Alexandria's Knight

Motel Hell

Adriel

The motel room is small and dark. It smells of the liquor I've been drinking and old sheets. I haven't been back to Dria's though I did have Garrick bring me some of my stuff.

The solid black darkness looks at me and its big yellow eyes are kind of sad. It's shaped vaguely like Alexandria, enough so that I feel at peace. Or I'm too drunk to tell the difference. I've forgotten that this kind of demon takes the form of the thing you most desire and gives it to you...in order to feed off the energy. Too drunk. Don't care. Doesn't matter.

"Capella can replace me, my Queen. He is a fine guard," I mutter from on my knees in front of the other demon.

Things I would have said if it hadn't all happened so fast. All of it comes out in my confessions.

She comes to me and leans over to gently kisses my eyelids. One then the other, so gently that tears fall from my eyes. Then she kisses my lips.

I almost pull away, remembering in some part of my foggy mind that this isn't Alexandria. Then I relax.

"If it is your wish," I utter raggedly, "I will not be in your sight but I have only one final request my Queen..."

My Queen nods. She already knows what I need. She knows I need exactly what would've gone down if I hadn't been such a fool the night she ordered me to get in her bed.

She pulls me to my feet and backs me onto the mattress. My back hits the bed and I grunt as she mounts me. She leans over me, soft and strangely cool to touch. I frown. She should be warm, like she was that night as she curled up against me. I push the thought away and come back to the moment.

"Shh," she says as she kisses my lips and caresses my bare chest. I close my eyes.... I must pass out because when I dream, I dream about the past.

Before I came to Alexandria as her protector, I was a Watcher. It's what it sounds like. I watched for souls that are tagged as hellbound, destined to descend.

I was there when Alexandria died.

I wonder if she even remembers. It was thirteen years ago. Nothing can describe the agony in my heart at that moment. It wasn't just watching the suffering she endured until the very end. Not for a demon. A demon sees things on the regular that would make a grown man cry so it wasn't just her suffering, no. It was something else. I don't know to this very day why I felt so much pain at her passing. Or why I followed her soul down here and found her in The Underworld.

I told myself that I stopped being a Watcher because I saw a vision of Alexandria sitting on the Underworld's throne that my mind refused to ignore.

Now I see.