Kael's POV
A cold, thick silence hung in the air, thick enough to drink.
The guy named Malakor shattered it. His green energy, which had been coiling around him like a restless serpent, flared violently.
"Leisa," he snarled,, his voice making the window glass vibrate. "What do you think you're doing?"
Leisa, her form still shimmering with the residual energy of her shattered illusion, turned her rage on him.
The air around her boiled with visible, inky black tendrils.
"This is none of your business, you cretin! What are you doing here?"
Malakor's rage vanished in a blink
A predator's grin sat gently on his face.
"I noticed you were acting weird. My instincts told me to follow you."
His crimson eyes flicked to me, dripping with condescending amusement.
"And I can't just sit back and watch you have all the fun to yourself."
Leisa's onyx blade grew thicker with a dark venomous energy, darker than the void between stars.
It rewrote space, retracting from my throat and reappearing instantly with its tip pressing against Malakor's collarbone. I heard reality itself protesting its existence as the air screamed where it touched.
Malakor didn't flinch. He threw his head back and laughed, a laugh that was filled with crude, derogatory insults.
"You really think that shadow-play could even scratch me, you desperate wench?"
He never moved. Not a muscle twitched.
But a thin, perfect line of crimson appeared on Leisa's chin.
A single drop of black blood welled up and traced a path down her neck.
There had been no flash of light nor any swing of a blade, just the result, a verdict delivered by an unseen judge.
The effect was instantaneous.
Leisa's beautiful, expressive eye vanished as it got replaced by two pools of absolute, light-devouring Black.
The air in the room died instantly.
I gasped, my hands flying to my throat as an invisible vacuum stole oxygen from my lungs. I felt my very life force being siphoned towards the abyss of her gaze.
Her Onyx blade dissolved into a swirling cloud of glistening, Purple-black droplets that hissed like a thousand serpents, each one radiating a poison that promised an agony beyond death.
SHOOM!!!
A pillar of Violet light erupted between me and certain doom.
As it faded, a lady stood there, one hand casually outstretched. The poisonous rain vanished under her silent command.
Her other hand was already pressed flat against my chest.
I hadn't seen her move, hadn't felt a shift in the air. It was as if she had always been there, a fundamental part of the scene I'd only just noticed.
A cool, calming energy flowed from her touch, pushing back the suffocating dread.
"So this is the human big brother is interested in," she mused, her voice laced with a curiosity that made me feel like a fascinating insect under a microscope.
Yet, for the first time since Malakor appeared, I felt seen, my existence acknowledged by something other than contempt or predatory hunger.
"Leisa," she chirped, a devilish grin spreading across her face.
"You dare mess with big brother's toy? Hehe. I can't wait to see his reaction once I tell him about it."
The giggle that followed was sweet, gently laced with hatred and sarcasm.
I saw it.
A genuine flicker of fear in Leisa's still-black eyes.
Her heart thumped, a loud, frantic beat I could feel in my own teeth.
"Serves you right," Malakor chuckled, looking immensely pleased with himself.
"Same goes for you too," the 'Zephara' lady said, her smile not faltering.
Malakor's expression soured instantly.
"I saved him! What do I have to do with this?"
I felt like I was paralyzed.
I felt like a minnow trapped between three circling great white sharks.
"Well," Zephara began, her grin turning truly wicked.
"I recall you once said you've fucked Leisa," she let the vulgarity hang in the air. "If you tell me how ugly her pussy is, I'll forgive you."
My brain short-circuited. I was going to die over...this?
Malakor didn't hesitate. "Sure. You've got a deal."
Leisa's hands clenched into fists so tight the bones creaked.
"What should I do to make you forgive me as well?" She forced through gritted teeth.
"Give me a piggyback ride home."
Leisa's face turned into a masterpiece of utter humiliation.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"You're not allowed to teleport. You'll carry me on your back and fly back home with your wings," Zephara stated, as if it were the most obvious sentence in the world.
Unable to bear the degradation in front of an audience, Leisa moved in a blur of silver and fury.
She snatched Zephara, flinging the 22-year-old looking lady into her back with monstrous strength.
Then, with a thunderous CRACK that finished off the last of the windows, silver wings burst from her back.
They looked deadly but not as vast, elegant, and terrifying as that of Arla.
They beat once, and the two of them shot through the broken frame into the night sky, vanishing into the cloud cover.
The crushing pressure vanished. I could breathe again.
