Nemesis
The world could crash and burn at his feet.
A storm was raging outside, as Darion Schmidt put a cigarette to his lips and glared at the window. Drops of rain hit at the glass. His gaze was dark, lost. The taste of smoke burnt on his lips. He took in another puff. Waiting.
Hating.
With clear blue eyes that resembled ice and a body trained to beat and kill, he was the epitome of a monster standing in that lonely room. His hair was damp from the rain. He stood still, almost one with the air around him.
How had he missed it?
Taking on the task to destroy the daughter of the BloodFern Clan had already put him in danger. Now the mishap could only make it worse. He wouldn’t have done it.
But he needed the cash.
Taking in another drag, he turned around. The wind sharpened like blades around him. Without a movement from him, the lights in the room flicked on. It was a dusky little place he stood in – small, with a single black couch and a moth-infested blanket lying in the middle of it. No air conditioning. Not even room for breath.
On the couch, lay a woman.
She looked pale. He had done the customary kindness of covering her limp body with the filthy blanket. But he hadn’t done it out of pity. He had done it so she didn’t lie naked in his place. She was human.
She made the place reek of it. And Darion hated humans.
He buried his fists into the pockets of his jeans, dropping the cigarette in the process. Taking two drawled steps towards her, he pushed the stick to the edge of the couch, crushing it beneath his foot when peered down at the unconscious woman. Her heartbeat seemed to have recovered. The sight of her scrawny face and blue lips made his insides turn in disgust. Her smell was so disgusting, he could barely stand looking at her.
He had shown her enough mercy.
The window flew open behind him, at the same time as the blanket slipped from her body and bundled onto the floor. Darion snarled. Her body had cuts all over its pale skin, and her clothes lay ripped around her waist, cut neatly by the blades of wind that he had attacked her with.
The wind carried droplets of water with itself. Darion controlled it so that when the air hit her face, she was also slapped with the rainwater. She groaned. Another harsh brush of the wind. She shivered.
She jerked up.
He didn’t move. He watched silently, hissing, cursing under his breath as he watched her blink. Another flick of the switches. The lights turned off.
She blinked into the darkness. She gasped. Froze.
“W-Where… am I?”
Her words were soft, but he could hear the undertone of dread in them. He liked it. Darion cut to business. There was no need for small talk.
“You are pregnant.” His voice was humourless.
His words got an instant reaction out of her. She clutched around her belly, only to realize that she was sitting almost naked. She covered her breasts with her hands almost immediately, then took note of the blanked lying on the floor. She picked it up and wrapped it around.
Schmidt watched her in distaste. It was strange she hadn’t realized her nakedness. He hadn’t shut the window. The wind was cold.
He didn’t repeat himself. After a while, she croaked, “I… My child has nothing to do with this.”
“You are pregnant.”
The words lay heavily in the night. He could hear her draw a sniffle.
“Is your child the same breed as you? Or does it belong to us?”
Anger crawled within him when she looked up at him in confusion. She clutched the blanket more tightly around herself. She averted her eyes.
“You’ll kill me right now if he’s human.” Her voice was a whisper.
“I’ll kill you in nine months if he’s a demon.”
“Did my father send you?”
He didn’t say. But the hatred trebled in him.
Why the fuck had he accepted this job? He hadn’t been told this woman was with child. And he couldn’t kill her if the child was part demon.
Demons stuck together.
That was the unspoken law of this land. The only law he wasn’t willing to break.
Darion looked at her scrawny figure and cursed again. The night was going to be long.
