Elaine saw Colt step out in front of her. No longer was his hair a deep blackish-blue. It was a pearl white like she remembered it being when they went to the seer before. His black wings were now on display behind his shoulders. He quirked a brow searching their surroundings for the missing faery man.

"Welcome to hell," Colt murmured.

Lorcan was nowhere in sight.

Elaine brushed the dirt from her dress. 

"Thanks," she replied sarcastically, "Where's Lorcan? How did he get separated from us?"

"Yeah, where did flame-hair run off to, anyway?" Colt joked. His face remained grim. Elaine shrugged her shoulders while looking around their dark surroundings. "He couldn't have gone far."

Elaine didn't know how they would be able to find Lorcan when it was so dark out. She wondered if he just landed a little further away from them, and if that was the case, he would be able to hear them and find his way.

Elaine cupped her hands around her mouth calling loudly, "Lorcan!" Suddenly, a red set of glowing eyes appeared in the shadows in front of her a few feet away. "Um, I think that's him!"

She started to walk over toward the red glowing eyes. However, Colt put his arm out blocking her path.

"There are many things with red eyes out here. Believe me, that is not Lorcan," Colt began with reproach. He knew Elaine had yet to glamour herself to appear a demon and he guessed the same case would be for Lorcan. "Stay close," he warned.

It was important they find Lorcan as soon as possible, but he had to get rid of the creature growling now in front of them.

Elaine thought Colt's comment made sense since they were in hell. She kept her eyes trained on the demonic thing as it stepped closer. It was some kind of animal. Colt sent a shadow in the direction of the creature. When the shadow left Elaine's line of sight, they both remained silent. Then, the creature made a terrible shrieking noise as if it was in pain. A sharp snapping sound followed, but a moment later she saw the shadow retreat toward Colt.

She knew he killed whatever it was, but the fact he so easily did it was just a little unsettling to her. 

"W-well...I guess we won't have to worry about being attacked," she whispered with a thudding heart.

"I'm glad that wasn't me!" a heavy voice breathed in her ear. Elaine screeched. She turned around looking up at Lorcan. He patted her arm before shifting his gaze to Colt. "I found my way to you both. Strange, how you brought us here and tried to separate us already."

"Well, Lorcan, now that you're back we can get a move on as long as your done throwing around accusations-" 

"How far are we from wherever it is we're going?" Elaine cut in.

She assumed Colt's vision was used to the darkness of the domain. Lorcan walked by her side with his cold stare glued on Colt's back. 

"There are several towns in hell. We're just going to stay at the first one we pass. Also, you both should glamour yourselves. Demons don't take kindly to outsiders here," Colt explained.

"Glamour? Lorcan, how do we glamour ourselves?" 

Lorcan scoffed. "So, we will be killed for what we are, is that what you're saying? Why didn't you tell us to glamour ourselves before we got here?" Lorcan asked skeptically, "You know, seeing as I could have died that moment I got separated and was completely out in the open!" 

Colt stopped in his tracks ready to throttle the faery's throat and leave him behind, but, instead, he rubbed his face clenching his jaw with disdain. When he finally turned around and met Lorcan's expectant stare, he had construed a calm facade. 

He answered in a monotone, "This is my first time taking anyone other than myself here. I cannot appear in my true form in the human realm. You are right, though, I should have discussed this with you beforehand. Just make yourselves appear to have white hair, black wings, and pale eyes like mine. It will be good enough for now. We won't be here very long to raise suspicion. Although, it is uncommon for demons to travel in groups."

"Easy enough," Lorcan replied. He turned to Elaine, "Imagine yourself as he just told us to be." 

Elaine did as he suggested, but she yelled in protest when he blew faery dust onto her face. Some of it got in her eyes and she blinked several times. When she rubbed the rest off of her face she looked down at herself. To her amazement, her clothes had changed into black pants and a black shirt. Her hair had indeed turned white and her skin seemed paler like she imagined it to look in her mind. She peered over her shoulder noticing her wings look as black as Colt's.

She was stunned at the success of her glamoured appearance, but all the same, was she worried about Lorcan's red faery dust that got blown all over her.

"What have you done to me?"

"Helped you," Lorcan replied, "Unlike the meat head."

"No, you're trying to make me your mate again!" Elaine panicked and continued, "You know I'm not supposed to breathe in your faery dust!" 

Her cheeks blushed when she heard him make a strange purring noise as his glamoured black wings flickered out of sight to be replaced by his real red ones. They glowed brightly. Colt looked at him with new rage.

"You can't force her to be your mate! She doesn't want you!" he yelled, "Put you're glamour back on. Now!"

Elaine rushed away from Lorcan and went to Colt's side hearing Lorcan make the weird noise again. It made her stomach feel all fluttery and just...wrong. She didn't want to admit something was forming between them. The bizarre truth would be hard to ignore.

Colt's attempt to unmate her had failed. 

Lorcan's eyes looked glazed over. He seemed completely out of it as he stood still staring at her with a dumb look on his face. Colt walked up to him and clapped his hands in front of Lorcan's face. The faery made a low guttural noise and darted away from him over to Elaine. Elaine's glamour completely dropped as he grabbed her face and leaned in taking her by surprise.

"Stop!" Elaine whisper-yelled.

Lorcan snapped out of his daze and stumbled away from her. Elaine shivered and hugged herself as Colt watched Lorcan with a calculative stare. 

