassurance that Dagon was alive. That his precious heart was still beating.
When we arrived, Adam carried Dagon to our room in the cabin. He tried to apologize, but I didn’t pay him any attention. I couldn’t.
“He'll probably sleep for the whole night. He'll wake feeling better tomorrow. There’s nothing else you can do now but wait.” With that, Adam excused himself and left us alone.
I took a wet towel and cleaned the blood from Dagon’s body gently. More tears blurred my vision, and more of them fell as I took in his body, which was covered in bruises, wounds, and blood.
Wasn’t he supposed to heal quickly? Why were the bruises still there?
I stared at his ribs. The dried blood at his temple. The split in his lip that should have closed by now. Should have. Should have. Should have.
My hands started to shake.
The thing in my chest that had been holding me together since the field started to fold. Not crack. Fold. The way paper folds when you pull the wrong corner. The way a body folds when its bones give out.
If his demon body wasn't healing him, if the blade had left something inside him, if the white-haired one had hurt him permanently in a way I still can't see…
Never in my life had I been as horrified as I was tonight. My mind was a jumbled mess of worry, terror, what-ifs, guilt, and worst-case scenarios.
If I ever again saw the demon who did this to Dagon, I’m going to fucking use his body as a target practice, and my arrows will always hit their mark.
After cleaning Dagon as much as I could, I quickly washed the blood on me in the bathroom. I changed my clothes and curled up beside Dagon, wrapping him protectively in my arms.
I'd hold him util he woke.
He was going to wake up.
***
Five hours later, I was losing my mind. No, I was certain I had already lost it.
There was so much anger brewing inside me. Anger at the demon who did this to Dagon. Anger at myself for allowing it to happen. Guilt that somehow I was responsible for Dagon’s pain. Resolve to never again let something like this happen.
The guilt was choking me. It was relentless.
It was brutal and heartless. A few days ago, intrusive thoughts plagued me.
Visions of Dagon hurt, bleeding, dying. Now it felt like my fears had manifested into reality.
What if my thoughts were the reason he got hurt?
What if it was all my fault? All because I love him.
All because he's the most important person in my life.
My love has always been cursed. Always.
And it's shredding me to parts in ways no physical pain could ever even measure.
The intrusive thoughts latched onto my love.
If only I could physically remove this darkness from myself. I'd rip it out, piece by rotten piece. I would exorcise it. Slanter it. I would give anything to live without this.
My breathing turned ragged, uneven. Carefully, so as not to wake Dagon, I slipped away from the bed, stumbling into the bathroom. I sank onto the cold tiles, my body too heavy, too filled with pain, dragged down by the weight of guilt.
I was no longer me.
All that was left of me felt like a monster.
I wanted to fucking take a shrapnel and use it to cut open my brain.
I wanted to use a scalpel, to prod every fucking part of my brain, to dissect it all, and get rid of the rotten parts.
I would cut deep, I would continue to cut till there was not even one particle left of these intrusive thoughts that haunt me.
Refusing to leave. Always refusing to leave.
Tears blurred my vision and I pressed my hand over my lips.
I just wanted it to stop.
God… make it fucking STOP.
And then I looked down.
The arrow on my hand.
The black ink running across my skin where the bow and arrow had vanished into me after the battle, the mark Lucifer had left behind to remind me what I was now. The Archer. Permanent. On me. Part of my body in a way nothing else had ever been.
My brain, my fucking brain, handed me the next thought before I could brace for it.
What if I activate it in my sleep. What if I shoot Dagon by accident.
What if I'm holding him and my hand moves wrong and the arrow comes out and kills him for an eternity.
What if I do it. What if I do it. What if the thing that's now part of me kills him.
What if I'm the weapon now. What if my hand kills my mate.
I clamped my other hand over the tattoo like I could hide it from myself.
It didn't help.
I knew the shape of this thought. I knew it was a lie. I knew it was the OCD doing what the OCD always did – picking up the newest, sharpest thing in my arsenal and pointing it at the most loved thing in my world.
Knowing didn't stop it.
I bit down on my fist so I wouldn't scream.
My thoughts raced, worst-case scenarios playing out one after another.
Every scenario twisted with blame and self-recrimination.
What would I do in those situations? How would I react?
But no matter how it played in my mind, it was never enough.
I didn't react fast enough. I didn't do the right thing.
I let down the person I love the most. It was all my fault.
It's all my fault.
It's all my fault.
It's all my fault.
I rocked myself back and forth, as tears continued to fall.
I bit my fingers in hope that the physical pain would alleviate the mental pain. The thought of a blade flashed vividly. A sharp blade slicing through skin, blood spilling. The image was comforting. Horrifyingly comforting. I hated it. I hated myself and this relentless, vicious cycle.
I would give almost anything to know what it's like to live without OCD, without my loved ones dying in my mind every day. This was hell. The hell no one else could truly understand unless they lived it.
Maybe my love truly was cursed.
To be loved by me… I wondered if it was even worth it? My heart may overflow with genuine love, but my mind's love was like a black surge. It was toxic. It was rotten. It spread and destroyed.
Wrecking everything.
Killing mercilessly.
Again and again.
And in between the kills, a knife was twisting in my heart.