Dark Requiem [malexmale]

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

"Let me get this straight; these guys just popped out of the wall like that demon bitch from Mama, attacked you, and left? Oh, and Xiphrus went beastie on everyone, except Michael, which, if I'm not mistaken, has never happened before in the history of forever. Did I sum that up well enough?"

I stared at Akin for a full minute before what he said sank in and gave him a brief nod. He nodded back, putting his hands on his hips and looking over at Hannibal, who stood at the window that looked out over all of the island, his mismatched eyes narrowed, a hand thoughtfully cupping his jaw and over his mouth, other hand on his hip with a finger tapping up and down as he soaked in the information.

Meanwhile, sitting in a plush tufted black leather chair, Joxeia sat with an elbow on the arm, his long white hair pulled up into a ponytail, pinkish eyes staring down at the carpet.

An eerie silence sat in the room and the only sound was the soft hum of electricity and the distant sound of the ocean waves rolling to shore.

I was itching to leave, not just because of the uncomfortable silence, but to get back to Michael. After I'd woken from the rage of the beast, I'd found Michael laying in my arms, covered in blood, but completely healed. However, he was unconscious. Hannibal had ordered he be taken to the royal hospital, the hospital used only for gods. It was also the safest because it was run by gods who kept a barrier around the building to keep out anyone who may teleport inside to injury one of the gods.

Michael was safe there. I knew that. I had faith in Hannibal.

And yet I didn't want Michael to wake up there alone.

I wanted to be there.

No, more like I needed to be there. It was an intense urge to ditch everything. Fuck this meeting, fuck the UP, fuck everything. I needed to get to Michael and I needed to be by his side. I hadn't felt this magnetic pull in a very long time, and it was terrifying. The last time I'd felt it had been Atlan, and everyone knew where that had ended up.

This was more than just liking Michael. It was more than caring about him, more than wanting to protect him out of a sense of duty. It was the most powerful force in the universe, and it was only more intense when I felt it and goddamn it all, I blamed the beast that stirred inside me. It had been mostly quiet since my awakening. It whined and writhed every so often, then became silent. It backed me up during the war, and when fighting Jeremiah, but when I'd faced those shadows...

No. When I'd seen what Diablo had done to Michael, I'd snapped. The beast had snapped.

I could still hear its roar in my ears, that horrible inhuman sound that shredded my vocal cords and left them sore and raw even now. At the moment, the beast was irritated. I could feel it moving around beneath my skin, feel the heat of it along my spine, its jaws practically around my throat, pressuring me to abandon this bullshit and get to Michael.

There was... Love. And then there was whatever the fuck was wrong with me, whatever triggered my beast. It was like some kind of mutant hybrid of the emotion. It was jacked up several degrees and went soaring into total fucking psychopath land.

This wasn't normal.

This wasn't okay.

Michael was not mine. He was not my property. He was a living breathing creature. He was also an angel, an angel who perhaps was vulnerable with his father being gone, with Diablo after him, being thrown into an entirely new realm he'd never been exposed to. I had no right to suddenly stake my claim on him, no right to fall this hard, this fast.

And fuck... Had Michael been scared? He had to be. Even Joxeia was scared of the beast inside me, and he'd faced it on multiple occasions. And yet... I hadn't hurt Michael, from what I had seen. If anything, I'd healed him... but a beast, healing someone? That didn't make sense. That went against its very nature. Beasts did not heal. They destroyed.