Sanctuary

As she fell, she’d resigned herself to the fact that this was really going to hurt but an unusual savior had helped her out. On that particular skyscraper were statues of hawks that luckily protruded out from the sides. She’d been able to grab hold of one in mid-fall and swing herself beneath it so she was hidden from Samuel’s sight when he looked down the edge of the building.

It felt like she had been holding on for eternity when the sense of his aura finally started to fade. After she was sure Samuel had gone, she pulled herself up and was able to crawl on top of the hawk’s head.

Tired and out of breath, Aurora leaned back against the wall of the building to rest for a moment. It took her a few minutes to catch her breath but any breather from Samuel's obsession with her was more than welcome. In her mind, she knew why he kept coming after her… lust, plain and simple.

She wouldn’t deny that Samuel was desirable but that was the allure of the more powerful demons. They were beautiful to look at until you saw what was beneath their exterior. Samuel was more beautiful than most demons, but in a lot of ways he was much darker than them on the inside.

She’d been avoiding him as well as she could and it looked like she’d finally lost him again… at least for now. Being anywhere near him left a queasy feeling in her stomach and Aurora didn’t know how much longer she could keep fighting him before giving in to what she was used too.

She hated him but at the same time almost craved what he offered… what she had accepted after so long with him. Being on her own was exciting… but it was mixed with an equal amount of fear.

She felt something for Samuel… had enjoyed his body and for brief moments even enjoyed his company. In the other dimension, she’d escaped him countless times only to be cornered by demons that were not a part of his army. She’d come so close to being killed and a tiny part of her had welcomed the thought of freedom… any way she could get it.

Samuel had always shown up just in time to save her… played the hero several times. She wasn’t a fool though. He hadn’t rescued her because he loved her and he’d always punished her quite brutally for running away. She’d been his property… his to be cruel to… his to make love to. Now that she had her weapon back maybe she had a chance of breaking away from him completely.

Looking down at the blade in her hand, Aurora sighed heavily. She’d discovered the weapon at a young age. She’d been an orphan and for the longest time had thought her name was Street Rat. It had been a demon that first called her by her real name… right before he tried to kill her. While defending herself, she’d felt the blade just appear in her hand… she’d won that fight.

She never learned how the demon had known her name but in the end it didn’t really matter if it was her name or not. It was a far cry better than Street Rat.

After that, the blade had been her protector until she’d been pulled into the rift. She had spent the last few thousand years in a demon controlled realm and under Samuel's rule. The weapon had never appeared to save her within the rift… no matter how much trouble she’d gotten into. She sighed wishing there was someone she could talk to about it… ask the questions that needed answering.

The blade suddenly shone brightly as it was absorbed once more back into her body. Since the blade seemed to think she was safe, then she probably was. Aurora felt relief ease her tense muscles and decided it was time to get down from this building before someone saw her.

She looked down over the edge of the massive concrete hawk and inhaled as the wind rushed upwards lifting her hair around her face. She was still so far from the ground and she wasn’t about to dive off for two reasons. Reason number one… she’d probably hurt herself and two, the main reason, she didn’t want anyone to see her.

She’d thought about dying while in the rift but she had a chance at freedom now… she no longer wanted to die, so diving face first from a skyscraper was not a choice.

Climbing out onto the wing of the hawk, she looked down at a balcony several stories below and judged the distance. Aurora gripped the edge of the wing and swung herself toward the balcony enjoying the feeling of freefalling. Landing in a silent crouch, she gazed into the window and froze.

Between the part in the curtains, she saw movement and leaned closer to get a better look. Her lips parted when she saw a woman in a short silky nightgown smile coyly at a man sitting on the sofa across the room from her. The lady eased the silk from her shoulders, letting it hang down over her arms… exposing very little covering underneath.

Aurora moved her gaze to the man seeing his eyes darken with passion. He stood up and removed his shirt, tossing it over his shoulder before stalking toward the woman like a cat slowly moving in on its prey. The woman smiled again and let the silk fall the rest of the way to the floor… exposing all she had to offer.

The man closed in and took the woman in his arms. They shared a passionate kiss before the man reached down and took hold of her, lifting her up. Her long legs wrapped around his waist and when he adjusted her slightly, the woman tossed her head back exposing her throat.

Aurora’s breath quickened when the man’s lips descended on the offered flesh making the woman in his arms shiver. He turned and walked them into another room, closing the door behind them and blocking her from seeing anything more. Aurora felt the small sad smile that caressed her lips and for a moment wished she was human.

She swung around and leaned against the building, slowly sliding down the wall until she was sitting with her knees drawn up in front of her.

She’d spent her childhood hiding what she was… trying to pretend she was human. Her one wish had always been that she was human. If she had been, she wouldn’t have found the hell she did at Samuel’s hands and she’d have been free to love anyone she chose.

It had been a boy her own age that informed her of what she really was. His name was Skye. To the humans, he’d only looked about seven years old… the same as her, but she’d known the truth. He’d been her best friend for a long time and the only company that either one could trust.

They would just smile when the humans mistook them for siblings, their coloring was almost the same and by human standards they were considered beautiful.

Skye had told her stories about the Fallen… and the demons the Fallen had inadvertently created. He should know… he was one of those creations but it didn’t bother him. He once told her that he enjoyed looking like a Fallen because it was better to be an angel than a demon. He’d also warned her about the fears humans had and that if they ever discovered what she really was… they would try to kill her.

