61 days later

It's a day past 2 months of no contact with Lycans.

"Let's go clubbing tonight," my co-workers were adamant, Luther heads it up, "Where should we go?"

"Electrify or The Orchid. They have the best crowds," Ronnie suggests.

"Nah," my friend Debra stands up from her couch, we were hanging out at her place for pre-drinks, although I was the sober one, "We should go to the new club in Lorry – The Blacksmith."

"Ehh... I heard it attracts a ratty crowd," Ronnie disapproves.

"Only on Sundays, when its cheap. Fridays is fine," Debra speaks up, "Besides, it's my birthday today. It's my final choice."

"Alright, The Blacksmith... Cleo?" Luther points to me, "You down to drive?"

"Well, can't we, watch a movie like you first wanted, Debra – you said this morning, you wanted to watch the –"

"I want to get laid, I changed my mind," Debra rolls her eyes, "Really Cleo? All we do is go to the movies. Let's go clubbing. Why are you so against it?"

"I'm not... against... it," I try to find the right argument, moving my hands in the air when I talk has become a specialty when I'm nervous, "I just..."

"My. Birthday," Debra whispers, reminding, "Come on, Cleo, I promise you'll have a good time out tonight with me," How do I explain to these 20 year-olds that I'm afraid of the dark? "Look. It's really close to your apartment," Debra mentions, showing me on her phone, "You can walk home if you don't like it and we'll take a taxi."

I nod now, agreeing reluctantly.

Luther and Ronnie start to get ready.

Debra also gets her bag, drinks another shot and then comes to my side, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you okay, Cleo?" she asks, more privately from the boys.

"Of course," I put on a dazzling smile and she smiles back, believing me.

Oh no.

Off we go to the dark.

For the past two months – and one day – I had slept with the lights on.

****

The Blacksmith

The thing about the night is how quickly a maze of shadows confuses the crowd, and getting separated from friends is much easier.

An hour into entering the flashing new nightclub, Debra is missing, after picking up a guy very quickly. Ronnie and Luther are totally drunk while dancing and trying to seduce other girls.

I had tried to stay with them, but they were always moving back and forth between the bar and the floor, chasing more girls, and it was frustrating me.

Eventually I just decide the safest place is the middle of the dance floor. Out of any dark corners where demons lurk.

Totally stiff and sober, but surrounded by a thick crowd of drunken college kids and people off work, I just stay in the middle.

I mean, what could go wrong?

T L T left Lorry months ago.

I hadn't had any encounters with Lycans nor demons since my common sense incident.

But still, I feel totally unsafe in the dark. Call it trauma, but no matter how many days past, I never felt any safer.

I thought 2 months and 1 day would be a good marker, I made it up in my mind, with the help of some of my new common sense. No contact over 2 full moons. No contact in dreams, in nightmares, or in real life. And that's what happened. Surely the Lycans had all moved on.

But that didn't stop the vision in The Pool from being my fate.

Princess of Lycans.

Inevitable. Soon. It was Coming. And I was running from it.

As I try to dance alone in the gyrating crowd, thickness in my head weighs me down like alcohol as I try to focus on the beat of the music to keep me steady. Every now and again I felt a wave of heavy vertigo. It was hard to breathe in this air. I think it was a health condition... maybe associated with the poison in my brain.

He didn't talk to me anymore. Communication had ceased. But I knew he was there. Quiet but there.

Sardonix.

As I think his name, an unexpected hand touches my waist, and then clenches me tight.

A wet mouth with the stench of spirits is on my ear next, "You good?"

It's Ronnie. Finally. Company.

I spin to him, and he is smiling, wholesome but barely standing.

"Yes!" I yell back, "Are you good?" as I ask it, his smile seems to wipe from his face.

He freezes up in the dance crowd, eyes looking straight ahead at nothing and his aura whiplashes from a dark blue... to... nothing?

D-did he just... d-die...?

Ronnie, stiff and straight, starts to fall back into the floor – which is covered in a puddle of spilled drinks.

Swoosh.

There isn't a splash.

