When I opened the door, the next morning, I wasn't sure what I expected. I had immediately come home the night before from The Widow's Nest, armed with my little thumb drive and sat down to comb through the footage. It didn't show anything more than what the photos did And when I used other angles from different cameras, I never once saw a photographer or even someone with their phone up. I felt back to square one, wondering who the hell was fucking with me, and
why.
Was this a delivery of more potential blackmail evidence?
No... no it was not.
He was tall, dark and there was something about his energy that felt... familiar. Comforting, which was an interesting sensation... because everything else about him discomfited me to an insane degree. When he drew off the sunglasses the startling blue of his eyes contrasting with his dark hair, my heart skipped a little bit. I'm not sure what it is about that one... dark hair and blue eyes. I think maybe I have a secret Superman fetish. You'd think I would totally want a Bruce Wayne, all dark and broody and probably super into BDSM, but nope. I got wet just thinking about corrupting sweet, innocent Kansas cutie Clark... but that smile... there was
not a damn thing
innocent in that smile.
"Tempest Moon?" He asked, and the accent also gave me pause. It was also comforting and familiar, but it shouldn't have been. Because I'd grown up hearing those cadences and inflections, and I wasn't even raised where they originated to carry the tones in my own speech.
"Who's asking?" was what I tried to say. What came out was a squeak, followed by the awareness my mouth was so dry, I couldn't swallow. The smile widened just a bit and he took my hand, smoothly gliding into the apartment as he answered my failed question.
"My name is Naberius." His cool, charming voice said beside my ear as he closed the door behind us and led me into my own apartment. But after his admission, I stopped cold, frozen in stunned disbelief.
"N-Naberius?" I felt dizzy. He released me and this bright blue eyes met mine again and for a moment, I saw an image blurrily through this own, a massive beast with three sets of those blue eyes, each pair set in the face of what resembled a fierce black wolf attached to a single body.
"Yes." He gestured to the small couch in my living room. "Did you need to sit down before you fall down?"
"But you're—I mean, why are you—I mean..." I sputtered inanely.
Let me pause. You probably don't recognize the name. But you'd probably recognize his career-making dual identity as head of security for Hades. He had served Hades so loyally that he was released and had been an Earl in Edom for as long as I'd been alive. He was also known to be the equivalent of judge, jury and executioner among the Crypti. When things went wrong, when we fucked up beyond control, when we endangered the community, this was the being they sent to deal with it or one of his underlings. If you were lucky, it was one of his people and not him.
"It's alright, little one," he said soothingly, leading me to sit on the couch. "I am not here for you. Not in the manner you fear, at any rate."
I sat, shaking. I wasn't weak. I was the daughter of a very well-known and high placed demoness. I may not be a well fed demoness myself, but I was only one generation away from being a true-blooded specimen of my race, and had been raised among demons from Edom, though I, myself, had never gone. I could, at any time, and my mother asked to often. But... I feared it. I feared what that place would do to me. What being away from humanity would do to me. But this guy... he wasn't just a demon. He was next to being a god. I didn't have words for what he could do to me, if he wanted. He could stand toe to toe with Lillith and I am not certain my mother would walk away from that battle.
Sitting down, trying to breathe through the terror, the mental confusion that his voice, his tone, his appearance had on me, and ignoring the fact that he was quite simply one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen, I tried to focus on anything. I stared at the silky blue tie he wore, the only color on the dark three piece suit and tried to breathe.
"You're being hunted," he said softly. "I was sent to help."
"I'm sorry, what?" Somehow this didn't help the terror whipping through my mind and I raised my eyes to his.
"You know what I do, yes?"
