One Soul Book Two

Chapter Twelve

Harlee POV

The room freezes around me.  Zeev is grinning like this just became the best game ever.

“When you said you could get power from other people.. How do you do that?”  I gripped my shoulder, afraid I already knew.  “Do you.. eat people?”  My voice came out a high squeak and Zeev’s teeth sharpened, his eyes flashing that strange yellow orange and my body spasmed as my mind kicked back a memory of a taloned claw tearing away half my face as it was popped into a mouth with those eyes hovering over it.

“Harlee?  Harlee?”  Sands’ voice, but my body was out of my control, my muscles spasming and twitching as my mind bucked the restraints locking my memories away.  A taloned claw tore open my chest and I screamed in agony as my ribs and organs were put on display.

Zeev POV

The force of Harlee’s mind shattering took out Ash and I as well.  I fell off the bed, seizing, my head smacked the floor with an audible clack that I'm sure Sam found amusing.  I could sense Ash go down too.  It was Harlee’s old nightmare all over again.  The night we first met. The night I attacked her.

‘No!’  I screamed silently in our heads.  I had tried to bury this memory, escape it, hide it.  It hurt to examine it, and yet here it was on display for all to see yet again.  I watched in horror as I consumed half her face, and then that fateful moment I cracked open her chest to go for her soul.  It was on replay, looping back and forth that terrible grisly scene.  That moment we became one entity.  Two beings, one soul.  The moment it became our chest instead of just hers, our soul, our bodies, our mind.  And our minds.. Our minds were broken.

“Fuck.”  Sam’s cursing came to me distantly, like a dream.  “Why do you have to be such a big guy Zeev?”  Sam grumbled.  “I mean, one of your legs weighs half of Ash at least, and probably a quarter of me.”

“Well it was your idea to put him on the bed.”  Sands remarked.  I heard Sam snarl.

“Don’t remind me.”  Sam snapped.  “I should have just rolled him to the basement stairs and tossed him down.”

“But Harlee-”  Sands objected.

“It was a joke, Sands.”  Sam replied with a sigh.  “Much like your face.”

“What’s wrong with my face?  I thought it was very pleasant.  Harlee likes it.”  Sands answered.

“Oh forget it and help me move the big lump.”  Sam growled.

“Leave me alone.”  I snarled back.  Sam jumped away from me, preparing himself to fight.

“Are you.. you again Zeev?”  Sands asked by my ear.  I peeled open my  eyes to squint at him.

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?”  I grumbled, moving a deadened limb to rub my face.  Harlee moaned, immediately distracting the other two men, who rushed to her side to see if she was alright or if they could help her.

Harlee POV

I didn’t want any of them to touch me.  Well Sands and Cael were alright I guessed.  I started screaming the moment I opened my eyes and couldn’t stop for several long minutes.  I didn’t have all my memories back, but I had enough.  I remembered the attacks, starting with Zeev, then Ash, Sam, Lil, the Angels, the Princes of Hell, the Warlocks, the Demons.  Sands had to trap me against a wall and did this strange sucking thing to get me to calm down.  It made me stop screaming but it didn't stop me from crying.  My heart was broken, splintered.  How would I ever recover?  By the time anybody took notice again, Zeev was gone.

“That can’t be good.”  Sam muttered with a scowl, once again propped against a wall with his arms crossed.

----------------------------------

It had been two weeks since Zeev disappeared.  The ache in my chest had steadily built to a persistent throb that beat in time with my heart and spread from my chest and shoulders to my back.  Sometimes I woke up thinking I was having a heart attack, and despite my best efforts to hold the Demons at arm’s length, Sands and Cael were wearing me down on the issue.  After the 5th straight night of nothing but nightmares of blood and terror, Sands convinced me to let Ash back in the bedroom to help me sleep.  It was terrified and angry, but exhausted so badly I couldn’t fight much anymore.  My chest felt like an open wound and I just.. hurt.  I was so absorbed in my own torment, I didn’t even hear Ash come in, just felt their cool, slender arms wrap around me from behind, drawing me against their chest while I wept.  I jerked and tried to escape their grasp, but Sands was in front of me, holding me still, smoothing my hair off my sweat-drenched brow.

