The Reaper Saga [Book 1-3]

PRAY FOR HIS SOUL

Find our beloved!

I could hear the alarm in my shadows. After she disappeared through the barrier, we also jumped after her. But to my disappointment and irritation, neither Emie nor Jonathan was there to be found.

"I warned her not to fucking do it!" Lana suddenly yelled, kicking a closed door. "I knew. I knew it was dangerous and we still let her go."

"It wouldn't have mattered." I heard myself mutter and at that moment I knew just how true it was. "She is stubborn. If she thought she needed to kill Demos then she will do it. No question asked."

"I wonder why." Zach retorted, mumbling a curse.

Then I felt it.

The feeling of dread, shock, pain, and loss.

My stomach twisted in agony, no wonder feeling what she was feeling. I didn't have much time. I had to find her. 

Now.

"Mikhail, Zach and you are going for Demos." I stumbled over my words but Lana silently nodded. "Allegra and I will look for Emie. Rose can make sure we are not interrupted by any other demon." 

Giving them a hasty goodbye, I was running toward where my shadows were going crazy. Condessa might destroy the earth, Jonathan might as well as be dead by now but nothing mattered where she was concerned. 

It was my fault too.

For letting her go without any help. She asked, no, she begged me to allow her to channel me. But like the coward I was, I just stared and let her go. 

"That look on your face is not going to help her, you know?" Allegra blurted out with a sad smile. 

I had half the mind to ignore her but I only ended up with a low groan. "Shut up, Allegra."

She opened her mouth to say more but the closer I got to the hall, the more my anxiety raised. Not only that but my instincts were also going haywire. Looking at every corner, my shadows goaded that this was it. That the Demon King would pop out of nowhere and try to kill us. But I didn't realize how true the statement was until a scream stuck in my throat, my eyes taking in the damage in front of me.

And, at that moment I wished that I was the one laying there.

***

I didn't know how long I stared.

But I didn't recognize her. This, this woman was not my wife. She was a stranger to me.

This broken woman in front of me couldn't be Emeline.

"You dare say lie to my face? She didn't do it herself!" I heard the demon King go off with rage, his butchered tail tightly wrapped around a demon of his own. 

I didn't even care for Jonathan who was stringing from a rope not too far away from her. The only thing I could notice that my little soul's breathing was uneven, almost gone. I didn't understand if she was bleeding from within or someone dosed her with blood. My legs almost gave away when my gaze met her own.

She didn't even react when she saw me standing there barely able to function let alone understand how all these things happened.

"L-Little soul?" I asked, unsure of how to approach her. But she still laid on the floor, her eyes staring at me without any shred of emotions. She didn't even blink when my spine tensed hearing the world child from Demos.

"She's in shock." A voice wavered over me. I knew what I would see just by turning around. Allegra looking at me in pity. So, I didn't. Instead, kneeling down to her level, my thumb brushed away the dried tears from her cheek.

"Emie?" I tried again.

No, no, no...

"What the fuck happened!? Emeline!" I couldn't stop shaking her to show me any emotion, Be it rage, hopelessness, or relief to see me here. 

Something. Anything.

But she stayed still. The only time a soft gasp left from her bruised lips was when my arms accidentally brushed along her throat. The skin there was completely torn. "Heal. She needs to be healed."

I heard the moan of protest when I tried to lay her down on her side so that I wouldn't hurt her back or stomach. 

"Allegra, I need your help." I didn't have to tell the woman twice. She also kneeled by my side, carrying Emie's head on her lap.

The cluster of disasters that followed had me almost scream in frustration. Even Allegra was unable to make Emie react. There was beading of sweats on her forehead as she clutched Emie tightly, the fear that was on my gaze now mirroring hers. 

"Move! Let me see." 

I didn't care that I shoved Allegra away by a force that she almost stumbled. I only saw black when my fingers finally touched her forehead, the small shadows dancing right above her head. Not quite going in, just playing. I forced them not to play around now. She was in danger. I stared down at my hands while waiting for her soul to come and join my own. But no matter how much I tried, my hands shook, the connection between us dimming at every second. Allegra seemed to even stop breathing.

"It's not working." I felt weirdly calm. Not being able to see anything past the woman I belonged to. I was trying to stop her bleeding but the blood in my hands only led me to a time when I had to marry her to stop her from going entirely insane. I couldn't wipe the red stain from my hands, I couldn't stop seeing the red everywhere.

Even that day she was a bloodied mess.

"Alexei?"

I looked up only to avoid meeting my mother's gaze. "He won. That bastard won."

"A-Alexei, let me help." Rose pleaded, gathering Emie in her arms. I only stared at those blank dark brown eyes, as Rose and Allegra joined together to chant. I lost myself in my wife's agony when Rose cried out, stuttering the reason why she was like this. I didn't even breathe when the realization finally drowned upon me.

I only shared our loss when I heard that we lost our unborn child.

Then I prayed. In my thousands of years of miserable life for the first time, I knelt on the ground to pray. To pray for my little soul. To pray for the child that I was never going to meet.

And to pray for my soul when it met with those who dared to go against me...