Prelude.01. demon verona

Pain.

Substance in the numbness, a light that scorched my throat.

It was insistent, spreading to my broken fingers, across my sealed eyes. The heat battered at my sluggish, frozen mind. What is this? Why…?

I’m supposed to be dead.

The poison racing through my veins, the sharp, faraway sting pushing me further into the darkness of her death…No…her eyes opened. She was still alive; she’s all right.

At least that’s something, If she can go on, if she’s still in that world, I’m fine with being here.

Someone stabbed me in the heart with a hot, venom-sheathed stake.

I clutched at my chest, trying to get past the skin to the agony, sweat streaming into my rolling, blank eyes.

“…I was wondering when you’d wake.”

I looked to the familiar voice….No. Please, no.

“You…” I croaked, my tongue like razors at the top of my mouth. “…you followed me.”

She flinched slightly, a single tear tracing that perfect jawline. “Can you blame me? You did the same…”

I sat up, struggling only slightly and took her into my arms. “…I know. At least we’re together now, and no one can tear us apart.”

She collapsed into me gratefully, her slim arms going around my neck. “I—”

“Can you be so sure of that?”

There was a light, a silhouette of a slim man with oddly angular shoulders in a doorway, undefined until this moment.

My vision adjusted to see wolf’s eyes and sleek, blood-coloured hair, a crimson carnation tucked into the buttonhole of his tuxedo.

He grinned a sly, Cheshire grin, kneeling to our level. “…I have a proposal for you two.”