A Demon's Wrath: Part II (Peachville High Demons) (6 page)

“I want to join them,” I said.
“They’re my best hope of finding my brother.”

“They are a disorganized group of rebels,”
Lea said. “They may call themselves an army, but other than
Andros, there’s not a warrior among them that I saw. What hope
do they ever have of defeating those witches?”

“More than I have defeating them on my own,”
I said.

Lea pressed her lips together, fuming. “You
would risk everything we have to go after a group of human witches
you know nothing about? You would risk your life? Our future?”
Her voice softened. “Our love?”

I closed my eyes and turned to look at the king’s
city rising up in the distance, still several miles away. “What
would you have me do, Lea? Are you going to tell me to just forget
him? To let him go and move on? You know I can’t do that,”
I said. “Especially after what we’ve seen. This group,
the Order of Shadows, they are taking demons all the time. Fathers,
brothers, sisters. Gone in the blink of an eye. As the leader of our
people, would you be able to turn your back on this?”

“I’m not the leader yet,” she
said. “And neither are you. It’s my father’s job to
make those kinds of decisions. He’s very wise and very careful.
For whatever reason, he’s decided not to fight. Maybe he knows
just how dangerous they really are. Maybe he knows something Andros
doesn’t know. Until we’ve spoken with him, we won’t
know the true reasons for his actions.”

“So you still want to tell him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know,”
she said. “If he’s gone to such great lengths to hide
this from us, then he may not even listen to what we have to say. Or
he may get angry that we went looking for answers on our own.”

“Do you think we’d have any hope of
changing his mind?” I asked. I shook my head. “If he
already knows the truth, he’s not going to suddenly stand and
fight. He’s done nothing to help us find answers about Aerden,
and I don’t think telling him what we know is going to change
that.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “But I
feel like I need to at least give him a chance to tell his side of
the story.”

I took another deep breath. It was hard to know
which path to take. There was no doubt the king’s army would be
much more effective against the Order of Shadows, but why had the
king refused to fight?

“Let’s just let it sit for a while,”
she said, moving closer to my side. When she put her hand in mine, I
tensed. “Maybe after we’ve put some time and distance
between us and what we witnessed last night, we’ll have a
better picture of what we want to do. I don’t want to lose you,
but I also don’t want to betray my father. We’d lose
everything, Denaer. He would never forgive us if we joined a rebel’s
army.”

“I know,” I said. I pulled my hand
away. “But every day that goes by is another day Aerden may be
in danger. What if he is still alive on the other side? What if he’s
being tortured? What if—”

Something moved at the corner of my vision. A
streak of orange and white flying through the air toward me.

I turned and placed myself in front of Lea as a
creature pounced on top of me. I cried out as its claws ripped
through my side.

“Run,” I shouted to Lea, but she
didn’t run. She raised her bow toward the beast.

I pushed against the soft coat of the
orange-striped beast as it bared sharp white teeth in a horrible
hiss.

Lea’s arrow sliced through the air toward
us, but before she hit her target, a second creature jumped out of
nowhere, pushing her toward the ground. Lea managed to shift before
her body touched the ground. The beast passed through Lea’s
smoke, then skidded against the dirt and grass, disoriented.

I managed to push the first beast off of me, but
the pain in my side kept me from being able to focus enough to shift
into smoke. I reached for the axe I now carried with me everywhere.
Aerden’s axe. It had been his favorite weapon and wearing it
had helped me to feel closer to him. I was grateful I had it with me
now.

Lea and I moved toward each other, pressing our
backs together, weapons ready.

The two orange beasts looked almost identical
except that one was adorned with black stripes while the other had
white stripes that ran the length of its body. I’d never seen
anything like them before in all my travels.

“What are these things?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Lea answered.
“I’ve never seen them before.”

We moved together as the beasts circled around us,
their teeth dripping with saliva as they growled at us.

There was only one explanation as to who had sent
these beasts after us. The cloaked witch who had seen my face during
the ritual last night. She must have sent them to find me.

Blood flowed from the wound in my side. That was
the second time in two days that I had been injured, but I already
knew that this was much worse than the burns I sustained during last
night’s ritual. This wound carried poison through my body. I
felt it seeping into me, weakening my magic and flushing me with
fever.

I stumbled and clutched at my side, feeling weak.

“Are you okay?” Lea asked, her voice
panicked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I
think it poisoned me.”

I coughed and fell to my knees, barely able to
hold the axe up any longer.

Lea kept her bow raised, pointing it between the
two beasts as they circled.

Anger tightened my chest. Andros had warned me
that I was in danger and yet we had stopped in the middle of a field
to argue. How could we have been so careless? How could I be so weak
and useless?

If I made it through this, I would dedicate myself
to training. I would become a warrior so great no beast could
overcome me this easily.

If I made it through.

I placed my hand against the bleeding wound, then
closed my eyes. I took several deep breaths, trying to reconnect with
the healing power I had discovered last night. It took several tries,
but eventually, the familiar tingle of the cool healing power flowed
from my hand. It wasn’t enough to completely stop whatever
poison was already in my system, but it was enough to dull the pain
and allow me to gather my strength.

I stood and the two beasts came together, surprise
in their black eyes.

I tensed, prepared for them to strike. Only they
didn’t. Instead, they did the one thing I never could have
expected.

They shifted.

The bodies of the beasts straightened inside a
cloud of dark smoke.

I watched in shock. There were similarities of a
demon’s shifting, but it was incredibly different at the same
time. There was a swirl of smoke and shadow, but their bodies never
completely disappeared. It happened so quickly, I couldn’t make
complete sense of it.

Were they part demon?

