Eternal Entity: A Dark Supernatural Thriller (The Celestial Rose Book 1) Page 12

“What’s wrong, Taylor?” Lucian inquired. “I can sense it on you.”

  “Sense what?”

  “Stress, its radiating from you.”

  “I’m fine, just concerned about Pearce.”

  “Why? What has he done?” he glared.

  “Done? No. nothing, why do you think he had done something?”

  “He’s new, remember? I told you he changed, it was what needed to happen for him to remain with us.”

  “Okay, well, he hasn’t done anything, he’s just really distant and avoided Jessie during lunch. There’s something wrong with him.”

  “Hmm,” he pondered, “he’s hungry and doesn’t trust himself around Jessie.”

  “Hungry? He didn’t have lunch, but this was before lunch.”

  “No, Taylor,” he laughed, “H.U.N.G.R.Y.” He slowly and firmly spelt out.

  “Oh, well what do you usually eat? Can’t you hunt a deer or something?”

  It was a question I hadn’t thought about yet. I had been too mesmerised in our field frolics by the lakeside. I must pay more attention.

  “Deer helps, but I believe he may want something more. Don’t worry about it, I’ll take him out later tonight.”

  “Hmm, that worries me, but I don’t want to know what you two will be doing in the dark!” I said as he laughed.

  The cold wind howled as Lucian drove me home.

  “The wind's getting up, be careful hunting tonight, please.” I said.

  He smirked, a familiar expression.

  “Of course, we’ll be fine.” He kissed me goodbye. He watched me in and off he went.

  Upstairs, the old oak tree outside my window swayed in the wind. Howling through the semi open window, the tree branches scratched and scraped across the glass pane. I turned to close the window and felt a presence behind me.

  “Lucian, you made me jump!” I laughed, turning around.

  It wasn’t Lucian.

  It looked human but stood covered in shadow as he growled under his breath.

  “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am,” it said as it took a step towards me.

  The body of a monster stepped out of the darkness. His stony exterior cracked and creased as he walked, urging closer ever still.

  “What do you want?”

  “You, Disciple, you.”

  “Who? I think you have the wrong house. I’m nobody, I’m not a Disciple.”

  “I smelt you from afar, tracked you here.”

  “The Femme Fatale?” I questioned, backing into the wall.

  “Yes,” it hissed.

  “I’m not a Femme Fatale, I just carry their scent.”

  “You lie!” it yelled, slapping the side of my face, knocking me over.

  Even with all the training, I didn’t see that coming. Within seconds it was on top of me, his hot smoky skin wrapped around me.

  “No more lies, your power will be mine!” he exclaimed, his tongue forked at the tip as he hissed, tracing it across my neckline.

  I cringed. He was burning hot as my skin heated up and beads of sweat trickled down my neck. Hands clammy, I kicked and pushed it away, but it was too strong, too big. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t budge. I considered screaming for my dad, but I knew full well it’d kill him in an instant. With Caleb asleep next door, I couldn’t do anything to alert them. I needed Lucian, any of them. I was no match for this thing. I didn’t have their strength and my energy fizzled when I tried to use it. I was nothing, no one, and at that moment I was demon bait.

  Gaining confidence, summoning strength, I had to do something.

  “GET OFF ME!” I demanded. It laughed, hard.

  “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE COMMANDING ME?” he boomed, “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

  “No, now get off me,” I said, calming my body down.

  It held me down with its rough sandpapery skin serrating my flesh. Holding my neck, it strangled me, gripping tighter and tighter. Anymore and it’d break. Anything else, and I’d snap, the fragile little human, broken like a porcelain doll. Its face began to ripple and contract. The creature before me started to shift, changing shape, spurting a language unbeknownst to me. I couldn’t take the pain of his skin any longer.

  “GET OFF ME!” I yelled, as the door hammered and pounded. “DAD! DAD!” I screamed, “HELP! HELP ME!”

  The creature laughed, beating my face with its sharpened claws. Warmth trickled down my face, I couldn’t see for the crimson colouring flushed over me.

