Page 5 of A Demon’s Resolve (Demonic Tales and Adventures #3)
CHAPTER 5
Alec stood there accepting congratulations from well-wishers, impatiently waiting to get Kian alone. Too much had happened in the past week, and his need to touch his mate was growing inside him as he searched the room for him.
Spotting him heading around corner of the elementary school with Visola alarmed Alec greatly, but he sensed Kian wasn’t concerned. Still, what was Visola up to? Deciding to follow them, he excused himself from the current group, not stopping for anyone else.
This day couldn’t have gone any better considering Kian was now like him, a demon. The demon leaders, Aticus and Gaius, Alec’s grandfather, would start going through the rest of the first demon queen, Danara’s, journals to see what this would mean for them.
It had been one of those journals that told them Kian was the Chosen One, the one human of all people Alec was destined to find to save the demon race. It hadn’t been easy to reach this point but Alec was finally ready to marry Kian and have some peace and quiet.
Smiling as he rounded the same corner he saw Kian and Visola take, Alec decided this would be a good time to make their escape from the party. He had every intention of asking his mate to marry him but he wanted to get Kian alone when he did it.
His heart raced as all his senses came to the forefront as the feeling of something not being right slammed into him. Icy cold fingers spread through him for a brief moment. He would swear he’d heard Kian try to scream his name, but it was cut off.
Kian!
His senses reached out to his mate trying to understand what was happening, but he felt nothing. Running down the side of the school, he turned the corner only to freeze in his tracks. A body lay at his feet, with Visola’s severed head nearby.
Dread sank into every cell of his body as he looked around for Kian. A glint of metal caught his eye on the ground. His heart stopped when he bent over to see a piece of gold ribbon from Kian’s shirt tied to his mother’s necklace. The one Brant had kept as a trophy.
Tarak must have followed him into the alley for he was suddenly there staring in disbelief at Visola’s decapitated body. Then his father’s gaze lifted to find Alec holding a ribbon. He had no idea what had happened, but the confusion and anger on Alec’s face was enough to alert Tarak he wasn’t going to like Alec’s answer to his question. “Alec, what is that?”
Alec’s voice was hollow as his brain tried to process what all this meant. His instincts were screaming at him even as his heart tried to deny what he was seeing. “It’s part of Kian’s shirt on his mother’s necklace.” Saying it opened the gates of hell for him.
The rage came on swiftly and completely unexpectedly. Even if Alec had been able to control the fury that swept through him, it had come on too suddenly to have any shot of stopping it. The ground started shaking as fire erupted all around them. Tarak jumped back from the flames even as he gripped the wall of the school in an attempt to stay upright.
Too engrossed in his own pain, Alec could barely make out the screams coming from within the city when stones started to crack along the buildings. Tarak begged him to stop but Alec was lost to the hole that had formed when his heart had been ripped from his chest.
His whole being was reaching out trying to feel Kian but there was nothing. Nothing. The trembling ground intensified, the wind whipped the fire all around him. No one was safe from his wrath. Not in Tuklati, nor miles away, as he forced his will upon the elements to find Kian.
Vaguely, he knew the man who’d raised him was stumbling in an effort to reach Alec. Aira, who’d come running at the first trembling, was no longer able to stand. Not even her cries as she lay in a heap on the ground got through to Alec.
All around them Tuklati was coming apart – stones started to fall, eventually whole buildings collapsed, fire raged throughout, debris flew everywhere as the wind tore through the streets.
Above them the mountains shook, the earthquake would be said to be a 9.0. The strongest earthquake ever felt in the Appalachian Mountains shook cities and towns as far east as the Atlantic Ocean and as far west as Nashville, Tennessee. A fire ravaged thousands of acres of forest while winds whipping from the east coast swept into the Midwest tearing apart homes, uprooting trees as far away as Kansas.
The United States looked like a war zone before Alec fell to his knees in despair. His hand was tightly wrapped around the ribbon from Kian’s shirt as he desperately tried to connect to his mate.
Without needing to be told, the Sentinels went into action with little hope of repairing the damage Alec had created. Tarak reached out to Alec tentatively. “Son, you have to stay in control.”
“Don’t tell me what I have to do,” Alec spat out. “Brant took the love of my life.” The grief that was consuming Alec could be heard in his voice. “Do you have any idea what he is going to do to Kian?”
Tarak was trying to find the words to help his son. “You do not know what -.”
Fury erupted within Alec once more. The ground started to quake again in response. “I saw what he did to Kian’s mother.” Pain devoured Alec as the elements reacted by tearing another path through Tuklati before terrorizing the United States another time. “Brant is going to take him somewhere I can’t get to in time. Then he’s going to tear Kian apart, making sure I feel every minute of it.”
Those words stopped Tarak. Tarak may have wished to deny what Alec said, but there was no denying he was likely correct. “Maybe,” Tarak conceded. “But if you continue to destroy the world, it will make it that much harder to stay hidden from humans.”
Laughing cruelly, Alec asked, “What do I care about the humans?”
“Because the last thing we need are the humans after us while we’re trying to find Kian.” Tarak was right, of course, but Alec wasn’t sure he was capable of reason at the moment. At least his father hadn’t tried to lecture him about remaining hidden from the humans. For if Alec lost Kian, he would destroy every living thing on earth to ensure Brant died for his sins.
As hard as it was to admit, if Alec had any hope of finding Kian, he needed to figure out a way to get control of the turbulent emotions coursing through him. His body tensed as he fought the consuming need to destroy everything in his path until the wind died down and the ground no longer shuddered beneath his feet.
Tarak let out a harsh, relieved breath. “We need to get the other Sentinels together to come up with a plan for finding them both.”
Glad to have someone there with a clear head, Alec nodded in agreement. Guilt swamped him when his gaze fell on Aira, who was still huddled on the ground as if afraid to try and stand once more.
Alec rushed to her side. “I’m sorry...” he started but Aira held up her hand to stop him.
“Don’t apologize.” She placed a hand on his arm in comfort. “Kian’s a demon now. He won’t be easy for Brant to kill,” his sister assured him. Then her grey eyes pinned his with determination. “Just promise me you’ll find Kian.”
That was easy. “There is nothing that will stop me from finding Kian and killing Brant,” Alec vowed. He would find his mate if he had to tear apart this Earth to do it.
He might have told Kian about wanting to burn down the world if Alec lost him, but he’d never been certain that was even possible. Now, thanks to Brant, it was something he knew he was more than capable of doing and Alec would gladly destroy a world that had been trying to hurt his mate since Kian had been born.