But when their new forms appeared, I had my
answer.

They were human. Witches from the Order of
Shadows. I was sure of it.

And they were twins.

I choked down a lump in my throat. What cruelty
was this? Sending human twins here to destroy me as punishment for
what I had seen? Whoever had sent them must have recognized me
somehow. They must have known my connection to Aerden.

The realization of it gave me new strength. New
rage.

I narrowed my eyes. “Who are you?” I
demanded. “Did the emerald prima send you?”

“The emerald prima?” The girl on the
left had long hair that was so blond, it was almost white. Her face
and form were completely identical to the girl on her right. The only
difference between them was the color of their hair. “The prima
who saw you at the ritual last night is no one compared to our
mistress.”

The auburn-haired girl at her side smiled. “We
have a message for you,” she said. “For both of you.”

“Priestess Winter says to stop looking for
your brother,” the white-haired witch said. “He belongs
to the Order of Shadows now and there is nothing you can do. He is
bound to another with an unbreakable magic. Let him go or you will
suffer the same fate.”

“What magic?” I asked. “Who is
Priestess Winter?”

“It’s better if you learn to stop
asking questions,” she said. “Out of respect for the
position of both your families, your life will be spared today, but
if we have to come looking for you again, it will not end quite so
favorably.”

I glared at the two witches. “How dare you
come here to threaten me,” I said, standing up as straight as
the pain would allow. “Aerden was more than just a brother to
me. He was my twin. As twins, you should understand what that means.
I won’t stop searching for him, and if you come after me again,
it will be you who suffers an unfavorable end.”

The girl with white hair smiled and laughed, then
took a few steps toward me. She lifted her hand and a bright white
light formed on the tips of her fingers. With an effortless wave of
her hand, our weapons fell to the ground, clanging against each other
in the grass.

“Your words are strong and I have no doubt
your love for your brother is even stronger,” she said, moving
close enough to me that I could feel her warmth. “But you have
no idea the power you are up against, demon. Let this go.”

With that, the twins shifted back to their beastly
forms, running into the distance as quickly as they had come.

The Human World – Present Day

I ran my hand along the jagged red scar that still
marred the side of my body. It was the only wound I had that was deep
enough to scar my body permanently. No matter which form I took, that
scar always remained.

Remembering just how weak and helpless I had been
back then was difficult. It helped some knowing that I had eventually
seen the end of those tiger twins, but their deaths had not come at
my hands. It had been Harper who had ended them.

She was stronger than all of us.

I had a feeling she had only just barely begun to
realize the depth of her own power. Half-demon. Half-human. The
daughter of a king and a prima. She was one of a kind, but because of
that, the hope of both our worlds rested on her shoulders. It was a
lot for a seventeen-year-old to handle.

I turned and smiled as Harper walked out the back
door and made her way toward me in the garden.

No, not seventeen. She was eighteen.

Today was her eighteenth birthday. The day she
should have become the prima here in the town of Peachville. It was a
day I had dreaded since the moment her lips first touched mine.

I never dreamed we would be able to destroy the
Peachville demon gate and free both her and my brother from the Order
of Shadows. It was a miracle we were thankful for every single day.
But especially this day.

“What are you thinking about?” she
asked, laughing. “You look happier than you have all night.”

“I was just thinking how wonderful it is
that there’s no binding ritual tonight,” I said, pulling
her into my arms under the light of the moon. “How grateful I
am that you will never be prima.”

She wrapped her arms around me and lay her head
against my chest. “There are still so many gates,” she
said. “So many girls and demons being forced into a life of
slavery to the Order of Shadows. It’s hard to be truly happy
when there’s still so much that needs to be done. There are
still so many who need to be saved.”

I kissed the top of her head. “And we will
save them all,” I said. “One battle at a time.”

I didn’t want to tell her that our next
battle was just around the corner.

I wanted to let her enjoy this one night without
worry. I had kept the drawings of my most recent vision secret from
her, but I couldn’t hold it back forever.

That’s why I needed to give her this memory
stone tonight. I wanted to face the future knowing there was nothing
left unsaid between us. I wanted to be able to stand before her with
no secrets and no doubts.

She pulled away and lifted up on her toes to place
a soft kiss on my cheek. “I know you’re busy with some
secret project, and I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I just
wanted to make sure you were okay out here all by yourself.”

I placed my hands on her cheeks. “I love
you, Harper.”

Her eyes searched mine. “I love you, too,”
she whispered.

I lowered my lips to hers, drawing courage from
the feel of her body pressed against mine. I would need courage to
face the memories that came next.

The Shadow World – 75 Years Ago

The tiger’s wound had carried enough poison
to bring me to the edge of death, but not enough to finish the job.

Lea had managed to help me back to the castle, but
I had collapsed against the steps, unable to go any further. My body
had been consumed by a terrible fever and my mind was lost to
reality.

For days I lay trapped in a nightmare, visions of
burning bodies and tortured demons pulling me deeper into madness.

When I finally regained consciousness several days
later, I was weak and broken.

I had been so foolish to believe I could fight the
Order of Shadows on my own. In my rage, I had imagined myself strong
and capable, but the truth was that I had no training and no
knowledge about how to fight against human witches. I didn’t
know the first thing about their magic or their power.

Aerden had been one of the strongest, most capable
fighters I’d ever known, yet I had watched as he was shackled
and torn from this world, fear and pain contorting his features.

In one brief moment, a witch with the power to
somehow transform herself into a terrible beast had struck me down.
She could have killed me if she’d wanted.

When I first woke up, part of me had almost wished
she had finished the job.

I would have rather died than face the extent of
my own shame and weakness.