Blood Rain

Feeling drained, she crawled over to the bed and pulled herself up onto the mattress trying hard to ignore the sensation that she was falling backwards the whole time. She caught the vague flash of his warmhearted smile… the same smile she’d just claimed to have never witnessed. The fleeting vision made her yearn to see more.

Closing her eyes in exhaustion, she gave up and let herself follow whatever it was relentlessly tugging at her.

Syn reappeared on the roof of the castle. He had noticed the barest hint of amethyst glittering in her dark eyes and decided not to distract her from searching her thoughts. He had seen the color of her irises change before but only when she used her powers. That seemed to be the only time she allowed herself to feel the powerful soul she had imprisoned deep within her.

He understood why she unconsciously protected her soul from a world where mortal life and death happened in the blink of an eye. It was pure instinct but that fear was no longer valid. The second she’d called to him from that dark cave… he’d sent her his power in the form of the mark on her palm. He’d later reinforced that power by breathing his life-force into her… though she was not aware of the significance of such an exchange.

She now had abilities that she was not even aware of and he hadn’t helped her figure it out for purely selfish reasons. She was already too independent for his liking. Although time was no longer her enemy and most injuries would instantly heal… she was still in danger from the powerful immortals, who had declared war on this city.

There was one more thing he could do for her that would help even out the odds, but he was trying to be patient, knowing she was not yet ready for the side effects of mixing their blood. He had made that mistake before. It was not the same as when their children shared their blood with their soul mates.

He lowered his gaze to the roof hearing the silence coming from the room below him. Besides, if he bit her now, she would see it as proof that he was exactly what she’d convinced herself he was… a monster.

Being gentle with her was putting her at risk and it wouldn’t take much more to tempt him into becoming the monster she needed. After all… he had played that role before.

Chapter 5

Kriss stood in front of the huge picture window of their penthouse with a bottle of Kat’s famous Heat in one hand and an oversized wineglass in the other. He wanted to get drunk but his annoyingly swift metabolism wouldn’t allow him to gain the release he craved for more than a few moments at a time.

Becoming frustrated, his hand tightened around the glass, accidently shattering it in his palm as he remembered seeing Vincent’s face for the first time in countless years. Granted, Vincent wouldn’t remember the encounter since Storm had turned time around… but Kriss would never forget that expression of hatred Vincent had directed at him.

In rejection of that hatred, he rebelliously looked back on memories of his childhood, to the time when Vincent had felt the exact opposite for him.

He hadn’t been in this world long when Dean had taken off to stop a horde of demons that were headed right in their direction. He’d waited, alone, hiding among the huge rocks at the base of a cliff, following Dean’s strict orders to stay hidden and quiet… that this place was safe.

Dean had been right for the most part though. For days, Kriss hadn’t seen any animals… much less humans or demons. It was the first time in his life that he had ever been left alone. The surrounding silence was only feeding the feeling of abandonment and fear as he waited… missing the love he’d received in his home world… missing the warmth and security that Dean had given him in this one.

It had been in the middle of the night when Kriss heard the sound of falling pebbles coming from somewhere above him. He’d leaned back against one of the rocks and looked up at the face of the cliff where the light of the crescent moon barely touched it… only to see shadowy figures of several demons crawling down the face of it towards him.

His attention was riveted on the way their blood red eyes glowed as they watched him watching them, and the way their almost human like bodies contorted in the creepiest of ways as they descended. His eyesight sharpened, allowing him to see that their unclothed flesh appeared to be burnt and deeply scarred, as if they had just emerged from some unseen fire. Kriss could even smell the rotting of roasted meat as they grew closer.

He had been so frightened that he’d crawled backwards over the high bolder and fell off the other side, landing hard on a cluster of small sharp rocks that jutted up from the ground much like spikes. Finding that he’d been stabbed in several places, he struggled to rise from the rocks without doing more damage to his already wounded body.

The moment the scent of his untainted Fallen blood caught the breeze, he could hear their sharp claws scraping the rocks quicker as their descent became frantic, and several hard thuds, indicating some of the demons had simply jumped from their height in order to reach him first.

The silence was gone now… their disturbing screams echoing off the rocks, making it sound like there was so many more than there really were.

Scrambling across the rocks to get away, he only succeeded in ripping his clothes and tearing his flesh in several more places before he could get to solid footing and finally stand up.

Turning full circle, Kriss realized it was too late to run or hide… he was surrounded by demons and they were so much bigger than his small child’s size. He stood, frozen to the spot, as long clawed fingers came from behind him to wrap around his face. The sharp claws sliced into the bridge of his nose and soft cheeks as the demon drug him backwards, then abruptly jerked him up into the air as if showing him off to the other demons.

He’d never had to fight in his world and Dean had never allowed him to fight in this one. There was a fleeting moment where he wondered if letting them gobble him up wouldn’t be better than being left alone in this scary place. That thought quickly vanished when pain suddenly penetrated his shock, causing his instinct for survival to kick in with a vengeance.

With tears blurring his vision, Kriss had barely won his first fight to the death. Silence once again reigned across the area and he glanced down at what was in his hand just in time to see the illuminated Fallen Blade vanish from his bloody grip.

