The Virtue Of My Dark Angel, Dark Angels of the Apocalypse Book 3

Chapter Twenty-Three: Forging Bonds

Barbatos..

The sorrow of not only Bethany, but also his children hit him in the gut so hard he grunted and nearly doubled over. The things he had been told by others had not been wrong. Hybrid children were strong, and they had apparently amplified not only their grief, but also their mother’s and directed it at him specifically, as if to make a point.

“‘Tos?’ Drew questioned, not a minute before he too went silent with a frown on his face, a hand clenching and unclenching as if he felt helpless. Ah, so the children had directed it at both their fathers then. “‘Tos.. what’s going on?” Drew sounded like he’d been kicked in the stomach, his voice a mere pained whisper.

“If you thought our connection was bad before, well now that there are genetic ties binding us together, it’s even worse.” Barbatos grumbled, swinging his ax again, and trying to ignore the look Drew gave him that implied Barbatos knew very well that that was not at all what he meant. “Go to her Drew.” He said without looking up. “You know how to handle these things better..” Drew stared at Barbatos for several long seconds, but Barbatos didn’t have to tell him twice. Drew dropped his tools and was gone before Barbatos could open his mouth again.

Bethany..

Drew made plenty of noise as he approached Bethany, so it was no surprise to see him walking up the incline towards her with his head bowed, sweat gleaming off his bare chest and shoulders. She had plenty of time to wipe her face and try to hide the fact that she’d been crying, but she knew from the emotions practically roiling off Drew that he knew she had been crying. With a sigh, she waited for him to reach her, and was surprised when Ginger rose from beside her with a yawn and started wagging his tail. He trotted the last few feet to Drew and licked at Drew’s hand, dancing around Drew as the two approached. Bethany sighed again.

“I swear. What a traitor.” She muttered, shaking her head. Drew grinned slightly, hearing her comment and patted Ginger’s head, heaving a sigh of his own as he sat beside her. He reached out for a moment as if to touch her, but pulled back at the last minute, and the rejection stung.

“Are you ok?” He asked finally, letting his hand drop to his knee. Ginger rolled over on the ground and let his head loll on Drew’s lap. Drew unconsciously patted the dog, and Bethany felt a twinge in her chest of jealousy. Even her dog rejected her.

“I’m fine.” She muttered, looking away from the man and happy dog.

“Well I certainly don’t believe that.” Drew’s voice was light, but when she looked at him, he was frowning, his hand had stilled on Ginger’s head. She didn’t answer, and the silence built between them.

“I do want you to know I’m here though, if you should ever need to talk. Life isn’t ebay, and we’re living with an actual Demon, in the middle of the Demon Apocalypse. I can’t even imagine the things you’ve seen or dealt with.” This time when he reached out, he clasped her hand, trapping a blade of grass between their palms that she had been playing with. She squeezed his hand back gently and her heart warmed slightly at the sweet contact. “Now come on, I’m sure you’ve been wondering what we’ve been building, and I’m dying to show you the Nursery. Originally we thought this would be your room, but with the kids coming..” Bethany felt her heart freeze in her chest as Drew pulled her to her feet, though she tried to keep a politely interested smile on her face.

So they had decided to get rid of her after all, replacing her room with the kids’ room. Or was she somehow mistaken? Had she somehow misunderstood and only thought they were making a room for her in the first place?

“But I thought you said-” Bethany bit her tongue harshly, so much so that she could almost believe that the pain was why she was tearing up.

“Said what, Beth?” Drew asked, tucking her under his arm after pulling her to her feet. She shook her head, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t press the matter. “Right, ok.” He murmured softly, almost doubtfully, like he didn’t fully know how to handle the conversation himself. Then he began leading her back toward the farm house.

Drew..

