The Daughter of Demons (Bk. 1) | ✓

Preface

THE BLONDE BITCH RAISED HER arm, resting her palm lightly on his shoulder; a shit-eating grin plastered on her disgusting little mouth. Bile rose in the back of my throat, and I struggled to swallow it down as searing hot jealousy swarmed my insides, fueling the already intense inferno. 

I wanted to gouge my eyes out, but I managed to tear my attention away from her hand, traveling the length of his face. My eyes rested heavily in the clouds of his eyes, greedy for something I could no longer have. I searched the depth there, hoping as I begged someone, anyone, that this wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

After a moment as still as death, Blondie lifted her chin and looked down at me from where she stood. As if I were below her; as if she was proud of what she was; as if I was the enemy.

"She's a Celestial," she growled, disgust written across her features as the palm on his shoulder visibly tightened. His expression didn't shift, eyes empty from the moment the truth had surfaced. I wanted to throw up.

Then, as her words began to settle, the agony and fury of their betrayal began to surface to the forefront of my mind-- almost simultaneously as his, both of our expressions shifting as if we had similar trains of thought. 

The beating organ in my chest slowed as the torment tore at my heart, breaching my windpipe as the air was vacuumed from my lungs. Fury morphed his features into an unrecognizable rage I wished I could unsee. It felt as if the weight of Heaven and Hell were weighing down on my shoulders. 

Michael was right. I can't trust anyone; I'll never be safe, my father will always find me, and will always find ways to hurt me until he gets what he wants: Me.

And he almost did...

My father was at the very center of it of all, crushing me. Tearing me apart from the inside-out. I'll have to remember to pat bastard on the back for this one.

Well played, father. Well played. 

The deception was torturous, burning me in ways I haven't felt since my mother's murder. But this, seeing the way he so easily believed that bitch, killed me, and to think their betrayal wasn't enough torment. It all came together and obliterated me into nothing. 

I had no choice but to believe that this was all an elaborate hoax, and they were the main characters. The plot point, the twist, where this was the climax and I was the conclusion. 

This entire time, they were the  little minions working for my father, luring me in with their bright smiles and infectious laughter. Breaking my wall down brick by brick, not stopping until they had me right where they wanted, front and center, and in their clutches. 

All to just deliver me to my father, like a fucking cookie on a damn platter.

A small release of air expelled from my lungs, and as that last breath of oxygen died off into nothing, I snapped. My sanity crumbled from my rage as it took the hurt, the pain, and turned it into something dark, black, and agonizing. 

Deadly.

Releasing the chains, I let the demon loose from the cage I've let it stifle in for far too long. The inferno boiling through my veins, ran ice cold before churning and turning into liquid coal. It filled my blood with raw power I hadn't dare grasp on to in years, but now I was basking in it. Soaking it up until the darkness flooded my blood cells and turning them all black.

They all watched as my eyes shifted from their chocolate brown, to a burning amber, then settling into a black hole. An abyss, filled with air. Empty, and reflecting how I felt: everything imaginable, yet numb and nothing all at once.

The boy that held my heart in his hands took a step back, his face altering into one of disbelief. His cloudy grey eyes darkened into something one would describe as the calm right before the storm, but I didn't give him the chance. Let alone the air to breathe. I made that mistake once, and I wasn't going to make it again. 

Violet orbs pulsed around my fingertips, darkening to near black as tears pooled along my eyelids. But fuck me if it didn't kill me to look at him, to not feel what he has made me feel the past few weeks. To shut him out after finally letting him in. I hadn't felt pain like this since the night I witnessed my mother's throat torn to shreds. 

Even then, I'm not so sure it had been as unbearable as this.

Our eye contact never waivered, but as my lips parted and my throat bobbed with a heavy swallow, my voice did.

"Why?" I croaked. When no one answered, and his lips thinned into a tight line, the hurt within my heart flared into anger, so I raised my voice as lightning clattered and cracked the darkening night sky. "WHY?!" The word shredded itself in my throat, dying on my lips as a single tear slithered down the length of my cheek.

My damaged heart physically hurt from all the strain, and as I rebuilt the walls they had managed to tear down, I picked up the broken pieces from the ground. I was once again stitching myself back together from the pain I brought upon myself. 

This is what happens when people get close to you, I reminded myself. You hurt them, or they kill you. 

I guess it served me right.

──∞──

Yours Truly, Em
xoxo