Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
I scan the area, squinting in the dark. Damn it all. How can humans deal with their feeble sight? I can barely see anything.
Taking a few steps, I look around the corner and make out Holloway—mostly because that damn demon glows in the dark—standing next to some three, four males?
The smoke-like tendrils have a shimmery red hue to them as they swirl in the air until they reach the males, attaching themselves to them.
“Minnie, wait for me,” Mine continues as he comes from behind. “Please.”
I ignore him as I focus on the ensuing scene. Loud shouts erupt in the air and I note more movements.
This time, two of the soldiers who are firmly within the grips of the greed demon are fighting over an object. I cannot make out for sure what it is, but it’s a flat piece of paper. A…record? It’s hard to tell.
The red tendrils glow stronger as the demon feeds on their greed.
“Give it back,” one of the males shouts.
“No. It’s my record. Let go of it.”
Their exchanges center around the same words. One claims it’s his, while the other claims it’s actually his.
The demon chuckles darkly as it watches the argument. It doesn’t matter the outcome. The mere fact that they are focusing on the ownership of the item—on the fact that it belongs to them—feeds the demon.
Holloway stands by the side, dazed and confused. He’s no longer in control. The demon is now using him as a puppet to move around until it can gain enough strength to jump to another body.
My lips flatten in consternation. I did not expect this demon to gain strength so quickly. But perhaps it is my mistake to assume it would behave like a normal demon does.
Yet if this continues… We have mere days before the demon takes control of the entire base.
“What are you doing?” another male asks as he joins the altercation. Behind him, a few more males trail behind, their gait suggesting they are intoxicated.
I’m not sure who throws the first punch. But while at first the argument was centered around a record, this time, it’s degenerated into two factions. Some of the intoxicated males are defending one of the males while the rest are taking the side of the other one. From a mere conflict about the ownership of an item, it has now turned into a full-on brawl.
Mine is by my side, his mouth agape as he stares at the ongoing conflict. But while brawls are meant to occur in high testosterone environments, this is far from a usual fight.
Holloway is a few steps away from the fight. He’s with his back against a building, watching the events with a certain apathy. The demon on his shoulder, however, is getting increasingly excited. Its tendrils slither forward, attaching themselves to the other males, too.
“Why is he feeding on them?” Mine frowns. “He is drawn to greed, no?”
“Violence is another form of greed,” I mutter. “The motivations behind the violence must be rooted in some type of greed. Perhaps it’s not the same greed that drove the first two males to fight over the record, but it is a type of greed nonetheless. And it seems our demon is growing stronger by the minute,” I add grimly.
The red tendrils glow and shimmer as the noxious emotion travels from the mortals to the demon. It’s similar to how an amorphous demon might be feeding on a soul’s energy, sucking it dry with every passing moment. But while an amorphous demon requires time to tap into a soul’s energy, especially if it’s a low-level one, this demon seems to be able to channel the greed energy at an alarming rate.
“The higher-ups will hear,” Mine notes. “I should—” He takes a step forward. I extend my arm to stop him.
“No. Don’t. The demon already has you in his sights. He knows you can see him, and we don’t know what he’s capable of at this point.”
“But he’s only getting stronger.”
“Exactly. And before we know how to stop him, we cannot be reckless.”
He purses his lips, clearly not satisfied with this course of action.
“Break it up!” someone yells. “Everyone, stand down!”
“I guess that’s the higher-ups?” I ask.
Mine nods.
I spot a couple of officers coming toward the fighting soldiers. But more surprising is the fact that the boy I’d seen before, the dead teenager, is trailing behind them.
“Do you know him?” I point at the young ghost.
“That’s Tommy,” he adds in a low voice. “He was a good lad.”
“He didn’t cross over when he died. Do you know what might be keeping him here?”
“He was only eighteen,” Mine adds with a sigh. “He had a sweetheart back home he wanted to go back to.”
“And now he won’t be able to.”
“No, he won’t.”
With the higher officers now at the scene, the brawl devolves even further. The demon is gleeful as his tendrils swirl in the air in an attempt to connect to the newcomers.
“We must do something,” Mine mutters.
I grip his arm tighter to stop him. “No.”
I should be encouraging him to break up the fight. Yet all I can think about is the fact that once he’s in the demon’s proximity, he might become a victim, too.
