Avernus || Book 1 ✔️

||Pandemonium||

Trigger Warning: Mention of Rape

High-pitched ringing assaulted my ears as I stared blankly in front of me. But it was the sound of my own heart, beating angrily and defiantly against the cage of my chest, that was near deafening.

I stood in the forest, remaining in the same spot where her scent seemed to thin and disperse into anything and everything, which gave me nothing.

I had circled damn near the entire forest line so many times that I had lost count. And every time I thought I was getting closer, her scent would escape me as if the rose petals were slipping through my fingers themselves.

I had no trace, no trail.

No idea of where she'd gone, of who had taken her.

I felt useless, but worst of all, helpless.

"Um...Sir...?"

My jaw clenched as another sound entered my vicinity; it worsened the already insufferable nuisance that was gnawing at my brain. I could hear footsteps slowly approach me, but the hesitance carried in each movement somehow annoyed me even more.

"Sir...the King wishes for you to return to the castle. He appears urgent with a need to speak with you."

My nostrils flared as I inhaled once more, but this time I could barely catch her infatuating scent. The smell of roses teased my senses, offering just enough to recognize its source, to receive a nod of familiarity, but I knew that it was gone. The smell had waned; she had been absent for too long.

"Sir, did you hear what I said?"

My heart raced as an overwhelming amount of panic crept up on me like a shadow, penetrating the numbed barrier that was holding my sanity together by a single thread. It had truly sunk in now, and I wasn't afraid to admit that I was moments away from losing my mind.

I flinched as I felt a hand come to rest on my shoulder; it was an innocent gesture, perhaps done to grab my attention, but in this moment, it was a decision poorly made. One second, I was seeing black, and the next, I was watching as the man spluttered beneath me with 3rd-degree burns covering his head, neck and chest.

Bael wasn't any more sane than me.

I stepped away from what was now a corpse, and I studied its lifeless eyes, wondering if I too looked the same even though I was still breathing.

Looking toward the sky, I noted how the pink rays were brightening to a glowing yellow, making me realize that I had been outside the entire night.

I was reluctant to leave this spot, but I knew that staying here would bring me no closer to finding her.

~

"...Anything?"

My jaw ticked at the familiar voice, knowing that they had entered my room when I had specifically retreated here to not be bothered.