  “TAYLOR!” my dad shouted, “CALEB, CALL THE POLICE! TAYLOR, MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOOR, I’LL BREAK IT DOWN!” He hammered his body weight against the door. It wobbled and splintered but didn’t open in time.

  Darkness lay above me, crushing my body into the floor. The weight, he’s too heavy. I can’t breathe! My neck threatened to break as I began to see specks of light flashing before my eyes. It seemed intrigued by fear. It used its sticky silvery tongue to lick the side of my face, and as it did I cried louder. It clasped its talons across my mouth, gripping it shut. No scream could escape my lips, no cries for help as I lay victim to the demon before me. I was alone, afraid, and trembling.

  It hadn’t come to kill me, not yet, anyway. It’d come to take my life force, just like the shadelings. But it didn’t look like a shadeling, it looked like the Devil incarnate. What was it and why did it think I was a ‘Disciple’?

  It took its time, enjoyed watching my expressions as it nicked at parts of me, tasting my blood, playing with me like a coiled snake taunting its prey. I remembered what Lawrence said. Since my encounter with the Femme Fatale, I had become more alluring, a drug to the supernatural and that day, I was the creature's drug of choice.

  It bit me ravenously, wanting to devour me, eat me alive. I screamed, yet no sound could escape. But I wouldn’t stop screaming, fighting, and trying to push it away. As I continued to fight for my life, it whipped out a tail from behind it. I hadn’t realised it had a tail before, but it was a long, pointed and bladed tail. Part of it that was so deadly it reminded me of a scorpion, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

  In amidst the chaos, I tried to harness any powers I had. Why wouldn’t they work! The hand of the beast punched my face as specks of black and white flashed before me and my brain threatened to go unconscious. I fought the pain back, I had to keep on fighting this thing. The body of the demonic creature crippled and shifted back to its own self. A creature with dark greyed skin, textured like sandpaper. Its crackled finish gave way to a hot inner core as it gleamed through the crevices, threatening to burn every part of me.

  The door pounded again and again, threatening to break, just not in time, too slow, too late. Its tongue slithered and hissed, I could feel its desire as it bit down, drinking my blood, chewing down on my flesh. No one's coming. No one can save me. I’m on my own. Every part of me burns and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  Then, for a moment, it let go. The putrid smell of burning flesh surrounded me as it pulled me up and threw me across the floor like a rag doll. It growled angrily as I lay burned, pained, and bloody. My once pale skin was scorched from its body in places no woman should ever be scorched.

  I began to shake uncontrollably. I needed to vanish again, disappear into another realm, be anywhere else than here. But nothing happened, nothing helped, and no matter how hard I closed my eyes, the creature was still there. I struggled further as it gripped my neck again, squeezing harder, abrading my skin with its infernal hands. I screamed internally as my blood fled from my body. Choking for breath, I passed out.

  The wind grew louder as I awoke painfully to my name being screamed in the distance. A Lycan joined in the fight, leaping on top of the demon, throwing it sideways to crash into the wall. The demonic creature roared in defence, pouncing, ripping through the room like a tornado taking down a city block.

  As the monsters roared and hissed in a deadly fight for existence, the door pounded, with my father still screaming to get in. So much anger, so much pai
n, too many monsters to understand. and no more air to breath. I collapsed into the arms of a Lycan, the monster that saved me. A familiar monster, but a monster nonetheless, and with that I knew I would die once again.

  I lay drifting into the land of death and dismay, and the monster before me wept. It cradled my body in its arms, protecting me as the screams of my family numbed my thoughts and my eyes shut, speaking their final goodbye.

  In another land, in another place, I could no longer feel pain. Instead, I felt the emotions within; the anger, the fear, the frustration. My body died in the arms of another, it shouldn’t have happened like this, I couldn’t have ended this way. What was the creature that rescued me and why did it weep the tears of a mortal as it lay cradling my broken body?

  As I died, I changed. I felt the anger rush through my body, the darkness consuming me. The evil took over, creeping through my skin like a parade of red ants making way to their queen. The heat screamed out beneath me, pulsating at my very being. My head began to pound as it wrapped its claws around me devouring my soul inside, disturbing my innocence as it twisted its way through my body one cell at a time.

