“No!” Eva shouted. “It was me!”
“Eva!” I hissed out her name and shoved her body into the nearest wall, she stumbled back and glared. “Stay out of this.”
“You will not DIE because of me!” Her eyes glowed green as her fangs elongated past her bottom lip. Her gaze snapped to Sariel. “If you want a life. Take mine. I asked Cassius to save them. It is I who is at fault.”
“Very well.” Sariel nodded.
“You cannot be serious!” I charged Sariel fists clenched. “She’s a council member! She’s been around for centuries! You cannot simply eliminate her for one bad choice!”
“Oh?” Sariel’s head tilted to the side as he pulled a purple feather from his wings and held it out in front of him, the edge was black. The color of the Angel of Death. He meant to truly kill her, to make her no more. “We live by the rules, we die by the rules, Cassius. She broke the rules. She dies.”
“But—”
Head held high, Eva pushed past me and got down on her knees, her head bowed toward Sariel.
“Sariel, think about this.” I knew reasoning with him would do nothing, but I couldn’t stop myself, this was Eva, my Eva. I’d had her by my side since I was created. She was the reason the darkness wasn’t so dark—the reason I was always pulled back into the light. Without her, what was I?
“And there it is…” Sariel nodded. “She makes you weak. She makes you second guess your decisions. Not that it matters, one of you must die for this serious lapse in judgment, and Eva is right. The fault lies with her, and I need you to lead the immortals. Therefore…” He held out the feather to me. “Life is taken.”
“Cassius.” Eva whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I love you.”
Sariel sucked in a breath.
Now he knew.
I’d failed him twice.
Because I loved her back.
“Eva, I will always love you,” I whispered, taking the feather from Sariel and holding it over her head.
Sariel’s anger was tangible. “Cassius, you are their king. She pays for your sin… kill her.”
“I can’t.” My body was empty so empty.
Eva locked eyes with me. “Cassius, promise me you’ll check in on John, promise!”
At death’s grasp and still she was worried for the boy.
I didn’t understand that type of love—so maybe I’d never really loved her after all. Had I?
“I promise.” My voice shook as I pressed the tip of the feather to the base of her neck. It slid in through her skin, she slumped against my arms as immortality left her body.
Right before my very eyes, my dear friend, my love, aged. She aged so horribly, her tight skin became wrinkled and paper-thin. It lost all the glow of youth, her hair turned ten different shades of gray before finally falling out of her head, the bones in her body were brittle, the muscle detached from the correct positions, and as she took her last breath, I saw what it would be like to be human, to love a human and watch them die.
The pain was unimaginable.
Her frail hand reached up and caressed my face with the lightest of touches. “Cassius… you will always be more light than dark.”
She died.
In my arms.
“For her sacrifice,” Sariel whispered. “The twelve children will live.”
I didn’t see Sariel again for five hundred years.
Cassius
DEMONS DIDN’T HAVE THE decency to hide in the shadows of rundown buildings and dark alleyways.
They thrived around the constant buzz of mortals.
It was impossible to survive as a Demon without others. And the easiest way to kill them off was to get them alone. They were interconnected like a complicated mass of webs. Where there was one Demon, there were always several others. It was an odd pack-like mentality that spread throughout every race of immortals.
All but Dark Ones.
Destined to walk the earth alone, seeking the light, cursed to the shadows. I shivered as we turned onto the street that would take us to Blu, a bar in downtown Seattle that doubled as a Demon Den.
It was the biggest web of all. Humans loved the dark atmosphere and promise of cheap drinks, having no clue that the minute they crossed the threshold they were taking their lives into their own hands. As the leader of the immortals, I kept the peace, but that also meant that I at times had needed to rule in favor of the Demons. Human lives were precious to us because we needed them to continue to thrive, but that didn’t mean accidents never happened.
Stephanie stopped the SUV in front of the bar.
Marcus, a Demon I’d had the great displeasure of meeting upon a dozen occasions stood on the sidewalk, rain dripping down his blond head onto his chiseled jaw as he nodded discreetly toward our SUV and shoved his hands in his pockets.
At six-foot-four, people gave him a wide berth as they stepped around his bulky body. Men shied away, and women stared. Not like they could help it. Men were bred to fear the evil. And if Demons were spiders with webs—that made women the perfect fly.
“I’ll go.” I exhaled a loud breath, the air in front of my face crackled with the sound of ice breaking. I should feel like my old self. Instead, it felt foreign, and terrifying. Not something I wanted to admit to anyone, least of all Stephanie. That what used to feel so natural and right, now caused my human heart to skip a few beats and this ridiculously frail body to sweat as if I was over exerting myself by merely existing.