Tommy, the young ghost, hovers around, staring at the demon. I suppose he doesn’t understand what’s happening.
Once the officers get involved, everything is a flurry of movement that I have a hard time tracking.
Tommy moves, his arm extended, his mouth open on a loud screech, and I belatedly see what he’s pointing at. One of the males has drawn up a weapon—a pistol of sorts. He’s waving it around, though with my feeble sight, I can barely make out where he’s aiming.
But Tommy can see, and in a loud voice, he calls out a name.
Vitry .
My eyes widen just as the gun goes off.
I don’t know when I move or how I end up covering Mine with my body. I only know that the pain from the bullet is intense.
So. Damn. Intense.
“Minnie?” He blinks. “Minnie, what happened? Are you all right?”
“I will…heal,” I croak. He wouldn’t.
So what if it hurts a little— too much —at least I will be as good as new in a day or so. Mine isn’t likely to survive a bullet wound. Based on the fact that the bullet hit me in the shoulder, right above my heart, I assume it was going to hit him low in the stomach.
Without a word, Mine swoops me in his arms and rushes me back to his tent—the brawl from before all but forgotten.
“But the dem?—”
“That can wait. It’s not as if we can do anything now, can we?” He raises a brow at me.
I reluctantly agree.
My face is screwed up in pain when my body jolts as Mine places me on the bed.
There’s blood all over his sweater and my dress, and the wound keeps leaking with no sign of stopping anytime soon.
I’m no stranger to blood. I’ve decapitated and mangled my fair share of corporeal demons in the past. But I’ve rarely been on the receiving end of such injuries. In fact, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been wounded to the point of bleeding profusely.
By the Source, how can humans withstand this? How can they go on in life knowing that one little injury and their life can end? How are they not a mass of fear and anxiety?
Even now, as I attempt to regulate my breathing, I can sense a sliver of anxiety coursing through me. It travels up my body, splitting into a million tendrils that take control of every single part of my being.
My breathing grows shallow.
“It’s all right, tiny darling. You’ll be just fine,” Mine assures me.
I blink. For a moment, I’d forgotten he was here.
I grab his arm and squeeze.
“Take the bullet out, please,” I beg him.
I can feel that scrap of metal digging into my skin, jolting around with every single movement. It’s there—a foreign object in my body. And the mere knowledge that it’s there is making me spiral into an unprecedented panic.
His eyes widen.
“Are you…sure?”
“Just do it,” I grit out.
“All right.”
Leaving me on the bed, he turns to his desk, rummaging through his drawers. He finally finds what he’s looking for—a pair of scissors.
The first aid kit is still on the table in front of me, so when he comes back, I assume he will immediately get to work. The sooner the foreign body is out of my system, the faster my healing will be—well, as fast as the circumstances allow.
He cuts the sweater first. Since the wound is pretty high up on my chest, any movement of my arms would cause me unbearable pain.
But he doesn’t stop at that.
He kneels in front of me and grabs the hem of my dress, positioning the scissors and making a deep cut into the skirt.
“What are you doing?” I ask in outrage.
He blinks as he raises his gaze.
“Removing your dress.”
“W-what?” I sputter.
He frowns. “How do you think I can remove the bullet from your chest if you’re wearing clothes.”
“I…” I lick my lips. “Cut around the wound. You don’t need to remove my entire dress.”
“Minnie…” He sighs. “I can’t just cut around the wound.”
“Why? I’ll do it!” I say and reach for the scissors. But right as I move, a loud groan of pain slips past my lips. Damn it! I can’t even move without feeling the most intense pain.
“Sit back and let me tend to you,” he commands me. He wrenches the scissors from me again and continues cutting through the skirt of my dress.
“Mine! This is unseemly. You cannot undress me,” I protest weakly.
“That’s exactly what I am doing, Minnie,” he says drily.
“But this is against the rules. No one but my mate can see me without my clothes,” I continue, trying to stop him but failing miserably.
“It’s nothing I haven’t already seen before, Minnie. Stop fidgeting. You’re only hurting yourself.”
I open my mouth to argue but then promptly close it as I replay his words in my mind. It’s nothing he hasn’t…seen before?
“What exactly have you seen before?” I ask, unable to control the vitriol from my voice. “And who have you seen before?”
The thought of Mine seeing another female in a state of undress is…distressing.