Drew was at a loss. He watched as Bethany made small, unenthusiastic sounds of appreciation of the nursery he and Barbatos had nearly completed. It was originally going to be Beth’s room, but in the end, they decided to move the bedroom into one of the bigger rooms to keep her with them, as they just couldn’t bear the thought of her sleeping alone. Especially now that she was pregnant and both he and Barbatos were feeling a little territorial about her and the children. Even designating this room as the nursery was a stretch, but the kids would eventually grow and need space of their own, and when that happened, maybe they could consider adding to the family again. And they’d definitely need the space, no matter how territorial he and Barbatos felt. But Bethany just seemed so.. Disappointed.

“Bethany..” He began, but she turned to him with a falsely bright smile.

“They’re going to love it. You can put the cribs over here, and build shelves and a closet over on that wall for their clothes and a chest for toys. A rug would be nice for the floor, oh and we’ll need to make up some blankets and clothes. We don’t have much time, do we?” She trailed off, a sudden look of worry and depression overtaking her.

“Hey..” Drew captured her as she tried to brush past him and pulled her against his chest. “It’ll be alright. Everything’s gonna work out. I promise.” He murmured into her hair, planting a kiss there. For some reason, she didn’t relax into him as he expected, but held herself apart from him and broke the embrace quite quickly.

“I’m sure you’re right.” She mumbled, her face averted. Something was definitely wrong with their Beth, and the ache of it was eating away at his insides.

Barbatos..

Something had been nagging at him, but his mind was so full of his Marked’s emotional states that he couldn’t quite remember what it was. But he felt like he’d forgotten something important. As he installed another shelf in the new nursery, the thought hit him that he had never checked the walls of his pocket Dimension for weaknesses after the bear got through.

He dropped the wood he was holding with a clatter.

“‘Tos?” Drew asked, walking in with more supplies as Barbatos brushed past him hastily. “‘Tos?!” Drew called, but Barbatos had burst out of his human form, running on all fours in his Demon form towards the orchard and the scene of the battle with the bear. Only to discover once he arrived that the bear’s carcass had disappeared.

Fear sizzled up Barbatos’ spine like it never had before as he searched desperately for the dead animal. He remembered tossing it in a blind rage, and he found the damaged trees and a place of disturbed earth, but no bear. This couldn’t be possible.

There were no predators large enough to drag off a bear in his pocket Dimension. Even Bethany’s damned hell-spawn of a dog wouldn’t be able to do it.

So where had the corpse gone?

It should be busily decaying here, waiting for him to bury it or turn it into fertilizer.

Insects should be all over the damn thing.

Instead, Barbatos was frantically searching the area, looking for something he knew in his heart was simply nowhere to be found.

With a desperate shout, he looked back in the direction of the farmhouse. His Marked were in danger, and he didn’t know how to tell them, or even what he was going to do about it. The thought of all the attacks on all the other Demons’ Marked flitted through his brain.

What was he going to do?

Bethany..

The days after Barbatos announced she was pregnant were spent in a strange haze of depression and being absolutely doted on by the two men. They cuddled with her between them at night, hands placed protectively over her abdomen or touching each other over her, trapping her in. Part of her saw the cuteness in the behavior, but another part of her just felt trapped. They even picked her extra strawberries in between working on the nursery and other things for the babies. They positively refused to let her do too much heavy lifting or hard work, which infuriated her to no end, but at least she could work on smaller things for the children.

As such, she spent a good portion of her time making a hand-braided rug for the nursery, and when that was done, asked Drew about yarn for some blankets. It wasn’t quite knitting or crocheting that she knew how to do, but it was close. Bethany thought her grandmother had called it macrame at one point. Whatever. To Bethany, it was just using the same principles of rug making to make a blanket. Regardless, she found her days passing quickly. Too quickly. And it almost shocked her when, a few weeks after the announcement of her pregnancy, the room was almost completed and worse, her stomach already seemed to be starting to swell.

To make matters even worse, when she went to find Barbatos to ask him if that was normal, she couldn’t even find him anywhere.

“Beth?” Drew’s voice caught her off-guard as she stood on the porch, one hand absently tracing the bulge in her stomach.