"I'm sorry..." Lorcan said in a quiet voice while glamouring his wings. "I can't help myself."

He hated the way Elaine looked at him now with zero trust. Elaine spit up some of her own faery dust into her hand and tossed it at herself. She was excited to see her glamour herself all on her own successfully. 

"Who knew faeries throw up on each other," Colt mumbled while continuing to walk ahead of them.

"You couldn't help it. You won't do it again, right?" Elaine asked Lorcan.

Lorcan's heart sped up hearing her soft tone directed at him. He really couldn't control what he did and it very well could happen again. Still, he offered her a small grin and nodded his head in agreement. 

After about an hour of walking around dead trees and pits around the ground in the dark, they finally arrived at a town.

Colt grunted while passing under the rusting archway. "No talking from either of you until I say so."

Most of the buildings in the town were either made of scorched black brick or dilapidated sheets of metal and charred wood. The streets were made of crushed bones that looked long-worn down into the dirty gravel sidewalk they walked over. Soon enough, they spotted demons similar in appearance to themselves. Elaine followed closely behind Colt watching as they passed demon after demon. 

She hoped the demons couldn't see through her glamour. 

From out of nowhere, a demon girl who looked around her age walked up to Lorcan. Lorcan pretended to ignore her presence by looking forward with a blank face. However, the girl locked arms with him and tried to pull him away with more strength than him. Colt stopped and turned around. 

"May I take him?" the demon girl asked Elaine with a mischievous look in her eyes.

Without another word, the demon girl took a dagger out of her pant leg and teasingly dangled it in front of Lorcan's face. She was very tall and matched Colt in height. Elaine thought she looked just as muscular, too.

Colt rushed by her and over to Lorcan.

The demon girl backed away from Lorcan with confusion written all over her face. Just like that, her demeanor totally changed. She hissed at Colt as if to ward him away. Then, Colt did something Elaine never saw him do before as he shifted into his shadow form. The shadows parted from him and a demonic laugh escaped him. She never heard him laugh like he did now. 

He sounded like a completely different person.

She watched bewildered as Colt revealed himself. Instead of his normal demonic appearance, he appeared to be covered in some kind of black sticky goo. His eyes were still just as pale as they usually were. However, his wings hung menacingly toward the demon girl. A crowd formed around them. Elaine took a step back closer to Lorcan.

"I-I-I didn't know you were such of high rank!" the demon girl gasped while backing away from Colt.

"And I don't care," Colt chided. Suddenly, he vanished, only to reappear in front of the demon girl a breath away. "Stay away."

The demon girl began to cry and pleaded for her life. Elaine thought he was doing a good job intimidating her and hoped the rest of the demons would get the hint and back away from them.

Abruptly, Colt grabbed the demon girl's head with one hand. He squeezed her head like a lemon with an emotionless look. Then, the girl's head burst. An awful amount of dark blood squirted over Colt and along the floor. Elaine's heart landed in her throat as she watched the demon girl's body being eaten by the other demons. Colt turned to look back at her. Then, he faced the other demons again who were feasting on the dead demon girl's flesh.

"Enough!" he roared at the starved-looking demons. 

The group of demons scurried back into the crowd like cockroaches and disappeared departing from the remains of the demon girl's carcass strewn about the street.

Colt's form slowly shifted back into his white-haired self. 

"Good going. Now, I assume you have a place in mind for us to stay?" Lorcan asked loudly. Elaine was baffled Lorcan wasn't affected by the horrific scene. She just watched Colt squeeze someone's head so hard it exploded after all. "One where we won't be eaten alive in our sleep?"

Colt sighed. "What did I say about talking?"

He didn't wait for the faery to respond. He continued walking down the street expecting them to follow. Lorcan nudged Elaine along seeing her still frozen in shock.

"He won't wait for you, but I always will," he told her. Elaine gripped his offered hand weakly. Her gaze didn't leave the skeleton of the demon girl until they rounded a bend in the street. "I'm sure you're traumatized. That is who he really is. There's no trusting something as violent as that."

Elaine thought Colt wasn't a blood-thirsty demon like the monsters who ate the demon girl. It still surprised Elaine how quickly and easily he killed the demon. To keep her sanity, she reminded herself this behavior was to be expected since they were in hell. A small part of her was glad for Lorcan waiting on her. There was some amount of comfort in knowing he was a faery like her and not used to seeing such gruesome things.

Eventually, they arrived at a tall brick building. Elaine gathered from the chicken scratch handwriting etched on the sign out front hanging overhead of them it was a hotel. She thought it was strange how hell of all places would have a hotel and it made her wonder what other places they had, too.

"We'll stay here," Colt announced. 

Lorcan nodded looking somewhat pleased because to him the building appeared in better condition than most they had passed by.

Elaine wondered why so many of the buildings looked like they had been through fires and the hotel was no different. Now that she was standing closer, she could see the brick of the hotel used to be more red in color, but now it was all black and crumbling. The building appeared at least fifty stories high, and despite their location, it seemed to be modern. 

There was a big glass window near the front double-door entrance. Through the big window, she could see inside the lobby. A short pale white-haired demon creature that looked more like a goblin was sitting on a stool behind what she guessed was the front desk.

Colt opened the door. The three of them went inside. 

🦋

A/N: Thank you for reading<3