His Mate: The Demon King

Chapter sixty three

In a dark room, a woman appeared and she crashed into the center table. She grabbed onto it to steady herself, her black hair covering her face as she saw through the strands and staggered to seat on a chair. She threw her head back and winced in pain, her eyes shut tightly and she reached for her hood to cover her head. No matter what, she can’t be seen, not even by herself in an accident. She grunted and reached to feel her neck with her fingers, they were burnt fingerprints and even though she tried to heal it, she couldn’t.
She sat on her chair, panting heavily and when she believed she had mustered some strength, she pushed herself up and staggered to another room, pushing things down with her body. She entered a small room with a big crystal ball sitting in the middle and she limped to the table by the side, grabbing a book and flipping through the pages. She growled in annoyance and slammed the book on the table and turned and staggered out of the room once more. There was a shelf filled with books with hard black covers and she went to it, grabbing books and flipping through the pages. In a matter of minutes, there was a pile of books on her feet and she seemed not to have found the one she was looking for.
She winced in pain, sweat drenching her back as he kept searching through the shelf but at the end, all the books landed on the floor and she slammed her hand on the shelf and cursed, “damn you, demon fire. Don’t worry, I shall claim that throne and you shall be mine, you must be mine,” she panted and staggered back to her previous seat. Her head was thrown back once more as the burnt marks on her neck glowed softly, making her grunt in pain and her hair gummed on her neck because of her sweat.
She chuckled, her pale lips widening in a big grin, “you may have hurt me Demon king, but you are in a worse shape than I am,” she laughed and then winced in pain. “I wonder how long this will take to heal. I cannot believe he is so strongheaded, after everything I promised him,” her humor turned into anger in a split of second. “He is claiming wise with me, who does he think he is? Oh pray tell prince Edward, you better awake soon or I shall make sure you wake up to the death of your mate, mark my words. Your offense will not go unpunished, never.” She groaned and touched the wound on her neck softly and hissed at the contact of the wound with her touch. “Demon fire,” she spat out venomously.
***
“But, how could he be in slumber?” Aliyah asked, “he was fine last night.”
Beruka sighed, “the eternal fire is known to protect its host and in a situation it can’t, it would light up the place surrounding the host and keep anything or anyone from going in or coming out until the host is healed or conscious. The king is not just a demon and two powers are working inside him with their own defense mechanism. To a nightwalker, when hurt or starved, they go into a slumber to reduce the speed of their damage or to wait till when a potential meal can pass. So in this case, the king is hurt and the nightwalker in him put him in slumber and the eternal fire set up this barrier to prevent anyone from coming in and hurting it’s host while he is unconscious.”
“Now the question is, what is strong enough to hurt the king?” Maleeka asked, stepping out of the woods as well as Idrissa and Vertimon.
“I don’t know,” Aliyah whispered, turning to glance at the fire and holding Asher tightly. “I can’t believe I am witnessing this,” she sobbed.
Sean stared at them warily, “how come you lot are here?”
Maleeka sighed, “when you are a demon ruler, once something is wrong with the king, the overall ruler, you are summoned to his palace, no matter where it is.”
“Yes, I was having a very nice morning until I was compelled to come here. The last time that happened was with King Mar-El,” Beruka answered.
“King Mar-El?” Steven frowned, “what happened to him?”
“We have been summoned to the former demon palace like this fifty years ago when King Mar-El died. His palace has been aflame like this and none of us can go inside neither can the servants come outside. And then three days later, the fire dimmed and then diminished on the fourth day. We all thought that he had recovered from whatever had been wrong with him only to be met by Kaiden, princess Lidiya’s mate,” Vertimon said.
“It was tragic to hear from him that King Mar-El was dead, no one ever thought he would die just like that. He was the best king we demons have ever had and he ruled for almost four thousand years having taken the throne when he was just two hundred years old,” Beruka explained.
