The Demon's Pa

I looked up slowly when I heard Cherise calling my name from the house. With a deep sigh I ran my hand through my hair. It was probably time I went back there, but it seemed like every time I set foot into the house a wave of sadness washed over me. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it, being in that house, being in his house, without him.

From the first moment I’d seen the house I’d thought of it as my home, a place where I was safe, but ever since he- since he died, it just wasn’t home anymore. It was just an empty and terribly quiet house. The fact that there were seven other vampires and a human staying there didn’t do much for making it feel more like home. They just weren’t him.

When Cherise actually started shouting my name like a maniac the corner of my mouth tugged upwards a little. At least I had my family, well, the vampire half of my family that is. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered to myself, knowing that with her hearing she’d hear me even though I was about fifty meters away from the house, “I’m coming.”

Giving my surroundings one last glance I allowed myself to drop to the ground from the tree branch I had been sitting on. I landed gracefully even though I wasn’t completely used to being a vampire yet. It still seemed unreal to me but being a vampire was growing on me, except for the fact that-

“Ash! Hurry up, you’re going to want to hear this!” an edge of panic had now managed to chip my sister in law’s perfect voice.

I frowned deeply. Had something happened?

“Don’t worry Ash,” Zaiden appeared from where he’d been lurking, “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.” He watched me carefully for a moment, “Come on, let’s go before she freaks out.”

I grimaced and reluctantly followed after him as he sped off to the house. Zaiden had been at my side ever since his death. I’d ordered him away many times when I’d wanted nothing more than to mourn alone, but he never left my side. Thankfully my other nobles were less stubborn and they left me alone as long as they knew Zaiden was with me.

The conversation I’d had with Zaiden a few weeks ago flashed through my mind.

“What do you mean I shouldn’t be shocked when I see how the nobles act towards me?” I questioned Zaiden with a small frown.

He sighed and looked at me helplessly, “Well, you know how we were around Alex, right?”

“Uh… You all were really nice to him and showed him a lot of respect I guess.” I answered hesitantly.

“Well… I actually didn’t mean it like that. I meant…” He looked at me desperately, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, Ash, but… we loved him as much as we could. The females they lusted after him and all of the males wanted to be his best friend.” He swallowed and looked away from me, avoiding my eyes, “It is the same with you since you’re our royal now. The females will all want to be your best friend and us males…”

“Oh.” I said awkwardly as realisation hit me, “Oh…”

“Yeah,” Zaiden said as he scratched the back of his neck, “So guess I’m just telling you so you know how we all feel about you, but remember you have the power of absolute command over us so you can tell us to do anything.”

“I can?” I asked disbelievingly. Zaiden nodded and I narrowed my eyes at him. “But why am I your royal now? What makes me so special? I’m just the thirteenth noble so shouldn’t you- the first noble- have become the next royal?”

Zaiden shook his head, “It doesn’t work like that. All the nobles already felt attracted to you even though you were human when you met all of us, when you became a vampire those feelings intensified and when you and Alex…” Zaiden looked around awkwardly. ” When you and Alexander mated… you became a royal.”

I stared at him and only managed another very intelligent sounding, “Oh.”

Ever since he and I had had that conversation Zaiden had made it very clear that he wasn’t planning on letting me out of his sight any time soon, so I’d grow used to him following me everywhere and lurking in the shadows. He’d very bluntly told me that when he had died he’d called out to his –our- nobles to protect me and Zaiden was going to honour his master’s last wish for the rest of his days, even though technically I was his master now…

When we reached the threshold to the front door I hesitated, as I always did, before I stepped inside and joined my family in the largest of the living rooms. When he had been alive I’d thought nothing of entering this house, but now…

I sat down on the single chair in the darkest area of the room and Zaiden stood next to my chair dutifully, cautiously watching all the other beings in the room. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him, he really was just too much.

My eyes wandered over everyone in the room who seemed to be watching me with just as much interest as I was watching them.

Oberon, who was sitting very casually on the largest couch in the room, was the eldest brother of the seven royals and they were without a doubt the most powerful vampires in the world. They were demon spawn.

