LUX

I had killed before.

The first time was when I was twelve. A vampire had entered our home in Ireland, one whose blood was lilac and dripping on the carpet of the foyer.

It was when I had returned from my first summer in New York with Mom. She was knocked out with Stark from the nonstop flight we took. I was up past my bed time, stealing a late night snack.

Standing in front of the vampire, I had realized I was about to become his late night snack.

He'd phased forward, teeth sinking into my arm. I remember feeling the air being sucked out of my lungs as his took a pull of my blood.

And I remembered the pleasure, the high of the bite. It was something I didn't understand. I was scared of what I didn't understand.

So I took the kitchen knife I used to cut the homemade brownies Mom and I had baked once we returned, and I jammed it throughout his spine between the vertebrae, straight to the heart.

Just like Stark taught me.

The amount of blood woke Stark up. He'd thrown me across the foyer, Mom catching me in her arms to set me down and lock me inside their bedroom as a horde of vampires flooded into our cottage.

I remember crying, screaming, wishing I was out there to help them. But instead I was here. Stuck in the room. My training amounting to nothing as a door separated me from my parents and death.

This was how I felt about Tempest.

Gone. In an instant. Separated from each other.

My arm was broken. It would take ten minutes or so to heal, minimum. Which meant I'd have to face the creature while wounded.

I kicked the car door out. The cab driver was dead, his neck snapped at an odd angle. Bracing myself, I used my left hand to release the buckle. My shoulders dropped down to slam against the hood of the car. I slowly wriggled out. Glass pieces dug into my gray shirt, the red blood dampening to maroon.

The creature was on the other side of the car, heading east. I clamored to my feet and scanned the area left and right. There were no trees in sight. Just fields of grass- small flowers and plants.

"LUX!" Tempest bellowed. "RUN!"

I looked back just to be kicked over the length of a football field by another demonic creature. The stench of miasma leaking from those two were insane. There were much bigger, more malicious than what I had ever encountered before.

Their arms were slender and long, reaching down to the floor despite having the height of a flag pole.

I scrambled for any bit of power to brace my fall. I couldn't risk breaking anything else if I wanted to stand a chance.

The grass rose tall, weaving in a basket to catch me before rolling me over onto the concrete. My legs were shaking when I stood up and glanced at the creature.

"Lux Xerxes... you will answer for your kind's crimes."

The voice pierced my ears, dropping me down to my knees as it echoed violently. I shrieked as the creature moved closer to pick me up.

"Hell awaits you."

The stitching of his mouth snapped open like coils at their breaking point. Green gas exhaled from his pried jaws.

All my training flew out of the window. Tears flooded down my cheeks as the creature drew me closer.

"Help," I cried out, clawing at the creature with my one good hand.

I was so close. Only a minute or two before my arm would've healed. Instead I'd die here.

I looked over my shoulder, my eyes searching for Tempest. Instead I saw the dead body of the creature that held him. The ground quaked beneath his feet, fissures tearing open with each step he took forward.

"Drop her." Tempest said low. "Drop her, now."

The demonic creature glanced over at Tempest. "My Lo-"

A slice of wind, so sharp and quick, sliced through the head of the creature. Within I spotted another head. My theory was correct- there was someone controlling the body from the inside.

My arm snapped in place just as the creature collapsed. I broke open its grip and ran to the body. Before I could dig the person out, the body disintegrated into purple dust. The same kind from Gemma's killing.

I was an idiot. All the training in the world couldn't have prepared me for this kind of horror.

"Lux." Tempest's voice was tight. "Are you harmed?"

I turned my back to him, lowering to clutch the dust as it slipped right through my fingers.

"Damn it." I whispered, my hands trembling. "Damn it,"

"Shit, Lux!"

His hands felt cold against my back- my bare back.

He had lifted my shirt up.

"You- you're so careless. Glass shards are in your back. You're bleeding all over."

"I'm fine." I murmured, moving to stand up.

He held me down by my shoulders. "Sit down. I'm fixing you up."

I shrugged his hands off. "No need. My body well reject them eventually. Just give it a few seconds. OW!"

My shoulders jerked back painfully as his fingers dug into my flesh, picking out the bigger shards.

"Be gentle," I scowled.

He didn't say anything, pulling out three more before dropping my shirt. My mother's werewolf half in me began to reject the foreign objects, slowly pushing the smaller shards out.

"Lux, speak to me."

I jerked off his touch. "I'm fine. I'm-I'm fine."

He held my hand tightly in his own.

"I'm sorry, Lux." He said softly.

I shook my head. "It's not your fault. I was being careless. Reckless. I should've known better than to meddle in things greater than me."

He got up, pulling out a seashell from his pocket.

I glanced at him. "What's that for?"

He grinned. "Our ticket to France."

With that, he crushed the seashell and tossed it into the field. The field collapsed into itself like a sinkhole.

"Now I didn't want to do this," he grimaced. "Because we may not exactly end up at my mother's home."

"What is this?" I leaned over the edge, noting the swirling black mass that seemed to glitter.

"A portal. I saw it in Kendra's stockroom- the seashells are gifts from Poseidon. Snagged one for myself, to escape in case I ever got caught." His grip on my hand tightened. "You ready?"

I rolled my shoulders back. "Here we go."

