Chapter 9

An Evening of Pleasantries

 

She saw them as she walked into the charming Italian restaurant off Toulouse. She could feel his presence in the building, but that was certainly nothing new for her. She had felt him a lot in this city lately and had even begun to ignore it. It was easy to do. She had decided she wasn’t going to let him distract her. She had things to do. Though she was a certified goddess, and she and Katerina and Aren often went on grand excursions for long periods of time, she was still a property and business owner in several cities, and as such, she had duties she was obligated to do, or at the very least duties she was obligated to pay other people to do.

She didn’t own this restaurant, but Aren owned one a few places over. She also owned a bar on Bourbon, a coffee shop on Decatur almost across from the Square, a restaurant on Toulouse, and she and Katerina owned a packed night club off Bienville and Decatur. Overall, she loved the business in this city, both before and after the hurricane. The night club was three stories high, with the club being on the first two main floors, and all of their offices being on the third.

She had been sensing him an awful lot lately, and seeing him. When she was taking orders at the café, decked out in a Tulane University sweatshirt, she looked just like any normal college kid trying to make an extra buck or two in the afternoons and between classes, and she had even blatantly ignored him and given him some of the worst service in his life. He had dined in her restaurant where she had been working as hostess since they had been short-staffed that night. She had felt genuinely bad and a bit guilty for sneezing in his café au lait a few days before, so she had given him one of their best tables.

But tonight they were at one of the nicer restaurants in the city.  She had on one of her silk black dresses, nice stockings, black stiletto pumps, hair down and curled around her face. She looked ravishing and she was being escorted by Aren out to dinner before they went to the ballet.  She walked in with Aren, laughing and smiling over one of his snide remarks, when suddenly the power surge in the room caused the both of them to hold their breaths.

She felt him, but really, that was no shock to her. But what startled her was the other sense of power she felt along with him. It was deeper, no… not necessarily deeper, but definitely darker. And it was just as familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Do you…?” she asked Aren as she looked around to find the source.

“No bloody idea,” he answered as he felt the small hairs on the back of his neck prickle to attention. Damn but whatever here gave him the oddest sensation ever. Devlyn’s power was strong and bright, like lightening on the senses. Bane’s was dark and hovering, like thunder, he thought with a smile at the irony of his own metaphor, as apropos as it was. But this new sensation was darker, brooding, in a way. It felt like sulfur in the mouth, only it was in the skin. “Demon?”

She shook her head. “Not entirely. Demons aren’t this controlled with their powers. This is almost like a faust, but without the uncontrollable hate and rage.  I should know this, I’ve felt it before. But c’mon, they can’t feel you since you’re mainly human, and I doubt they can feel me. So let’s just sit down and forget about it, all right?”

He nodded to that and they followed the waiter to their common table on the patio. Devlyn typically preferred to sit outside, no matter where they went or how hot or cold. Usually he disdained this. Sweating was not in his list of favorite pastimes, and neither was freezing his body parts off. Fortunately, the night’s air had a light breeze to it, making sitting outside quite comfortable and enjoyable.

They sat down, and before the waiter could even scurry on to retrieve Devlyn’s wine selection, she could already pinpoint Bane in the restaurant. The other side of the patio, four tables back and to the right, she thought. But she wasn’t going to turn around. No, not if it killed her. The waiter came back with the year she ordered in a beautiful but oddly-shaped crystal decanter. He poured the two of them glasses, and they ordered an appetizer of calamari. She looked at Aren over her glass. “Where is he?”

“He’s a few tables behind you and over, with a group of people, six of them total. Three men, three women, and they appear to all be coupled.”

“What does she look like?” she asked.

“I can’t really see her from here, just her profile when she turns to look at him. Long dark hair, though, about the same color as yours.  From what I can see, she’s really quite beautiful. Sorry, Dev.” He apologized with a sheepish smile.

Devlyn rolled her eyes. Of course he was here with a beautiful woman! Then again, if she’d been ugly, it would have seriously lowered her opinion of him, and his taste in women. And considering how much he doted on her and whispered in her ear every chance he could, that would only have damaged her self-esteem more, most likely. She shook her head. Even she was aware of how bizarre her logic was working.

They continued on with their meal. The waiter came back with their calamari. Devlyn was halfway through her salad when she heard laughter ring out through the restaurant. Her fork fell from her fingers with a loud clatter. She knew that voice! “No!” she whispered darkly.

She glared at Aren. “Tell me, that laugh. It’s coming from her, isn’t it?” She watched as he nodded his head in agreement.  “D****t!” she yelled, hitting the table with her fist. She had enough control over herself that none of the other patrons heard her loud display. “This is so not fair!”

“What?” Aren asked. Damn, but the girl in front of him was not her typically polished self. The longer she was around Bane the less power she seemed to have over herself. “What is so bloody wrong with you?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

“He’s over there with my sister!”

“Your what?!”

She gave him a timid smile. Uh-oh. Yeah, neither Katerina nor Aren knew of her sisters. She had several of them, some she claimed more so than others. “Well, she’s my half-sister. Well, one of them, at least.”

