Truth Within Lies, A Dark Romance (completed)

Ch. 3 Shadow Thing

 The men avoided the throne room, preferring to take the long way round then even chance going anywhere near him. I sighed a deep breath knowing someone had to at some point. I could hear his anger from a good distance away. He sounded like an angry animal trying to escape. We all knew he was pissed as if killing half the invasion force and throwing several men out an airlock wasn't proof enough, the wretched noises coming from the room had sealed it.

"My lord" The words stopped as a chair flew past my head crashing into the wall behind me. "And this is why we don't have nice things." I mumbled under my breath. I'm not even sure I want to be here anymore.

"How the hell did they let her escape!"

"They didn't exactly let her go." I really needed to stop saying what I thought. It was going to get me killed. Though death might have been ok at this point. He had completely stopped, staring directly at me. I've seen him in a rage before, but this was distinctly different.

"I never did tell you thank you." There was a sadistic undertone to his words that sent shivers down my back and made me cringe.

'What the literal fuck' I was very glad I didn't say that out loud. There was something sinister in his eyes. Destroyer was Destroyer but he wasn't this kind of sadistic, and he sure as heck would never thank me for anything. "Thank me?" Oh by the gods I shouldn't have spoken what was I thinking. Maybe I had been with Aurora for too long, she spoiled me. The way she would talk to me as though I was just another person. I longed for those talks now.

"Yes thank you for taking care of my pet." There was a strange twinge in his eyes. Come to think of it.

'Oh god I'm a dead man.' No one ever looked Destroyer in the eyes, not even me, it was a death sentence. "Damien?" I questioned. Destroyer often used vessels to do his bidding. It was an easy way to be in many places at once and no one knew but me, and well, Alexander. A smirk crawled across his face, curling his lips over into a smile that made my skin crawl. 'Fuck' Destroyer was darkness, but there was something wrong with that boy. I don't know if it was the fact he was raised by the council and not the darkness like he should have been, but he was seriously twisted and weirdly obsessed ever since Destroyer discovered Aurora was alive. I knew the stories, I knew the history, but there was something seriously broken inside that boy. Destroyer kept him on a tight leash, yet he still had enough free rein to do as he pleased. Alexander use to be able to keep him under some sort of control, but even he despised the boy. When Alexander vanished eighteen years ago it left just me to deal with him. That sick son of a who knows what knew exactly how to hurt me, there was no controlling him on my part.

"It was nice of you to keep an eye on her for me, shadow thing." My name rolled off his tongue like a snake's flicking away at the scent of prey. Oh how I loathed that smug look. I wanted to seer it off him with my fist, no a torch better, a branding iron. He used me, he used me and it's going to get me killed too. Maybe death wouldn't be so bad, I wouldn't have to live with his smug little ass.

"Tell Destroyer Alexander is ready for him." I snarled at him, leaving him to continue to tear apart the throne room. And that folks is why we don't have nice things, but I digress, let me introduce myself. I am what they all call a shadow thing. I have no real name, I'm not sure I ever did, it's been so long since it's been spoken. Destroyer first discovered my people when he burned his first world. It's hard to hide when everything is on fire. The screams alone...

We aren't exactly people, not even sure you can classify us as a species, we just are. Over many millennia our people have whispered in the ears of men, shaping the worlds to the will of the first and the last. We are form without mass, living shadows if you will. No one ever knew we existed until Destroyer began to burn worlds to the ground. Just like a shadow we are vulnerable to light and dark. Remove all of either and we can not exist. Unlike a shadow we do not return when that light moves or dims. We became a fascination for Destroyer a thing to play with, until he learned that we had a council seat. It was easy to understand how it could be missed. It sat in the shadows of the first's throne, always protected. When he learned this he hunted us to extinction. Burning every world we inhabited so he alone could have the seat. I don't know why he stopped with me. He could have easily killed me when I relinquished the seat to him, but he did. Ever since he's used me as a spy. It's easy to watch when you are just a shadow, easy to hide in plain sight. And here I thought he was the one to send me to Aurora. I was pissed, seething. That explained why Destroyer forced me into being a vessel like he did. Damien. I curse that name, I curse it for all time.

