Chapter 4 The Deal

Damon’s POV

I frowned as I watched her go, pacing after her till I blended into the shadows. My heart was beating rapidly as I re-lived her feisty dark eyes and how they told me off.

Surely the rumors of Princess Ariana of Warwick were true. I had seen women in their hundreds before, I have lived ten times the lifetime of the minstrels who walked the surface of all four continents. Rot in hell with the elementals? I bit my bottom lip, smirking at thin air. The wind and leaves rustled in response, they were laughing with me. Such a man had no place with my people.

I was an elemental myself, born of pure blood elementals who were wiped out thousands of years ago. If I hadn’t found my way to the Kingdom of Warwick, I may have been sitting at my throne, watching the boring jester who poked fun at the absence of a mate by my side. I’d gotten tired to obliterating them, so I just let him do what he wanted. I did try. I walked through all the kingdoms in search of a mate, and desperation was threatening to drive me over the edge and into death’s eternal abyss.

In my 3,000 years of existence, I had never been more worried than I was an hour ago.

In 3,000 years, I built a kingdom whose power could not be rivaled by any force in the world. In those years I have watched my kind die off without being able to birth an offspring. The ones who managed to find mates were wiped out during the Great Ethnic Cleansing, and I have walked the earth a lone wolf in all those years. It was a thing to behold watching the world transform from the use of sheep’s shredded wool for clothes, to using spindles in spinning fine silk.

And it was more disgusting to see how weak werewolves had become, so much that humans, who cowered before us now stood with their shoulders high. And so, I had to become the most powerful. The government of the earth rested at the tip of my tongue and disobedience was punished with the wrath of my blade.

In the middle of the jester’s mimicry, the beta of the kingdom brought me good news. Along with the new infrastructural proposal for Harmonia, the location of my mate had been identified. “Far east, my Lord.” He had said with excitement in his voice.

I mused him to speak further and he affirmed that the diviner of the kingdom under my union had seen it in the stars.

There were many kingdoms in the far east as he described it, it was difficult to choose a kingdom to begin with. But word carried it that the kingdom of Warwick held a power contest every year. Might as well try my luck.

So here I was as an ore merchant, walking the fields with Alpha Mariano’s strong-headed daughter. My insides did countless flips as I resisted the urge to lace my fingers in hers. The minute she walked through those doors, I felt every element shake with pleasure.

My heart threatened to leap out of its cage for the first time in three thousand years. I wanted to make her mine right then with the way she scanned the crowd and swayed her hips in my direction. I wanted her to bear my own pups, hold her in my arms, protect her, possess her with my being.

When Mariano spoke of his daughter, I didn’t know she would throw me off balance the way she had.

And in more ways than one. She spoke of people she had beaten, establishing that she was a warrior to the bone. She was as insensitive as she was beautiful, yet I couldn’t help but feel things I haven’t before. If we were mates, she surely would have known by now. Perhaps it was because I didn’t know that as well? I have never found a mate, so that sense was dormant.

But I’d only come to know that when she broke her bond with the fool she called Jasper. Her scent became an intense honeysuckle damned my senses. It took a split second of battle with the wind not to lunge at her and let the earth whisk us back to Harmonia. So when I’d asked to follow her back, it wasn’t because I wanted to.

The courtesy that this world has created demanded that I do so, it however, wasn’t the safest for her. But I had other things to attend to; something else and something unexpected had caught my fancy.

A searing scream tore through the air, followed by a whimper. I found my way out of the cover of the trees and inched towards the sound. I was just feet away when I crouched down in amusement, still locked away from their field of view.

“Bastard!” Jasper’s voice, a voice that I had come to detest rang again, and I peeked to see his mate on the ground. The blonde man leaned down to pick her up by the collars, and slapped her hard again, sending her reeling to the ground. “This is all because of you!”

“I didn’t do anything!” She pleaded, her hair tousled and her eyes begging earnestly.

“Yes, you did, Lorna! In your miserable existence, you wouldn’t know what power feels like!” He picked her up again. “We were supposed to be just one stupid night, but you just had to be a ‘too fertile’ omega! And now I just lost the chance to become the future of Warwick!”

