Beneath the Watching

6. Stefan

6

STEFAN

“I’ll train you, don’t worry about it,” Ilya reassured me. He slung his arm under my shoulders, and I clung to him before he placed me on the cot. My fighting skills were nothing like his own.

By human standards, there wasn’t anything wrong with me and I would be considered exceptional. By demon standards, I was found wanting.

Barely six feet tall and with a smaller frame than the majority of my kind, I was sneered at. To make matters worse, I was part god. Gods were supposed to be physically imposing and capable, striking fear into their enemies’ hearts through brute strength, talent, and a towering figure.

My best friend, Ilya, was about three inches taller than me. He, too, was shorter than many but he’d been gifted with an unusually prolific talent for battle, a perfectly seductive face, and a presence that could make you wet your pants in fear.

We’d been sent back to a battlefield in the far reaches of our home realm—the Second Realm, and once again, my friend had saved my life—after I’d somehow saved his from an ambush.

A figure in a red cloak entered the cave where we’d set up base. Ilya had located it earlier and we’d deemed it perfect for what we needed. My friend stepped back to make room for the man. “Thank you, Mannon,” Ilya said, as the man lowered his hood.

Mannon waved his hand over my midsection, causing my shirt to disappear. As a demon god, I had some minor talent in self-healing but the wound in my abdomen was too large for my efforts. As I lay there waiting, Ilya thrust a bottle into my hands, and I gratefully gulped down as much of the vodka as I could. It was impossible for me to get drunk, my demon blood metabolizing alcohol at an astonishingly rapid pace, but it would take the edge off.

Mannon grabbed the bottle from me and dumped the remainder of the fluid across my belly. A sizzling sound filled my ears as steam wafted in the air. Ilya snickered and I hissed. “Asshole,” I bit out through clenched teeth.

The healer held both palms over my stomach and I felt his energy enter me. My vision went black, and screams filled my head. I had no idea if they were mine or those of the saints. The screeching tore at my soul with its pleas and cries. It felt as if I’d tumbled, and then faint music filled the air. There was more screaming in the background, a swish of dark hair, and the faint scent of jasmine. Then, a picture of my parents flitted by in my mind before I could hold it, dissolving like smoke and leaving a bitter taste in the back of my throat.

Gasping, I’d suddenly sat up, my vision blurring at the movement. When I glanced down, I saw the wound was gone, the ridges and planes of my abdomen returned to their smooth perfection.

“Eventually, you’ll earn your marks,” Ilya said, holding out his hand. I knew he meant the ink that graced his own skin, a symbol of services rendered in blood. I possessed a few tattoos, but nowhere near the amount commonly scattered across the flesh of my kind.

Taking his hand and lifting myself up, I stood as he patted my back, and another figure entered the dimly lit cavern. Glancing past him, I saw the orange tinge in the air, hovering on the horizon, streams of smoke slicing upwards through the fog to remind me of my duty.

I didn’t want to be here. It was pointless to battle against forces that invaded sheerly for sport. There wasn’t really any battle for territory, the enemy just simply enjoyed cutting others up along with the resulting glory. The raids would occur every now and then and whoever won never gained any extra ground, they just left, returning to wherever they came from. It made no sense to me.

Yes, under an objective lens, I understood it, the blood lust. But why bother when there were plenty of opportunities to solve personal grievances in the same manner? It was more rewarding and the taste so much sweeter when it was personal. It was how I’d come to take shelter with Ilya and his father, Victor. My mother had murdered my younger sister and in turn, I killed her. I then fled and found myself taking shelter in the southern kingdom of the Fourth Realm.

What my sister had done wrong to earn such a fate escaped me at that moment, the length of time having gone by too expansive to remember clearly. It had something to do with trusting the wrong person, but currently, I couldn’t remember the details.

Mainly, I remembered my mother’s manipulative ways, attempting to poison me and my father against my sister, before she drowned her. Occasionally, snippets of memory would breach my consciousness but right now was not one of those times.

Unlike my friend, I didn’t revel in broken bones and gore unless it held significance and the retribution for my sibling’s murder qualified. I’d enacted what justice I could, but nothing would bring my sister back where I could reach her.

Trying to lift my spirits and encourage me, Ilya waved his hand over his arm, sparking a reaction where the elaborate and glittering black ink wrapped around his skin revealed itself. A pattern of vines, whorls, hieroglyphics, and bones glittered across his form, stopping at his neck.

Sighing, I said, “Let’s get on with it.” He held out my sword and I took it before checking the other blades I kept strapped to my legs.

Ilya turned to me, tossing me a fresh shirt, and we stepped back outside, a huge grin covering his face before he licked away the crimson drops around his mouth he hadn’t bothered with earlier.

I pushed thoughts of the past out of my head and kept Mabels’s sweet and trusting face foremost in my mind as I drove away. Ilya and I had always helped each other, been there for each other and we were now both tortured by women. It was unfortunate bloodshed wouldn’t solve my problems this time.

Thankfully, my woman had slammed the door shut as I’d walked away and hopefully, she’d listen to me for once. By appearances, it seemed she was dismissing me and accepting my warning.

I had to wonder if she was being honest, after all, when she’d repeatedly stated she wasn’t visiting the Fourth Realm on purpose.

From what Ilya had confided in me, similar had happened to his woman, Kiara. She’d unintentionally arrived back there; having forgotten she’d ever been there to begin with.

The ramifications were too much for me, knowing the destruction my friend and his business partner were raining down on the woman’s life. I didn’t want the same for Mabel, not having enough of a stomach for it. I couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t get hurt or get caught in a diabolical game.

She hadn’t done anything wrong besides snaring my attention. I had no way of knowing if it was my attention that clued others into her existence, or if this was what fate had always had in store. Pieces of memory of that day on the battlefield drifted back before I could shut them down again, the fragrance of jasmine, just like Mabel.

I knew what I had to do. I’d do everything in my power to make her think she didn’t want to go back to the Fourth, and to keep her away from all of us. She didn’t deserve anything less. This is what I tried to tell myself but deep down, I knew it was too late.