"You should understand now that you're no match." Malakor faced me, patting my back with a force that was almost affectionate.
"But if you simply wish to continue, well then, rest in peace Kael," he said, his voice mixed with mockery and genuine pity.
He pressed a cold, familiar object into my hands.
It was a box, almost identical to the one from the old woman, but this one was carved from a wood that seemed to bleed shadow, and the symbols glowed with a faint, sickly red light.
Then he vanished.
I stood rooted to my spot with my mind in a numb, blank slate.
Three full minutes passed before my senses rebooted.
I looked down at the new box in my hands, then at the other one on the floor.
"Oh no,"
I whispered the only words my brain could process at the moment.
"Not another goddamn weird box."
° ° °
Leisa's POV
My face shimmered with residual fury as I stood naked in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection with my wings still out.
My room, which was the only place I could ease my mind, felt like a cage.
"Stupid, stupid girl," I whispered to the mirror.
"To be humiliated like that... by that wench."
"Arghhhhhhhh."
I dragged my hair in frustration.
My fingers traced the line on my chin where Malakor's unseen blade had marked me.
The flesh was already healed, but the insult remained, burning deeper than any wound.
"And for what? A mortal. A piece of refuse Arla deigned to glance at twice."
I leaned closer, my breath fogging the glass.
"This isn't over, little human. I will erase you. I will make him forget your name."
A single, sharp crack split the silence. The mirror fractured, my reflection splintering into a hundred broken pieces.
I felt his presence.
I turned my head instantly and lo and behold, he was standing there.
That instant I forgot how to breathe.
"So, it's true, huh?"
Even though I and Arla have been friends since childhood, I've never seen him this angry before.
His eyes were glowing with cold fire as he stepped from the shadows.
The air in my chamber grew heavy and thick with his displeasure.
"You went after my human," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "Without my permission."
I straightened, my wings trembling despite my efforts to keep them still.
"He's just a mortal, Arla. A distraction."
"A distraction you felt threatened by enough to defy me." he moved closer, his power pressing down on me.
"You think I wouldn't find out?"
I cursed Zephara in my mind.
"He's beneath you! Beneath us!" I protested, desperation creeping into my voice.
Arla's smile was cruel. "That's where you're wrong, Leisa. There's more to him than you can comprehend."
He leaned in, his breath cold against my skin.
"Touch him again, and it won't be your mirror that shatters."
With that, he was gone.
"Arghhhhhhhh!!!"
I dragged my hair for the second time, pulling out some strands from their root
"I'll kill you, Kael, I surely will."
° ° °
Vrythlok's POV
Two figures in black cloaks appeared before me, kneeling the moment they entered my presence.
"Everything is proceeding according to plan," the first one spoke, voice raspy with devotion.
"I see."
I stood from my throne.
"Soon.. soon, soon..."
A diabolical laugh tore from my throat, the sound echoing in the vast chamber.
"Soon we will declare war on the vampires and demons! It is high time we erase those filthy creatures from existence."
I turned, my cloak swirling around me.
"Go. Prepare my army."
"Yes, Master."
They bowed in unison, then vanished back into the shadows from whence they came.
"Get ready, Arla and Laryn. I'll make you both suffer for what you did."
° ° °
Kael's POV
My hands were buried in my hoodie pockets as the night air bit into my skin while I walked.
Both boxes were in one pocket.
My apartment was a lost cause, with every window shattered from the earlier supernatural showdown.
I needed a roof, any roof, that didn't come with a side of demonic drama.
Just a few more blocks, I told myself. Find a cheap motel. Forget tonight ever happened.
But the air shifted.
It wasn't the wind.
It was heavier...colder.
The streetlights flickered as the shadows stretched too long. I froze mid-step.
He stood under a flickering lamp post just like the last time.
Tall, elegant, and radiating pure menace.
Arla.
His green eyes locked onto mine, and there was no boredom in them this time. Only a cold, murderous intent.
"You've become a problem in my family, Kael," he said.
Even though his voice was low, it felt like it was carrying a blade through the silence.
My throat went dry. I tightened my grip on the boxes in my pocket.
He took a step forward.
"And I always clean up my messes."
For the first time that night, I was truly scared.
I noticed another presence. I stared at Arla with a questionable look.
"I came alone, I have no idea who that person is."
That instant a cold dread, entirely different from the chill in the air, locked my joints.
* * * * *