Babes, I swear this chapter will forever give me a headache 😭 finally you'll get answers to all your questions and I truly hope it all makes sense/you understand what I'm trying to deliver. Please lmk if not, I'm open to explain things 😂
I love you sooo much! 🖤
~*~
Chapter 50: Denial
Tense, Kyun watches Magnus as the warlock's hands hover above Anya's body and the shiny liquid of his spell covers her.
It was ridiculously easy for the demon to get her away from the stage, from her team. He'd promised to take Anya to the nearest hospital, dusting a little magical persuasion over the words; but he knows whatever is wrong with her, it's something only Magnus can fix.
"Why is this taking so long?" Kyun groans, his body shaking with impatience. He's watched Magnus healing others more than once. And usually, this procedure is a matter of seconds—not minutes.
The warlock rolls his eyes. "I told you I won't be faster if you keep on breathing down my neck and pressuring me! Leave. I'll come out to you once I'm done!"
"But—"
"I mean it, Kyun!" Magnus lifts his head from her body and looks at his friend sternly. "Leave!"
Growling, the demon walks out of the room and slams the door shut behind him.
While pacing up and down Magnus' living room, Kyun almost loses himself.
He knew it. He knew something was going on. This isn't just a dizzy spell. This is more. The proof is in how long it's taking Magnus to heal her.
Kyun can't help but blame himself for all this. The wrath he feels, which is usually focused on other people and circumstances, is now completely focused on himself, and he has a hard time controlling his temper.
After what feels like an eternity, Magnus finally walks out of his bedroom, where Anya is laying.
"Is she awake?" he asks. "I need to see—"
Magnus stops him by his chest as he's about to pass him. "She's not! Not yet..."
For a long moment, the friends look at each other and in the shelter of Magnus's presence, all these strange emotions overwhelm Kyun.
Growling, he slips down the door to the floor and buries his face in his hands.
"This is all my fault," he whispers. "I knew she was overdoing it but I was so eager to finish this... fuck..."
The demon's chest is aching so much. He can't remember the last time he felt this kind of pain. The warlock bends down to him, pulls him back on his feet, and guides him over to the couch.
"I hate to say it. But this has to stop!"
Kyun knew Magnus would say that. He knew it. But he can't let this happen.
"We have to finish this deal!" Kyun whispers and looks at his friend. "We have to!"
"Why?"
The demon never meant for his friend to know the whole truth. Because he would've wanted an explanation. And Kyun doesn't have a rational one.
"Cause it's either those fifty souls, hers," he pauses and gulps heavily. "Or mine..."
Magnus' jaw drops. "C-come again?"
"Technically, I wasn't allowed to make this kind of sub-deal..."
"Changkyun!" Magnus wails. "What the fuck? Why did you do it then?"
Kyun still doesn't have an answer to this. So he shakes his head, shrugging helplessly.
"Then let her go to hell! That's her fate anyway, she knew what she got herself into—"
"No!" the demon says a little too loudly. The moment he sees Magnus' shocked face, he takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself. "Magnus, no! I cannot let her go to hell, do you understand me?"
Again, his friend looks at Kyun carefully, and then a soft smile appears on his face.
"Changkyun, is there anything you wanna tell me?"
The demon always knew Magnus would have an explanation for all this. But he was too scared to face the truth. He still is, but this isn't about him. It's about Anya!
All these feelings and thoughts he didn't dare acknowledge crash down on him and he looks at his friend, his heart pounding in his chest, so scared of the warlock's reaction.
"I... I know this is crazy" Kyun begins. "Please don't laugh at me, I know it's absolutely impossible, okay? But I don't have any other explanation!" Magnus still looks at him with soft eyes as he nods, signaling Kyun to go on. "That...that night in the club, when this vampire attacked her and I drank her blood and she mine to save her life." Every word Kyun speaks feels like acid in his throat. "Magnus, is there even the slightest chance I bonded to her at that moment?"
The demon expected Magnus to roar with laughter, to call him crazy, to ask him if he's lost his mind. But his friend remains calm, his features soft.
"Why do you think that?" he asks and the absolute and utter calmness in his voice makes Kyun almost lose his sanity.
He gulps heavily. "Things are weird. My thoughts a weird, what's happening in my body is weird, I can't think—"
"Relax, buddy!" Magnus lays his hand on his friend's shoulder and he falls silent. "Step by step, okay? What exactly feels weird?"
