A Glow of Stars & Dusk by Eve L. Mitchell

I wokeup to a warm body tucking me into their side. I recognised his scent, and it was another reminder of what I hadn’t noticed when it mattered most. “Sam?” I asked sleepily.

“You’re shivering and keeping the others awake,” he said quietly. “Go to sleep.”

I curled into him, but it wasn’t enough. With a heavy sigh, Sam unbuttoned his jacket, and I was under it and revelling in his warmth within moments of him doing so. “I thought demons were supposed to be hotter,” I murmured as I burrowed closer.

“I am hot,” Sam snorted.

“Ridiculously vain demon,” I murmured as my eyes closed, hoping his playful tone meant we were going to be okay.

“Unreasonable, annoying witch,” he muttered back. “Sleep.” I fell asleep smiling.

I woke up alone but warm. I stretched like a cat and then shrugged free of my blankets. Crossing the cave, I looked out at the North Sea and the rising sun. I looked down to the rocks below, and instead of contemplating how these caves were accessed previously, I leaned against the rock wall as I appreciated the view. When I heard sound behind me, I knew they had winked back.

“You’re finally awake,” Der spoke to me as he unloaded food from bags. I hurried forward, my eyes on the takeaway coffee cups.

“Mine.” I reached forward making “grabby hands” gestures. I almost snatched the offered cup from Der, and then I was back at my spot on the opening of the cave, sipping coffee, watching the calm of the sea. As I stood, blocking out their murmured voices, I felt my elbow tingle. “Go away.”

“Did you speak?” one of the demons asked me.

I didn’t turn to look at the Druid, but I knew he stood beside me. “I’m having a rough few days, can you go back to wherever it was that you were?”

The cave was suddenly silent.

“You make a grave mistake,” the old Druid told me sagely.

“I see what you did there,” I joked as I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’re dead, grave mistake, I didn’t think puns would be your thing.”

“Foolish child,” he hissed, and I finally turned to him. I tried to hide my shock.

“What happened to you?” I asked as I looked him over. Before, he had appeared as a man in his youth, now he was a shade of how he died. Old and withered, he stood, his clothes hanging on him like rags, his cheeks sunken, his skin like weathered paper.

“You moved my bones,” he rasped beside me.

“Well, you shouldn’t have put a curse on me,” I replied sharply.

“A curse.” He huffed in contempt. “I saved you, girl.”

“From what?” I asked quietly. “What was I ever in danger of?” I shook my head in dismissal as I stared back out to the horizon. “Do you even know what powers I have?”

“Unbound, you are dangerous.”

“Yeah, well, I’d say bound, I’m dangerous.” My inner-self brushed against my power, and as it did yesterday, the pool swelled to greet me. The inner pool of tranquillity I was used to was now a raging stormy sea. I could feel it pulling at me, eager to immerse me within it.

“Even now you toy with it.” Hamish’s anger was unmistakable. “You let it pull you under, girl, and you will not rise.”

“Rise where?”

“Untrained and ignorant,” he spat in disgust.

“And whose fault is that?” I demanded equally angrily. “Yours! You used blood magic on me, you old fool, no wonder I know nothing.”

“Blood magic.” Hamish showed me his yellowing teeth as he grinned, his teeth wide in his almost skeletal face. “It was the only way to keep him from coming for you, and now you let them in.” Hamish was in my face, fury emanating off of him in waves. “You sleep with the very ones who would cut you down.”

“You have no right to judge me,” I growled at him.

“You need me. I can teach you, don’t do this thing,” he pleaded desperately. “You need me, witch.”

“I need you not, old man.” I scowled at him. “Your bones are all they need, and we have them.”

“Do you?” He vanished.

I stood staring at the space he was in for a long moment before I turned to the six demons, who were watching me cautiously. “What?” I grumbled as I fully turned away from the cold October morning.

“It’s something to see,” Chaz said, his voice soft as always. “You standing, having a conversation with fresh air.”

“She was arguing,” Zel grunted. “She’s always fucking arguing,” he added with a disgruntled mutter. I poked my tongue out at him and revelled in his dark scowl.

“Who were you arguing with?” Sam asked me as he watched me from hooded eyes.

“You couldn’t hear him?” I asked curiously. I sat down at the fire, reaching for a croissant and taking a bite.

“Not everything,” Pen answered.

“Huh.” I chewed thoughtfully. “But you could see and hear him the other day?”

