Tell Me Ariel, Are You Mine?

Chapter 12 - A Blast from The Past

Sending a special shoutout to @craziedblonde for this mid-week update. If it wasn't for you asking about it, I don't think I would have even got this up for today. I actually managed it for you :)

It's another long chappie guys. Not sure if you like that, but hey, it's not exactly a novella. Two-page chappies just don't cut it here...it is a draft, please forgive any typos, and thank you so much for any support :D

                                    Chapter 12 - A Blast From The Past

Dante Greco is a demon.

Dante Greco is a demon.

Say that fifty more times and it still wouldn't seem real.

I didn't claim much sleep for whatever was left of the night because—as had run through my head on repeat till daybreak—Dante Greco is a demon. This was not a drill.

A demon for heavens sake. Of all the things I could have thought of. For a split second I thought I'd made the whole thing up. It's not like governments haven't spent all these years looking for aliens while demons have been left to the religious, ghosts to the crazy, and vamps to teenage girls. I guess demons are grown woman problems. Who'd have thunk it? Only thing is, whenever I did think of something I would dismiss it so quickly that nothing ever really stuck in my mind long enough to become a possibility. Even when I thought I knew.

The night dragged like a snail on sand because that's what time does when you want it to pass quickly. That one hour left of work that somehow feels like two. That one night of sexual abandon and subsequent revelation that feels like a bomb has hit and pulled your ground apart. Even if it was just to know that demons exist in this world. And sexy, hot demons to boot.

My first thought was to look up information on demons. But I soon dismissed that. I didn't think there was anything out there that could genuinely tell me what I needed to know. It was probably all fabricated, myth-like nonsense. If I really wanted to know, I'd have to hear it from the one person I walked away from last night.

I could hear a slight rousing in my living room as I bent over the bathroom sink and spat out my toothpaste. I looked up into the mirror, hands either side of the basin, and just stood there for some seconds staring myself down. How could so much have happened in such a short space of time? It had only been hours, and yet here I was, staring the crap out of myself as if I knew what came next or where I was supposed to go from here. The whites of my eyes weren't so white any more, they were pinkish. Had I really been crying that long?

Oh shit, yes, in Nathaniel's arms. Forgot. He'd held me so long I'd crashed there out of some kind of emotional exhaustion. He initially put me on my bed, but I woke by then and got under my own covers.

I'd said my goodbye to Dante and, though I noticed he didn't say it back, he didn't really have to because maybe he realised something. That I was saying it for the both of us.

If I was honest, I would rationalise this whole thing. I would say to myself that I shouldn't even be bothered. I hadn't known him a long time, all I knew was what and how he'd made me feel. Even so, the only time I'd ever allowed my feelings to get so firmly attached to anyone so soon was to the man who was currently sprawled coma-like on my couch. I can't remember the last time I had anyone else on it but me. No one comes over.

Regardless, I was naive then, or so I liked to tell myself. It was better than acknowledging that in fact I'd been stupid. Or maybe both.

My coffee mug sat beside two sets of cutlery, and for the first time in a long time the other pair might actually get used for once. I dragged the mug closer ready for the kettle's worth of boiling water and winced when the drag along the surface hit my ears like a chalkboard squeal. Not feeling particularly hungry I forced myself to make that coffee at least.