For years she and Skye had stuck together, moving from village to village every few years before the humans could catch on to the fact that they weren’t aging like normal children.

She still remembered the last time she’d seen Skye. He’d smiled at her before walking into the forest with several of the village men who were taking him on a vision quest.

That was the day the demons had come… so many demons. The earth shook with their arrival, killing anything that got in their way. The ground beneath them had opened up and actually sank before a great crack raced through the center of the village square.

Aurora could only stand there and stare in terror at what was happening. A demon roared and came running at her and she’d stumbled backwards just as three men rushed in between her and the demon, blocking its path. She gasped waiting to feel the hard ground beneath her and screamed when the earth started to rise up around her.

One of the human men, a village warrior, dove down after her but was caught in midair by another demon… that was the last she saw of him. Other humans were falling in with her, screaming all the way and it suddenly dawned on her that she’d fallen into the huge crack. Her wings, only a smoky shadow to the naked eye, appeared and she tried to return to the surface but an inexplicable force continued to pull her down… away from the home she and Skye had chosen.

Before the screaming had stopped, the whole village had been sent into the rift… trapping humans and demons alike. She closed her eyes trying to block out the memory of what had happened to those humans and turned her thoughts back to Skye. She was glad he had went on his vision quest… was glad he hadn't seen any of it. The only hope she held onto now was that he was still alive and living a full life.

Bringing herself back to her present predicament, Aurora leaned toward the glass peeking in to see that the human couple had not come back out of the far room. Reaching up she sighed when the door easily opened and she slipped inside, running soundlessly across the carpet and out into the hallway.

Once at street level, she made sure to keep to the well-lit areas just in case Samuel reappeared for another fight… a fight she wasn’t so sure she could keep winning. She didn’t really keep track of where she was going or how long she walked… all she wanted was one night of peace… to rest.

When was the last time she’d truly slept without the fear of being accosted because of what she was? It had been before she was dragged into the rift. And the only moment of happiness she’d found since coming out of the rift was with a man in the subway tunnel.

She reached up and touched the necklace she was still wearing and was caught between melancholy and the thrill of the stolen moments of bliss. It was a memento, something to remember him by because she knew she’d never see him again.

Aurora jerked her gaze up to the fence she was walking beside and looked around tucking the necklace back inside her shirt. For the first time since coming out of the rift, she didn’t feel any demons near her. Wrapping her fingers around the tall chain link fence, she stared across the parking lot at the huge building it surrounded.

She didn’t know how to read the words that were lit up in red across the top, so for the lack of demons in the area she pretended it read Sanctuary and smiled. Within moments, she had scaled the fence and made it to the roof of the building.

Moving silently out of habit, she curled up against the only door leading into the interior because it had a small overhang that would keep the sunlight from waking her too soon. Another smile appeared on her face as she felt safety here… a place where she could finally rest.

She lay there with her eyes closed and stretched her senses out feeling all of the boundaries surrounding this place. She didn’t know why or how… but she felt like she was on an island in a sea of demons and they couldn’t come out of the water to get her. Opening her eyes, she inhaled sharply when she did indeed feel the demon energies around the perimeters of the barrier.

Aurora felt their rage and frustration as they tried to break through and couldn’t help but smile… they would not get her this night.

Chapter 3

To say Skye was confused was an understatement. He’d somehow gone from one prison into another, not realizing until it was too late. When he was unexpectedly freed from the trap that had imprisoned him and Misery together, he’d stalked the she-demon knowing she planned to release the demons that had been pulled into the rift.

A large part of him actually hoped that Misery would succeed in her quest, but not for the reasons that some might believe. Just because he was a demon didn’t mean he liked his own kind.

For centuries, he’d held onto the hope that Aurora was still alive in there somewhere and was trying to find her way back through to this world. However, when he saw what crawled out of the rift Misery opened, his hopes had crashed down around him and he was still in mourning. There was no way that Aurora could have survived among all of those monsters.

He had been trapped with only one demon… Misery… and he’d still been able to feel the outside world. Being so close to freedom had lent him the hope he needed to retain his sanity. But Aurora… she had been trapped in another world with countless demons, many of them masters.

Aurora had been an innocent, white and pure. But to the demons she would have been seen as the enemy… the same enemy that hunted, persecuted, and trapped them.

Now the city was full of demons and Skye had been forced to blend in and disappear among the human populace. Along with the multitude of demons, he’d also seen a small army of demon hunters that were taking out the demon clans one at a time… usually just as they’d established a territory. There were many other demons that had already claimed a stake and were trying to lay low, attempting to blend in the same way he had.

Blending in with the humans was something Skye had learned how to do very early in his life and he’d shared that knowledge with Aurora.

When he’d first met her, he’d known they would need each other’s protection. Where as demons often mistook him for a Fallen, there was no mistaking what Aurora was… unless she learned how to suppress her true lineage.

His heart had spilled out on the ground when he returned from his vision quest to find the village and almost everyone in it gone. The human species was no stranger to war… a resilient race in its own right. There had been a few survivors that had fled the massacre to hide in the forest and it was through them that he’d learned what happened.

The villagers cried that demons had appeared among them to eat their souls… then the gods had descended from the sky to destroy the monsters… saving them even though there were many casualties from the sudden battle. Even as they mourned their dead… they were thankful the gods had saved them.