5
Soleil
It sounds like someone’s choking.
Whirling around to find the source of the sound, mind already racing with the steps for the Heimlich maneuver, I find a demon in the doorway.
He’s not actually choking, but he does look like he’s seen a ghost.
Blond-haired, crimson-eyed, and about as tall as Callum, though not as broad, he’s got all the quintessential demon features. Horns, tail, a wide pair of leathery black wings, fangs that show from where his mouth is hanging open in shock.
He’s pale. Pale enough to concern me, choking or not.
“Are you… are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he takes a step forward, then another. His eyes rove over me, and the expression of shock on his face melts into something else. Something that looks a lot like… wonder.
It makes my stomach sink, makes my heart race, makes a tiny, glowing thread of magick lodge itself somewhere beneath my breastbone and tug.
I look back to Seren.
Surely, she’ll say something.
Someone will say something. Someone will let me know what this demon with the stars in his eyes wants from me.
Goddess, some part of me already knows.
“F-Finn,” Seren finally finds her voice. “This is Soleil, my sister. And Soleil, this is Finn Nighfall.”
Both she and Callum look like they’re at a loss for what to do, what to say, how to handle the fact that this demon—a friend of theirs, maybe?—still hasn’t said anything and is still looking at me like I’m the first drink of water he’s seen after a week in the desert.
I need to get out of here.
It’s the only fully coherent thought that comes to mind.
I have to go.
There is absolutely no way I can be here.
Not right now. Not when I’m still barely functioning after a night without sleep. Not when the idea of leaving one set of ironclad expectations only to fall headfirst into another makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.
I don’t know this demon.
He’s… attractive. Almost cute, even, with his blond curls and a little dimple in his cheek. Not that the cuteness goes much further than that, because the more I look, the more of him I notice.
The powerful sweep of his wings. The curve of his horns. The crimson glint in his eye and the hint of a fang beneath his lip. The whip of a long black tail behind him. All entirely un-human—strange, but beautiful.
My mind is so scrambled I can’t make sense of all the details. I can’t stop to parse it out for even a moment.
I have to get out of here.
Seren says something else, but I’m already moving.
Away from her, across the room, out the door, passing the blond demon close enough that he could reach out and—
“Wait—” His plea comes out choked, hoarse, but I don’t slow my stride. “If you would just—”
I don’t hear the rest of what he has to say as I break into a run down the corridor.