  The beast within me brought out my inner desire to lunge forward and tear everything apart, every emotion screamed agony as it triumphantly took over. The bloodlust screeched as rage flowed through my veins.

  It is time, Taylor Lane, it is time to feel the truth within you. I opened my eyes.

  Light pounded through my vision, soaring into me like a fire extinguishing all oxygen. It blinded me, screamed at my eyes as the person whose arms I lay in placed something over my shattered complexion. Looking through the sunglasses, I found myself in the arms of Lucian.

  It appeared that I was lying on a bed. Beside me was a floor-to-ceiling length of windows that looked out over a calming lake. The sun had risen and given birth to the birds who tweeted their morning song through the eyes of winter's reign. The cool air relaxed through me as my hearing started to come back and I noticed Lucian talking to me, mouthing my name repeatedly.

  “Taylor, Taylor,” he spoke calmly, but with fear and regret shadowing his expression.

  Worry became his expression as I looked through him, past him, unable to speak but taking in the faces around me. Elisha stood behind, watching me in dismay. Had someone died? The look of pity that crept across her face started to worry me. Where was I? What was wrong with me? How did I get here? Strangely, though, Harland stood beside Lucian. There must have been something drastically wrong if Harland and Lucian were in the same room. Harland reached out and took my hand.

  “It’s not working, Lucian.”

  “I know. I’m trying” A metallic taste slipped past my lips, caressing the back of my throat.

  “I told you I can try. It’s better than death, you know that.”

  “She does not know, and it should be her choice, Harland.” Lucian said as his anger began to show.

  My body began to shake and shudder, pain shot through me as every muscle tensed up, locking into place. I growled out, howling through the pain as Lucian laid me on the bed backing off.

  Harland looked frightened.

  “What is she?”

  “How am I supposed to know? What the hell was it that took her?” he screamed at him.

  “Taylor?” Lucian and Harland said at the same time.

  Looking at them both, relief flooded their faces. I slowly sat up as every muscle ached and pained. In the glass beside me a leathery, burnt, and bloody looking female reflected. The skin rippled away as it shed, vanishing before my eyes, and leaving the pale burnt figure of my true human self-cast back. A little battered and broken, but a figure I recognised, and by the looks of it, one that everyone was happy to see. Lucian draped a sheet over my naked form and held me tight, weeping a little in delight of my astonishing recovery.

  “It was the Devil, Lucian,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “The Devil.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. The Devil died centuries ago. What did it look like?"

  “Fiery skin, textured like sandpaper, claws, a scorpion’s tail.”

  “It can’t be!”

  “Who, Lucian?” Harland asked.

  “Lilith’s henchman, Seine,” he paused. “If he’s risen, then it must mean Lilith’s coming back.”.

  I lay broken, watching the Darkwaters and Harland discuss Seine and what his re-entry onto this plane meant. It didn’t sound good, whatever it was. But one question phased through my mind.

  “How am I still alive?” I asked.

  They stopped and looked at Harland as he stepped forward to explain.

  “Do you remember me, Taylor?”

  “The crying wolf. Yes, I do.”

  “Crying,” Nic laughed as Harland shot him an angry glance.

  “Harland found you, Taylor. It was nearly his time to hunt and he sensed the evil surrounding you. He’s different too, we all are, but we’re not like each other. You’re in his family home. He called us here because you were dying and needed my blood to heal. It's lucky it worked. You looked beyond saving. I am so sorry this happened to you.” Lucian smoothed my singed hair back.

  “It was actually Lucian that saved you,” Elisha said, “after the Lycan cried over your dead body.”

  “I died?”

  “Yep.”

  “I gave you my blood.” Lucian said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ll heal now. Take your time,” he said, as I began to feel for the edge of the bedframe.

  Looking in the mirror, I began to cry. My beauty had diminished, replaced by the scorched flesh of a monster in the reflection. How could they bare to look at me? How could I live like this?

  “It, it...” I started to cry, or more like sob, as every memory of the painful experience flooded back to me all at once.

