Page 17 of Thane's Demon
I went searching.
On the hunt.
Perhaps the most significant hunt of my life.
I found her easily.
Too easily.
As if my feet already knew the path she walked. I couldn’t understand it, but I was grateful for the instinct all the same. The sun had barely risen when she stepped out of the high-rise on the Bund where she lived. One of those pristine riverfront towers wrapped in glass and steel that caught the morning light like a blade. The revolving doors whispered shut behind her with polished elegance. A stark contrast to the heaviness in her posture. Her shoulders slumped the moment she turned away from the building, the soft, practiced smile she wore tightening like a mask she no longer had the strength to hold. She didn’t fit the cold luxury of that place, not with her pink, ‘happy’ clothes, her gentle aura, or the quiet sadness clinging to her movements.
I watched from across the street, half-hidden near a row of trimmed hedges lining the Bund’s walkway. The demon curled around my senses the instant she appeared. Its reaction immediate and unsettling.
‘Warm.
Soft.
Hurt.
Ours.’
I followed silently as she moved along the riverfront promenade, keeping far enough that she would never notice. Yet close enough to hear the faint hum she let slip under her breath. A small, soothing tune she seemed to cling to. Every step she took, every nervous glance she cast over her shoulder, I felt. Every moment she tucked her fluffy curls behind her ear,even though they slipped free again, the demon pulsed with a possessive energy that shook me.
It was a low, thrumming heat beneath my skin that I did not recognize and did not trust. When she reached the park near campus, a man sitting on a bench lifted his head to look at her. His gaze slid down her body in a way that made my blood temperature shift instantly. He stood, approaching her with a casual stride that made my fists clench.
She smiled at him politely, because she was that kind of girl,clearly.The type that smiled even when she was uncomfortable, even when the world did not deserve it. She said something soft, something gentle, and the man stepped closer.
My vision darkened.
The demon roared.
‘Mine.
Back away.
Break him.’
I let a low growl vibrate through the air, quiet but deadly. The man froze, eyes snapping toward the trees where I stood hidden. He could not see me, but he felt me, felt the danger, felt the promise of violence rising in the air. His face drained of color. He muttered something and fled.
The girl blinked after him, confused.
I followed her the rest of the way to campus and kept my eyes on her all day, waiting for her classes to start and end. And then, I followed her home. I even followed her inside her building. But whereas she got off on the twentieth floor, I took my own elevator, continuing to the roof after confirming where she lived. I broke my way through the door and did something I rarely did.
I released my wings.
A side of my father I usually kept hidden, just because they were the mirror image of his own. A reminder I didn’t care for. But right now, that prejudice was the furthest thing from mymind. Not when my wings were the only thing that would allow me to see her again. So after first masking my presence, as I was taught to do early on, I stepped off the roof.
My wings slowed my descent to the twentieth floor, and I circled around until I found her. I lowered to a balcony the second I saw her bedroom light flicker on. Then I watched as she let her shoulders slump, as if she had been holding something back. She looked so fragile, far too fragile for the likes of me. She slumped on her bed, her small hands lifting her diary as if searching for a place inside herself to put the fear she still carried. She looked sadder in this room, as if the happiness she displayed throughout the day had been a front, a smile worn like a shield against the world.
I watched her until her lights went out, taking note how she did not leave her room once, clearly having no desire to spend time with her family. It made me wonder if she, too, struggled to feel accepted by them. An answer I doubt I would discover tonight, which was why I watched her until my enhanced vision showed her asleep and peaceful in her slumber.
After all, I had somewhere else I needed to be.
Or should I say…someone I needed to hunt.
One person from the day’s worth of stalking that needed to be punished. Because no one touched her. A fact my demon and I were in total agreement on. Which meant that I found the man from the park quickly enough. The end of my night was spent dragging him into the narrow alley behind a closed shop.
He begged… they always did.
