was the day the demons had come… so many demons. The earth shook with their arrival, killing anything that got in their way. The ground beneath them had opened up and actually sank before a great crack raced through the center of the village square.
Aurora could only stand there and stare in terror at what was happening. A demon roared and came running at her and she’d stumbled backwards just as three men rushed in between her and the demon, blocking its path. She gasped waiting to feel the hard ground beneath her and screamed when the earth started to rise up around her.
One of the human men, a village warrior, dove down after her but was caught in midair by another demon… that was the last she saw of him. Other humans were falling in with her, screaming all the way and it suddenly dawned on her that she’d fallen into the huge crack. Her wings, only a smoky shadow to the naked eye, appeared and she tried to return to the surface but an inexplicable force continued to pull her down… away from the home she and Skye had chosen.
Before the screaming had stopped, the whole village had been sent into the rift… trapping humans and demons alike. She closed her eyes trying to block out the memory of what had happened to those humans and turned her thoughts back to Skye. She was glad he had went on his vision quest… was glad he hadn't seen any of it. The only hope she held onto now was that he was still alive and living a full life.
Bringing herself back to her present predicament, Aurora leaned toward the glass peeking in to see that the human couple had not come back out of the far room. Reaching up she sighed when the door easily opened and she slipped inside, running soundlessly across the carpet and out into the hallway.
Once at street level, she made sure to keep to the well-lit areas just in case Samuel reappeared for another fight… a fight she wasn’t so sure she could keep winning. She didn’t really keep track of where she was going or how long she walked… all she wanted was one night of peace… to rest.
When was the last time she’d truly slept without the fear of being accosted because of what she was? It had been before she was dragged into the rift. And the only moment of happiness she’d found since coming out of the rift was with a man in the subway tunnel.
She reached up and touched the necklace she was still wearing and was caught between melancholy and the thrill of the stolen moments of bliss. It was a memento, something to remember him by because she knew she’d never see him again.
Aurora jerked her gaze up to the fence she was walking beside and looked around tucking the necklace back inside her shirt. For the first time since coming out of the rift, she didn’t feel any demons near her. Wrapping her fingers around the tall chain link fence, she stared across the parking lot at the huge building it surrounded.
She didn’t know how to read the words that were lit up in red across the top, so for the lack of demons in the area she pretended it read Sanctuary and smiled. Within moments, she had scaled the fence and made it to the roof of the building.
Moving silently out of habit, she curled up against the only door leading into the interior because it had a small overhang that would keep the sunlight from waking her too soon. Another smile appeared on her face as she felt safety here… a place where she could finally rest.
She lay there with her eyes closed and stretched her senses out feeling all of the boundaries surrounding this place. She didn’t know why or how… but she felt like she was on an island in a sea of demons and they couldn’t come out of the water to get her. Opening her eyes, she inhaled sharply when she did indeed feel the demon energies around the perimeters of the barrier.
Aurora felt their rage and frustration as they tried to break through and couldn’t help but smile… they would not get her this night.
Chapter 3
To say Skye was confused was an understatement. He’d somehow gone from one prison into another, not realizing until it was too late. When he was unexpectedly freed from the trap that had imprisoned him and Misery together, he’d stalked the she-demon knowing she planned to release the demons that had been pulled into the rift.
A large part of him actually hoped that Misery would succeed in her quest, but not for the reasons that some might believe. Just because he was a demon didn’t mean he liked his own kind.
For centuries, he’d held onto the hope that Aurora was still alive in there somewhere and was trying to find her way back through to this world. However, when he saw what crawled out of the rift Misery opened, his hopes had crashed down around him and he was still in mourning. There was no way that Aurora could have survived among all of those monsters.
He had been trapped with only one demon… Misery… and he’d still been able to feel the outside world. Being so close to freedom had lent him the hope he needed to retain his sanity. But Aurora… she had been trapped in another world with countless demons, many of them masters.
Aurora had been an innocent, white and pure. But to the demons she would have been seen as the enemy… the same enemy that hunted, persecuted, and trapped them.
Now the city was full of demons and Skye had been forced to blend in and disappear among the human populace. Along with the multitude of demons, he’d also seen a small army of demon hunters that were taking out the demon clans one at a time… usually just as they’d established a territory. There were many other demons that had already claimed a stake and were trying to lay low, attempting to blend in the same way he had.
Blending in with the humans was something Skye had learned how to do very early in his life and he’d shared that knowledge with Aurora.
When he’d first met her, he’d known they would need each other’s protection. Where as demons often mistook him for a Fallen, there was no mistaking what Aurora was… unless she learned how to suppress her true lineage.
His heart had spilled out on the ground when he returned from his vision quest to find the village and almost everyone in it gone. The human species was no stranger to war… a resilient race in its own right. There had been a few survivors that had fled the massacre to hide in the forest and it was through them that he’d learned what happened.
The villagers cried that demons had appeared among them to eat their souls… then the gods had descended from the sky to destroy the monsters… saving them even though there were many casualties from the sudden battle. Even as they mourned their dead… they were thankful the gods had saved them.
With the village completely destroyed, he and the other village warriors gathered the survivors and traveled to another village. It was on the second night of sleeping under the stars that Skye noticed a stranger among them… a little girl. No one had questioned her presence, thinking she was a refugee from another village that had fallen in the wake of the massacre… she called herself Misery.
On the third night, Misery pulled him aside and told him in explicit detail what had truly happened to his village and that the Fallen were responsible. The thing that disturbed Skye the most was that she knew he wasn’t human… no matter how much he suppressed his power. She claimed that it was his sadness that gave him away.
By the time they made it to the next settlement, Skye was in constant fear of Misery telling the humans what he really was and that same fear kept his mouth shut.
Over the next few weeks, Misery kept the villagers in a constant state of terror by playing pranks on them. Late at night, she would walk through the village in her rotted form… causing mass panic by sneaking up on those that were unfortunate enough to be caught out at night. Some of them were able to reach safety
