Syn

"I want something from you."

The fucking nerve.

"How about I don't kill you right now?"

"No." He smiled, shaking his head. "You need me. If you kill me, everything I know dies with me and oh, I promise you you're going to want to hear this."

I tensed, my hair standing on edge as the thought of whom I truly may have left Queen with began to wrack my head. "What do you want?"

"I want Stella's body," he said. "I know your girl killed her and I'm sure she had good reason, but I want to give her a proper burial," he admitted. "She was a bitch and she had stabbed me in the back more times than I could tell you, but she meant something to me. She was all I had and I didn't even get to say goodbye."

"Is that why you hate me so much?"

"Oh, please." He waved his hand. "She was an idiot, she probably got what was coming to her— I hated you long before I met her, and you'll know why one day."

I nodded. "Okay, whatever. Fine. Is that all?"

"For now." He nodded. "In addition to an 'I owe you'," he said. "One day I will come to you and ask you to do something for me that will probably kill you. I want you to tell me now that you'll do it."

I scoffed. "You want me to blindly agree to something like that without knowing what it is?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugged. "This guy is dangerous and if you're in cahoots with this guy then the luxury of time is not really something you have—"

"Fine!" I agreed. "I'll owe you, whatever. Tell me what you know."

"Gladly." He smiled, setting his glass down before walking to a bookshelf in his office. We looked at him curiously as he trailed his fingers along the spine of several books before pulling out one and coming back to us. "How much do you about your father's life right after Lilith left him?"

"Not much," I replied. "I was a kid—"

"No," he said, setting the book down with a slam and flipping through the pages. "I'm not talking about a few decades ago. I'm talking about the first time she left him- thousands of years ago."

I shrugged. "Not much, I've heard stories here and there."

He whistled. "Your father was quite the mad scientist back then, let me tell you," he said before flipping the book toward Paris and me. We looked down at the foreign script, a drawn image of a beast roaring up at the sun. "This book cost me a fucking fortune so please don't touch it."

"Keep talking," I snapped.

"Calm down," he raised a brow before pointing at the text. "It's written in Latin. And there's not much mention of this part of history- your father tried his best to erase it from all the books in the Underworld—"

"Then how did you get your hands on this?"

"This one— is probably one of the last ones...belonged to a library in Heaven a few hundred years ago. The place burned down during the war between Heaven and Hell and only a few books survived. I had someone acquire this one for me, I'm a collector."

"Continue."

"As I said, your dad pretty much erased knowledge of this part of history but Heaven kept books- they have no problem dragging your father's name through the mud...as I'm sure you know. They wanted people to hate him for this," he said. "But anyway, after Lilith left him for Adam...your dad realized that her unrequited love was a trap set up by his father. She was a temptress meant to destroy him— distract his mind and eventually crush his soul— which she did successfully...sending your father out for blood." He pointed at the picture of the beast.

I tilted my head. "He seems a lot more grizzly...in this drawing."

"Well, Upper-worlders are not exactly trying to draw him in his image. When people think of Lucifer, they forget about the most beautiful Angel part and go straight to the bad shit. It only makes sense that they drew him like this," he said with a shrug before flipping the page. "Your father spent months crafting up a plan for revenge— he was blind, so caught up in his rage. All he wanted to do was hurt his father back the way he hurt him. So he created beings just like Lilith..."

Just like Lilith?

"Well, as close to Lilith as he could." Drake shrugged. "He planned to send them to Heaven like a Trojan horse and let them do their damage. But somewhere along that line of creation— nobody but him knows where...he fucked up. Big time."

He pointed at the new picture on the page and I stared blankly at the image. It was a creature, it had four legs, the tail of a lion— and the head of another animal I couldn't decipher. It looked like a fucking mess.

Drake cleared his throat. "To be fair it was his first time experimenting with creating life, but it was bad. The creatures were Underworlders, they possessed the power of witches just like Lilith, and were as manipulative and evil as they came. Vile beings. They could make themselves appear as innocent as a baby...or as deadly as the worst person you could think of by stealing their likeness as their own.

"Your father thought he was successful- he had finally created the perfect soldiers...That was until he realized they craved a different type of bloodlust than the rest of us do," he said slowly, glancing between Paris and me.

"What do you mean?" Paris spoke up before I could and Drake flipped the page.

"Cannibalism," he said, pointing to a picture of a monster carrying what looked like a child. "And not just any type of flesh- untainted ones. They preferred feasting on young children, sometimes even babies. Women here and there if they got the urge." My blood ran cold as I listened to him and he continued. "As soon as your father realized this, he began killing them- one by one. He hunted them down, eradicating their existence— but there was one slight problem. There is a record of him creating fourteen of them...yet he only killed thirteen. So I believe this one is who you all are dealing with.

