Chapter Two: The Problem With Puzzles
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Barbatos..
Slavers
His whole body tensed.
Barbatos had a deep-seated resentment towards slavers of any kind. His own people were no better than slavers, trying to turn him into a head-hunter, of each side. And then, when that didn’t work, banished him with other outcasts, who expected no less of him. Worse, when he first escaped to the human plane, mere humans thought to bind him and use him to fulfill their paltry whims as well.
He was not a slave, and he would not be made one. Nor would he sit by as slavers ran rampant, thinking they could do as they liked with no recompense.
Barbatos strode forward, passing the girl less than politely, knowing that he might have shoved her a little too harshly behind his back, but hearing no complaints. He kept pushing forward to meet the fools, though honestly, even if the girl had said something, Barbatos would have hardly stopped.
The men racing towards them slid to a halt a few meters away. A blond with a poorly shaven beard stepped forward, looking Barbatos up and down, his gaze settling on Barbatos’ bow before bouncing back up to meet his eyes with a sneer.
“Figures this savage girl would belong to a savage beast like you.” The man remarked, earning himself derisive laughter from his fellows. “Not even a decent weapon between you.” He patted his gun with a tsk, and even more guffaws rang out.
“But no matter. Two slaves are better than one. Though you’ll probably just end up Demon chow.” The blond looked him up and down again disgustedly, and Barbatos could feel his power growing with his rage.
For half a second, he considered obliterating everything around him out of spite.
The thing that stopped him?
The god-damned dog.
Suddenly, its teeth were buried in his calf and he looked down angrily, prepared to shake it off. Instead, the wolf shook his head with a growl, eyes glaring daggers at Barbatos. Snapping his jaws to get a better grip around his leather breeches, and the protests still roiling from his mouth, the wolf shook Barbatos’ leg again to make a point of it. It was a bruising grip, but the wolf’s teeth didn’t break through his leathers. However, the message was clear.
The wolf knew what Barbatos had intended to do, and was prepared to die fighting to protect its human pack mate.
Barbatos sighed, glancing back at the girl. Quite honestly, what had she done to earn such loyalty from the beast? It couldn’t be as simple as just knowing him from childhood as she had insisted. Barbatos felt the puzzle tickle at his brain. Not that it truly mattered. He would heal from any damage inflicted by the wolf, but the wolf’s die-hard protective instincts just had him.. Curious. That was all. Besides, it would be a hassle to have to take the time to fight it off and kill it, and then heal from the wounds he would receive from it, and the slavers, who would no doubt take advantage of his distraction to cause even more problems..
Slavers that were even now laughing at his expense again, driving his ire higher.
“Look at the fool! Can’t even train a dog right! Has to fight off him and us!” The men jeered, and Barbatos made a rash decision that he might come to regret.
Bethany..
“I don’t know this female.” The man with the bow announced.
What was he doing?! Bethany thought furiously as she backed up a step and Ginger’s ears swiveled in her direction. He still had a grip on the man’s leather pants, and all Bethany could think was: This is it, this is the end for us! Almost instantly, Ginger released the guy and was backing away with her, teeth bared, snarls ripping from his throat so loudly they sounded painful.
“You don’t know know her, or you don’t know her in the biblical sense?” One of the smart-assed slavers taunted, and they barked laughter like high-school freshmen.
“What I’m saying is, we are not acquainted at all. I just met her.” Barbatos replied evenly. Bethany found herself spinning on her heel. First, the jerk shoved her, now this? Nuh uh. She was gone. But she barely made it a step before her arm was captured and she was pulled to a halt so quickly she thought her shoulder might pop free of the socket. Bethany struggled and yelled, making Ginger go into a frenzy, but the man calmly ignored them both.
“However, I think you may want to ask me who I am, before you move any further with your plans, or insult me any further. I may not know this girl well, but as of this moment, I’m claiming her for my own.” The bowman’s grip on Bethany’s arm tightened and she was yanked to his chest in a dizzying twirl. She had a perfect view of the slavers across from herself and the crazy bowman. They were laughing again.
“Might wanna ask who I am.” One taunted.
“Claiming her as mine.” Another responded. They punched each other in the shoulders and Bethany rolled her head on the bowman’s chest, looking for an easy escape, back and forth, eyes wild. And Ginger.. What had happened to Ginger? He’d gone deathly silent.
“So. Who are you then?” A blond asked. He looked like the ringleader of their little slave-ring outfit. Behind her, the bowman straightened, pulling her upright with him, her feet nearly leaving the ground.