He glances at me, then grins.
“Don’t worry your pretty head about that.” Then he winks.
“Mine!” I grit out.
Alas, with the pain in my chest flaring once more, I suppose I will have to find another time to interrogate him on his past trysts. Although… Why do I care about his past trysts? Why do I care what he does with another female?
Except I do. I very much do. So much so, the rage I feel is giving this damn pain quite the competition.
Humans have loose morals. They engage in all types of unseemly activities—like those people from the party. They touch each other and they eat their mouths and they…
I grit my teeth. Glancing at Mine, I get unusually tense as I picture him doing the same with another female.
“Relax, Minnie,” he murmurs. “I’m not going to do anything to you, all right? You have my promise.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Your promise to what?”
“To not take advantage of you while you’re in pain.”
He finishes cutting my skirt and is now starting on the bodice. He cuts through my dress until he reaches the top of the neckline, at which point he pulls the two halves of material off my body.
Luckily, I am wearing one of those brassieres females in this world love so much, so my chest is not completely naked. But on my lower body, I am only left in a pair of white shorts that only come up mid-thigh, leaving far too much of my flesh available for his perusal.
The urge to cover myself is overwhelming, but the pain that comes with every small movement is even more so.
“See, wasn’t that hard,” Mine says as he opens the first aid box.
I grumble unhappily under my breath. It might not be hard for him, but it is for me. Modesty is very important for Aperite high-born ladies. If anyone heard that I might have appeared half-naked in front of a strange male, I would be shamed and ostracized.
“Hurry up then. It hurts.”
“I know, sweetie. I’ll work as fast as I can,” he murmurs sweetly. His eyes meet mine, and he gives me a smile. Somehow, that works to make me less belligerent. I suppose I am being rather obtuse. If I want him to remove the bullet, then I have to make this concession.
His gaze dips to my chest—well, above my breasts, to be more precise. I look down too, grimacing when I see the ugly gunshot wound. It’s right above my heart.
Redness stretches across a wide radius, all around a deep hole that gurgles out blood.
I may have been injured in battle before. But I’ve never had to withstand those injuries for more than a few moments before my flesh healed. To see this gnarly wound on myself is rather striking. As blood drips out of me with every movement of my chest—with every breath, really—the pain becomes even worse now that’s accompanied by the visual stimulus.
Taking a metal instrument from the box, he leans closer to me—so much so his breath fans over my cheek.
“Uhm, what are you doing?” I whisper.
“Getting the bullet out. This will hurt.”
“All right. I’m ready.”
He stares me in the eye for a moment before he nods. Redirecting his attention to my wound, he inserts the metal instrument inside my wound.
I gasp. Not only is the metal cold against my feverish skin, but it’s also painfully prodding inside my flesh.
“Shh,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
“Faster,” I say in between short, shallow breaths.
My hands look for something to hold on to—something to keep me grounded as my body feels about to launch itself off the bed in an attempt to escape this pain. With one hand, I grab the blanket underneath me. With the other, I grab the back of Mine’s shirt, holding him next to me.
“Easy, easy,” he whispers. “Almost there.”
“It…hurts,” I say groggily.
“There, darling. Almost there,” he continues.
The instrument prods deeper inside my wound.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Done,” Mine proclaims.
Slowly opening my eyes, I see him holding out the bullet fragment. It’s smaller than I expected. Though it’s coated in my blood, the material is golden and shiny.
“Now let’s clean the wound,” he continues. Dropping the bullet fragment on the table next to me, he then brings a clean towel that he douses in some disinfectant.
“Ouch,” I hiss when the towel makes contact with my open wound.
“How long will it take before you heal?” Mine asks as he dabs the disinfectant all over my injury.
“I think a night? That’s how long it took for my arm last time,” I mention. Then I frown. “In fact…” I trail off as I peek under the bandage on my arm. “This one’s nearly healed.”
Mine smiles then.
“Good. I don’t like to see you in pain.”
Our eyes meet, and a flush envelops my cheeks.
“Uhm… Well—” I swallow uncomfortably. Why does he have to be so nice to me just when I was getting mad at him?
He chuckles and gets to work.
While I think of something to say in return, he cuts up a small piece of gauze, dips it in iodine, and presses it to my wound. Keeping it in place, he takes the bandage and rolls it all around my torso to secure the gauze.