“It’s ok Harlee, truly it is.  I’m an Angel, so that means you can trust me, right?”  The corner of Sands’ mouth quirked up into a grin.

“Not if my dreams are any indication.  Why would there be Angels trying to kill me in my memories and dreams Sands?”  I pushed him away and pulled out of Ash’s grasp.  Sands winced.

“Do you remember that I was there to stand between my kind and you?”  Sands asked me softly.  I bit my lip.  I didn’t, and he could very well be lying to me.  I never knew anymore.  Sands looked disappointed.  “You don’t do you?”  He murmured.  HE reached out a hand as if to stroke my hair again, but let it drop halfway between us.  “I can feel you withdrawing from me more every day.  At this rate, none of us have a chance.”  He mumbled.  Ash grimaced and looked at him with sorrow.

“The truth is Harlee, almost all of us approached you for selfish reasons in one form or another.”  Ash broke in.  “I wanted you, plain and simple.  It started as a vendetta against Zeev, and then I met you and it became something.. more.  You made it more.  Once I Bound myself to you-and you gave me Hell for it, let me assure you..”  I gasped a strangled laugh.  “You changed me.  You made me.. Better.  And I want to be better because of you.  You ‘domesticated’ me, I guess you could say.”  Ash’s musical laugh echoed around the room and they reached for my hand uncertainty.  “Before you, all I wanted was power.  Control.  To show everyone who was boss.  I was fueled by my own anger and hatred.  And then, when I met you Harlee, you didn’t care about any of that stuff.  You just wanted to go about your daily life.  Just live your life.  You had a freakin’ Fallen Angel at your fingertips and you were just going about your life like nothing.  You weren’t trying to gather wealth or power, or anything I expected.  You didn’t care what I looked like.  You didn’t care how I dressed.  You resisted my charms, not because you didn’t find me attractive, but because you were trying to be loyal to Zeev.  Imagine that!  A human, loyal to a Demon of their own free will, no loving a Demon of their own free will!  Hell, you were even one of the first people who didn’t even care if I was male or female.  Said it was none of your business.”  Another laugh.

“And the more time I spent with you, the more I realized that what you wanted was really what I’d been fighting for all along.  The right to just.. Live my life.  Do as I please and f**k the rest of it.”  Ash waved a hand dismissively.  The hand then settled on my abdomen.  “I just wanted to love and be loved.  Maybe start a family.  Live out the rest of my existence in peace, playing house or whatever with someone who could care for me as much as I could care for them.”  Ash looked at their spread fingers over my stomach.  “You gave me that.  That reason to live.  You changed all of us Harlee.  Made us a family, gave us a home, a purpose..  I just.. I want that back, and I’ll do anything I need to to get it.”  Ash’s eyes were pleading, and the crazy thing was I saw the love in them.  I saw the heartbreak, and I felt for Ash, I really did.  But I couldn’t trust them.

“You impregnated me.. with a Demon child.”  I said slowly, my voice low and even.  “How many people is it going to eat after it’s born?”  Ash’s eyes grew wide.

“Hopefully not many!  But not without consent!  We discussed it, you said you wanted to give me a child!”  Ash looked panicked and held their hands in the air.  “I promise, I didn’t force you!  I didn’t rape you Harlee.”

“It’s true Harlee, you did consent to-”  Sands began, but I hissed a warning.

“I don’t know who, if any of you, I can trust.”  I spat as Sam came in the room, holding Cael.  I hated this.  Sam must have heard us arguing, and these three had started bringing Cael to me to soothe me or to make me behave, because they had realized I would act better around him.  I felt a growl building in my throat as Cael looked at me groggily.  Sam must have woken him up.  It infuriated me even further.  “You woke him?  For this?”  I growled.  Sam shrugged slightly.  I felt my upper lip lift in a snarl.  “You blasted Demons don’t give a s**t for anyone but yourselves!”  I snapped.  Ash tried to object, but Sam spoke over them all.

“Then I guess we should avoid telling you about your eyes.”  Sam retorted, setting Cael on the bed so he could do a strange mattress jog over to me.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”  I hissed, clutching Cael to my chest.  Sands silently handed me a mirror that he’d gotten from who knows where.