A light above our heads flickered in a spasmodic fashion as my heartbeat began picking up its pace. Fear had struck my nerves; I was on high alert.
I took a step back before asking, "What did you say?"
He gulped before repeating himself, "I need some of your blood."
"And if I don't give you?" I said, "Will you eat me like the others?"
He froze. "W-who told you?"
"That doesn't matter," I retorted, taking another step away from him and towards the tray of utensils. I didn't know his intentions and was not going to wait to find out.
"Listen you don't understand," he started.
Unfortunately for him, I wasn't having any of it. I snapped, "Don't understand what? That you lied to me?" Devlin took a step in my direction, and I swiped the scalpel and threatened him with it. "Dare take a step closer, and I'll sculpt you like these assholes on the floor."
He exhaled then took a footstep back before calmly stating, "Firstly, I'm a devil of royal blood. It will take more than a puny knife and your mediocre combat skills to take a fraction of me down." As if tired of dealing with me, he then sat on the operating table behind him, folded his arms then elucidated, "I need some of your blood to get energized. I don't think you know but I'm more than the average Devil and that's why they starved me here. They were scared of me, as they should have, to be honest."
Baffled by his stupidity, I started questioning his debate skills. "How the fuck is this suppose to help you?"
"It's not." He sighed again then said, "Let me tell you the truth. I hadn't eaten someone for almost two years since I ran away from home. So, my powers were at their lowest strength when they kidnapped me. Those I was stuck with here were dying from hunger; they hadn't eaten for weeks, and instead of them getting cut up, they asked me to take their lives, so they didn't suffer such a nasty fate."
"That was probably easy for you, wasn't it?" I spat on the floor near his shoes. "You disgust me."
"Easy? Do you think I murder people for a living? I'm not my father!" He yelled with so much force the floor beneath my feet shook and I nearly tripped. He took a deep breath in and out before talking to me in a much calmer tone, "You aren't the only one who had to kill people with their own bare hands the first time. Anyway, in the beginning, I was resistant. However, after days of their relentless begging, I complied, bid them farewell, and took their lives. Regardless, that wasn't easy for me, Jules." His fists tightened into trembling balls as he bit his lip and suppressed his tears.
I felt a pang of sudden guilt when it dawned on me that he had given up part of his morale, just as I had, to survive.
"I'm sorry, but I have to protect myself, and giving you my blood, with my anemia, will leave me too weak to stand on my own two feet," I explained to him.
He nodded with understanding. "I see, but with a little of your blood, I'll have the strength of two standard devils and, hence, will be able to fight and protect the both of us."
He was right. His strength was immeasurable compared to mine, even at his weakest state. Furthermore, I could tell from our previous fight, he had complete control of his powers – another thing that I lacked. This was the best plan we had.
However, if I was the immobile one, it would make me the target. And as a weakling, I would pull him behind as well.
There just had to be an alternative. Something that could possibly make the both of us recharge. That was when a crazy idea came to me.
I called out to him as he thought away, "Dev?"
It took a moment or two for him to register my voice but when he did, he looked up with risen brows. "Yeah, Jules?"
"I'll give you some of my blood under one condition."
"And what would that be?" His brows furrowed.
"That you give me some of yours too."
He stared at me with great fear in his eyes. Hugging himself and looking away, he bit down harder on his lip until it burned bright red. "I can't do that."
"What? Why?" I asked, completely taken back. "It sounds plausible to me. A shot for a shot."
"Jules, my blood kills average devils, demons, humans, and trolls," Devlin blurted out. He turned his shimmering silver eyes back at me. "It will kill you."
"I don't care," I stated. It was better than me being the broken puppet on his shoulder; at this point, we only had two options: both of us would die, or one of us would live, which would be him. "Normal Julane wouldn't have killed five men without an ounce of remorse. My family would disown me for what I have done, and my poor parents would be heartbroken."
Reality struck me for the first time, I had been there; I was going to die either way out. I did my best to hold back my tears, but I failed. Furiously wiping at the trail of tears coming from my eyes, I sat by the edge of the basin and let it all out. "I shouldn't even be here for goodness's sake. Everything has just gone wrong ever since I stepped in this forsaken place and, to be honest with you, I don't even know who I am anymore."
