Part 20: Kyun
"Changkyun!" Anya breathes, puts her drink on the table, and almost throws herself into his embrace. To her utter surprise, he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her tightly.
"He knew it!" he rumbles into the skin of her shoulder. "Alistair knew my momma would see the real me."
"You couldn't have known, Kyun. It was a trap!" she whispers.
He remains silent, still holding her tight. A little too tight. Anya feels the air crushing from her lungs.
"I can't breathe, Kyunnie!"
Instantly his arms loosen around her.
"Sorry!" he mumbles.
She leans back to tell him there's nothing to be sorry about when she suddenly jumps with fright. Gasping, she flinches to the edge of the couch, her heart pounding so hard that she feels every beat in her throat.
The crimson color of Kyun's eyes is gone. They're pitch black! And not just the iris. His entire eyeballs have turned a shade of black Anya has never seen before, a black that reflects the darkness and sorrow of a tortured soul.
Fuck!
"I'm sorry!" Kyun lowers his gaze and closes his eyes. "Give me a moment...."
Her heart is still hammering in her chest as she stares at his hand clutching around his whisky glass. But the fact that he's talking to her in a normal way slowly calms her.
"Sometimes I..." he mumbles, his eyes still closed, "I lose control..."
Was that part of his real demonic self? Was that what his mother saw when she met him after all those years of torture?
"It's okay!" she says, even though her heart is about to collapse.
Anya watches him. She feels the pain of her fingernails piercing into her palm as she clutches her hands into fists.
Finally, Kyun opens his eyes. The crimson color has returned and she releases a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Remembering this upsets him so much and she hates that he has to relive this only because she's so nosy.
"You don't have to keep on going!" Anya takes his hand again.
The demon smirks weakly and tilts his head. "Do you wanna know?"
As much as she tries to stop herself from doing it, she nods.
"Then I will go on..." He clears his throat and straightens. "Not gonna lie, looking back at this whole thing with my momma now... she was a badass for making me leave like that. Imagine if you were to encounter a demon! Even if he kind of looked like your son, would you be able to react this way?"
She shakes her head. "Absolutely not!"
This woman really was a badass. As painful as this memory is for Kyun, it says a lot about how strong his mother was.
"Needless to say, Alastair's plan worked out perfectly! After this, I had nothing left to hold on to. Pretty quickly wrath was all I felt. And sadness, and loneliness. Then I let the transition happen."
Anya can't blame him. She would've folded like a lawn chair after three days, not to mention sixty years.
"The force in me was so strong that the energy of my transition killed about a hundred demons and lost souls in my surroundings." A proud smirk appears on his face and she can't help but chuckle. But then the smirk vanishes. "I was blinded by rage, blinded by revenge. I couldn't be part of the human world ever again, and I wanted them to pay, wanted hell to pay. I was so angry and the underworld was my own personal battlefield. I killed everyone that crossed my way, leaving a path of destruction and devastation. I wanted to become someone others fear, wanting them to bow when they see me!"
The night of the club pops up in her mind. "You made it..."
"I killed people with my bare hands, babygirl! Even innocent people. Nothing about what I did to get to where I am now is cool, or sexy, or forgivable! Not that I can feel the truth of that, but the memories of the common sense I learned as a human tell me. But, yeah, I worked hard for my reputation. So hard that the king of hell himself reached out to me..."
Anya's jaw drops. "Lucifer? You've met Lucifer?"
"Well," He tilts his head to either side. "Technically you can't meet him. He's not a red-skinned creature with horns and a pitchfork."
He smirks and again, she chuckles.
"But I've felt him. His presence. Almost as if his talons scraped on the edge of my mind and I felt a darkness in me that was incomparable to everything I've ever felt till then. He tried to seduce me, told me he has big plans for me. That I could rule the underworld at his side one day." He shrugs. "I told him to fuck off..."
Anya almost chokes on her drink at these words. He did not. He did not tell the king of hell to fuck off!
