TALIA*
I don't know how long I lay in the velvet-cushioned prison Kael called a room. Long enough for memory to bleed into dreaming… or maybe it was the other way around.
Because suddenly, I was eight again.
---
We lived in a wide, two-story home just outside the city, hidden beneath glamour and holy runes. It was a Light Chaser stronghold, yes, but it never felt like one.
It felt like home.
My father, Finn DeLight... was the heart of it all. His laugh could silence thunder. His sword arm was legendary, but he never let it harden his heart. He told bedtime stories about brave humans and foolish, bad demons. He smelled like cedar and magic. He was the kind of man who looked at his daughters like they were miracles and his son like a legacy.
He was the best kind of hero.
My mother, Ruth , was fierce too, but warm. She'd hum while sorting weapons and bandages, smile when we snuck out of training to play. We were a family, even if we were a family at war with rogue demons.
I remember a night under the stars. Caleb had dared Cara to shoot an apple off his head with a blunt arrow. He screamed and flailed before she could even aim. I laughed so hard I fell off the training post.
Dad caught me mid-fall.
"Warriors don't fly, Tali," he said, ruffling my hair. "But you always try."
The love didn't vanish overnight.
It unraveled.
---
The night Dad disappeared, he kissed each of us goodbye. He wore the black armor... the kind only used for high-risk missions. I should've known. He hugged Mom last. It was the longest. She didn't say a word, just clenched her jaw and nodded once.
He left with two senior Chasers, Captain Muro and Josiah Keen and headed into the Hollow District. Demons had been reported beneath the subway tunnels, an entire nest. Routine extermination. Or so we thought.
Only Josiah made it back.
Bleeding. Broken. Whispering about a trap. About something ancient waiting for us.
They never found Dad's body.
Just his crossbow, crushed and left as bait near the river. As if someone wanted us to see it.
Mom locked herself in her war room for days.
When she emerged, she wasn't the same.
The warmth in her eyes? Gone. The softness in her hands? Withered. She didn't cry at the funeral. She didn't let us cry either.
"We move forward," she said, eyes like sharpened steel. "That is how we honor your father."
She took over the Light Chasers within weeks. Rallied them. Changed protocols. Increased recruit training. Doubled missions. Turned a sacred order into a militant regime.
I understood, in some twisted way. Grief changes people.
But she didn't just bury her husband.
She buried who we were.
---
The training years came like a hammer.
I trained harder than ever.
Not for Mom. Not for the cause.
For Dad.
Because if I couldn't find him, I'd make sure no other child ever lost a parent to the shadows again.
But the longer I fought and come in contact with any demon, the more I felt something inside me growing. A quiet presence or should I say power? I didn't understand. I'd touch demons and they'd weaken. Sometimes… they even burn or start to sort of wither.
I kept it to my self.
We trained from dawn until Sweet seeped through the soles of our boots. Combat, weapons, stealth, demon anatomy, survival in shadows. My Mom didn't tolerate weakness, not from us, not from anyone.
"Emotion gets you killed," she barked the day she made Caleb spar with a grown instructor twice his size. "We are soldiers now."
We bled. We bruised. And we learned.
But I excelled.
Faster. Sharper. Meaner. I started winning matches I shouldn't. Started feeling demons before I saw them. It wasn't just skill. It was something deeper. Something inside me was alive.... pulsing, even then.
I couldn't really explain it... So I didn't tell anyone.
The first time I killed a demon solo, I was fourteen. A rogue imp had crossed into the high school district. I found it in the alley behind a pizza shop, fangs out, blood on its claws.
I didn't hesitate.
I buried my father's blade into its skull.
It wasn't an easy kill, the demon shot a ball of dark green energy at me but my shield protected me from the brunt of it.
I felt someone else there that night.
Watching me....
A figure stood on the rooftop above the alley. Tall, cloaked in shadow, unmoving. The kind of stillness that didn't belong to mortals. I couldn't see his face, but I felt him.
My pulse stuttered. My breath caught.
And for one insane second, I felt… happy.....?
Like my blood recognized something I didn't.
The figure turned and vanished.
I waited for a report. For someone to tell me who he was. No one did.
And so, I brushed it away.
---
The years passed in a blur of blade and blood. By nineteen, I was a team leader, I'd closed more demon gates than any Light Chaser in my generation. I was ruthless. Precise. Feared.
But at night, when the missions were done and the bruises had faded, I would sometimes wake with Kael's face in my dreams. Not as a monster.... but as a question.
Why did I hesitate when I saw him?
Why did he feel… right?
----
When I began to feel something strange whenever I'm around him... Kael, I kept it locked away. That first time our paths crossed, I should've driven a bolt into his throat... instead I hesitated.
Worse, something inside me sang at the sight of him.
I'd never told anyone that either.
Now, lying here in his damn velvet den, surrounded by demon silk and luxury I didn't trust, I hated that part of myself even more.
I hated that I didn't kill him the moment I woke up.
I hated that he touched me and I felt safe.
And I hated that the girl I used to be.... the one who loved stars, giggles, and apple-on-the-head dares, was gone.
Vanished with the man who taught me how to love, and the woman who forgot how.