“The Druid?” Sam asked. He was wearing a dark red chunky knit jumper today, which made his black hair look even darker, and his bronze skin looked so healthy I knew I looked like a milk bottle beside him.

“Yeah, Hamish came to warn me, taunt me and tell me I needed him,” I told them as I took another bite. “Sad really,” I mumbled around my food.

“What did he say?” Pen asked as he leaned forward with interest.

“Nothing much.” I ignored three sceptical stares. “He bound me for my own good to save me, he didn’t want me to break the bind, he can teach me to use what powers I do have, and…” I thought about it. “Oh yes, he teased about his bones.”

“Teased?” Der asked as he looked to the cloth bag that held the Druid’s bones.

“Yeah, it’s nothing, he’s dead and being spiteful.”

“You are sure?” Chaz asked even as Der crossed the cave to get to the bones.

“Well, I said your bones are all we need and we have them, and he said do you. Then he poofed outta here.”

“Poofed?” Sam asked me. His lips twitched, and I couldn’t help but grin at him.

“Yeah, you know, like a puff of smoke. Poofed.”

“Wouldn’t it then be puffed?”

“No, that’s silly and makes no sense.” I stood, brushing the crumbs off my jeans. “Okay, I need a shower. Who’s winking me home to get clean?”

“Winking?” Ros asked me with a huge grin.

“She means travelling,” Pen supplied as he stood and held his hand out to me. “I have a place to get you clean.”

“You do?” I asked interestedly. “Determined not to let me back to my cottage?” I baited him slyly.

“We may need to talk about that,” Chaz said as he avoided my questioning stare.

“Why? What did you do?” I looked around at them all, but none of them would meet my stare. “Zel?” I demanded.

“It needed redecorating anyway.” His bright blues eyes twinkled with malicious delight.

“Oh my God, you broke it, didn’t you?” I demanded of Sam, who sat and then very slightly shrugged. “Are you kidding me?”

“We have a problem,” Der spoke from the corner of the cave as he stared into the bag of bones.

“You’re damn right we have a problem,” I snapped as I scowled at Sam. “What did you do to my cottage?”

“We don’t have all his bones,” Der said as he came to stand beside me. “We need to get them all.”

“Why? Haven’t we got the big ones?” I asked stupidly. “Won’t the main ones do?”

Der grinned at me through his beard and tousled my hair. “Need them all, twinkle.”

“Twinkle?” I grimaced. “No.”

“What?” Der laughed loudly.

Everything about Der was big. His laugh, his body, his beard, he was what Gran would have called a “larger than life” character. He would have looked perfectly at home on a “mountain men” calendar from Canada or somewhere, wearing an open flannel shirt, bare chest, holding his axe after chopping wood. “You’re not calling me twinkle.”

“Twinkle twinkle, little Star,” Der sang playfully. “It suits you.”

“I’m not answering to twinkle,” I told him adamantly.

“Why? You answer to whore,” Zel said with a savage grin, losing some of his glee when he caught Sam’s glare.

“Drink more coffee, your demon is showing. At least pretend to be in touch with your humanity,” I snapped at him. I turned back to Der. “Do we really need all his bones?”

“Yes,” Sam said as he stood. “Show me,” he instructed Der as he and Pen went over to the bag of bones.

I had finished my coffee and another croissant when they came back over and Der unceremoniously upturned the bag at my feet. Jerking back, I avoided the bones touching me, but I still noticed the ribcage, the skull, the big femurs. Hamish looked all there to me.

“Fingers, not toes,” Der said grimly.

“No toes? But we have head, shoulders and knees,” I quipped back, thinking I was hilarious but receiving six blank stares. “Forget it.”

“His fingers are missing,” Der explained slowly as if I was an idiot.

“Sucks to be Hamish.”

“We need all his bones.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” I looked at them as I met the six hard looks. “What? I hardly have them in my poc—” I closed my eyes in realisation. “Eeew. Eeew. I can’t believe it, no she wouldn’t, oh she would. She did. It’s a good job you’re dead, Gran.” I jumped to my feet. “Okay, I need to go back to my cottage.”

“Why?” Sam asked me suspiciously.

“I know where his, ugh, this is disgusting, I know where his fingers are.” I rubbed my hands over my jeans. “I need to shower. Ugh, I feel icky.”

“What is wrong with you?” Zel asked me as he watched me with open aversion.

“So many things, my dastardly demon, so many, many things.”

