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Aidan's eyes gleamed turquoise from under a thick layer of blonde eyelashes, and his dirty blonde hair shimmered with hints of gold when he turned his head. Even though the annoyingly gorgeous South African wasn’t as pale as I was, in nothing but dark clothes—which he nine out of ten times chose to wear—Aidan certainly looked like creamy-white light swimming in nothing but darkness. He might not glow in the dark like I did, but the demon slayer came close. Closer than Ty or any other asshole in our crew.
In a thin top and pair of denims, his casual dress was somehow made glamorous and chic. Without even trying, Aidan could easily be a fashion icon.
"It's not worth it—your little nighttime runs. We're already dealing with the fact that you've made yourself a target for every demon in the area."
In the last two years, I'd made myself the name out of every local demon's mouth. I picked off the smaller ones at first, the ones who normally went unnoticed, but my appetite for vengeance against evil men grew with every demon I killed. It was far too easy to go after human men, but they'd been my aim up until the night I met Aidan.
If given the chance, I'd end all of them, because men were a disease on this world. But Aidan was different. He proved not all men, though I was still convinced he was just a very rare occurrence.
Meeting Aidan and his crew was a game-changer for me.
Granted, he was one of two out of the group who appreciated my devil-may-care attitude and apathy towards human men in general. He didn't take offense. If anything, he barely acknowledged it. Aidan wanted to believe that lingering under all the rage and vengeance was a girl desperate to be loved. Aidan might know an awful lot of things, but he wasn't very bright when it came to jaded female types. I blamed his growing up in a sexist, male-dominated occupation.
I, on the other hand, wasn't convinced that any part of me was left untouched by the poison of evil men having their terrible way with me. I was world-weary and vengeful, and I would never pretend otherwise. All that remained was an intense desire to punish every demon and man who ever thought it was his right to hurt others. And in the most painful way I could devise for them. So, for this reason, the other misfit types Aidan kept at his side weren't huge fans of me.
Not that I really cared.
I’d learned shortly after meeting the persistent asshole that he came from a long line of demon hunters. They called themselves Shadow Stalkers.
Lame, I know.
I mean, it was ridiculous to listen as Aidan went on and on about how the information was passed down through the generations. How his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather—all men, mind you—spent their lives protecting other humans from the "evil that lurked in darkness." Genetics, or something about their blood—though I wasn't terribly sure about the specifics—and knowledge of conclusive ways to banish a demon put them at an advantage out on a hunt.
Not close to what I was as a half demon, though. My abilities went much further and mimicked the demons I hunted.
Demon hunters like Aidan were clever tacticians. We're talking military-style training and procedure. They didn't have the benefit of fast-healing or unnatural strength and speed like I did. Instead, they had a vast knowledge of demons and generations of how-to guides specific to their cause. And they never went into a situation without first understanding how to get out of it.
Like the powder I trapped tonight's bastard with. That effective tool against demons was something out of Aidan's how-to guides. I didn't know how it worked, didn't really care, but it was something I wouldn't have used myself if not for Aidan and his Shadow Stalker lineage.
Several defectors, like Aidan, formed a sort of misfit crew just over thirteen years ago, around the time he found me. They didn't agree with how the previous generation ran their group of night stalkers, so they formed their own.
Lucky for us, many of them were the brightest Shadow Stalkers who were ever a part of the group, and a lot of them used those skills to keep our renegade crew under the radar from not only the human police but the previous generation of Shadow Stalkers as well. Without them, I may have been killed by the first demon I went up against.
I hadn't expected it. I didn't understand what it was or why its face changed. I froze. I went inside myself like all those times men posing as father figures, or as friends, or as saviors put their hands on me. If not for Aidan's crew, the demon would've won.
Aidan and the other demon hunters swept in like a band of superheroes and bailed me out. It was the first time anyone had ever helped me, so I felt like I owed it to them to try out whatever the hell they were trying to do.
Aidan convinced me it was better to have people beside you than to go at it alone. And I wanted to believe him. For the first time, I put my trust in a man. Then as the years went on, it was like finding that one thing I'd been missing—a place to put my vengeance.
Aidan answered questions I'd long wondered about myself. Questions I pretended I didn't want to know. Questions that ultimately made me stay. The way he explained it, his grandfather or his great-grandfather would've killed me if given the chance. Half demon to them was still demon.
Aidan wasn't like them.
The rebel Shadow Stalker saw something in me that he argued would help more than it would harm. It wasn't something we agreed on at first, but I didn't mind the safety I found as one of his crew. I couldn't deny it was the family life I'd craved since I started hopping from one foster home to the next. But I also wouldn’t ever openly admit it to the asshole's face because he'd take it and run away with it. He'd say I was emotionally maturing, and I didn't want to have to punch my only friend.
I brushed back hair from my eyes after letting loose the top knot I sported for the evening. Dark curls fell and bounced on pale white shoulders before I combed them back.
In the mirror off to my right, I was the vision of beautiful death.
My eyes were the bluest blue. Though, I was told they turned red when rage overtook me. My eyes beamed against the contrast of my dark brown hair. My pale skin didn't have golden hues or any real coloration at all. It spoke of a poorly maintained complexion, when really it was just the way it'd always been.
I was all curves, and my penchant for fighting had given me a more athletic look over the years. But I preferred comfortable, baggy clothes. Call it tomboy, call it laziness, but I really didn't see the point in dressing up when I wasn't out to lure a demon.
"What distracted you?"
I stiffened, not ready to be asked. "Nothing."
"Your body language says otherwise."