“We never knew he was sick nor what killed him but Kaiden had told us that he had been in sorrow since the death of princess Lidiya and we believed him because ever since king Edward fell into his slumber, King Mar-El was lost to the outside world. He never invited us to his once in a century ball anymore and so we believed what Kaiden told us and when he said he wanted him to take the throne after him as his daughter would have and being her mate, it would feel like giving it to her, we obliged, I mean, he is a demon beast, the one legitimate for the throne after all,” Maleeka shrugged.
Sean and Steven shared a glance and shrugged. Alan sighed, “so we can’t do anything but wait?”
“Yes,” Beruka answered. “That fire would never let us in, it will never let anything in, not even as light as a tree leave. So rather than hurt ourselves unnecessary, it’s better we wait.”
“As much as I hate to say this, we will have to watch over him,” Idrissa spoke for the first time. “As much as I hate him, I will have to give my life to protect him. Now, none of us know what happened but if we heard the pure blood witch correctly, he fought someone and you lot seem to know who so you will have to share with us what you know about that woman and the things that has been going on between you lot that would make someone wants to fight him.”
Damien sighed and took it upon himself to narrate the story but not knowing every tiny details created a hole in his story until Sean volunteered to fill them in. They all sat or stood somewhere around the palace, waiting and not even knowing how long they will have to wait for.
Aliyah sat closest to the palace with Asher in her arms as she kept staring at the fire, praying to the moon goddess that it should go down soon and for Edward to walk out of there and hold her in his arms, telling her that he was back and for good this time. She had cried as much as she could until her tear glands refused to produce anymore and Asher had cried himself to sleep. No one loved the way she looked but no one has any comforting words as they too were praying for a miracle to happen.
Getting to midnight, Damien suggested to leave and come back the next day but Rasmus and Aliyah refused to leave, saying they would stay there. Sean wanted to offer to stay with them but Monica and Anita need him, he had left them alone all morning and plus the fact that he was starving, he hadn’t had anything to eat all day and he knew neither have Aliyah or any of them in particular. So he tapped Steven to go back with him to the pack to gather foods and tents for them for he knew Steven would love to stay as well.
And so, they all got ready to leave except Rasmus, Irene, Aliyah and the demon rulers. When everyone else was gone and the demons minding their business, Rasmus went and sat beside Irene and he sighed and stared at Aliyah who hasn’t moved from her spot all day. “Is there anything else?” he whispered.
“Why do you think they will be anything else?” Irene replied in the same lowered voice. They know they shouldn’t whisper as any of their companions can hear them as long as they as much as tried but the night was as silent as the graveyard, any loud noise would be heard from miles away.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “you still haven’t told me what Hephzibah told you.” Irene sighed and he placed his hand on hers, “hey, you don’t need to bear the cross on your own, there is a reason we are all together, and it’s to support each other. No matter how gruesome it would be, I think we can handle it, I mean, is there anything that would be worse than what we have been through?” he smiled softly.
Irene glanced at him and held his gaze, his deep brown eyes held affection which she had been noticing of recent but a lot has been going on for her to even think about romance. And to think that when Edward woke up, they had all thought that finally, they would be some peace but it seemed like peace is far off for them as many dramas has kept rising up after each other that they have never even been a single day of peace nor rest. She sighed and leaned into his arms, placing her head on his shoulder and enjoying the warmth it brought. “Rasmus…” she whispered.
“Yes Irene?” he answered, his hand itching to caress her hair but he didn’t know if he should or not.
“If this is ever over, if we all live after this, will you take me on a vacation? Just the two of us.”
Rasmus smiled and placed his head on hers, breathing in the natural scent of her hair, “after this, I promise I will take you to anywhere you want to go,” he closed his eyes and finally reached up and caressed her hair. He didn’t want to think about what she said, nor believe that they would not survive, he has hope and so far in his life, his hope always seemed to make a difference and he knew it won’t change now.