He falls straight into the puddle, straight through, with claws hanging out of his torso – pushing his guts out.

He got slaughtered through the middle.

Then pulled down and Under.

No one saw it. It happened that fast.

Just as quickly as Ronnie is pulled through the reflection of the puddle, the dancers move over the spillage and cover up the temporary mirror.

I'm so in shock, I turn around and walk forward a little, as everything else remains totally normal.

I see Luther stumbling just outside the men's bathroom, and Debra is sitting at the bar with her new man for the night.

Everyone else goes about their business as usual. No one knows someone was just fucking murdered on the dance floor.

I stand still in the crowd, wondering if I just imagined the whole thing.

Maybe – or p-perhaps Ronnie is still right there. Behind me. Maybe he didn't just have his guts ripped out. Maybe I was just a little breathless and delusional, maybe my drink of water had been spiked?

I turn around with high hopes, hoping like hell, as a last resort, maybe it was just the poison in my head.

But it isn't a dream.

And the poison is right there.

Standing where Ronnie had been standing, is Sardonix. Crawled right out of the damn puddle. He's standing. A few paces behind me, fixated on me, shifted into his human, wearing a shirt and black pants and black shoes, a whole ass outfit – now he's here with me.

He was the one who slaughtered my friend, I – can't do this.

I spin.

Giving Sardonix my back, and ignoring him as I stay in the crowd, I refuse to leave it's safety.

My heart is racing. My palms are sweaty and I awkwardly step left and right, pretending to 'sway' between people.

A few attempts at swaying away, to put distance between him and I... I find myself closing my eyes and wishing myself away. Of course, that won't work. 2 months and 1 day ... so much for wishing.

The DJ abruptly changes the pace, and puts on a very popular song – causing a flood of adults to swarm to the already packed dance floor, jumping and laughing and dancing. I get knocked around by a few people, narrowly missing getting elbowed and pushed right off my feet by the swarm. One person trips back into me, and my small 3-inch heels slip over another puddle and broken glass on the dance floor. I end up falling hard into the front of another girl. I twist and I grab a hold of her arm to pull myself up, and she shoves me off her before I pull her down.

"Bitch, fuck off!" she glares at me like I committed a crime, I think my nails ripped into the side of her dress from the way some beads drop off, and all her friends witnessed our collision, and now they all give me the evil eye.

They're all getting ready to confront me, working each other up, since I'm clearly all alone in this.

However, as I back up, I stumble right back into his giant and steady torso.

Sardonix holds me up and the group of girls lose interest when they assess him as protection they can't cross, and then they turn away.

The crowd starts to dance closer to the middle, and I'm forced to stand straight against Sardonix's front.

When I look down, I see his hand, covered in some skull silver rings and obsidian gems, resting on my hip. His other hand isn't on me, it's hovering by my ear, gently pushing back my black locks I curled that afternoon after work.

I had been working at a grocery store. Yeah, I was still trying to be normal. My wings were under my coat.

My common sense is a funny thing.

Although I knew there was danger in Sardonix being a demon, I also knew he was protection for the foreseeable next ten minutes. Hence, common sense said I should be grateful and show him such gratitude.

I make the abrupt decision to turn into his chest, so we're flush, but I don't touch him, but I do look up at him, daring to meet his crimson eyes.

"Why are you here?" I ask him loud, straight to the point.

Sardonix's lips twitch up in the corner.

His hand grabs my jaw, and he tells me within.

I'm here to kill everybody.

You can't do that! I beg him.

Sardonix keeps a hold of my jaw, and he leans down to smell my breath, at the same time, breathing right into my parted lips.

An intoxicating scent swirls into my brain, and without thought – with the sense dampened, I close my eyes... and I open my mouth just a little bit more.

For another taste of that breath. Just, just a little bit...

But Sardonix doesn't breathe into me.

He kisses me full on the mouth.

His lips move against mine, as mine slide against his just as willingly.

My hands grab tuffs of his shirt and pull him into me.

A few seconds become minutes of making out, just falling in love with the feel of Sardonix's mouth on mine and his breath in my lungs – his hand always on my jaw, holding me still.