He sat forward in his chair. “Devlynaria, you have some explaining to do and you better to it quickly. I don’t know what kind of episode you are having, but I really don’t like having important, or at the very least relevant, facts being idly handed to me over dinner.”

She sighed. He was right. “I’m my mother’s only child. But my father, well, my father isn’t nearly as discreet as my mother. He’s sired several children over the years. Sitting with Bane is one of them, and she is the source of the strange power in the room. Chances are, that is either my sister Corsail or Eliyana. They’re half-demons.”

“So, you’re telling me that this gorgeous woman sitting a few feet away from us is half-god and half-demon? That’s scary as hell there, Dev.”

She smiled at him. “I know. If it’s Corsail, she’s a bit more dangerous to you. Corsail is beautiful, and lethal. Whereas Katerina is a muse, and inspires love and lust and sex, Corsail wreaks sex. Her mother is a succubus, making her half-succubae, and half dark god.” She watched as Aren shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the thought of what that would be like. “She makes Katerina look sweet, innocent, and almost wholesome.”

“And the other one?”

Devlyn smiled. “Eliyana. She’s beautiful, with eyes just as striking as mine, features similar, except for her nose,” she giggled, wrinkling her own nose up at the thought. “Her mother wasn’t anything nearly as evil or predatory as a succubus, but she is dangerous all the same. Her mother is Arana, one of the most revered Seers in the Dark Realm.”

“I love how you say ‘dark realm’ as such a pretty euphemism for Hell.”

“It’s not Hell,” she retorted indignantly. “It’s not the same. Hades rules his place, my father rules somewhere else entirely. Though yes, the concept is similar.”

“I find it incredibly ironic that your mother is this beautiful, ethereal creature who is all that is good and pure. And yet, your father is the devil.”

Devlyn’s eyes flared. “Shut up! Or I will hurt you myself. I may not be a demon, but I am related to several, and growing up they taught me well, when I saw them.”

He looked at her, studied her. “That’s why you weren’t scared of Katerina, wasn’t it? You’re related to creatures just as feral as she was. It’s why the blood was what bothered you, not the animal itself.”

Devlyn had the grace enough to look down at that. Yeah, seeing Katerina’s original feral form was not the best site for a child, but it hadn’t been the worst she had ever seen by far. Her sister Adularia, or Addie, as she liked to call her, made the creature that Katerina had been look like a pet when she was angry. She had caught her betrothed mid-coital with a nymph. There wasn’t much of the bodies that they found, just chunks of meat and flesh and blood randomly hanging from objects.

“I had a very full life for twenty years before I came down here, and I saw many things before I came across the two of you. I’m not trying to denounce the atrocities that Katerina committed. I’m not trying to put down what she saw and was forced into. But yes, I was witness to a lot of gruesomeness in my short lifetime.”

“You didn’t flinch when Kristoff tore—”

“No, the vampire tore my nurse’s throat out, and I didn’t flinch. I could not help her, and I could not save her. But it wasn’t the most horrible death imaginable. Not by a long shot.”

“So what’s the big deal then?”

Devlyn looked around, anywhere but at the table behind them. How could she explain this? “I don’t appreciate him calling my sister down here to make me see reason. Whether it was him, or my parents, or whomever, I just can’t stand the thought of them bringing her in on this. And I have no doubt that if they called in one, more of them know about it.” She did not want to be the laughing stock of her large family. She didn’t want to have to deal with them. It was hard enough being the youngest out of an entire pack of offspring, much less being one of the few of them who weren’t mainly evil. But she didn’t want to give them grounds for thinking of her as any more childish than they already did.

“Devlyn, please. She could just simply be here, for her own reasons. It’s very possible, you know.”

Devlyn rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Aren. She hates this realm. She hates this city! She has no concept whatsoever of southern manners or etiquette. When she’s on earth, she spends her time in New York City, mostly. She understands the fast pace there, the movement, in all its evil and grandeur. She would not voluntarily come here.”

“Yes, that may be true. But nowhere does it state that her being here has anything to do with you!”

“Then why is she sitting over there with my betrothed?”

Aren tried his best to refrain his laughter. For someone denying so hard that she had any feelings for him, she seemed to be pretty quick to call him her own. “Coincidence? Damn, Devlyn, she could just be in town and knew that he was here and wanted to see a familiar face while she was here. You don’t have to be the reason for everything here, babe.”

She glared at him. “First of all, don’t call me ‘babe.’ Second, you of all people should know never to trust coincidences. That’s worse than trusting the Fates, Aren.”

“Eat your salad. F**k him, Devlyn. Ignore him. Ignore her. I frankly don’t give a s**t why she is here, or why they are together. All I know is that we are at a nice restaurant and have plans for afterward, and I don’t have to return the body to my sister any time soon. I’m not about to let any of you ruin that for me tonight. Got it?”

