A D O N I S
Azriel has never really taken me seriously. Ever since we were children, he always believed he was better than me and stronger than me, he did not find me intimidating, and he enjoyed provoking me.
That's why he kept talking to Valeria. To get a reaction out of me. And he was getting what he wanted.
I see him walking down the hallway in the opposite direction. He walks with a few vampires, probably telling them a story about how fucking cool he thinks he is. I keep standing where I am as he walks, but he stops when he reaches me since I prevent him from walking any further.
"Azriel," I say his name calmly. "A word."
He already knows what this is about. He nodded and the vampires he walked with continued on their way to class. He smiles at me, "What's up, little brother?"
"I know you've never been the smartest so let me refresh your memory," I say. "Leave Valeria alone. Don't provoke me any further."
Even now, I can tell he is not taking me seriously. He grins, "A demon and a witch, scandalous."
"We aren't together, Azriel," I say sternly. I then whisper a confession. "But I enjoy being around her."
My brother's eyes look around my face. I'd never talked about anybody like this before. I thought that maybe by telling him the truth, as my brother, he would understand and back off.
But instead, he laughs.
"Are you serious, Adonis?" he asks after his laugh comes to an end. "You are a lie to her. The version of you she thinks she sees is not real. She would never like the real you."
"Besides," he adds as he shrugs. "I think she may be the last angel."
He goes to take a step around me when my empty heart drops. I grab him by his arm and pull him back to look at me. I question, "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"Angels are deceptive, masters of lies," he says. "All the obvious people aren't going to be it. It's going to be the last person you'd suspect, the person who reacts the least...and that's Valeria."
My jaw is so tight. He turns and continues walking down the hallway, I watch him, thinking things I shouldn't.
𓆩♡𓆪
My mind has been racing all day. As Azriel and I stand before our parents and are told we've lost more of our own, I once again find myself questioning why I'm choosing this girl's life over my own people.
"I'm expecting news," my dad says.
But I shake my head. I say, "We still have not found them."
"Or maybe we have," Azriel quickly says after me. My father looks at him, confused, and gestures for him to keep talking. "I suspect this one girl. Valeria Brookes."
The second her name gets spoken, I know it will never leave The Underworld, people will remember it forever.
"So, why don't you kill her?" he asks us.
I have to think of something quickly. I say, "We can't. Not without proof."
I had proof that I did not speak, a sight and a confession. Both of them looked at me. I continued, "The school is one kill away from shutting down for the year. If we guess wrong, the real angel will leave, and we will never see them again."
I keep my face blank. My father's eyes scan my face, I stand here as I wait to see if he believes me. The seconds felt like hours.
"Okay," my father says, and I know he believes me. I feel relief, but it's short-lived as he speaks again. "Bring something down of hers, something close to her, something she wears often. Selena can do a spell on it to see."
"She wears this charm bracelet," Azriel says. "I'll get it from her."
Over my dead body will he fucking get her bracelet. Not that she'll let him have it, anyway. As we go to leave, my father says, "Good job, Azriel. I knew that sending you was the right thing to do."
As I walked away, the anger inside me burned brighter than the flames around us. As I expected.
Azriel goes to leave. But I make a stop. I hadn't forgotten about something.
"Finally came to your senses?" Selena smiles at me as I enter the room. She stands up and her heels echo as she walks over to me.
"No," I say. "Have you found anything else out about the person after me?"
Somebody at that school knows what I am, and they've known it since the second I stepped foot into that school. She shakes her head, "No. I tried more spells, nothing has worked, as if they don't even exist."
Somebody smart and strong. That's who it was.
"But hey, enough of that," she says. "You and I could-"
Her words stop as she reaches out and touches my arm. The second her skin touches mine, she freezes and so do her words. Her eyes widen slightly, but then appear to be a bit confused. She whispers to herself as she removes her hand, "How strange."
"What?" I ask her.
She thinks for a moment longer before answering, "Nothing."
She takes a step back and says, "Good luck at your school, Adonis."
𓆩♡𓆪
I sat in my room at the window exhaling the smoke outside and watching it vanish into the air. While continuing to look outside, I heard my door open, I already knew who it was so I didn't turn to look.
"Okay, so, I brought all my books," Valeria says while putting them down onto my desk. "And can you put that thing out? Just because it won't kill you doesn't mean it doesn't smell like shit."
I roll my eyes, but I put the cigarette out. She takes a seat as I turn to look at her.
She talked about something, but I didn't register her words, I just looked at her. I looked at her beauty. Angels are supposed to be beautiful, however I thought that she was far more than that. This wasn't like me, thinking these things weren't like me.
A woman has never had an effect on me in my entire life. Yet this angel has me protecting her over my own. I had never found anybody beautiful before until I saw her.
"Are you listening, idiot?" she says, bringing me out of my thoughts.
"Yeah," I lie.
"Really? And what was I saying?"
"Something boring," I say.
I had told her to come here to study. I didn't give a single fuck about studying, these tests meant nothing to me. But if she was in here, with that bracelet, it meant Azriel didn't have it.
Valeria begins going over the notes with me. I can't be bothered to pay attention to it, but I hadn't realized my eyes were closed until she threw a pillow at my face.
"Hey, you're the one that wanted to study, remember?" she crosses her arms.
I toss the pillow onto the floor and stand up. She sighs. She suggests, "Why don't we go for a walk or something? That's what I do when I'm bored of studying."
"Sure," I agree.
She leaves her stuff in my room and we walk outside. We started walking through the forest, the sun was starting to set and it would get dark soon. I wasn't worried about anybody watching us, only Azriel and I could leave The Underworld.
"You know this forest well," I say as she knows which paths to pick.
"This was the way to the safe house," she tells me, although I already know that.
She suddenly stops walking and looks around us. My eyebrows tug together. She smiles at me, "Do you wanna see something?"
I nod. She looks around one more time before bringing her wings out. Although I had seen her like this once before, it felt so different now. I could really see her, the glow in her eyes, the purity that radiated off her. It should be poisonous to me, yet it felt intoxicating to see.
She makes them go away, but a singular feather falls onto the ground. She grins, "It's cool, right? I bet you wish you could fly."
"I sure do," I lie, once again, I think I say more lies to her than truths.
I continued walking with her. She knew the forest better than me. She knew which trails to take that had small ponds, she showed me the fish that lived in them and told me all the names she gave them.
We started walking back to school. As we were walking, she said, "I saw a Bible in your room. I didn't know you were religious."
I was, just in a different way than her. I reply with, "Everybody believes in something, Valeria."
My feet come to a stop. My eyebrows tug together. As we walked over the path we had earlier, the white feather was gone. I looked around for it, not seeing it stuck in any trees.
"Come on, before I leave you out here," she called out to me.
I forced myself to keep walking, although it felt like someone was near.
Word Count: 1531