Kyun seems pretty proud about that part, the smirk decorating his face gives him away.
"I had no intention of being the devil's whore, no matter what he had to offer. The only thing I wanted was revenge. Lucifer tried to force me a couple of times but I was too strong to be caged. So he let me go, do my own thing."
Anya stares at him, unable to grasp how powerful that demon sitting right here by her side is. "Are you telling me that Lucifer himself could not defeat you?"
"He could!" Kyun laughs. "Of course, he could. But he'd never kill someone as strong as I am, I could still be useful to him someday. But it would take a lot of his powers to keep me caged. And Hell knows he has better things to do than that!"
Still so beaten by all the information she just got, she needs a moment to sort her mind. "So you chose to become a crossroad demon?"
Kyun nods. "Usually you get chosen for jobs according to your power and relevance in hell. The more powerful you are, the more likely that you'll get a nicer job. And as a demon as powerful as I am, I got the chance to choose freely. Being a crossroad demon is the only job that allows me to walk on earth without having Lucifer tracking my every move. I could live a life as a shapeshifter, go into politics like so many others, but then I'd always have Lucifer coming for my ass to get information. As long as I bring enough souls down there, he leaves me in peace! I want as small of a connection to him as possible!"
For a long moment, she looks into his crimson eyes. Then she lays her head on the back of the sofa.
"I don't quite get it." She sighs. "I thought hell was constant torture? You make it seem like you only have to make it through the transition and the rest is... easy-going..."
Kyun cringes. "I was afraid you'd say that. My lifestyle is probably the reason you don't take it seriously when I talk about hell! I was lucky, babygirl. I was strong and got a job that allows me to walk on earth whenever I want. But not everyone gets this privilege! The weak creatures, the ones who aren't worthy, spend a miserable eternity of torture over and over again. You must know the longer you are in hell, the worse it gets. I still can feel it even though I'm seldom down there for longer than a few minutes when I deliver the souls. I feel that my soul belongs down there! I feel the pain, the darkness, the sorrow! And when even I can feel it then you can imagine what this does to weaker demons and especially the ones who live down there and are rarely or never able to come to earth. A constant, massive pain you have to overcome to keep up your life—or what we consider living down there. This is a feeling you don't wanna have! I'm lucky to be so strong, so I can at least have a little fun in between. You, babygirl, wouldn't make it far down there. That's why I need you to fight!" He leans closer and grabs her chin. "I need you to pull through, do you understand?" His voice sounds so desperate again. "I can guarantee you, the moment you enter hell, you'll never get out of there! Ever!"
Gulping, she stares at him. "What makes you think I'm weak? Maybe I can—"
"You literally start crying when I raise my voice at you!" he interrupts her, darkly amused. "You won't survive this..."
She can't help but smile. It's actually so cute of him that he's trying to prevent her from all this. He knows hell better than she hopefully ever will. So when he says she won't make it—and even made another deal with her cause he was so sure of it... then it might mean something.
Again she looks at him. Why is he doing this? Who is she that he cares about her?
She figures asking this question is too deep now, so she focuses on the more superficial ones.
"The powers you have... does every demon have the same?"
She has no idea if she's even allowed to ask questions here. But Kyun seems to be in the mood to talk.
"No!" he says and takes a sip from his drink again. "The stronger you are, the more powers you get!"
"Do I know all your powers yet?"
"No!"
Smiling, she puts her drink on the table and moves a little closer. She knows she's taking advantage of his vulnerability but the urge to be close to him is as loud as a crying baby in the back of her mind—impossible to ignore.
"Will I get to know them?"
"Hopefully not all of them..." With a serious gaze, his hand slips on her thigh and Anya can't help but smile. Maybe he needs her shelter as much as she wants to give him this comfort.
For a long moment, she tries to remember all the questions she's had over the past seven months. "The way you look." She moistens her lips. "Is this how you looked when you were human?"
"Exactly like this! This is my own body!"