“Yeah?” She answered absently, then shook herself out of it to smile thinly at Drew. “Hey.” She murmured as he looked at her with worry. She couldn’t help it. Through all their kind gestures and each thing they did for her, she felt the looming dread that it was all really just for the children. And now that she’d begun to show, it was like a clock had begun to count down her time with them, and she was abruptly obsessed with the idea that in no time whatsoever, she would be facing down the rejection and demands for her to leave. Drew startled her again by gently capturing her hand.

“Is something wrong? Oh my god, are you in pain? IS something wrong with the babies?” Drew’s voice broke into her thoughts, and her grin turned wry. Of course he was worried almost exclusively about the kids.

“No, everything’s fine. Have you seen Barbatos? I just seem to be showing so quickly I was going to ask him about it.” Bethany murmured, and Drew’s frown increased.

“He’s been disappearing on me a lot lately while we’ve been working on the nursery. I have the feeling he’s not telling us something, but I uh.. Beth, are you sure you’re ok? You seem to be holding back on me too..” Drew finally seemed to break his silence in a rush, and Bethany gave a derisive snort, which had Drew raising his brows at her. She shook her head again.

“It’s nothing. Really.” She tried to keep her tone even, but Drew stared for too long at her before finally commenting.

“Uh-huh.” That was all he said, but she felt the judgment and dissatisfaction behind the response. She knew Drew may be dropping the topic for now, but it was far from over.

“Well anyway, do you know where Barbatos has been going? Maybe I can go hunt him down or-” Bethany began.

“No!” Drew cut her off. “Absolutely not. Even if I knew where he was I wouldn’t tell you!” Drew stated firmly, slicing a hand through the air. “And I’m not saying I do! But I’ve seen what happens when you get involved in things like that and you’re pregnant now. No fighting bears or trying to kill Demons while pregnant!” Drew ordered. The rueful smile was back on her face. Of course it was only the children he was worried about.

“I’m not made of glass.” She said sweetly, and Drew c****d a brow at her again.

“No, but..!” His gaze dropped to her stomach, and she sighed. At first she just felt frustrated, but then she felt her anger beginning to rise as well.

“Screw it.” She muttered and shoved off from the porch.

“Wait! Beth!” Drew sounded desperate behind her, but he didn’t follow, which was just one more barb to the chest as Bethany stalked away.

Barbatos..

Too many holes

There were too many holes in his defenses suddenly, and he didn’t know how they’d gotten there.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true. He had a pretty good idea, but still, he would admit it was unexpected. Especially with his Virtue focusing solely on Bethany, and the Deceiver apparently having a vendetta…

Still, as he ran along the border of his territory, patching up the holes in his defenses, he could feel himself panicking.

Some were no larger than one of his claws, as if the person making them had been testing his walls, just trying to see if they could make holes, and what the repercussions were if they did. He hoped at least a few of them had suffered the terrible fates of some of the traps he had set. Barbatos could see from the scorch marks around one rather large hole that someone had been burnt by his own version of hellfire. However, there were too many holes that were untouched, giving the impression that the creator had escaped unscathed. Perhaps had even known about the traps before experimenting.

Barbatos growled as he worked to seal off his pocket Dimension once more. Perhaps ‘holes’ weren’t an accurate description. Maybe ‘tunnels’ or ‘tears’ would be better, he thought to himself as he stuck his head through a large one nearly big enough to fit a man. But he still hadn’t found the bear’s entrance point, and that worried him. Where was the opening big enough to fit that monstrosity?

Not finding it could only mean one thing: Someone was smart enough to cover their tracks. Which bothered him, because then why leave all these other openings…open?

“Barbatos!” Unfortunately for him, the very thing that had kept him distracted was doing so again. The calling of his name was a summoning he simply couldn’t ignore. “Barbatos!” With a frustrated growl, he turned and raced in the direction of Bethany’s voice. Of course, his frustration didn’t last long. The worry he felt could only be eclipsed by the desire he felt to see his unborn hybrid children. And the mother of those two.