A Demon's Kiss ✔️

FORTY ONE

Word Count: 1853

~Aspen

Everything hurts. Everything.

Groaning, I lift my head up, blinking my wary eyes open.

I'm in a room, dimly lit with not a window in sight. When I go to move, I realise quickly that my hands are tied behind me.

And even more grimly, it comes to my attention that I have no feeling in my legs. I stare down at them, willing them to move, but it's as if I can't remember what it was like to ever control them.

I've been stabbed in the back. By my own mother. Literally and figuratively.

I'm going to die...I can't feel my legs or even where I've been stabbed. Clearly it's damaged me forever, that there is no coming back from this.

I want to scream, but like my legs, my mind is entirely numb.

The door in front of me opens, a bright light assaulting my vision.

Someone steps into the room, the door closing behind them.

"Mother?" I ask, my voice croaky and raw.

"Ah. You're awake. Good." She clasps her hands together, pulling a chair from the shadows so she can sit in front of her.

I haven't seen her in over a year. I've always been a burden to her, something she was waiting to pass onto another. I've never known whether it's because I'm a Demon, or because she's a narcissist.

Both fit.

"What's going on?" I ask her, trying not to panic that I may never use my legs again at this rate. And my mother just stares down at me as if all of this amuses her.

I see nothing about myself in her. Nothing. I must have got my dark hair and light eyes from my father, because she is the complete opposite.

She tilts her head. "I wasn't sure you were going to wake up. Aren't you lucky?"

I've held back my anger for this woman for a long time, and I've had enough. She doesn't control me anymore, and although I never thought she would try to kill me, I'm not exactly shocked by this.

"You stabbed me," I growl.

I can't feel the wound, but I can see my blood pooling at my feet, a dizziness permanently haunting my mind considering all of it that I've lost.

Mother looks down at the blood distastefully. "I thought it would help you trust me."

"True you?" I splutter, hardly believing her audacity. What about having a knife lodged in my back constitutes trust?

"You'll see." She smiles cruelly. When I look down, I notice she has a clear vile in her hands, filled with some kind of red substance.

"Where's Kastriv?" I ask warily.

The last time I saw him, he had a syringe hanging out the side of his neck. My fear is that she killed him to hurt me.

"I left him at that place you were at. You were not easy to track there..." she mutters, examining her nails as if this entire experience was the most burdensome for her.

My jaw clenches. "He better be alive."

"Or what?" She challenges.

"Or I'll kill you." I mean it, too. She was never really a mother figure for me, keeping me alive barely when I'm sure she would have preferred me to die whenever I asked her for attention.

She laughs, clapping her hands together. I stare at her, waiting for her to sober from her amusement. She's never heard me threaten her, and yet here I am,  finally standing up to her.

"Alright daughter." She shakes her head a little, her laughing finally simmering down.

"I'm not your daughter. Not since you sold me off to Oliver," I growl back.

She clasps her hands in front of her. "How is that marriage going? I thought we had an agreement..."

Now it's my turn to almost laugh. Agreement? I would hardly call it that...

"He abused me. I suppose that's no different to how you treated me," I growl back. She never actually hit me, but she intimidated me often, and when she wasn't trying to control my every action, she was flippant and dismissive of me.

Her eyes glitter. "But you were safe. Now look at you."

"I'm safe with my mate. And he doesn't hit me." She can deny everything, but she can't deny the power of the mate bond. Whether she likes to admit it or not, my father was her mate before he died and she turned cold.

"Oliver was your best chance at getting through life with no one finding out what you are," she exclaims darkly.

I draw in a breath, trying not to let my anger overcome me. "It's not my fault you slept with a Demon."

"I made mistakes, I'll admit it. At least your father is dead now." Her expression remains blank, but I know it hurts her. I watched her grieve for years before she got to this point.

She punishes me because I'm just like him.

"Why am I here?" I ask hopelessly. I don't want to walk around in circles anymore.

She holds the vial up a little more. "I have this for you."

"Blood?" I ask. It sure looks like it. It's not much, but my stomach turns wondering where that came from, and what I have to do with it.

