Friends with the King of the Underworld | Book 1

Chapter Three

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Why would I be joking?"

I thought back to high school when Leah tormented me. I'd walk through the halls with a paperback novel in one hand on my way to the front gates after school. I'd be that person with her nose stuck in a book on my walk home from school.

Leah would be the one to knock the book out of my hands or toss it in the mud or to persuade the boys to do it for her. She was horrible. And now she's not human? She's a dark faerie?

"What do you mean she's a dark faerie?"

He looked behind us and spoke in hushed tones. "Well, the city is very close to my world, the veil is thin here. A lot of faeries come to the human world to live here. Maybe she is too. She's not of the human world, Em. She probably has dark power as well."

"That would explain a lot," I mused. Damien had said plenty of times of his nature, that he wasn't the exception at being kind to me, I was. He was dark as well, whatever that meant. Yet for everything he ever said about himself and his 'true nature', I'd only ever seen him treat others with respect. "Do you think she knows?"

He shrugged. "I don't know." He looked resolutely at the door of the classroom she was currently sitting in. "I must make myself known to her."

I put my face in the palm of my free hand. "Of course, you must."

Then he looked at me with a look I hadn't seen in months. He was amused. Actually amused.

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn't seen him this excited since ...

Since before his father died.

How long had it been? Six? Eight months?

He had disappeared for over two months–far longer than I'd ever gone without seeing him. He wouldn't answer his phone, never sent a text. I thought something terrible happened to him.

But as it turned out, it wasn't him, it was his father. A victim of a terrible accident while Damien was away.

Damien had no one else.

It didn't even occur to me that something could happen to his family and not him.

It was during winter break when I saw him again.

My parents went out for date night and I stayed home alone, watching TV with our dog curled up on the couch next to me. It'd been snowing heavily that night which prompted me to turn on the fireplace in the living room.

It was nice and cozy under the blanket when I heard our dog start barking at the slider door. I leapt in fear thinking it was an intruder, but it was Damien, standing outside at the slider like a shadow.

I ran to him, ready to unleash a tirade of comments at him for making me worry about him, but when I saw him up close, the words died in my throat.

He had no jacket, his hands were at his sides limp as he held a large hat, and when I looked into his eyes they seemed to be grey.

I quickly opened the slider as fast as my fingers would let me. "Damien."

He didn't move.

I grabbed his hand and almost recoiled. They felt like ice.

"How long have you been standing there? Come inside, hurry." He let me lead him inside and set him by the fire. After closing and locking the slider, I closed the curtains and ran to the couch grabbing the blanket.

I placed the heavy blanket over his shoulders and rubbed his shoulders to warm them. "What's wrong, Damien? Is everything all right?"

He ran a hand through his hair and gave a small, pained chuckle. "My father's dead."