Page 48 of Satanic Shadow
14
Tonight, the corridors are quiet as I head to the library. They aren’t usually this silent, and it makes me nervous. The screams that accompany the animalistic sounds—which accompany the demonic presences that haunt the castle—are gone.
I follow the flames from candelabras as I make my way down the spiral steps to the third floor. This is where all the professors sleep, and to the far right, there’s a tower that looks over the entire island from its terrifying height.
Someone threw themselves from it not long ago.
I’ve contemplated doing the same a few times, but I usually snap out of it within a few minutes.
Dane’s hasty exit from the room yesterday still lingers in my mind. His words. The look of betrayal on his face. The permanent ink on my skin is identical to his, yet we aren’t the same species.
I need answers, and I need them fast.
I’ve always been human. I have been for the last twenty years. I was born during fall, and my parents used to walk me inmy stroller around the lake near our home. There are pictures of me as a child. I have many images of me growing up and legal documentation stating where I was born to prove my nationality.
When my parents died, I went to a foster family, and for some reason, I lasted all but two weeks before they handed me back to the system. The second family were heavy handed. The third had a son who didn’t know how to keep his hands to himself. The fourth preferred the star pupil in school, and the fifth left me at home for days before they were reported.
The sixth just didn’t like me.
My last family died, and that’s when my life had to start. Get a job. Find somewhere to stay. A tiny apartment that I could afford to rent with my low income. Learn to drive. Buy a car. Rescue a dog. Purchase a better mattress. Another car because the first one broke. Credit cards that accumulated debts. More debts. Then, one day, everything just… changed.
I ended up here.
And I don’t even know if my dog is okay. Granted, Grayson was there when I was taken and probably has a search party out hunting for me.
What if he doesn’t give me my dog back? What if they all think I’m dead and rehome Toodles?
Instead of being there, looking after my furball, I’m trapped here, so Dane’s accusations are ridiculous. I have a full memory of growing up as a human. If I was an immortal creature, I’d know. I’d summon whatever power I had and smack him in the face with it.
I’m powerless. That’s why I was able to go into the diamond, into the other world with the giant vortex in the sky where the scary beast with horns was. That’s why I was able to collect the scroll Dane wanted. He said himself that only someone without any powers could enter.
Is that not proof enough?
But the tattoo…
We have the exact same tattoo. Albeit mine is tiny compared to the one stretching across his entire back. But still. They’re the same.
When I reach the library, I’m relieved to see it’s unlocked. Usually, the librarian tends to lock it, to keep people like me out, but recently, she’s been leaving it open. Accidentally or intentionally, I have no idea.
I use the glow from the moonlight shining through the windows to walk through the rows of overstuffed bookshelves. My fingers glide over each spine, collecting dust and God knows what else. This is the same route I’ve been taking since I started coming here. And because of that, the same books have multiple track lines from me touching them as I walk.
I wipe my hands together and reach up to where I’ve been hiding Dane’s father’s book, but when I push aside the textbooks, it’s gone.
My brows furrow, and I chew my lip nervously. I left multiple notes in it. A list of facts about Dane, what I know of his realm and his powers.
Did I put it somewhere else? Poppy did say she had a look but promised she put it right back where she got it. My gaze trails over the entire shelf, and all the ones next to it, but I give up.
Whoever has it better not show him my list of reasons why I can’t be attracted to him. The most important one: Dane is cruel. I also don’t think I can stomach him approaching me with it clenched in his hand, questioning why I drew him with a huge forehead, a small dick, and warts all over his face.
I huff and walk to the back of the library to see if the librarian put it in the returns box, freezing when I see Valin. My eyes widen. He’s not alone, and this is definitely not a scene I need to witness.
The professor has one of the students by the hair, bent over a desk, skirt up to her waist, heels on, her shirt and blazer on the ground. He’s fully clothed, with only his pants unbuttoned.
The book of the Shadow Realm sits on the table, open, and Valin reads the pages at the same time as thrusting into her.
He pounds into her relentlessly, and in my statue-like state, I struggle to move my feet in the opposite direction. She whimpers, and he goes faster, closing the book and throwing his head back on a strangled groan.
It’s not until he pulls the person up by the hair that I eventually take a step back, seeing his canines lengthen into fangs. And when he sinks them into her throat, and she moans in pleasure, I spin on my heels and run from the library.
