Malevolent

Chapter 42

[Song above: No time to die by Billie Eilish]

𓄋

It was gone.

Whatever smidge of a connection there was linking Dante to Amra had been brutally severed. And at first, the loss of that had been like a whip directly to Dante's soul. He stumbled. Fell to his knees beside her.

His obsidian eyes vanished, returning to the full red Amra had once feared and then later come to love.

It's true what they said, devils can cry. And up until now, Dante understood the only reason one would do so... for the loss of their mate.

And there was his. Black hair splayed around her pale face, blue lips, fingers growing cold.

It wasn't just that Dante's soul broke apart, his own body began to shatter like pieces of a glass puzzle, and underneath, the true monster that prowled for destruction and pain was crying out. Ravenous for vengeance, as deeply hurt as Dante's soul had felt.

He was too late. Too late to tell her the things he really wanted to tell her. Too late to save her. And it was too soon. Too soon for her life to have been taken from her.

Anguish was like an echo, reverberating between the hollow growing in his chest.

He took her into his arms, hoping that any second she would open her eyes and ask him to stop squeezing her so tightly, but her eyes remained closed. Her lips sealed. Her chest, unmoving. Her mind, silent.

"God," Dante roared, "return her!"

Angel, both man and demon called to her, but it went unanswered.

As his eyes landed on the wound on her belly, Dante felt his teeth sink into his tongue. Profound remorse built inside him. 

I'm sorry. He held her closer, desperate to feel her warmth, which only grew colder and colder.

The longer he gazed at her fading beauty, the more he began to feel numb. And he clung to it.

Making himself numb to the fire that devoured his chest. Numb to the commotion behind him. Numb to Lily's feral cries for the sister she had lost. Numb to the ambush that had burst through the door and all but subdued everyone else, but him.

Now? His demon breathed with steady rage.

Dante was only but a thread now, as he looked down at himself, he did not recognize himself. He did not want to.

Yes, his midnight locks fell to his face. Take over.

He gently placed Amra, like a limp deer, on the ground, and began to stand. Wings of fire unfurled like a sail, spreading wide. His blood red eyes vanished under the obsidian waters that drowned him. Unaware of the beast that rose from the hell inside him.

With eyes that promised torment, it trained on one person... Camiel.

The room trembled as dark shadows began to consume the room. And without a word, Dante attacked with a heart-wrenched roar.