“How’s the pain?”
“More manageable now. Thank you.”
“Good. Let me get you something to put on.”
I rise from the bed, a little more wobbly than I care to admit. Mine grabs a long white shirt from his trunk.
“I’ll help,” he mentions as he slides the shirt over my head and carefully pulls my arms through the sleeves. The hem of the shirt almost reaches my knees, so I suppose now I’m pretty covered. But I still don’t feel too comfortable having this much flesh on display. Perhaps no one will notice when I walk back to my dorm because it’s dark out. Hopefully, my roommates will not notice either. Otherwise, that will start rumors.
I let out a deep sigh.
It seems that Aperion and Anthropa have much in common—both are ruled by stringent regulations and social mores. More than anything, both are ruled by gossip and hearsay.
“Can I borrow a coat, too?” I ask as I think better on it. I don’t want to risk being the subject of gossip this early into my job. I’ve heard how the females in this world talk about “easy girls” and I don’t want to be branded one.
“A coat?” He frowns. “Why? Are you cold? Do you need another sweater?” He’s already rummaging through his trunk for more clothes to give me, which I must admit is rather sweet.
“No, I’m fine. I just need something to cover myself while I walk to my dorm.”
He stops what he’s doing. Slowly, he turns to me.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he states in a resolute voice, folding his arms across his chest.
“Yes, I am.”
“No. You are not.”
“What are you on about, Mine? I can’t possibly stay here.”
“Why not? You’re injured. What if you bleed through the night and someone in the dorm sees? What if someone sees you walking alone across the base when you should have gone to sleep hours ago?”
“Well…” I trail off. He does have a point. “But I can’t sleep here,” I whisper. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
“I think we’re past propriety, Minnie. Wouldn’t you say so?” he asks with a lift of his brow.
“I suppose so.” I sigh. “But there’s only one bed.” I point to the bed behind me. It’s small, too. Not that I plan on sharing it with him. That’s out of the question.
A shiver goes down my back as I fail to control my imagination and I picture us both on the same bed. He’d be behind me, holding on tightly to me and lending me his body heat throughout the night. His body would be flushed against mine, and with our size differences, he would easily cradle me in his arms. His breath would be in my hair, blowing onto my cheek—warm, sweet…intoxicating.
Eyes growing wide with shock, I shake myself.
“You will take the bed. You are the injured one, after all. I can sleep on the floor.”
I glance at the unwelcoming floor. There’s some kind of covering put on top of the ground, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop the cold from seeping through. And it is cold at night. No matter how many blankets he were to put on the floor, he would still catch a chill.
“But it’s so cold,” I voice out my concern. “You will get sick. And you are human, Mine. A mere breeze can kill you,” I point out squarely.
An amused grin pulls at his lips.
“A breeze will kill me? Ah, tiny darling, you really have that little faith in me?”
“Well, yes. You are human.”
He blinks.
“That was a rhetorical question. You did not need to answer,” he mutters drily.
“But it is the truth. Would you rather I lie to you? You humans are so fragile. A little cold and you’ll catch that dreadful illness. What was it? Consumerism?”
“You mean consumption,” he corrects. “Though consumerism isn’t a wrong assessment.”
“Consumerism, consumption. Same thing. You’ll catch that and then you’ll be dead and who will help me defeat this greed demon?”
“I didn’t know you valued my help so much,” he drawls with a smile.
I shrug.
“You are my only ally here. Not only are you human and thus you have a better knowledge of this world, but you are also a part of the military. Given your superior rank, you have more freedoms than the average soldier, so that makes you quite a valuable asset,” I tell him objectively.
I might have thrown a little tantrum a while ago, but even I must recognize that my chances of defeating the greed demon are much better with Mine by my side.
“Is that everything I’m good for?” he asks in a quiet voice. “If I weren’t an asset to you in this fight, would you care whether I die or not?”
I regard him for a moment with narrowed eyes.
“Is this one of those rhetorical questions?”
“No. I would like an answer.”
“No,” I say with a shrug. “Why would I care whether a mortal lives or dies? It is your fate to die anyway. So what if you’re marginally more good-looking than your sad human lot? You’re still equally fragile and annoying.”
“You think I’m good-looking?” He chuckles.