Feeling something weighing down his other hand, he slowly turned his head to look and saw the demonic eyes staring blankly up at him. His hand was in the thing’s mouth… gripping its jaw... he didn’t know where the rest of its body had gone. He accidently scraped his knuckles on its pointed teeth when he quickly yanked his hand out of the demon’s mouth and dropped the head to the ground.

Kriss felt nothing as it rolled away from him then got hung up on a rock that had poked it right in its ugly eye. He thought he heard someone laughing but decided it must have come from inside him somewhere because everything else was dead.

Unable to handle the rancid smell or the sight of their mutilated bodies, he’d turned away and started numbly walking toward the streaks of light that were just appearing over the hills in the distance.

Kriss didn’t know how long he had walked… or even how many days it had been before he heard the strange sound of rhythmic stomping somewhere ahead of him. He’d stood there swaying, trying not to cry, and waiting to see if he would have to fight yet again. Demon blood… he could smell it.

It wasn’t long before he saw a human man riding an animal towards him. Parts of the man’s body was covered in some kind of woven metal and Kriss could see the long sword strapped to his back… the hilt of it sticking out within easy reach. Not seeing any blood on the man, he realized that he was the one covered in demon blood… had been wearing it this whole time.

That had been his first encounter with Vincent. They had stared at each other as the man approached and Kriss took several steps back when he quickly slid from the big animal. His frightened gaze went back to the dangerous looking sword.

“Don’t trust anyone except me.” The memory of Dean’s voice echoed inside his head in warning and Kriss turned around to flee.

“Wait… don’t run,” Vincent had called out.

The tone of his voice reminded Kriss of Dean, making him become confused in what he should do. He was so tired of trying to figure it all out. He glanced back to make sure that the man hadn’t drawn his sword while he wasn’t looking.

Vincent breathed a sigh of relief when the child paused and glanced back at him with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. The last couple villages he’d passed were a bloody mess and he hadn’t found any survivors until now. Even dirty and covered in blood… the boy seemed healthy and very scared, leading him to draw the conclusion that he was indeed a survivor of one of the villages.

“Where are your parents?” he asked, letting the concern lace his voice in hope of winning the child’s trust.

Where were his parents? The question had made Kriss feel so sad. His father wasn’t even in this dimension and had probably forgotten all about him by now… Dean had left him and never returned. Kriss felt the warmth of tears make new trails down his cheeks. The only answer he could give was a slow shake of his head as he turned around to face the man.

“Are you hurt,” Vincent had asked as he came and knelt down in front of Kriss so his height wouldn’t be as intimidating to the young boy… he couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. He slowly reached out and palmed the dirty cheek, rubbing with the pad of his thumb to wipe away the tears.

Kriss reminded himself of what this human man must be thinking when he looked at him… that he was covered in blood and wearing clothes that were barely more than tatters. Since almost all of his injuries had already healed and knowing better than to tell a human what had really happened, he answered with the only other thing that was the truth.

“I’m all alone now.” He’d started crying for real then… loud wails mixed with the sound of hick-ups, causing Vincent to pull him into his arms… whispering that it was alright now… that he would protect and care for him.

And Vincent had protected him… to the point of sacrificing his own life.

The pain of glass cutting into his palm brought Kriss back to the present. He opened his fist seeing the glass shard sticking out of it.

This was what Dean found when he stepped out of the bathroom from his shower. He frowned seeing Kriss standing there picking a glass shard out of his palm. Slamming the door behind him caused the other Fallen to flinch and their eyes locked in the window’s reflection. He wasn't in the mood to watch his lover morn his childhood crush all over again. Once had been more than enough.

Kriss took a deep breath trying to ease the ache in his chest. “I never thought I’d see him again Dean. Part of me actually hoped he would have forgiven me by now. I was just trying to save his life.”

“He was mortal Kriss. You did much more than simply save his life and you know it,” Dean said tonelessly. “Because of you, he can now experience the pain of death for eternity and revive to bitch about it. The human mind can only take so much. That’s why their lifespan is made to be short.”

“I know,” Kriss growled. “You’ve never hesitated in reminding me of that fact. I made a selfish decision but I was all alone in a world where demons roamed free, and I didn’t think you were coming back. You were gone so long that I was afraid the demons had killed you… I didn’t want to lose him too.”

Dean sighed and tried to keep his temper under control. “You would have known the moment something happened to me, so your fear was for nothing.”

“I was a child Dean,” Kriss snapped back. “All I wanted was someone to care for me and to let me care for them in return.”

“You’re such a bleeding heart,” Dean mocked, well aware that the adolescent prince had fallen in love with the Knight during his absence. That little fact had been a hard pill to swallow as he’d watched Kriss mourn the loss of his love. He gritted his teeth wondering if Kriss would once more become obsessed with his childhood crush.

Kriss flung the bottle of Heat across the room making Dean leaned slightly to the side so he didn’t get hit by it. “Go screw yourself Dean.”

Dean squared his shoulders, “There’s my bratty prince in all his spoiled glory.”