Kyun doesn't even know where to start this list, doesn't even know how to begin. Gulping yet another time, he stares at his hands. "She's the only one I think of when it comes to my lust. When I left her after I got attacked, I couldn't breathe. Her feelings are so present to me, as if I feel them too. I feel happy when I'm with her. A type of happiness I haven't felt in a long time. Not the kind of happiness I feel when I kill someone or see someone's soul entering hell but genuine happiness. I can see beauty!" His voice shakes. "I see flowers and find them pretty and when I look at her, all I can think of is that she's without a doubt the most beautiful creature I've ever laid eyes on. Magnus..." He lifts his head. "These are all signs of bonding, but this can't be true, right? It's absolutely impossible to bond to a human! There has to be another explanation!"
At this point he only wants the warlock to confirm this to him, so he can move on and find out what all this really means. That hell is trying to play tricks on him. That this is Lucifer torturing him somehow to lure him onto his side.
But Magnus' eyes begin to spark and an unreadable expression appears on his face.
"It's not impossible, Changkyun. Just extremely rare..."
Kyun freezes.
No.
No, he refuses to accept this.
Shaking his head vehemently, he stares at his friend in terror. "It's impossible! Magnus. Who am I that allows me to bond to a human! How in hell could that happen?"
Magnus sighs deeply before he turns, pours some whiskey into a glass, and passes it to him. "You'll need this!"
Without hesitation Kyun downs the drink in a few big gulps, ready to get hammered to forget all this, to forget the fact that he, a demon, a tortured soul, bonded himself to Anya, a human.
The second Kyun lowers his empty glass, his friend refills it, and leaves the open bottle on the table.
"Changkyun, it's absolutely crazy to me that you're so powerful, that you have so much influence in the underworld, are so damn strong, and still you sit here like a toddler not knowing a thing about your own culture!"
"Hell doesn't have culture, Magnus!"
Kyun stares into the abyss and takes another big gulp from his drink, completely ignoring the fact that his friend just insulted him. The warlock grins, but Kyun isn't in the mood for jokes and Magnus seems to notice that as well. So he takes a deep breath and supports his arm on the backrest.
"Do you know how many people made it through sixty years of torture without letting the transition happen?" He keeps on speaking before Kyun even has the chance to process the question. "Only a handful since Lucifer created demons were capable of that!"
Kyun looks at his friend, surprised. He had no idea.
"The fact that your transition into a demon was a damn explosion down there, the fact that Lucifer himself came knocking on your fucking door, should've been the absolute proof for you that you're different! That you aren't just a regular demon!"
"Oh, of fucking course I knew that!" Kyun spits. "Don't act like I'm some loser who has no idea about his powers, for fuck's sake!"
Kyun hates when Magnus is this condescending. His knowledge isn't that impressive considering he's four hundred fucking years old.
"I'm sorry!" Magnus mumbles and clears his throat. "But you did not know something extremely crucial about yourself. Cause neither Bonnie, nor Alistair were able to prepare you for anything cause you refused to take their help!"
Kyun winces at the thought of the demon he sold his soul to. But Magnus is right. He never wanted to rely on anyone ever again.
"The fact that you're possessing your own human body isn't normal, okay? Demons usually don't do that, simply because they're too weak but also because it's connected to a lot of trouble walking on earth in your old vessel when you're supposed to be dead. But you chose to. And the moment a soul—doomed or not—connects to its own human body again, to its beating heart, the strongest emotion a demon had when they were human flames up inside of them again! For many demons it's wrath, greed, lust... but not yours. You do know which kind of emotions were your strongest, right? It was love and hope! The hope that you'll see your mother again, the love you had for her, and everything she's taught you!
Shocked, Kyun shakes his head. "That's impossible..."
"It's not!" Magnus insists. "When we met and you told me your story, I was mesmerized by you. I heard that demons like you, demons who are inside their own human bodies and have a positive emotion to hold on to, are capable of regaining real, human feelings. That's why I tried to make you understand how important consent is, how important it is to treat people decently..."
Kyun thought he'd reached the peak of confusion over the past year with Anya but this... he feels his head hammering, unable to process all this information.
"But there was a problem!" Magnus explains. "Your heart and soul, even though they were in the same body again, didn't work as one again yet. They had to be triggered. At least that's what I heard. And that's the part I'm not proud of..."
Again, Magnus turns, grabs another glass, and fills it to the top. He takes a deep breath and drinks up the whole glass before he clears his throat and turns back to Kyun.
The demon watches him with parted lips. What the fuck will he tell him now that he becomes so nervous?
