Blood + Tears (all 15)

Chapter 2

I stared into his brown eyes, and I felt Amara open a purple eye in curiosity. He was slender and lean but his body filled out his black shirt and trousers. His light brown hair was messy as if he had been running and moving quickly. His hair fluttered over his eyes in the slight breeze. He was handsome but his eyes showed another side to his handsome looks. Behind the brown coloring of his irises were flames that flickered with caution and curiosity.

"Hello," the stranger spoke in a soothing baritone voice. He spoke with an accent that reminded me of the people I had saved last year. They were from the Kingdom's capital in the south.

I smiled, baring my teeth. "Hello, devil."

A brown eyebrow went up in surprise. and a smile came to his face. "You know what I am?"

I copied his expression with an eyebrow up and a smile. "It wasn't very hard."

And it wasn't thanks to my father who had supplied the magical bag with a library's worth of books. One of my favorite books was a book of our history and types of supernaturals. Thousands of years ago, our planet was called earth and the kingdoms were once a nation called the United States of America. Everything seemed to be progressing when the unexpected happened. Suddenly children were being born with mutated genes that gave these children gifts. They became the things that people had read in fantasy books. Fairies, shifters, vampires, angels, demons, and more. But among each group of supernaturals were people born with more powers than others. Among the angels were the Archangels. Among the shifters were the alphas, and among the demons were the devils. Devils like archangels and alphas were the minority but had the capacity and powers to rule others.

I let my smile fall and pressed the point of my knife deep enough to almost break the skin. "What's a devil doing in these woods?"

"First of all, my name is Victor," He smiled then blushed. "Secondly, I'm lost. My friend and I got separated from my family."

I wanted to groan. Amara was nudging me to interact with him, yet I was frowning at the mention of more demons and devils in the forest. It didn't help that Amara was whispering about him being handsome and that his family might be too. Although I didn't trust the devil yet, Amara was saying that he was truthful. Wait, what did he say?

"Friend?" I asked, right before I felt another presence behind me. Throwing myself back, I managed to escape a paw with five sharp talons. Pushing myself into an upright motion, I looked to see a fully transformed griffin standing in front of Victor.

The griffin was beautiful. The head and wings were of an eagle, and the body, tail, and back legs were of a lion. Its front legs were like eagle's talons. His wings were a beautiful warm brown but also feathers of gold and silver. He opened his beak and trilling call rang from me. It was a bit hilarious since the sound didn't match its glorious looks, but I could hear the warning in his call.

I moved back until there were several feet between us, but I kept my dagger out. I watched as Victor sat up and looked at me. Before he could ask questions, I spoke. "Why are you and your friends in the forest?"

"It's fine," He said to his companion. He turned back to me and rubbed the back of his neck. "We were traveling the border between the forest and Arcadia due to reports of lycanthropes wreaking havoc on the towns nearby. We came across a town that had just been attacked and we decided to follow them into the forest. Suddenly we were attacked by a large group of lycanthropes and were forced apart. We were trying to find our brothers when I noticed you. I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine," I said. "I should have been paying more attention." I glanced at the griffin who watched me from over Victor's shoulder. "Does he want to stay in that form or transform?"

Before Victor could speak, the shifter moved. His form shrunk and a humanoid figure was encased in a light. When the light dimmed, I looked at the person who smiled at me. He had soft brown hair which was styled to be a longer on top, brushed to one side at the crown, and cut close to his nape. He had broad shoulders under the black shirt, and both of his wrists were covered in tiny bracelets made out of braided metal. But what drew my attention were his eyes. He had blue and green eyes, and his smile held amusement as if he knew a secret.

"Hey," he spoke. It was a deeper sound than Victor's but was also smooth. "I'm Marc."

I nodded before turning away from them. I looked over my shoulder. "I'm Sang."

With that, I jumped. I heard their yelp of surprise and looked up from the branch I had jumped onto. Their faces appeared above me with shock and relief. "What are you doing?"

"I'm moving," I stated as I walked down the thick branch. A slight wobble told me that one of them had jumped down behind me. I looked behind me when I didn't feel a second thump but was mesmerized when I saw that Marc had formed wings and flew down.

"What are you going to do?" Victor sounded a bit breathless.

I looked over my shoulder. He looked very tense and avoided looking down at the ground below. I stopped and frowned. "Are you scared of heights?"

He blushed. "Kind of."

Marc laughed where he was in the sky. "Good thing that he isn't an aerial shifter."

I huffed. I didn't have time for this. The large group of lycanthropes were moving and I needed to know why. A feeling that this man and his brothers were the cause of it rang through me, and I knew what I had to do. Although I didn't like how people reacted to me, I still saved those who came into this forest. "Do you guys have a weapon?"

They nodded. "Yes. It's in my dimensional space."

Every supernatural has a dimensional space. A dimensional space is kind of like my bag without having to carry something materialistic, a space that can hold whatever you want except a person.

"Get your weapon," I said as I called forth my weapons. Victor's eyes went wide as he scanned the dual swords in my hands, and Marc whistled. The hilts were black and designed with a mixture of purples, golds, and pinks. A thick pink ribbon hung from each, holding a gold medallion. The blades were silver with magical inscriptions written from the hilt all the way to the tip on each. I tilted the blades, watching the inscriptions light up first in pink then went through colors of white, gray, teal, green, a dark red, olive green, light blue, yellow, dark blue, purple, an earthy brown, orange, bright red, mauve, and ending in black. I felt the tugging feeling that thrummed from them as the blade's magic and my magic merged.

Victor and Marc didn't question me and called their weapons. A saber appeared in Victor's hand. The blade gleamed in the dull lighting and the hilt was white. There were magical inscriptions etched from the hilt to the tip of his blade. A set of bow and arrows and twin daggers appeared on Marc's body. They shined a teal before settling into a gold bow and wood arrows with white feathers. His daggers were slightly curved and were set in a leather holdings. There were white magical inscriptions etched into the curves of his bow.

Marc landed next to me and his wings disappeared. He spoke. "What are we going to do?"

I smiled. "Saving your family."

A/N: 2 updates!! So we have met two of the guys. What do you think? 

These updates will be irregular since I am editing them to include the Toma team near the beginning than later. So I will work on these but will also be updating the other B&T(#9) at the same time so it will be a little bit of time until the two stories can be updated simultaneously.

Anyway I hope that you guys love these two chapters and look forward for more!

<3 Azallya