  “I know, Taylor, I know.” Lucian said as he stroked my hair while I buried my head in his chest.

  “I’m going to fucking find it and rip it apart.” Harland screamed, punching his fist through the adjourning door.

  I continued to cry and shake, wanting to rip off my own skin and every ounce of me that had been touched by the demonic being. I screamed, pounding my fists at his chest. I couldn’t take the pain anymore. What was it that had begun to devour me? I was disgusted by it. My skin crawled as I shuddered, gripping at my arms as they itched. I scratched away the pain, the memory, the thoughts.

  “Taylor, no.”

  Lucian pulled back my hands wrapping himself around me, holding me tighter still, rocking me gently as I sobbed uncontrollably for a long time. He sat holding me, patiently waiting for me to calm down until I could cry no more. As my breath faltered and eased, Lucian continued to try and comfort me.

  “You will be okay, Taylor, I will make sure we find it and finish it. It can never hurt you again, I won’t allow it. I am so sorry. I should have been there to protect you. I never thought your new nature was so strong that it would lure in the demonic creatures out there. You should not have been alone, and for that I will never forgive myself.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” I said.

  Harland walked in.

  “Yes, I agree with Elisha. It was her henchman. She needs to forget this,” he said.

  Lucian nodded looking at me intensely. Elisha walked in behind Harland.

  “Now, Lucian, she can’t live with this, not if it’s what we believe it to be. Remove it and I’ll clean up all sign of it. Her family needs to forget, too. I can’t keep them asleep any longer. Its unsafe, and you know that.”

  “The packs already out hunting it. The moon is at its highest point, we have to remove all threat now or she'll never be safe,” Harland said with aggression.

  “It’s her choice!” Lucian shouted.

  He softened as he looked at me.

  “Taylor...”

  “Yes?”

  “I can take away your pain, remove the memory of this ever happening, but you will not remember anything from t
he last few days.”

  “No, I can’t, won’t, lose that. I must remember. I have to be stronger than this,” I said, pushing him back.

  “Okay, of course. We will find Seine, and you can have the pleasure of ripping out its demonic heart. Does that sound better?”

  “Perfect,” I smiled, finally.

  It would pay. It would never harm anyone ever again, and I’d take pleasure in seeing its end.

  Chapter 13

  Stirring awake, I stretched and fumbled my way out of bed. I was tired, to say I hadn’t slept was an understatement. I hated sleeping in my room. Feared it, in fact. But with Harland and the pack patrolling outside, and Lucian lying next to me, I was safer than I’d ever been.

  Lucian had only agreed that I could go home if he could stay with me. He felt bad, I could tell. It wasn’t his fault. He had a hero complex and whenever anything bad happened to me, he blamed himself. He didn’t really sleep either, just laid there stone cold, unmoving. He looked dead, to be honest. But even as a dead looking Lucian, he was still handsome. What was it about him? I couldn’t help but stare, tracing my fingers over his torso. Together we were perfect, together we were amazing, and together, Lilith’s beastly pet and henchman Seine didn’t stand a chance. I don’t think he’d ever leave me alone again. This was it, this was us, united forevermore.

  “Taylor, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  “Tired and achy, but alive and ready to make that thing pay.”

  “That’s my girl,” he exclaimed, “and we will, don’t you worry!” He paused. “But for now, I believe you have a date with Rowena, dress shopping.”

  Her car horn pipped outside.

  “Damn, I’m late!”

  “I’ll see you in York, my love. I’ll be watching from afar.”

  “If I didn’t like you, I’d be creeped out by that.” I laughed as he jumped out of the bedroom window.

  Taking a few steps, I felt wobbly, achy, too. Lucian's blood had helped but it didn’t remove the aches and pains. That took human time to heal. My room gleamed, looked immaculate, in fact. Elisha had done a good job. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. After a few minutes, I headed over to the mirror, and as the sunlight shone through, I looked at myself. My perfected body, built with seduction in mind. As I stood there and saw the person before me, with her big hazelnut eyes and bouncy locks, I made myself smile. Positivity, Taylor, you can do this!