"Your fathers blood. I drained him of it when he died," she muses, inspecting it closer.

I physically flinch. I'm not surprised, but it's disturbing nonetheless. When someone dies who is close to you, you don't drain their blood...usually you pick something to hold close that's a little less revolting.

"That's disgusting. Why?" I question.

"His ability was to heal. It's in his blood." She shakes it around a little while I try not to be sick. Blood doesn't usually gross me out, but knowing it's my father, and my mother has had it in her possession for years is a hard fact to swallow.

"Really?"

"Drink it. You'll be all healed," she offers, smiling as if she ever cared about me. As if she does now...

I eye the contents of the vial distastefully. I'm aware of my fathers past ability to heal, and the changes are my mother is telling the truth. She's a monster, but her leaving me without feeling in my legs doesn't seem like her kind of thing.

"You stabbed me just to show me this?" I question as she pops off the lid, stepping closer to me.

"Maybe you'll trust me. For saving your life," she says softly, bringing the vial to my lips.

The thought of consuming blood nearly has me reaching, but I hold it back as she pours the liquid into my mouth.

I cringe as I swallow it all at once, breathing carefully to ensure I don't throw up what is meant to save me. It being blood is one thing, but knowing it was my father's is what hurt my soul.

"I'll never trust you. Not after everything you've done..." There are far too many years between us for any resolution to be made. It's clear she hasn't changed.

"I just want my daughter back." She has the audacity to look sad, as if anything out of her mouth has ever been the truth.

I scowl. "No you don't. You want something else."

"I can take you away from this all. I can stop everyone from chasing you down," she assures me, pointing toward the door as if to signify the world that currently wants me dead for who I am...

People like my mother have perpetuated the idea that Demon's are evil, that they can't be trusted. It's because of her that people want me dead, and now she's trying to tell me that she can help? I don't believe her.

"How?" I ask tentatively.

"You know my position in Territory One. It would take my word to stop the conversation," she says, stretching her arms out wide, wearing a sickening grin. This is all a joke to her. Watching me suffer has never bothered her.

"What do you want in return?"

"I want my daughter back," she says softly, seriously. And then ever-so-slowly, she laughs. "And I want her powers."

My stomach flips. There it is. She walked me around in endless circles just for her to tell me she wants my powers as her own. I'm not even sure how that is possible, but if anyone can make it happen, it's her.

"How do you know about my powers?" I didn't even know about them until recently, and in that time, she has been elsewhere, doing who knows what.

"I was told about them a long time ago. By a relative of your fathers," she explains, looking over at me as if she can see the value in my magic, imagining what she can do with it once she gets a hold of it.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Give me some..."

"I can't do that," I grit out. It's not as if I can just hand my powers over to someone else. If I could, I may consider giving it to someone who knows what they are doing, but I will not be giving it to my mother.

She's quite possibly the last person I would give them to.

She sighs, shoulders tense as she becomes more irritable. "Your friend Keo may be able to."

"No. I won't give you anything," I reiterate. Slowly but surely, I start to feel the tips of my toes tingling. The blood is healing my wound, my spine. Soon, I'll be able to walk out of here on my own.

She frowns. "You don't trust me."

"No! You can kill me if you want, I'm not giving you anything," I growl back. Does she really think she can suddenly show up in my life like this when she knows how I feel about

"You would rather live your life on the run?"

"Then give you any more power than you already have? Absolutely!" I'm yelling at this point, although she doesn't flinch. There was a time in my childhood where I would shout at her all the time. It felt like the only way to get her attention.

That phase very quickly died out.

"You're making a mistake." She circles me, trying to intimidate me, but the feeling in my legs is returning, and I am more sure about this than ever. If it means I never see her again, good.

"Take me back to my mate," I demand.

She leans down over me. "You're never going to see your mate again. Not until you agree."

"I'm never going to agree." She can keep me from leaving all she likes, I will find a way out. I just need to get back as much strength as possible, because right now, I feel faint.

Mother smiles, dark and cruel. "Then you're never going to see Kastriv again."

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~Midika 💜🐼