"Freaking a..." I slammed my fist into the wall of the corridor. My knuckles stung as I shook off the pain. We may be shadows but we could make ourselves mostly solid. It allowed us to interact with our surroundings and others, and occasionally blow off steam. In a lot of ways it was a lot like what Destroyer could do. Unlike him we couldn't simply be anywhere we wanted, we had to actually travel, and we couldn't take control of someone. "Oh holly fuck!" I came to a sudden realization that was anything but good.

"How long did you know it was her?" The words dug into my ears like an ice pick.

'Oh bloody hell, here we go. Death.' I gulped, desperately wanting it to be Damien, but no. Destroyer was composed when he was pissed, shutter the thought. "When she was five." I cowered up against the wall making it look like he had two shadows. Destroyer didn't have to look intimidating, he was intimidating. The whole air around him was thick and overwhelming, making your heart feel out of rhythm with your body, like you were in the middle of a panic attack. He would kill anyone old enough to lift a sword, and leave the rest to starve. The lucky ones, he burned alive with their world. You're darn right he scared me, and if you were smart you'd be terrified too.

"Who gave the order?" He didn't touch me, he didn't have to.

"You did." I flinched expecting rage, death, something directed at me. There was no way I was walking away from this unscathed. I closed my eyes, turned my head, and... The sounds that came from the throne room. Let's just say that had to hurt. I can't say it didn't feel a tad bit satisfying. 'Prick gets what he deserves.' I smirked, not that anyone could ever tell. I walked slowly down the hall knowing he was behind me. "My lord who is she to you?" I asked risking my life, but hey I'm a dead man on borrowed time so why not. Besides I needed to know, I need to make sure she will be safe.

...

I threw all six foot three inches, two hundred and ten pounds of his pathetic pale ass against the wall. He screamed like a little girl, curling up into the fetal position on the floor. This was the great Damien what was supposed to be my greatest achievement of a vessel. His ability rivaled only by my guardian, but the council had broken him, corrupted his way of thinking and even Lucifer couldn't correct it. He loathed him, I should have listened to the arcanine. But, that meant admitting I could be wrong. I am not ever wrong.

"You used my men without my approval." I grabbed him by the throat feeling his soft flesh give beneath the scales on my finger. He used my shadow to keep an eye on her. To watch her like the pathetic-lustful-perverice thing he was. "Worst of all you knew where she was!" I slid him up the wall to his feet holding him just off the ground so only the ends of his toes balanced him. "You knew and you kept her from me!" I hoped he could hear the seething anger in my voice as I plied the skin of his throat feeling his esophagus give. She was mine, she had always been mine. I could forgive my shadow, even possibly forgive Alexander, but him... That made three people that kept this from me. Three people that had known a guardian was rebon and no one bothered to think I needed to know. My guardian.

"I... I.." His voice cracked like a child's before letting out a screech as my nails dug in next to his spine.

"I'm tired of your excuses. I'm tired of your failure. If it wasn't for needing you on this ship I'd snap your neck and be done with you." There was a soothing feeling to molding his throat like dough. "I will tell you this once and only once. The guardians are mine, especially her. You need to thank the gods I figured out where my shadow had gone, and thank them again that the dragons showed up to make sure your stupidity didn't kill her a second time." I threw him against the opposite wall, listening to the bones in his fragile human body crack from the impact, before rejoining my shadow in the hall.

"My lord, who is she to you?" I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. How could I answer that question. How do you tell someone the darkness lived and breathe for the one thing that could be its doom. My vengeance, my wrath, my hater, my life all existed because of her, and no one knew it. No one could be allowed to.