“I didn’t know, Jasper!” The woman whose name I assumed was Lorna cried back. I couldn’t see Jasper’s face, but I knew he was seething. He shook his head and yanked her upwards.

“You did! I thought I was just a beta…” His voice faded but the wind brought it back quickly. “But no, she was my mate and you had to ruin things for me!”

He threw her to the ground and began kicking again. Screams and cries continued to ring through, louder for me as an elemental. The woman had curled into a fetal position, yet her cries wouldn’t deter Jasper from his assault.

“Jasper, please stop!”

“No! You deserve to die!”

“I’m carrying your pup, please!” She coughed out, raising one hand that Jasper was quick to kick away. He leaned down to tilt her chin up, grabbing it harshly.

“I don’t care about the stupid pup,” He growled back as if she should have known sooner. I heard her gasp and saw her eyes go wide. I clicked my tongue again. If he hadn’t done what he’d done tonight with Princess Ariana, I liked Jasper.

“I don’t even care if you live or die.” He continued, tightening his grip. “In fact, I’d be happier with you dead. And if you died right now, it has nothing on me.”

Jasper rose to his feet and begun his fit of kicking the woman on the ground. Lorna stopped moving and now lay flattened on the ground. Jasper didn’t stop, he kicked her one last time and pushed at her belly with one foot.

“Die, you fucking bitch!” He muttered, running one hand through his hair and heaving a frustrated sigh. “I hope you and your pup rot in hell with the elementals.”

The uncreative, unoriginal bastard spat at her form and started for the same way Ariana left. I shook my head, adjusting my cloak at his jab at my kind. I was tempted to believe that the people of Warwick had a problem with the existence of elementals.

If they did, I would have no problem destroying their kind as well.

I rose to my feet when Jasper was long gone, tapping leaves and debris off the hem of my clothes. It was awfully silent, except for my elements moving around. I was the only one who could hear it however, it was noiseless to every living thing. I took careful steps to where her body lay and crouched down again to study her form.

There was blood trickling down from her disheveled black hair, so much for somebody who worried about the bloodied nose I’d give Jasper. Curious, I poked one finger at her sides. She didn’t move.

“It would be such a waste if you died, Lorna.” I said lowly and placed a hand at her sides. Her heart was still beating, but I knew she couldn’t breathe. I wove two fingers through the air, sending shots of air down her nostrils. She could die from shock otherwise.

Lorna soon coughed out, springing forward immediately. She let out a shriek as soon as she saw me and did her best to scoot away from me. It wasn’t much anyways.

“Again, it would be such a waste if you died, Lorna,” I said with a smile. Her eyes were wide, and I could see her fingers squeezing the leaves on the ground in fear.

“Who are you?”

“We just met. I am Damon, an ore merchant from the West.” Saying it out loud was painful, but I needed to keep up the façade for a while longer.

“No,” She shook her head. “What did you do to me?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Jasper…” She trailed off, taking only a moment to come back to reality. “I remember him saying he didn’t care if I lived or died.”

“Then you can thank me for bringing you back to life.” I finished and rose to my feet again. While she enjoyed her daze, I started to walk away and she didn’t disappoint me.

“Wait!” She called back and I smirked. “Thank you…”

“I don’t accept such gratitude,” I  said and turned to see her on her feet. She had confusion etched deep in her eyes.

“What do I do then?”

“Strike a deal with me. You want to see Jasper suffer, no?”

“I…” she sounded unsure.

“My time is precious to me now that it’s running out,” I pointed out at her and sent air through her hair. She shuddered at that, and had her eyes wider than my hands. She had so many questions she didn’t ask. So many questions I had no obligation to answer.

“Okay,” Lorna agreed, but I could still see the fear and skepticism in her eyes. “What do I do?”

“Would you stake your soul to see the end of him?”

Her eyes went wide. “What?!”

“I’m a merchant my dear.” I cooed, walking closer to her with a sly grin and handing her a handkerchief. “It’s always give and take, Lorna, for souls are the most…valuable.”