Surprised, she leans back. "Wow..."
Damn, he was born this way! What a lucky person that got the chance to see his human side.
"Again, with power comes privilege!" Kyun smirks. "Most demons need a human soul to sustain the body they are using, so they have no choice but to possess someone. If they used a dead body without a soul in it, the vessel would break down within seconds. I am powerful enough to possess a body without a soul in it."
This is kind of a relief. Multiple times it has occurred to her that there might be another soul inside this body. Screaming for Kyun to leave. Weak and broken...
"I had to dig up my body again of course. But with a little warlock juju the body looks like new!" he chuckles and she tilts her head.
"Warlock? Magnus?"
"No," He shakes his head. "I didn't meet Magnus until 1952!"
1952. He last saw his mom in 1923...
"So..." she muses and tries to do the math in her head. Kyun seems to notice and laughs. "I'm 125 years old, babygirl!"
Boy, that's old! But she expected it.
"Hot!" she says and leans closer. "I like older men!"
Kyun digs his nails into her thigh and grins at her. "Dis-gusting!"
She throws her head back, laughing.
"Well, that's my story!" he says after she simmered down. "I'm a tortured soul, doomed to walk on earth to collect souls from beautiful girls." While talking he leans closer and closer and she falls on her back, giggling before supporting herself on her elbows. .
"Do you regret doing it?"
She doesn't wanna ruin the easy mood. Doesn't wanna trigger him.
"Every second of my eternity!" He puts his drink down next to hers and slips between her legs. "I meant what I said. Don't be as stupid as I am!" he whispers and his breath kisses her skin. "Cause throwing away every good feeling, everything that makes life worth living... I wish I could look at you and feel more than lust!"
Gulping, she clings to his jacket, a little thrown off guard by his words.
"I feel how envious I am of the people that get to fuck you and at the same time, I am so angry cause they have the power to feel the good stuff. The stuff I wanna feel when I'm with you, but can't! They could see your beauty only for the sake of your beauty, they could smell your scent only for the sake of your scent, they could hear your laughter only for the sake of your laughter—but they waste it on their lust!" he whispers. "So blinded by their urge to fuck you!"
Anya's heart races in her chest.
"Is this the reason you don't touch me?" she asks, her voice shaky. "Cause you think you won't be able to appreciate me enough?"
For a long moment, Kyun looks at her before tucking her hair over her shoulder and letting his lips brush over her neck. Instantly she freezes again, but at the same time she closes her eyes, enjoying the way her skin prickles under his touch.
"There are several reasons I'm not touching you, babygirl..." he whispers into her ear. Then he leans back and looks at her with a dark smirk.
Without warning Anya's surroundings blur again and the feeling of flying rushes through her body. Her hands clamp down around Kyun's arms. Her breath hitches as she finds themselves back on her couch. In her apartment.
Kyun smiles at her. Then he pecks her lips and gets up from the couch.
"Now eat your pizza!"
So startled by the way he just kissed her as if he were her cute, human boyfie, she needs a moment to process, to get her beating heart and the things happening in her body under control.
While he walks to the counter, she stares at the table, lost in her thoughts. His answer wasn't satisfying at all. He can feel lust. She would even assume lust is his strongest feeling. And still, he keeps himself away from her...
Why did he choose her to live? He's 125 fucking years old; she's damn sure he sent a lot of weaker souls to hell before without second thoughts.
Why does he care about her so much?
With furrowed brows, she looks over her shoulder, watches him making himself another drink. Her heart almost jumps out of her chest as she realizes something: The fact that he doesn't wanna fuck her is not her problem. This isn't about her lust. It's not the sex she wants from him. She wants more.
More.
This feeling she's experiencing right now is so strange yet so familiar. She's felt it before. A long, long time ago. It's something she's been feeling for quite some time now, but for the first time, it's clear enough for her to name it.
A feeling Magnus warned her against.
A feeling she denied having...
Oh shit!