The Touch of Demise │18+

16: A Beguiling Scene

𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄

She watched quietly as Demise turned on the hot water again. She'd been in the bath for a while but wasn't quite ready to get out. He was fine with that, apparently. They had been talking. He seemed much more open, or at least he was trying to be. That's what mattered; at least he tried.

"Tell me more," she murmured.

"About?"

"You. The world. Everything."

She felt her heart stutter from the way the edges of his lips turned upward in a small grin.

"You have to be more specific."

"How did you come into power and organize the lycanthrope world? There are stories, but it's been so long all of them are considered tales instead of history."

He returned to his spot on the toilet seat, his arm resting on his leg as he ran a hand over his jaw. "Most of them have some truth. It is partially our fault for the confusion; we didn't want many people to know."

"Our?"

"Primus," he explained. "All of us. Eons ago, we were friends, comrades, maybe even close to family. We all decided that we didn't want many to know."

"Know what? What happened?"

He remained silent for a moment, looking way. It was as if he was contemplating whether or not to tell her...or maybe he was simply trying to remember. "Humans were the first to walk the Earth. Originating in Africa, they dispersed into other areas, reproducing, building nations, living as they do, but then war broke out. Not simply war between states, but a war so brutal it killed most of the population."

Grace had heard stories of humans, creatures who couldn't shift and didn't have feral aspects of themselves. Apparently, they looked like lycanthropes but didn't have the wolf counterpart. They still existed in small tribes across the world, but Grace had never met one. People said they were so viciously selfish that they destroyed their very own societies for individual needs. "That's why there are so few humans now?"

He nodded. "My mother and father were one of the last humans. None of us knew why the genetics of humans morphed into lycanthropy. None of us really cared to know. We assumed it was a simple explanation of evolution, and it wasn't until many years later that we became suspicious of our origins."

"Suspicious?"

"At first," he started slowly, "we didn't think we were any different from humans. We acted the same, looked the same, spoke the same...that was until our first shift. Primus don't shift at puberty like the rest of lycanthropes. We shift when we need it the most. Anyway, after we all shifted, it was like the universe forced us to find one another. I was born in Knossos, Crete."

"Wait," she immediately became alert, sitting up straighter. "Greece? As in...ancient Greece?"

There was a flash of a smirk on his face. "As I said, I'm much older than you. One by one, I met other men who could...shift into something else, but then we began meeting more....and more...and more lycanthropes. It made no sense considering most humans had died, and none of us had reproduced to our knowledge."

"Then how are there so many of us now?"

"Lycanthropes call her many things. Some call her Selene, others call her Artemis...It doesn't matter because it's all the same Goddess. We found out that she had created us. The Primus were the first of her children."

"She exists? And just...came to you?"

There was more he was keeping from her, she could tell. He swallowed and nodded his head. "There's more to the story...I am not obliged to say at the moment. The story isn't just mine. She explained that if we did not abandon one another and build our own empires, our species would die. And so we listened, although it was hard to leave the people we called our brothers. I went to the east and built what is now the Land of Demise. Naturally, lycanthropes migrated to their closest Primus; it's a primal need to find someone stronger to protect you."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing that you need to know. I'll tell you one day, I promise."

There was a knock on the door, and he stood up. It was like he knew who it was. He left the bathroom for a minute.

𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐄

Walking out of her bedroom, he immediately saw his Secundus standing in front of the kitchen door with a Victoria Secret duffel bag in his hand.

"I demand reparations for having to carry a bright pink bag of female clothes here," Goliath commented. His lips were slightly turned upright, signaling to Demise that he was joking.

"I'll let you sleep in until 7 one day."

Goliath chuckled at his King with a subtle nod. "I'll take it."

His name was representative of his physicality. Standing at 6'9 with broad shoulders and bulging muscles, no one wondered why he was given the name Goliath. Some said that even as a baby, he was a few feet tall and came out of the womb with a dagger in his hand.

He had long blonde hair that ended at his shoulders with bright blue eyes. There was a long scar from his right eye to his chin that didn't heal properly. He was a charismatic man, far more approachable than his King. He handled the affairs that the King didn't want to. Goliath was Demise's closest ally - as a Beta should be.

Demise grabbed the bag. He wasn't known for his manners. As he turned to go back into the bathroom, Goliath spoke.

"People are beginning to speak, Primus - about you and the woman. They're saying you have chosen a mate. Should I dispel these rumors?"

Demise looked at Goliath for a moment, thinking. He shook his head then. "No."

"So it is true then," the Secundus replied with a simply smirk. "You have chosen a mate."

"No, I have not chosen. I have been given a mate."

Demise didn't stay to answer more questions posed by his Beta. As he returned, he laid the bag on the toilet and shut the door behind him. If he hadn't trained himself in restraint for centuries, he was sure he would have mounted her on the floor.

She was a divinity of the world. He never realized what his definition of true beauty was until he laid eyes on her.

She was absolutely made for him. There was no doubt in his head what she was to him.

"Your Secundus brought me clothes?"

Her voice was soft and feminine. He watched as she sat up and reached for a towel on the hanging rod. He grabbed it before she could and held it open for her. She gave him her signature smile as she stepped out and wrapped it around herself.

Strangely, he didn't simply want her for sex, though it was very high on his mind. He realized in this moment of simple intimacy that he enjoyed her presence and wanted to spend every second with her.

"Yes."

"How did he know?"

"Primus can mind link lycanthropes."

"Oh, right! I forgot. Can you mind link me?"

He wrapped his arm around her figure after noticing her skin was growing goosebumps. He stared at her for a moment, telepathically sending a message to her. When her eyes widened and her lips let out a small gasp, he knew that she received his message.

He chose to send her an image instead of a sentence. He chose an image that resonated with him. She was walking in the garden with some of the other maids of the palace. Her long black jacket was snuggly wrapped around her with a red scarf tucked under to protect her neck. She wore a red hat that matched to keep her ears warm. She was smiling at her colleagues. It was a beguiling scene.

When the image faded, she looked up at him with cautious eyes. "Is that how you see me?"

"That's how you are, Grace. The image you have of yourself is wrong. Get dressed before you get colder."