Eventually, as I pull away to breathe, he puts his mouth to my ear.

"I had no idea you missed me so much," Sardonix admits, clearly surprised, but not offended, "Another kiss?" I nod, and his palm touches my cheek, "...say you're mine, first, Cleo."

"I'm yours," I mouth it. It's just ten minutes, I remind myself.

Sardonix hovers his lips over my mouth and teases me with the second offer of more time.

"Say it like you'll die without me," he warns me, withholding the kiss, a husky low tone of death, "Say it again, tiny."

Tiny.

No.

Demon.

Lycan.

NO.

I blink rapidly and shake myself out of the trance. His breath was a fucking poison, I fell right into it. But I escape.

I turn around to physically escape next, but I immediately notice a difference.

All around the Club – is a pack of his shifted Lycans, stalking through the crowd, towering over absolutely everyone in a veil of invisibility. Demon Magic.

No one can see them, they're invisible to the eyes, but I can see them, because I am a Fairy.

They're eyeing off all the innocents. Ready to kill. Drool drips off their fangs.

It was too late. They were here to do major damage for no reason.

I turn back to Sardonix and fall to my knees, holding his pant leg, I beg him, "Please, please don't kill anyone else –"

Sardonix likes me down here, he looks rather satisfied now that I'm reduced to begging.

He leans right over the top of me, yelling into my ear, "Then what do you have to offer in return for each spared life?"

"Why would you kill them anyway –!"

"We eat flesh."

"I have nothing to offer you, please just listen," I keep shaking his pant leg, hysterical.

"Fool – I'm saying, offer yourself," Sardonix rephrases his meaning, "Sacrifice yourself to spare them all."

"But I don't want to die!" I cry out, truly distraught.

Sardonix lets out a ferocious growl and grabs my face again, holding my jaw steady, he speaks, clearly.

"I don't want to kill you," Sardonix looks me straight in the eye, "I want you. I want you."

"M-me?" I whisper it, and his hand tightens on my jaw. Then he releases, but wipes his thumb over a tear trailing down my cheek, before gently rubbing it along my lips.

"Now run away," Sardonix murmurs it, "Go on, run," he pulls away from me, stepping back and shaking me off after holding so tight to the material of his pants.

Finally letting go, I stumble back up to my feet.

As I turn around and head toward the exit, fumbling for my car keys, he's in my mind, telling me his thoughts and intentions.

I hoped to Lucifer I'd never see your adorable, plump fairy cheeks ever again. But in The Pool, I saw that you got trampled to death tonight. Your Fate changed this night without my eyes on you. You cannot be left unkept. A fae such as yourself, attracts unwarranted fate. So you need something more vile than destiny. You need a demon to look after you, to steal your Fate and hold it. So go and try to run – because if you can't get away, I'm going to curse you. And you know what happens after I do.

What will happen? What do you mean by curse me? And why run? You want to chase me down? Why? I dare question Sardonix, needing to know his full intent.

Chase? No. I'm not going to chase you, bitch. I'm going to hunt you down and then force you to heel. When your Fate is mine, Cleo, I'll do whatever the fuck I like to it, forever. If you fucking fuss to me about it ... you'll be chained, you'll be gagged and you'll be enslaved for eternity as a disobedient and insubordinate Lycan whore. So choose your sense. Be a good girl for me... run... and slip off your panties.

All that... and I just wanted a kiss tonight, I whisper back, feeling forlorn about the consequences of giving into a demon.

Next time, I'll have your mouth again and your tiny Fate.

You already have my mind. Now you want my Fate. You're just trying to make me your slave!

That's exactly right, you beautiful tiny slut. I favour you. There won't be a part of you left that I don't entirely control.

No.

Oh, no.

This was it, this was the end of my peace period.

2 months and 1 day. Limbo.

The rest was the arrival and a stay of a forevermore-period in Hell.

No Life. No Fate. Only ownership.

All while I had common sense to torture me forever.

This was very, very bad.

I run out the exit.

Yet again, I'm running for my life.

The only difference this time?

I'd fail once and for all.