"In fact, I know it is," he said positively. "I met him while doing business on Earth with a man he called his father— that's why you and Queen saw me at his home that one day. He clocked me the moment we met and we were friends for a short time until I realized what he was..."

"The two of you were working together against me, weren't you?"

"Briefly." He shrugged. "I had hoped after Queen made her way to Earth you would follow her and as he was already there— he insisted he be the one to watch her and notify me when you came. I had no idea he planned on truly being with her..."

"Fuck!" I ran a hand through my hair and stood up. "How did you find out he was...one of those things?!"

"I've been reading history all my life." He shrugged. "He couldn't keep the truth from me for long. But as soon as I found out, I packed my shit and came back here. They're not creatures you want to mess with."

"Oh, shit," I heard Paris curse as he stood from the chair, our minds on the same page. If everything Drake said was true and I didn't doubt that it was, we had left Queen alone with a monster. A monster that now had a bone to pick with me.

A crippling fear I hadn't ever felt before ran rampant through my body and my throat was dry as I looked at Drake. "So you're telling me that Aiden...is that? That's what he is?"

"No." He shook his head. "You're not understanding me. This creature has been alive for hundreds of years—Aiden was killed the moment it stole his life, I'm sure."

"Shit," I cursed. "We need to get back to the house, now!"

"How?" Paris asked. "You're not strong enough to create a portal there. What help will you be to Queen if you pass out the second you step into the portal?"

"Wait a fucking minute," Drake interrupted, a shocked expression on his face. "The dude is at your house?!"

"Yes." I nodded panicked. "We chained him up but if everything you've said is true then I'm sure he'll get out of them soon enough."

"Um, everything I've said is true and if you've got him in chains then I assure you it's only because he wanted to be in them..."

Tears pricked my eyes, bile rising in my throat as the air around me thinned. I was suffocating with fear— fear of the unknown and fear of not knowing whether or not Queen was okay. "What type of sick shit is this?!"

"You need to call your father," Paris said. "And you need to do it now."

"I need to call Queen first—"

"Don't," Drake said. "If she's in the same house with him, it's better that she remain as oblivious as possible. They're highly skilled in detecting lies and they're even better manipulators. She's better being in the dark while around him, trust me."

I held my phone helplessly, my breathing becoming shallow as anxiety and fear began to wear on my body. "Is he having a panic attack?" I heard Drake ask in the background as I tried to catch my breath, placing my hands on my knees. Every time I closed my eyes I just imagined Queen lying in a pool of her own blood. I wasn't as strong as she was— if she died, I don't know how I'd find the will to keep living.

"Probably." I felt Paris's arm on my shoulder.

"I've dreamed about this shit," Drake continued. "But this feels like crap. What do we do?"

"Help me sit him down." I heard Paris say, his voice nothing but a mere echo in my mind. I felt Drake's arm snake around me as he lifted my arm over his shoulder and they led me to a chair. When I sat down, I was jolted back into the reality of the situation we were now in and I cursed myself.

"I need to go to her," I growled.

"No," Paris warned. "What you need to do is call your father. You heard the guy, alerting whatever this thing is that we know is only to get Queen hurt. I care about her too, okay? I wouldn't be here if I thought we could safely get her out of there."

I nodded, taking slow breaths as I lifted my phone and powered through the image of Queen grinning on my screen saver. "I'm going to kill my father...and then kill myself if this shit goes left."

"Oh, please," Drake spoke up. "If you're going to kill yourself anyway, let me do it." My eyes snapped to him, rewarding him with a death glare and he shut his mouth.

I searched through my contacts, my fingers feeling like weights as I pressed dial on my father's contact. The line rang and for maybe once in my life, I desperately hoped he picked up the phone. "What are these things even?" I bounced my knee, glancing at Drake as the phone rang.

"How much do you know about shapeshifters? Hm, skinwalkers may be a more accurate term."

"Oh, that's fucking great. I'm going to throw up." My vision blurred as more panic began to set in.

I suddenly froze, realizing the ringing had stopped at some point and I heard a familiar voice. "Why are you going to throw up, Syn?" My father asked...

I threw up on the floor in front of me before I could answer his question.

꧁꧂

Hell nah.

That was me writing these last two chapters^I don't think I've ever gotten so much anxiety from anything I've written😭🤚🏾. I scare myself sometimes.

Anyway, here we are👀...the book is coming to an end soon and I see many of you asking about reunions and I assure you everything will fall into its proper line of events✨ Y'all have come this far with me— just gotta trust a bitch😈.
Let me know your thoughts on the chapters❤️

I'll announce the next date for chapters on my message board.

-xxx.