Next to him sat his Promise angel, Cherise who had in the short time I’d known her become one of my closest friends. Her face was full of worry and she looked at Oberon with eyes filled with fear. Without hesitation he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she visibly relaxed.

They were just like he and I had been, back when he was alive. Maybe it was like that for every vampire and their PA, maybe they all loved each other more than was natural…

The seven demon spawn brothers were classified as vampires and they ruled over all the other vampires since they were their creators. Each brother had a Promise angel, not they’d all been found yet, but I’d been reassured that there was a PA for each of them by their desperate eyes.

Promise angels were humans who had the capacity to love even someone who was half demon, that was why they were called angels, because their love was pure. They were all human, but when they met their royal vampire they were turned since the possessive bastards couldn’t live without them. Not to mention they couldn’t live without the vampires as well.

I was the Promise angel of the second eldest royal. Alexander. But that didn’t really matter anymore.

Since he was dead.

He’d been killed by their demon father who’d managed to regenerate himself a century and a half after they’d ‘killed’ him. Obviously their plans of murder hadn’t gone according to plan all that much.

After Alexander’s death I’d been a wreck, a complete mess. I couldn’t understand why his brothers hadn’t been there to help him fight, but they’d had their own problems to deal with while my love was getting killed. The demon had sent his minions to this house with a human to use as bait. The human girl wasn’t even just some random person, she was Viktor’s PA and the demon had found her before Viktor had. His minions had kept the crying girl hostage while taunting the brothers and keeping them busy while Alexander was getting killed. Eventually they’d just dropped the bound girl to the ground and left without another word being said.

Viktor needed to be restrained to keep him from going after them and ripping their throats out. All and all that wasn’t the best impression he could have given the terrified human girl who was still shaking in fear of him by the time that I’d arrived on the scene after Zaiden had pulled me away from Alexander’s body.

The girl’s name was Lucy Heart and now, nearly two months after she first saw Viktor, she still refused to be anywhere near the fourth brother which would be why they were sitting on opposite sides of the room. She was in danger because she was Viktor’s PA so we’d all thought it best we kept an eye on her.

Neculai and Jagger were both standing awkwardly at the side of the room and Norabo and Heskel were each slouching on their own chairs.

In fact the other royals should have left a long time ago, but they were all still here because Oberon thought they had power in numbers and they had to kill the demon again before he could cause more havoc than he already had. I didn’t mind the company because I didn’t know what I’d do with myself if I was left alone.

“So?” I finally decided to break the silence, “Why are we gathered here?” My own voice sounded foreign to me. I sounded older, like the weight of the world was being carried on my shoulders. Since Alexander had died I was the lone royal of Africa and even though I didn’t need to do much just the thought of being the ruler of an entire continent was slowly killing me.

Cherise nudged Oberon in the ribs and he sighed, “I think it’s time to tell you what we’ve been keeping from you.”

“From me?” I pointed towards myself disbelievingly. Oberon nodded. The atmosphere in the room grew tense and I saw the vampires move around and look away from me with guilty expressions on their faces. “Well,” I asked hesitantly and not really sure if I wanted to know what they were going to tell me, “What is it?”

“Just don’t get mad Ash, we only kept this from you until now because you were so unstable after what happened to Alexander.” Cherise said.

“Ok…” My eyes flickered from face to face, “Why do you all look so sombre? What can possibly be this bad that you have to tell me?”

“Do you remember when I told you about how we killed the demon and why he would eventually come back to life even tough we’d really killed him?” Jagger questioned whilst looking at me intently.

My fists balled on instinct to keep my emotions in check. When he’d told me that, Alexander had been sitting next to me, his arm slung around my shoulders protectively. Like he would never let me go and yet… “Yeah,” my voice quivered, “What about it?”

“Demons can’t die Ash.” Norabo said plainly. “No matter what happens they will always come back.”

I frowned, confused with what he’d just told me, “Yeah, I already know that.”

“But I don’t think you understand what we mean by that Ash.” Jagger made himself heard again.

My frown became deeper, “I don’t?”

“We are half demons.” Oberon said, “Do you understand now, Ash? Alex is a half demon and that means-“

“He’s coming back.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I could stop them. “He’s alright! He’s coming back to me!” I jumped up excitedly.