A warm hand lay on my shoulder and when I looked up, I saw a teary-eyed Devlin warmly staring back at me. Pain and regret were written all over his face when he examined my body language. "You don't have to, Jules. Maybe we can find another way out –"
"No!" I cracked, pushing his hand away. "This is the only plan; we are doing this." I jumped from the basin and looked him straight in the eye. "How do we do this? Do you have fangs and bite me like some vampire freak or do I cut my hand like we're making a blood pact?"
He was reluctant at first, then sighed before saying, "I can just suck your wound."
"Oh, it's that easy?" I replied. For some odd reason, I was disappointed I wasn't going to see some Dracula action.
"Well, I could bite you, but you're already bleeding from somewhere. So yeah, it's simple."
I walked past him to the operating table. There, I sat down, got comfortable, and lifted my shirt to just where my wound finished. "Try not to suck the life out of me."
He didn't look one bit amused. "I really don't want to do thi—"
"Devlin, please be gentle with me. I don't do too well with needles, so I will probably struggle a lot with fangs," I interrupted him out of fear of the unknown. Vulnerability made my cheeks go red; this shit was embarrassing.
With his umpteenth sigh, he kneeled at my side so that his head just aligned with my lesion. I never really paid much attention to it, but Devlin was huge in comparison to me. In contrast, he looked up to me pleadingly like a puppy to call this action off, but I was not stepping down; my mind was made up.
Receiving the message, his eyes grew menacingly red as his tongue became forked and dug into my gaping wound like a needle on fire. I bit down my bottom lip to hold back a scream and released a distressing groan instead. His eyes begged me to just call it off, but I stood my ground. I was going to see this through even if I was beginning to feel faint.
It felt like a million knives pierced my skin as his teeth sunk into my flesh. The red in his eyes grew more intense with every suck. His once pale skin had become jet-black and each pulsating vein of his had grown into a terrifying fiery orange-yellow hue. As black as asphalt, the horns of a bull began to grow out of each side of his head to about two feet.
His red tail wrapped itself around my body to keep me still and at that point, I started to panic. "Devlin, stop! You're hurting me!"
He immediately retracted his fangs. "Shit, I'm sorry."
His black skin ad fiery veins faded into a soft tan color as his eyes returned to their silvery haze. Loosening its grip around my waist, his tail slithered away into the back of his scrub pants.
"Seriously, I'm sorry," he said. "I just got carried away..."
With my finger, I tilted his head to face me and demanded, "It's my turn, give me your blood."
"A single drop could be lethal, Jules. Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Dev, I have to. You wouldn't understand."
The man refused to back down as he grabbed both of my hands and implored, "I can protect the both of us now. Seriously, I can save us bo—"
"Jesus, Devlin! I'd rather die than hold you back!" I admitted, whacking his hands away. "Can't you do one thing without begging? Why won't you do as I say?"
I could tell what I had said hurt him. However, instead of fighting me back, he simply nodded. "I understand now."
Grabbing a scalpel from the tray beside us, he stood to his feet. I mouthed the words "Thank you," but he didn't reply. Instead, with a pained expression, he sliced his hand and let a small pool of blood drip into the palm of my mine.
I knew holding him back was the last thing I wanted. All my life, I had held my parents back from experiencing true parenthood. My mum couldn't take me to play with the other kids because I was too strong, and she feared I'd hurt them, so she never really had other mothers as friends. My dad failed to take me to a school in the Underworld because I was too different, and that made me a target. Again, that held him back from interacting with other demon dads like himself. As long as I had lived, I had held them back, and that was why now I couldn't do the same with Devlin, especially if these were going to be my last few moments alive. I wanted to die wanted. Even if that was the first and last time in my pathetic excuse of a life.
So, I cupped my hands like a chalice and brought the crimson red liquid to my lips.
For the first few seconds, I felt nothing. However, if only I knew this was the eye before the storm.
Like a hard kick to the stomach, an excruciating pain filled my gut. Devlin tried to hold me, but I just pushed him away. However, as I shoved him, he flew to the other side of the room. Smashing his back on the wall, he left a dent and fell with a deafening thud on the floor. Astonished by my sudden strength, I reached out to help him but stopped the instant a sharp sting rushed through my limbs.
Eyeing my reflection from the mirror on the other wall, my hair had grown snow-white, and my nails lengthened and sharpened into claws of a gold-black hue. Two dark blue ram-like horns had grown out of my head, and my eyes were glowing a fierce red. I tried taking another step when a surge of energy that I've never felt before rippled through my body and immobilized my limbs. It was if I was thrown in a laundry machine, everything started to spin. My vision grew blurry and before I could even react, I had re-entered a world of darkness.