"In the past seventy years, I sacrificed a lot of people in the hope that you could regain human feelings..." Magnus finally says in a low voice and again the demon's jaw drops. "I knew love was your strongest emotion, so I thought I only had to find someone who loves you properly. And gosh, I did! I found them. These humans were amazed by you, they fell in love with your charms so fast I barely had to lift a finger. With every person you spent more than two days with, my hopes grew. But they were nothing but toys to you, just some random creatures that made your life feel less miserable for a few moments. I thought maybe... maybe these people just didn't love you enough. And then Luna showed up..."
Magnus is only making Kyun angry with all these strings of a story that doesn't seem to fit together.
"Who the fuck is Luna?"
The warlock sighs. "Luna Henderson, tall, brunette, those Angelina lips... in 1999?"
"Ohhhhh!" Kyun gasps when he remembers. Oh, she was hot!
"She loved you so damn much and you didn't even see it. She loved you but it still wasn't enough!"
The demon is surprised he never knew that. Sure, in hindsight... signs were there. But he also hadn't put it together that Anya loved him, and it's not that he ever cared for Luna even a fraction as much as he does for Anya, so...
"Loving you drove her to suicide..." Magnus adds, his eyes fixed on his legs.
And this time, Kyun can't hide his rage.
"The fuck? Were we some kind of experiment for you?"
"I'm not proud of this, okay?" Magnus sighs. "I wanted to help you!"
"Great way of helping me, Magnus!"
The demon runs his hand across his face. For years and years Magnus taught him to treat humans with respect. And now this?
"I gave up after that. And god knows, since then I've kept every human being who was close enough to fall for you away from you. Like I tried to do with Anya. Because... I learned a lot later that love isn't enough. Only one soul was able to trigger these kinds of feelings inside of you. Your mate's soul!"
The moment Magnus says those words, Kyun has a feeling in his chest, so heavy that he has to fight the urge to vomit on his friend's expensive carpet.
"I should've known Anya was your mate..." Magnus whispers in awe and Kyun stops breathing. "I should've known by the way you talked about her after you first met. I should've known when you made that second deal. I should've known when she told me she can hear you! But I didn't. Because I thought it was impossible that she—a human—is your mate. And I was so scared to go down that dead-end path again that I ignored the hints. The thought only dawned on me that night you showed up here, raging with jealousy because she had this date..."
Magnus looks at him desperately while the demon tries to cope with all this information.
"Kyun, don't you understand? Anya is your mate! And without you being connected to your own human body with access to your human emotions, you would've never felt what you feel now. Would've never felt the slightest connection. In that case the only scenario in which the two of you could've bonded was when she became a demon as well.
But with these human emotions inside of you were you able to bond to her despite her being human! With those emotions the two of you created a connection so strong that it was able to overcome the barrier between earth and hell! This is an absolute fucking miracle!"
"This isn't a miracle! This is a fucking disaster, Magnus!"
Kyun gets that his friend is thrilled about all this. But all Kyun can think about is what he did, what he's doing, and what he will do to Anya.
Her soul and his are bonded. Without even wanting it, without even knowing it was possible, he bonded her soul to his.
As sad as it is, Kyun knows that in any case Anya would've had to put up with the fact that she'll never love someone the way she loves him. But by bonding her to him, he created a connection that will be impossible to ignore once he has to leave her. This will be much worse than just missing the one she loves; it will mentally and physically crush her, especially since humans usually can't bond. Kyun is not sure if her human soul will be able to cope with the downsides of it.
Gasping, Kyun supports his arms on his thighs and lowers his head as pure panic spreads in his gut.
How could he let this happen?
How could he do this to her?
How could he not know that he was powerful enough to regain human emotions, to bond to a human being?
Magnus lets his hand glide over the demon's back. "It's okay budd—"
"How could you not tell me about this?" he yells and jumps to his feet. "For months I've been thinking I lost my fucking mind. Every positive feeling was so strange to me that it hurt me physically. And my best friend never even thought about sharing this with me? You should've warned me that this could happen! You should've protected Anya from me!"
Magnus immediately shakes his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, Changkyun. As I said, I had given up, I never thought things would be any different with Anya. She's just a human being. Yes, I should've known, but I wasn't with you all the time, okay? I didn't know what was going on and you refused to talk to me about all this! But Changkyun, don't you realize what that means? This changes everything for you! You can be happy, can be—"
"How the fuck am I supposed to be happy when I have to separate from her after this deal is done? You know the fucking rules!" he growls. "Being separated from your mate is fucking painful! I've already felt it more than once when I tried to get some distance between her and me. And I'd rather die than make her go through that kind of pain!"