“Ash.” Heskel said sternly and he was gripping both my shoulders almost instantaneously to keep me still, “Yes Alex is coming back, but he won’t be the same man you’ve known up till now.”

A bit of my excitement died down, “What do you mean?”

“We’re only half demon so that means that even though we can live again after someone kills us, we’ll never be the same because our mortal human half dies.” Heskel told me.

“Does that mean…” I trailed off, at a loss for words and my mind spinning a hundred miles an hour, “Does that mean that when he comes back to life again he’s going to be a full demon?”

“Yes.” Oberon’s answer was straight and simple and to the point, “He will be nothing more than a demon underling controlled by our father. And a very powerful one at that.”

I fell back into my chair with my head in my hands. I looked up at the vampires surrounding me hopefully, “Surely he’s still – still my Alexander?” The fact that no one answered my question was answer enough. “So that’s it? He’s a demon and there’s nothing we can do about it?” Still no answer. “But he should remember us, right? I mean, he wouldn’t have forgotten us?”

“It’s hard to tell.” Jagger answered my question, “I haven’t seen what would happen if we were to revert to our demon forms before. It’s possible that he’s lost all of his memories.”

Dear hell. After the weeks I’d spent crying over him a part of him was still alive and I hadn’t even known. “So you’ve all known that he was coming back all this time,” I said intensely, “Why didn’t you tell me? You saw how I was when he died, why didn’t you tell me?”

“You needed to be calm to hear this Ash. If we’d told you that… some part of him was still alive while you were mourning him you wouldn’t have thought twice about just joining him wherever he is.” Oberon stated calmly. “But your head is clear now and your judgement isn’t clouded as much anymore so I need you to understand. You can’t go to him.”

My head snapped in Oberon’s direction and my eyes flashed yellow, “Why not?” I hissed, “I love him, I’ll do anything for him.”

He shook his head, “Demons don’t love anything Ash, it won’t matter if you go to him, he won’t feel anything for you. You are just a vampire, in his eyes that makes you weaker than him which also makes you food. He’d kill you without remorse no matter who you are.” Oberon muttered dark things under his breath, “Not even to mention the things our father will ask him to do.”

I swallowed hard, “What kinds of things?”

Norabo didn’t miss a beat, “Murder a few thousand innocent humans just for the kick of it.”

Oberon turned to me again, “You need to promise us Ash, promise us that you won’t go to him. I know you are compelled to want to be near him and make him happy, but you can’t. You shouldn’t let him control you just because he has more power than you. We can’t lose another member of our family.”

“But he’s still going to be Alexander.” I protested, “He’s still going to be the man I love.”

“He’s going to be nothing more than a demon Ash.” Viktor snapped.

I snarled at him viciously, my eyes burning with anger, “Don’t you dare.”

“It’s true, Ash! I don’t think you understand how he’s going to be when you see him again.”

My entire body froze up, “When I see him again? What do you mean when? Is he going to come here?” All the questions tumbled out of my mouth. I wanted to see him again, I wanted him to hold me in his arms. I wanted to look into his eyes while he kissed my fingers one by one. I wanted to run my hand through his hair.

Viktor rubbed his temples and looked to Oberon for the answer to my question. “I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen, Ash.” He told me. “But because his human side will be dead he will be loyal to no one but our father. There is no telling what he might do.”

“Then why didn’t we bring his body here so we could explain to him what’s going on? And why did he regenerate so much faster than your father?”

“If we’d brought him here he would have ripped our family apart from the inside and you most likely would have helped him.” Viktor told me pointedly.

I bared my teeth at him, “You are such a-“

“Ash.” Oberon said my name warningly, “Calm down, what he’s saying is the truth. Alex should have regenerated in about five weeks since the damage to his body wasn’t that great. His head was ripped clean off, that isn’t nearly as bad as what we did to our father. Right now, I’m almost a hundred present positive that he’s already regenerated. It’s already been nearly seven weeks.” When he stopped speaking a peaceful silence overcame us.

“So Alexander’s going to be a demon?” I questioned thoughtfully to myself.

“Yes.”

“Well,” I grimaced, “I guess that makes me a demon’s PA.”

Because to me it didn’t matter what he was, I would always love him.