Devlyn smiled at him. “Yeah. I agree. That sounds like a damn good idea.” She chose to block them out, their laughter, the smiles she could feel from several feet away. She could sense when their eyes were on her back, but she chose to ignore that too. Aren was completely right with this. They had come out tonight to have a wonderful evening between just the two of them. Just because Bane and her sister chose the same restaurant to venture to was no reason to darken the whole affair.

But eventually, the other couple got up from their meal and Devlyn could feel them approaching her table. She really didn’t need this tonight. She and Aren had been enjoying a lovely meal, once they both agreed to put the other table’s occupants out of their minds. She didn’t want her sister and Bane to ruin that.

“Aria, what a beautiful surprise it is to see you here. You look as ravishing as ever, if I do say so,” Bane greeted charmingly. What was he up to? There was enough sugar dripping off his voice to send a diabetic into a coma. Why?

It immediately put her on edge. “Thank you. You look…tailored and groomed as well,” she replied stiffly, the effort to say something unscathing not lost on those present.

“Devy!” the woman standing with Bane cut in. “You’ve grown up. You’re so beautiful!” she greeted with a hug.

Devlyn found herself crushed beneath her sister’s embrace. It was difficult to stay formal when so much genuine emotion appeared to be coming at her at once. “Eliyana. It’s been a long time.”

“So cold, Devy?” she asked in confusion as she pulled back slightly. “Why? It’s been forever, and I know I’m not one of your least favorite by far. I know that.” Eliyana’s eyes passed between Devlyn, Bane, and Aren. “I don’t understand. Which one of them angers you? I’ll kill your companion, if you’d like? Just say the word and it’s done.”

The fact that her offer didn’t extend to Bane didn’t escape Devlyn’s notice, and she quickly added that to her list of things to plague over later. “No, you can’t kill Aren. If I wanted him dead, I would have done it years ago myself,” she replied easily.

Eliyana looked him over. “So he’s your trusty companion for all these years? Very nice,” she said appreciatively.

Aren merely smiled, albeit seductively, at this new woman in front of him. There was a distinctive resemblance between Devlyn and her sister. Those beautiful eyes, the shape at least, though Eliyana’s were a much lighter shade of blue, though just as distinctive.  She had an incredible body, he thought to himself. One hell of a woman. But she’s not a woman, he reminded himself. She was a demon, and Aren had honestly not dealt with one of them before. For all he knew her outward beauty could only be a visage for what was held underneath it. For all he knew, she really could be the kind of creature Hollywood created for special effects. He had to keep that in mind with her. She might be Devlyn's sister, and only half-demon, but he didn’t think she would hesitate to mutilate him. The half of her that wasn’t demon wasn’t too much better than the half that was. It would help, though, if she didn’t resemble Devlyn so damn much. Well, she was like Devlyn, without the innocence.

Aren carefully studied her. She was interesting, no doubt. There was a lethalness in her that he responded to, it was so incredibly alluring. He watched the two sisters closely, watched Bane’s reaction to the both of them.

“Thank you,” Aren responded. “And you are?” he asked as politely as he could muster.

Bane interjected at this point. “Since it appears that my charming Devlyn appears to have forgotten her manners, I shall. Eliyana, this is one Aren of Arwick, sister to one of Eros’s muses, Katerina. Aren, this is one of Devlyn’s half-sisters, Eliyana.”

She smiled up at him. It almost held the look of Devlyn’s, the one no man could resist, but without the purity. Looking at this beautifully wicked sister, it was almost like imagining Devlyn’s evil twin to be in front of him, though not quite. Their noses were infinitely different, small little features that most barely took notice of, but after studying those features carefully over centuries, he knew Devlyn’s face like he knew his own. But he knew that standing before him was entirely too close to what Devlyn would be if and when she lost her innocence. He had never considered how much that trait was a part of her very nature, her personality. What would happen, to them all, when and if she lost it?

“It is a pleasure, Ms. Eliyana. Devlyn mentioned you briefly at dinner,” he said as he took her hand and gently pressed it against his lips.

“Oh, my!” she said with a laugh. “She didn’t compare me to Addie again, did she?”

“She was not negative in her description of you,” he assured her. He didn’t know her well enough to joke, nor to be truthful. By her very nature, she could not be trusted, at least not by him. He knew where he ranked with creatures such as her. It was somewhere above dirt to be walked on, and below minion to be stepped on. He was simply fodder to her kind.

“Sure she wasn’t,” she said dryly.

Bane looked at both sisters. He had not seen them together such as this in many years, and certainly not since Devlyn had reached maturity. The resemblance, and then the difference, between the two astounded him. He had once considered Eliyana to be the most beautiful creature in creation, with the exception only of Reisha, Devlyn’s mother, though her beauty was all that was light and radiant and pure, whereas Eliyana’s was a darker beauty, naturally. He had held both women in high regard. All of Devlyn’s sisters were beautiful, exceptionally so, in their own right. He had known before she had ever been born that she would surpass them all.

He had been right. Devlyn’s dark looks were just as dazzling as her sisters’, only the difference was her eyes. Those eyes were the lightness shining out from her. Right now, though, all that was shining out of those inhumanly eyes was anger. Anger directed at him.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think!