“Is that all you got from what I said? I also mentioned you are fragile and annoying, which you are, you know. May I remind you that I am now without my powers because you forced me to help you save those mortals?”
“I forced you? Minnie, Minnie. I did not realize you’d have a faulty memory—with you being such a superior immortal being.”
I huff aloud at his implication.
“You guilted me into it. Same thing.”
“I did not put a gun to your forehead and said, help me or I will kill you.”
“You couldn’t kill me,” I fire back.
“So where is the coercion then? For that narrative to work, I’d need to have something over you. That you helped those mortals is solely because you wanted.”
“I—” I clear my throat. “Back to the original topic. You cannot sleep on the ground or you will catch your death. Then I will be punished even more for interfering with your mortal fate.”
“What do you suggest then? As you’ve noted, there is only one bed.”
“Well…” I glance back at the bed. It’s not too big. “I will allow you to sleep on the bed. But”—I put my hand up—“we will sleep on opposite ends.”
He tilts his head to the side.
“Is that so?”
“It is the best solution. That way, it cannot be said that we are sharing a bed, since we are merely in each other’s proximity. After all, I will remind you I am a respectable unmarried lady,” I feel the need to remind him.
Though, perhaps I should be reminding myself . Wouldn’t it be easier to dash back to my dorm and hide my injuries? The answer is…yes. But I blame my damn imagination for leading me astray. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so curious about semi-sharing a bed with him.
Damn it, Minerva! How low you’ve fallen if your greatest dream is to share a bed with a mortal.
I bow my head toward my own stupidity, yet I cannot find it in me to go against it.
Just this once, all right?
“As you say, Minnie. As you say,” Mine replies.
He moves toward the bed and places one pillow at one end and one at the other. Then he grabs another blanket so that we don’t have to share one. Smart human.
When he’s done making the bed, I claim my spot. Getting in bed, I pull the blanket over my body with my right hand, careful not to jolt my left shoulder where my injury is still very much pulsing with pain. Damn it. I’ll likely have to sleep on one side only or on my back, which for someone who is quite the fussy sleeper that is going to be a nightmare.
I expect Mine is going to climb into his side of the bed, too, and my heart is in my throat as I wait for my imagination to become reality—well, close to it anyway.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he moves away from the bed and grabs onto the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head. He doesn’t seem to be in pain anymore, even though it’s only been a few hours since I stitched him up. But maybe he has a better tolerance for pain. Alas, he must be used to it. His back is a tapestry of scars, some more prominent than others. It makes me wonder what he had to endure to remove that illness from his body.
Yet despite his scars, I can’t help but appreciate his muscular form. He might be human, but he has such perfect proportions even an Aperite would be jealous.
A gasp slips past my lips when I note his hands going to the band of his pants.
“What are you doing?” I yelp.
He half-turns.
“Changing into my pajamas,” he replies nonchalantly.
“B-b-but?—”
“If this offends your feminine sensibilities, you’re welcome to look away.”
My eyes widen.
“You can also watch.” He winks.
Cheeks flaming, I promptly turn away. My heartbeat echoes in my ears.
I hear the ruffling of clothes, and the temptation to look back is almost too much. In the end, my common sense prevails and I keep my gaze firmly on the wall. But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.
His footsteps indicate he’s getting close. I take a deep breath and prepare myself.
“Does this pass muster?” He points to his outfit. He’s wearing a pair of loose pants and a white shirt similar to the one he gave me.
I nod briskly. I’m still terribly flushed and I don’t trust myself to speak—not coherently anyway.
He pulls his blanket aside and slides in the bed. Yet it’s immediately noticeable that he’s purposefully trying not to touch me. He keeps his body away from me, and despite his size, he takes the least amount of space.
“Good night, Minnie,” he murmurs softly.
“Good night, Mine,” I return the words. Though how can I sleep with a gunshot wound to the chest and a handsome male at my feet? What sane person would be able to sleep like that?
Mine, that’s who.
In a matter of minutes, his breathing regulates until he’s releasing soft, barely audible snores.
Great. Here I am, overthinking this entire situation and his maddening proximity, and he couldn’t fall asleep faster.
I grumble some more to myself as my lashes start to feel heavy.
I don’t know when exactly I fall asleep, but as sunlight streams inside the tent, I reluctantly open my eyes to see Mine is gone.