The Mate Inside Me

Chapter 28

Unedited.

There are references of previous chapters here.

“I prefer Marchosias, baby.”

The taunting smile lurking on the corner of his lips wasn’t resonating with the empty look in his eyes. It was my first time seeing someone smiling in such an emotionless manner. It didn’t look the least bit friendly. It was an expression that gripped the one staring at it in a rather petrifying hold.

I could tell from his stance that was trying to intimidate me and he was succeeding to a great extent.

My heart was hammering inside my ribcage. It felt like if it didn’t find any escape soon, it would tear my chest open and jump out of it. Every nerve inside my body was urging me to lower my head down and bare my neck to this superior creature of the food chain. But I couldn’t do that. I refused to do that.

He was my wolf. We shared a crest. We were equals.

But the nature clearly didn’t agree with me on this. Werewolves had ranks. Omegas, Betas, Alphas, Enforcers, King and the highest rank belonged to The Demon Wolf.

The Demon Wolf was sort of a hybrid, a werewolf baby born as a sacrificial lamb to a powerful demon of hell. Legend was that in ancient times, werewolves fearing extinction or harboring a deep hunger for power colluded with witches in an attempt to possess a demon’s power. They summoned demons and offered their unborn children to them as vessels, a means for the creatures of hell to descend on earth and roam on it freely.

Demons, tired of wandering in the abyss, gladly accepted this sacrifice. The baby after its birth was forced to coexist with the demon it was offered to. In most cases, as they reached adulthood, the demon completely took over the baby’s body.

It was clear that The Demon Wolf was unmatchable in the forms of wits and strength. They were undefeatable creatures. There was no record of their death. With time, they just disappeared into thin air.

As witch trials got more and more severe, the number of witches became scarce and with no one to perform the ritual, the possibility of the arrival of new Demon Wolf eventually died down.

Presently, no werewolf alive had ever seen a Demon Wolf, not until tonight.

He was here, right in front of me, the phantom itself.

Still flopped on the ground in front of him, I continued resisting the nature’s push to accept my inferiority before him. I had to dig my nails inside the skin of my thighs in order to keep matching his unwavering gaze through this haze of fear that had clouded my mind.

I had no idea how long this silent staring contest lasted for, but it was long enough for me to comprehend that his eyes weren’t exactly one shade of crimson. His irises nestled little black dots in their depths. When the light hit his face from the side, it almost looked like his eyes were a pair of burning coals.

‘Wait, burning coals?’

My eyes narrowed slowly as I glared at the man in front of me trying to remember where else I had seen these eyes before.

His gold laden irises were shinning so brightly as they traced up my built only ending their venture as they landed on my eyes. His gaze, the intensity of its emotions, the vividness of its color, it looked as if I were staring in the face of a burning kiln. The darkness in his eyes made them appear as blazing coals. His stare was scorching my skin.

“Erebus?”

My voice seemed to have broken the trance he was captured into. I watched him blink slowly as his gaze became unfocused for a second before it returned back to the usual impassive way it stared at me.