Chapter 2
Cullen stared blankly at the roof below him, his body trembling and his mind racing with the realization that he wasn't dead.
Not dead. Not kidnapped. Leviathan gone again, of fucking course, but he was still alive and relatively unharmed. Just as he caught his breath again, his spinning head clearing with a few harsh exhales, familiar calloused hands curled around his arms, helping him up.
When had he fallen to his knees?
“Cull?” It was Walker’s voice, anxious and full of guilt. “Are you okay?”
He blinked slowly, his eyes rising to his face. He took in Walker’s ever-caring eyes and the hesitation in his gaze, and pulled away from him, straightening and brushing dirt from his clothes. “I'm fine.”
“Are you sure–”
“Where did he go?” It was Dom's deep, demanding voice that cut through the abnormally quiet night.
Cullen turned to him with a frown, taking in the dark clothes and the short gray hair and the pissy expression, like he was irritated that Cullen had let the bastard get away.
Cullen simply glared at him, his heart racing with indignation.
“I don't know.” He snapped. “He did that shadow travel shit again.” And, despite their heavenly powers–taught to them by some ancient line of demon slayers several hundred years ago–despite the light that they could wield and shape like weapons, they could not make their own portals, couldn't follow him into that darkness.
The men who had tried had never come back.
“Why didn't you grab him?” The voice belonged to a woman this time. He hadn't noticed their classmates surrounding them. But now he felt a bit as if he and Walker stood at the center of a firing squad.
“How do you expect me to grab him, Kyla?” He demanded, rounding on the woman who had spoken.
A shorter girl with long blond hair and green eyes.
She’d gotten on his nerves the moment she’d shown up at the Academy, her selfishness and snide comments grating on his nerves until he could hardly stand to be around her.
“He’s basically made of fucking shadows! ”
“He was touching you just fine.” Came an amused voice that dripped with condescension. Ryan, Kyla’s identical twin brother, pulled back the hood of his dark cloak to smirk at him.
Heat flashed across his face. “That’s–”
“Enough.” It was Dominick, with that deep, commanding tone again. “Cullen, did he say anything?”
The blush grew hotter. “He said a lot of things.”
“Such as?”
A muscle twinged in his jaw. “The usual creepy shit. He wants me to go with him. He wants me to…” He trailed off, his gaze on Walker’s chest; he couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes. “He said he would come back for me.”
“Well, we already knew that.” Someone scoffed from behind him.
He didn’t turn to look at them this time.
None of these people–his sort-of-adopted siblings’ opinions mattered.
He wished Dom would be a little more judicious about who he let live at the Academy.
But, as he had told Cullen many times over the years, humanity could hardly be picky about who they let in when all that mattered was fighting back against those damned demons.
“What’s the point of this if we don’t kill him or get any useful information about this oh-so-powerful demon? ”
Cullen deflated a bit. What was the point, really? They kept going in circles with this shit and it was getting more dangerous…for him, especially. Not that anyone else seemed to care too much about that part.
“What took you guys so long anyway?” He snapped, taking a moment to meet each of them in the eye. Shameful scowls bloomed on several of their faces. “We weren’t that far away.”
“Like you said,” scoffed a different man beneath the dark cowl of his hood. “He’s made of smoke and shadows; how are we supposed to keep up with him?”
“We couldn’t find you at first, Cull.” Walker murmured, reaching for his hand. “We were looking everywhere.”
Cullen drew his hand away from his boyfriend and shoved his way through a small opening in the group, heading for the dark shadow of a ladder he could see at the edge of the roof.
“Whatever. Maybe we need a better plan because he’s just fucking with us right now and I have no interest in being fucking kidnapped to a demon dimension. ”
Dom called out to him but Cullen ignored him, climbing shakily onto the old ladder and beginning his descent. After a few moments of heavy silence, Walker scrambled after him, his thick soled boots loud on the metal above him.
The moment they were on the ground, Walker reached for his hand again, intertwining their icy fingers. Cullen did not object, did not pull away again, only squeezed a little tighter to welcome the warmth.
“I…I’m sorry that–”
“It’s not your fault, Walker.” He sighed, shaking his head.
He’d lost count of the amount of times Walker had apologized since Leviathan had escaped from inside him.
To Cullen. To the society of demon hunters they answered to–a small scattering of humans who practiced magic all over the world.
He’d even gone to his parents' graves and cried and begged for forgiveness and mercy for his weakness. Cullen had remained silently by his side, his hand on his back, and had wondered selfishly how it felt to have a family that loved you–even if they were gone. Even if they hated you after death. It wasn’t an experience he’d ever had the chance to have.
Walker was one of the few Diviners that had been born into this life. Not everyone here had been so lucky.
Walker fell silent beside him now, his eyes on the ground, clearly disagreeing with Cullen’s words. Cullen would have reassured him if he wasn’t so bone tired. His lip throbbed and he felt…dirty, the memory of phantom hands all over his body.
“I need a shower.” He sighed as they made their way back up the tall hill where the school rested.
Just outside of the city, surrounded by an invisible barrier that drove regular humans away, just as the curse on the city did.
He glanced at Walker and smiled slyly, his thumb running up the soft part of his hand. “Want to join me?”
Walker threw him a startled look. “Oh. Are you sure? I know you must feel…”
“I do. That’s why I want you to join me.
To help me forget about it.” He saw Walker’s hesitation and felt the little bubble of hope deflate in his chest. “Unless you don’t want to.
” Walker hardly ever wanted to. It was something about their relationship that drove him absolutely insane sometimes, though he tried not to be pushy about it.
“No, I do!” Walker burst out, the intensity of the words surprising him. “Especially if it’s what you need right now.” He smiled and sped his pace, his hand tightening on Cullen’s. “Let’s go.”