He can see it in Magnus' shocked face that, in all his years of scheming, he hadn't considered this. Kyun walks aimlessly across the living room, his mind all over the place.
"How could you?" he breathes, feeling so betrayed. His friend gets up too.
"Cause if I told you that there was the slightest chance for you to gain back a little bit of happiness, not finding your mate would've been so devastating for you! It was devastating for me! It really was!"
"Oh you poor, poor soul had to go through this pain all by yourself!" Kyun mocks. "I'm so sorry!"
"Kyun, listen to me!" The warlock grabs him by his shoulders. "We'll find a solution!"
What kind of solution can there be? There's no way out of this.
Unless...
"Break the bond!" Kyun breathes but Magnus immediately shakes his head vehemently.
"I can't. And even if I could, I wouldn't do it. This is a fucking gift. Do you know how many demons out there are looking for what you have? Someone to care for, to love..."
Kyun groans. "I don't love her, okay? None of this is real! It's artificial, made-up! This stupid bond only makes you feel like you're in love but it isn't real!"
Again a soft smile appears on the warlock's face. "Kyun, when you can feel and see it... why do you think it's made-up? And even if it is, does that matter when it feels and looks real? Haven't you ever looked at Jax and Cassie and something deep inside of you wanted to kill for a mate? You just talked yourself into thinking it's not real and that it's pathetic to deal with the fact that you'll probably never find your mate. You've loved before, Kyun. When you were human. What was her name again? Hyejin?" Again the demon winces. "Think about the way you loved Hyejin and tell me loving Anya feels any different!"
It does feel different. The feelings Kyun has for Anya are so intense that he's not even sure he loved Hyejin properly. Not that he can even remember those feelings after hell crushed his soul into pieces.
But can it be? Can it be after 110 years on earth and sixty more in hell he's able to love again?
Can it be that everything he felt in the past months was...love?
Kyun bites his lip, unable to cope with this feeling inside his chest. He should be happy about all this. After all, this is what he wanted the most, the focus of all his envy over the past years: to love someone the way Magnus loves Alec. But what's the price?
"The worst thing is that she loves me too..." he whispers, his voice shaky. "She told me!"
Magnus nods. "She must've known from the moment she met you that her soul belongs to yours—which is ironic considering the deal..."
Is this what Anya talked about during the fight they had?
It's still hard for Kyun to believe that she actually loves him and isn't blinded by all the attractions of a demon, a predator over his prey.
Kyun falls back on the couch. With a shaky sigh, the demon lowers his head, trying to process all this.
"We'll find a way to make this work for the two of you! I promise!" Magnus says in a low voice. "I know there are rules for demons and their clients but being mates must change that. I'll figure something out. For now we have to make sure our precious Anya is strong enough to pull through this deal!"
Surprised, Kyun raises his head. Before he can ask, his friend holds up a potion.
"What's that?"
"It'll help her! This is a potion that will loosen the connection between her mind and her soul a little, so she can pull through without getting hit emotionally by it—Don't worry! It won't change her!" he says when Kyun pulls his hand back after hearing those words. "She just won't suffer under this pressure of stealing these souls. But she must take this potion every twenty-four hours or the effect will decrease, okay?"
Pensively, Kyun nods and takes the potion. He'll definitely ask if she wants to drink it and if she doesn't want to, he won't force her. But he's seen over the past few weeks how the guilt was tearing her up inside, and he hopes she'll use this to make it through the end of the deal.
"I wanna give her some rest first..." the demon mumbles. "Bring her somewhere nice... to get her mind off of all this for a while..."
Magnus smiles. "That sounds great. You still have six weeks left. Take care of her. Make her feel loved. You're definitely able to!"
Is he?
Is he really capable of loving her the way she deserves to be loved? Is he really the one that can give her that kind of love she always dreamt of?
If she finds out what he did to her...
"She cannot know about this!" Kyun says without looking at his friend. "About my feelings, about her being my mate and the bond. Promise me you won't tell her!"
The warlock tilts his head. "You want me to keep the best thing about you a secret?"
"It's for her own good, Magnus..."
Once they separate, things will become messy for both of them. But it will be easier for her to let go if she thinks he doesn't care. He can only hope their souls somehow manage to survive without the other once this is all over.
Pensively, he looks at the little bottle in his hand. "Magnus!" Kyun raises his head. "I need you to make another potion for me..."