We fell forward into the sinkhole, and honestly it was the worse experience I've had in a while. My body felt stretched and torn into different directions before sloppily being put back together as we stumbled into the night streets of France, just in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Temp's arm shot out to keep me from stumbling into the streets where a flurry of cars whizzed by leaving light trails in their place.

"You okay, princess?" he breathed out, his arm never wavering from across my waist until I leaned my shoulder onto his.

"Holy shit," I huffed, clutching one hand to my heart. "That was close."

"Very." he rumbled as he glanced up at the moon. "It's a full moon tonight."

I looked up to see the cheese round of a moon outshining the surrounding stars.

"It's beautiful," I admitted.

"Yeah. Sure is." Tempest whispered low.

I cleared my throat when I noticed he wasn't even looking at the moon. "Now where's your home?"

He grabbed my hand, pulling me through the traffic as we weaved between streets. pedestrians, and cars until we arrived at a mansion that rivaled the Palace of Versailles in terms of structural beauty.

"This is your home?"

His lips twisted into a grimace. "Let's hope Auguste isn't home."

He kicked off to jump at the second floor balcony. I followed in pursuit. Peering into the windows lines with intricate engravings, my breath was taken away by the extravagant paintings and the sheer elegance of the place. Chandeliers were barely a few feet apart from each other as they decorated the ceiling, which upon further inspection revealed that it too was a collective piece of artwork in the gallery that was Tempest's home.

"This is beautiful, more so that the Sicily residence." I awed at the various attention to detail that really drew out the best in the palace.

"Welcome to Maison de Loups," he said softly as we finally stopped a room and gently opened the door.

Inside was a home planetarium, a skylight pouring in even more moonlight. Maps and crystals lining the walls of the room. In the center was a huge plush navy carpet. Above the carpet, like a low mist, were tendrils of silver...

"Moondust!?" my eyes grew wide as I locked eyes with Tempest. "Your mother used moondust to read the stars? How was she able to get moondust- it's extremely rare. Only the goddess is capable of harvesting moondust from moonlight."

He nodded absentmindedly as he scanned the room, in particular the textbooks. "It was a gift from the goddess. She realized the potential my mother had in creating moondust. The moondust only ever rises like that when it's a full moon. It's when her star reading was most effective."

I walked into the center of the carpet. The moondust rose up like swirls, like flowers curling into a dance in the breeze.

"Now that you've activated the pentagram, read out the these words. After that, slice into your hand and speak your name." he instructed as he picked up a hefty textbook to flip through. "Promittam tibi servit."

I recited the words in my head, each one sounding stranger and stranger with each repetition.

"Wait, slice into my hand? Why? My mother never did this for star reading."

"And that's exactly why she wasn't very good at it." he muttered absently. "Ready?"

"Yeah," I said cautiously. "Do I just cut with my nail or what?"

He tossed me a blade with a section wrapped in a white silken cloth. "Use that to cut your hand."

"And then what?"

"Repeat the words." he snapped.

I flinched back. "Why are you so irritable?"

He closed the book. "I'm just trying to figure this mess out, Lux."

"Same here. Doesn't mean I act like I have a stick shoved up my ass about it."

Either way, I went about saying the words. I steadied the knife at my hand, ready to drag it down as soon as I finished speaking the words. "Promittan tibi ser..."

My voice trailed off as I noticed something in the corner of the star-reading room. In was a dusting of...purple. Purple. Like the miasma found on Gemma's burnt body.

A million questions burst through my mind.

"Tempest?"

"What, princess?" he didn't look up from his textbook.

"Why is there Varinicon in your mom's star-reading room?"

His head immediately jerked up. I swallowed when he looked directly in that corner.

"I never mentioned where." I whispered low, rotating the knife in my hand.

"Lux, what are you doing?" he set down the textbook. "Why are you stepping out of the pentagram?"

"I have some questions before we begin." my voice was shaky. "How did you escape those creatures? You didn't use your affinity, I saw no evidence of it being used on the creature that you killed. So how did you get them to let you go? And the other one- the one that was about to kill me- it followed your command. It called you something but you interrupted it by killing it."

He took a step towards me and I took three back. "Lux, calm down. Kick the knife over, let's just talk. You're panicking."

"Promittan tibi servit." I said quietly. "One of those words there really bothers me. Servit. Servant."

He approached more gingerly, until I had poorly planned my escape with my back against the wall, knife held out.

"Princess, you're not feeling well. We'll push this until later."

"What's your name?" I snapped. "Your real name."

He blinked. "What?"

"Tempest." I poked the knife a little further. "Tempest is what you go by but what's your real name?"

"I can't tell you Princess."

"Exactly." I whispered. "Because names have power. That's why you wont tell anyone. Or at least you're bound not to tell anyone. Tell me, those creatures, what do they call you? Because I have a few things on my list. One of which being the Royal Assassin."

He straightened up, his whole demeanor changing. It was like watching a wolf ditch sheep's clothing. "Oh, Lux. I apologize, but this really must be done."

I choked, "Goddess, it is you?"

His smile was an unnatural curve. "Perhaps. However, I may make an exception for you. Convince Mother not to go forwards with her plans. But it may be hard, after all you're her grand prize. Perhaps she'll spare the others lives for yours. What do you say, Lux? Ready to become the martyr everyone expects you to be?"