Chapter One

A demon falling from the sky wasn’t what Eial was expecting when he looked up at the dusty, grey clouds. He knew the air felt ominous that day, and his intuition proved him right. With a loud THUNK, the demon that appeared from thin air fell face down on the cool, morning grass; his proud horns curled on the contour of his head. His long, black hair laid neatly across his back despite the fall, and slowly fell to one side as he struggled to push himself up.

“Uhm-” Eial managed to whisper before the demon’s head shot up in surprise.

The demon’s first instinct was to back away and be on guard when he heard the voice of the stranger. But with the first glance at him, he immediately became mesmerized by the sharp, glistening green of the elf’s eyes. His body tensed and he felt a fire burning inside of him. He couldn’t do anything but stay there, frozen, watching the eyes of the being in front of him as the fire grew deeper.

Eial’s reaction was not any less dramatic. The second his eyes got ahold of the demon’s amber ones, his feet grasped the ground. The blood in his body rushed as though it were the crashing waves of a waterfall. His heart sang the beats of a drum. His thoughts became frantic and his breath became sparse. The overwhelming force of his emotions dropped him to the ground and the slightest bit of water started surrounding his eyes. What he was experiencing was exactly as he read in a book several years ago.

“Are you my…?” Eial breathed out in an excited quiver.

“Oh hell no. No no no no no.” The demon forced himself to look away and quickly stood up, rubbing his soil stained nose. While he continued to dust off the debris on his fitted black trousers, he bit out, “Don’t you dare tell me that my bonded mate is a fucking Elf.”

“Ha ha! I see you have a…,” Eial couldn’t think of an appropriate word, “a… personality! I’ve always wanted to meet you, I-” Eial noticed the demon grunting with his back turned while moving farther from him. With his quick feet, Eial galloped over until he was in front of the demon. He clocked his head to the left to look at the demon’s face again. “Where are you going? By the way, how did you get here? Oh and, what’s your name? Are you-”

“Where am I?” demanded the demon abruptly, realizing he was walking towards nowhere.

“Leinthen. Right now we’re at the southeast corner of- wait, you don’t know where we are?”

“Well, I do now,” the demon smirked as he continued moving forward.

“Didn’t you teleport here? How did you-”

“You talk a lot, don’t you?”

“Sorry, I’m just… really excited to meet you.” Eial’s hands slid behind him and he rocked his feet; his eyes monitoring the clean grass. “So, where are you going?”

“Are you planning to follow me?”

“I mean… we just met. Today’s an exciting day! We should… celebrate! You know, get to know each other!” His thumbs twindled behind him.

The demon paused in his tracks and curled his torso perpendicular to the elf, his narrow gaze looking far off to the side. With a slight curl of his lips, he mentioned, “We won’t ‘get to know each other,’ sxrol. We won’t be seeing each other again.” His body rose back up as slow as it had come down. This time, he slightly arched his back and what erupted from his skin were what seemed like a pair of bat wings, its ribs deep red in color. Gusts of harsh wind scattered the loose leaves as he started to rise with each downward movement of his wings. And with one last powerful flap, he flew away with no more words to add.

A shadow overcame the elf’s chest as he watched the demon disappear off within the clouds. He bowed his head lightly and walked gently to a nearby tree. His finger traced along the ridges of the tree trunk while he hummed a whispered tune. After a few minutes, he turned around and planted himself at the base of the tree. His shoulder length white hair bounced gently with the wind.

“A demon, huh?”

He looked up, where the sky had started to puddle with more bombous clouds. Unknowing where the demon went, he knew he couldn’t follow.

...or so, he thought.