“I am Barbatos. Earl of Hell, former Commander of Thirty Legions of what you call Demon-Kind. Fallen from my position in the Order of Virtue because I refused to be made a slave then, and I refuse to be made one now. And I did not come to this place to be mocked by inferior primates such as yourselves!” By the end of this little speech, Barbatos’ voice was thundering, and there was a sound so loud it made Bethany think of some kind of siren or horn as the light around them flashed so bright they were all briefly blinded by it.
But all she could do was think Holy s**t, Holy s**t, Holy s**t! Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.. Escaping the clutches of slavers just to run right into the arms of a Demon..!
Barbatos..
The men scarcely held Barbatos’ attention when his physical form shifted.
In front of him, he held a creature he had just claimed for his own, and she smelled of fear.
He wanted to chase.
He lived for the hunt. In this form, or the other.
It was what made Barbatos such a good bounty hunter.
That and his other skills.
But mostly that he lived for this. The zip of fear up the spine. That spike of adrenaline that could be either excitement or horror. One false move could spell death for either party.
Barbatos needed her to calm down.
But he couldn’t tell her that in front of the slavers. His pride demanded he show no weakness.
Wrapping his hands around her ribs, he dug his claws in, feeling them sink into her clothing, then press into her flesh.
Yesss.. He loved this.
He wanted to taste her blood. To feel her flesh part around claw and tooth. To taste the terror on his tongue.
But something held him back.
Not only did Barbatos realize this would probably cause the slavers to scatter like insects, making them tedious to round back up to kill, but he sensed something else.
A thread. Just the lightest intermingling of the girl’s fate and his own, but when he followed that possible outcome it exploded into a brilliant future of warmth and light that nearly had his knees giving way. His vision shattered and he could see nothing but her.
His teeth were buried in her shoulder in the space of his next breath. Her wild, dark brown hair tickled his face. As tightly as he held her, he could feel how underfed she was. Bones pressed against her flesh in sharp relief, muscle stretched taut across it, like a rangy wolf in lean times. Her blood touched his tongue and he whispered the ritualistic words over the wound, mingling his saliva with her own body's fluids, watching as his energies poured into her, rushing through her, changing her, struggling for dominion, caught, then held.
A certain possessiveness overcame him as the girl moaned when she gave in. Her body went slack, agreeing to the terms of the Contract between them. He sealed the fresh wound with a kiss, tonguing up the remaining blood. Then he planted another kiss for good measure, his lips searching for every last coppery drop, feeling her energies surge to meet his own. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was about her, but he could feel her in his veins, calling to him already. Grinning against her skin, Barbatos’ gaze flicked upwards to the slavers. They weren’t laughing now.
Bethany..
The creature that held her was no longer anything like a man.
Bethany couldn’t suppress the idea that the Demon was more animalistic than anything, but somehow still strangely beautiful.
Demon
How had she missed the signs?
She could only say her judgment had been thrown by how very rough he looked.
Nothing like the usual Demons.
The ones that showed up looking a beautiful lie.
No. Barbatos had been too very bedraggled and scraggly and.. Earthy.
Now, however.. Sharp, dark claws burst from split fingertips, digging into her skin and holding her in place. What Bethany had seen of his face had shown that it was now sharply angled and lean. Ears long and pointed beyond the end of his head were paired with eyes glowing from deep under brooding brows and sharp, pointed teeth, closer to a cat or dog's than a human's. And that tongue had definitely not been human. Too rough. Definitely more cat-like with its sand-paper texture. Slitted pupils met her searching gaze over a nose that could almost be said to be set on a blunt muzzle. Bethany looked away quickly. She felt uncomfortable looking at this feral, complicated, beautiful thing.
Strands of lank curls fell across its face as it grinned at her, and she shuddered. Those teeth had torn into her shoulder. She’d felt the sting, but more than that, she’d heard the whispered words of a bond, his name, his Mark sealing the promise of a tie between them.
Of belonging.
Bethany could lie to the world, but she couldn’t lie to herself.
That was the one thing she wanted most in life.
She’d folded like a fan. Her stupid, irrational heart grabbed onto the words of promise, of a bond between two people, no two beings, that couldn’t be broken, no matter what, and held so tightly to it that it became something new.
Maybe just in her own mind. Maybe she twisted those promised words, but Bethany was holding tight to that bond like it was a leash.
This Demon thought he owned her soul now.
But Bethany was going to prove that a Bond could work either direction.
He owned her?
Pfff.
She owned his ass now.
And he wasn’t going to be rid of her either.
Her train of thought was derailed when the slavers across from them began shouting.
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