The Demon Princess and Her Powerful Alpha

The Princess and the Prophetess

Ardenti 

   For a long while nothing but cold writhing blackness surrounded me. The stink of brimstone and evil clung in the air. It smelled worse to me than ever before. I tried to bristle away from the stench as it invaded me. A soft hand ran along my face and my hair pulling me from the blackness. The touch comforted me and reminded me of home. My chest warmed and and the darkness faded to nothing. I leaned into the contact and let it sooth my ravaged soul.

    I opened my eyes and a world I scarcely recognized formed around me. I laid in a field near the hell gates with a beautiful silver blonde woman holding me. Her beautiful form appeared familiar but I couldn't place her. Shock coursed through me when I opened my mouth and spoke. This had to be a dream. "Mama, I don't want to go without you." The words came out of me but I hadn't thought them. Her drawn face was profoundly tired.

    "I understand, my love, but you must." A single tear escaped her eye as she observed me. Her eyes were a brilliant blue with purple set in their depths. Her skin resembled a lovely pale peach. Silvery blonde hair framed her face and glowed with the light of the moon behind her. I pressed my face into her stomach and sobbed.

    "Don't leave me mama, don't leave me." my small hands gripped her dress as tightly as I could manage. "Who will care for me? Who will love me?" She held her hands over mine.

    "He will kill us both if I don't. I will see you again, Ardenti. I will hold you again. I will always love you, but you must care for yourself now." The pain she tried to hide from me became evident on her lovely face. "Be brave for me, or we will both die. I cannot live if you are dead, Ardenti. You know what will happen if I die, don't you?"

    "Yes, mama. The gates will fall and he will be unstoppable." She pulled my hands from her. They tightened to fists around nothing. She placed a long kiss on my forehead and I felt her wet tears touch my face.

    "Our secrets will be locked inside you where he cannot touch them. He needs them, to achieve his goals. He will not hurt you so long as they are locked up." She bore her eyes into mine. "The time will come and you will start to remember, but Ardenti he will come for you. You are the only one who can stop him. My love for you is eternal." She shimmered out of my view. I barely began to scream when I forgot why I would do such a thing. A cloud of ash swept me away.

    My eyes opened in time to vomit all over the floor of Melisande's potion room. It was worse than I imagined it would be for a human. I didn't need to eat. The black tar that came out of me could only be a viscous coating of black magic that had been pressed upon my soul. "That took quite a bit longer than I guessed." Melisande commented absently as she opened a jar and used her magic to funnel the substance inside and lock it away. "We wouldn't want that running a muck." She commented dryly.

    "Who was she?" I choked and spluttered, still not able to right myself. Exhaustion overtook me like it never had. My wolf shook in the recesses of my mind.

    "You would know better than I, Princess." She looked at me like she wanted to say more.

    "I don't have a mother." I said more to myself than to her.

    "Everything, and everyone is born of a mother, dear girl. Demons are born from a mother, though the demon bitches do not love the creatures they birth. Even your own father, the devil himself, had a mother." She reached out a hand to help me to my feet. I ignored her, and slumped back against the hard stone wall.

    "That's impossible. He has no mother." I continued to wretch but nothing more came up.

    "Perhaps, not anymore. Have you never noticed you are different from other demons?" Her tone was patient, as if she were talking to a child.

    "I'm a princess. Of course, I am different." My tone rebuked her. She looked at me with something close to pity in her eyes.

    "Yes, you are a princess." She nodded sagely. She sat down on a small stool and crossed her long legs.

    "Tell me what you know of me?" I demanded with all the strength I had left to muster.

    "What I know... Well, when you live as long as I have you come to know a lot of things." Something inside me pulled forward and growled at her. "Be calm, wolf." She spoke directly to the creature inside me. "I am your elder after all." Another cunning smile painted her lips. "I cannot tell you everything I know. I am too smart to interrupt destiny, even I am not powerful enough."

    She tapped her finger against her lips, trying to remember something far off. "I will answer the question you came here with. No, you cannot destroy your wolf, that is unless you also wish to die. You cannot kill yourself without killing yourself." There will come a time where you are grateful for that truth." She chuckled to herself at what she clearly deemed a ridiculous request.

    "You knew before you did all this." I accused.

    "I did." She nodded her head in agreement.

    "Then why?" I waved around the room and my slumped form.

    "I told you, dear girl. I will not interfere with fate. I will only fulfill my own destiny." She gave me a genuine smile and held up the jar. "There is evil born in you. There is darkness as well as light, but this, this poison, was not born in you. This is a curse placed on you. Be grateful I removed this evil." The weakness shook my limbs. I could not bear the sensation; I could not bear to consider what I had remembered or the things she had said.

    All I thought was I needed to run. I needed to get as far from this sorceress as possible. My magic formed around me, but it was no longer made of ash. I yelped in shock as a swirl of light and shadow formed a shining ball around me. It grabbed hold of me similar to how it used to, but the feeling differed greatly. I disappeared and her voice called after me. "Trust the memories dear, they are truer than anything you believe."