* * *

I stoodin my bedroom and looked at the absolute devastation. My eyes tried to take it all in, but on each sweep of the room, I found more things to be dumbfounded about. The walls were covered in blood for one. Red wasn’t really my colour for decoration. My pale blue walls would have attested to that had there been any pale blue left to see. My walls looked like I did when Bonnie and Steven tossed buckets of red paint over me. They were coated, and I knew it wasn’t paint.

It was blood. Which was just wrong.

The blood had dripped onto my dark grey carpet, staining it in darker patches. I tilted my head back and considered the ceiling. Blood splatter decorated there too. My room looked like a crime scene.

The dresser was cut clean in half. Like a giant sword had cleaved it in two. My wardrobe was smashed as if something heavy had landed on it, but it was the bed I kept returning to. My goose down duvet was ripped to shreds, the room was covered in feathers, the pillows tattered, the mattress torn into three sections, and the bed frame was merely nothing more than splinters.

“What?” I looked around again. “How?” I blinked as a feather fluttered slowly down. “When?” I looked at Chaz, who stood beside me, his head dipped, his chin resting on his chest. “What the fuck happened to my bedroom?” I asked clearly as the shock wore off.

“There was a slight misunderstanding,” Chaz began.

“Slight?” I looked around again and picked my way over the debris on the floor. “Where the hell are my clothes?”

“They’re there,” Zel told me helpfully as he took a giant bite out of an apple as he leaned against my doorpost.

I followed his finger and looked at the wardrobe. Tilting my head, I could make out my clothes. My ripped and torn clothes. “Sam!” I screamed as I pushed past a laughing Zel and ran to the kitchen. I slammed my hands down on the kitchen table as I glared at him, and he met my glare with an indifference that ratcheted my anger up about ten levels beyond furious.

“You shredded my bedroom,” I seethed at him as I felt the pool within me stir with anticipation. “Whose blood is on my walls?”

“Be grateful it isn’t yours,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Is it Yeqon’s?” I demanded. “Are you freaking insane? Do I have demon blood on my walls?”

Sam scoffed and looked away from me as he tilted back on the chair, his stare on the garden outside.

“Don’t you dare ignore me, you stubborn demon.” I knew I was shouting in his face, and I didn’t care. Sam shoved the seat back angrily as he stood.

“Don’t I dare?” he roared back. “Don’t I dare? I dare, witch, because you were mine.”

“I’m not anyone’s!” I shouted back at him. “And I told you and I told you and I told you again, I thought he was you.”

“Well, that’s alright then,” Sam mocked me. “We’re even.”

“Even?” I demanded.

“As I watched him bleed on the bed you fucked him on, I imagined he was you,” Sam told me coldly with a smirk as he turned to walk away from me.

“I didn’t fuck him!” I screamed at him as tears threatened to spill. I always cried when I was angry, and Lord above, I was so incensed because he had destroyed my bedroom in a temper tantrum.

“But would you have stopped him?” Sam snarled, his eyes glowing green with anger. “No. You would have spread those legs for anyone who offered.”

“Well, you offered and I said no, so maybe I am fussier than you think.” I stood straight, my anger suddenly cold and hard within me as I met his fury with my own cold stare.

“I did offer. You suck dick well, but then whores always do.” Sam showed me a lot of teeth as he smiled at me. “But then your actions reminded me why I don’t fuck slutty and desperate.”

The cold anger within me snapped. “I will kill you!” I launched myself forward at him. Strong hands grasped me, and I wrestled to get free of whichever one of his toadies held me. “Let me go.” I struggled, and even as I did so, I felt it rising within me.

Take us, we are yours.

I shook my head to rid myself of the seductive whisper. Control. I needed control.

Star, we are yours. Take us.

“What’s wrong with her now?” Zel asked, his glee evident as he stood to the side and watched the scene with delight.

I was caught fast in the arms of whoever held me as I felt it rising and rising within me. My head bowed as I struggled with the pulling and tugging inside. My emotions ran riot over me, through me, my blood raced in my veins, my body was shaking with anger. The cold, rigid anger I had formed at Sam braced itself for the rushing of power that surged to meet it.

My mum always told me that still waters run deep. I was about to dive deep, and my waters were no longer still. They crashed against the cold barriers I held around them. Containing them. Keeping them in.

I lifted my head and met his stare. Cold control spread across my limbs, and I effortlessly stepped out of the embrace of the one who held me.

“Whoa, what the hell happened to her eyes?”

“Witch.” Sam took a step towards me. “Don’t,” he warned.

I smiled at the sinfully dark demon, who actually looked concerned for me. “Too late.”

The world turned white.