Me:
Thank you. I came to you because I knew I could trust you to keep this between us.
I will keep you apprised about it as I learn more.
Medb:
Anytime. I look forward to grabbing lunch with you soon.
I opened the file with some trepidation. I was concerned that I was going to uncover something that was going to make my blood boil. As the video loaded on my screen, I was confronted with Adaela stumbling into the alleyway, bending over at the waist near the brick to vomit. Two men came up behind her. They were obviously intoxicated, and they appeared to be human, but sometimes glamour made it difficult to tell on video. One of them ran his hand along her ass as the other one said something to her. There was no sound, and it was a little too dark out to make out what was said.
Adaela finished getting sick, then stood up, turned around, and punched the Human who said something in the face. He stumbled back, landing hard against the dumpster. These men were at least a foot taller than Adaela. I snickered to myself. Watching her hit a man that much taller than her was a sight to behold.
The other man, the one who grabbed her ass, stepped up and shouted in Adaela’s face, chest puffed out. As both men crowded around her, her body language made it clear that she asked them both to stand down and leave the alley. She wasclutching her stomach, clearly ready to get sick again when one man pulled out an iron blade. Adaela rolled her eyes, looked up to the sky as if counting, then back at the men. Her expression went from innocent to deadly, calculating, as if she weren’t ill and heavily intoxicated.
Adaela’s shadows morphed into a creature bigger than both men to throw them against the wall. I sat back, smirking to myself, transfixed. She started yelling something at them, and they responded in kind. It was obvious she was holding back on getting sick again, stumbling against the same dumpster as the first man. The man who grabbed her ass said something to her again, and she snapped. She swiped her hand in the air, her shadow magic vanishing, along with their lives. I had heard of Adaela’s infamous death magic, but had also heard that she hadn’t used it since coming to Earth.
There was no reaction on her face as she dropped down to her knees and began throwing up again. This must have been when I first heard the commotion in the alleyway, because not even a minute later, I came into the picture.
I turned off the recording and rubbed my temples. I was used to death in its many forms. I had been to war on behalf of Hell, and spent countless years at this point being a spy for Asmodeus. I wasn’t upset at the video or watching these men lose their lives. These might’ve been the first deaths in thePaxsince its inception, and I wasn’t sure what that would mean for thePaxmoving forward. Adaela needed to know what had happened.
Several hours had passed as I watched the video repeatedly. It was too late to text Medb. I would have to chat with her in the morning to see if she knew a spell that could detect what was going on with Adaela, or if she knew of a healer we could contact to determine what made her black out tonight.
I headed back into the living room to check on Adaela one more time, noticing she must have gotten up for at least a minute before she laid back down, because the bottle of water had been drained. The day was long as I worked to get everything ready to move realms. I still had boxes that needed unpacked, and I hadn’t started decorating my place yet. Adaela was going to wake up in an unfamiliar place, but I was comforted by the thought that she was somewhere safe where I could take care of her.
Making my way upstairs to the bathroom, I stripped down, ready to wash this day off myself, though hesitant to remove the scent of Adaela from my skin. I quickly magicked my makeup off, then brushed my teeth, hopped into the shower for a quick rinse, and headed to bed.
I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable under my heavy blankets, but unable to find the right spot in the new bed. As I began to nod off, a dip in the mattress made my heart skip a beat. I raised my head from where it was cradled on my arms. Adaela was crawling onto my bed. Her tri-green eyes shone from the low light I left on in the stairway, still glazed over. Sitting up, I pulled the blanket across my naked chest, though I doubted she realized where she was.
“Adaela, what are you doing, sweet girl?” I asked her.
For a moment, she didn’t respond. She just stared blankly at me, eyes not quite focusing. Her shadows poured out of her and toward me, wrapping gently around my body. I froze. Fuck. What did this mean? I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Her power wrapped around me searchingly, as if trying to figure out who Iwas. I wasn’t sure if she was going to murder me or if she was curious. I doubted that her impropriety would have been an issue if she was conscious of her decisions.
Startled, I returned my focus to Adaela, who I still believed was sleepwalking. She stood up and stripped, and I couldn’t help myself; I peeked. I instantly felt shame, knowing that she wasn’t in her right mind. Turning away from her quickly, I closed my eyes, but I already had her image burned into my mind. Her body was rock solid with a six-pack and sharply defined quads. Her small breasts were freckled, with light pink areola, and her mound was neatly trimmed.
“Oh, sweet girl, I need you to go back to bed on the couch. Please let me get you back down there,” I begged.
She climbed on top of the bed where I was pinned in place by her shadows, then crawled toward me, straddling my lap. I swiftly asked her shadows to release me. I’d made a promise to her that I wouldn’t harm her if she slept on my couch, and told her that she wasn’t in the right state of mind to consent to any of this anyway. I didn’t know if her shadows were sentient, but it was worth a shot.
Her shadows hesitated before they receded enough that I could move out from under her, though I was still pinned under the blankets by her knees on either side of my hips. I wasn’t sure if this was actually better, as her body laid intimately against mine for the first time. I went still, trying not to even breathe in fear of this moving any further. She needed me to be the bigger person here because she didn’t know me, and I was supposed to be protecting her while she slept off the alcohol raging through her system.
“Adaela, come on, sweet girl. I need you to go to sleep. I can take you back down to the couch or you’re welcome to sleep here, but we cannot do anything tonight.” I wiggled a bit, trying to get her to move without escalating things further.
When she didn’t budge, I wrapped my arms around her waist, gently moving her off my lap. I flipped us both over so my body was atop hers, elbows on either side of her head, and my hands cupped her face. I looked deeply into her eyes, and my powers went berserk. They wanted to wrap her in lust so tight that we would have had her screaming my name well into the night. They wanted me to invade her dreams and show her how good it could be between us. The things running through my head were best left to when I was finally able to touch her for real—ifI was lucky enough. Even if I’d never get to know the pleasure. And protecting her also meant that I couldn’t invade her dreams.
Adaela made a noise of protest, clinging to me as if she didn’t want to let go. The feelings were mutual. I ran my fingers gently across the apples of her cheeks, noticing again that her eyes were glazed over. It pulled me straight out of the moment, and I slowly crawled off her, back onto my side of the bed.
I situated her on the other side, put a pillow barrier between us, and she promptly fell back asleep, snuggled deeply into the blankets. My heart was thundering. I closed my eyes and turned over, trying to rein in my powers while the most perfect woman I had ever laid eyes on was naked in my bed.
I glanced at the clock. It was 4:30 in the morning. So much for getting any sleep tonight.
March 19th
After sleeping close to fifteen hours straight, I woke up to my regular alarm clock going off. I rolled over to turn it off, startling myself awake at the memory of what happened the other day. Alas, Vada wasn’t sleeping next to me. I was in my own bed. I wasn’t sure what hold she already had over me, but I realized I was a little disappointed.
A noise in the other room had me racing out of bed to get dressed. As I did so, I summoned my shadows to report back. I grabbed my sword from the sheath I had specially made for my bed, and considered grabbing my gun as well, but my shadows spilled back under the door and whispered to me that it was just Poe.
“Hey, Poe. You’re up early. What’s brought you over?” I asked, sitting down at the counter. She handed me a cup of coffee, then slid a plate over my way as my stomach started growling. It had biscuits and gravy on one side, a couple slices of bacon, and some mixed fruit on the other. I salivated at the B&Gs, picking up a fork before she could even say anything.
