Beneath Her Darkness: The Alpha's Little Demon by Cassandra M novel Chapter 3

LUCY.

"What are you doing?" Manuel’s eyes squinted as his gaze fell everywhere in my small, messy room while Stella was holding his arms to stop him from stepping inside.

"I’m looking for some of my money. But I found it already. I just misplaced it." I answered nonchalantly as I began picking up my clothes from the floor and began folding them.

"Stop with your lies. Were you in the kitchen earlier?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course. I’ve been everywhere in this house. What’s going on?" I turned around and placed my hands on my hips as I tapped my foot on the wooden floor, my eyes shifting back and forth between them as if I was impatient to hear their replies.

"Nothing, dear. I need help with dinner. Can you come down and give this old lady a hand before the pups come and attack me from hunger?" Stella spoke sweetly, but I saw worry and concern in her eyes.

Something was about to happen.

"Sure. I’ll just pick all these up and throw them on my bed, then I’ll go down. Just five minutes."

"Okay." She smiled widely as she tugged her mate away from my room, but Manuel was still looking at me. And I knew that the look he was giving me - he didn’t believe a word I said. He knew I was up to something.

To hell with him.

The moment the door closed, I grabbed the backpack from under the blanket and locked my door before I pulled my window up and scouted the grounds below. The locked door would buy me some time if they decided to come back and check on me.

My bedroom faced the back of the orphanage, but two floors down was one of the receiving rooms, the one often used for guests. If there was no one in there, no one would see me jumping down from baluster to baluster.

This was not the first time I jumped and crawled out of my bedroom window, so I didn’t have to be terrified about falling. I just needed not to be seen.

I swung the backpack over my shoulders and climbed out of the window. My hands clutched my window sill as I swung my foot down until I reached the upper doorframe of the room below mine. I used it as leverage and pushed my body up to jump, landing perfectly on the balcony of the old library that no one visited except for me.

I dusted off my hands and checked if there were lights in the receiving room down below, and my heart dropped in disappointment when I saw lights illuminating the window.

I bit my bottom lip, chewing it as I thought of my next move when a voice from the top snapped me out of my thoughts.

"She’s running away!" Manuel’s voice erupted in the thin air, making me snap my head back and I saw him pointing at me from my window.

Shit! I didn’t have time to think as I jumped off the balcony from the second floor and landed on the dusty ground with a loud thud.

My gaze went to the receiving room window and my eyes locked with a tall man with a long beard. His forehead creased, but I didn’t have time to analyze him as I dashed forward to the forest line where I knew the exit that could eventually lead me out of the orphanage perimeter

My feet sprang forward, running at a pace that was too fast for my usual run. It reminded me of the speed I used when I was running away from the demon world.

I might have been running fast, but it was nothing compared to the wolves running after me.

Loud paws were thudding against the earth, and the sound kept getting louder as I kept sprinting forward.

My hand went up to the opal stone hanging on my neck. I just needed to take it off and I could summon my power to save me.

But do I need to be saved?

Wolves or demons? Make your choice, Lucy!

My hand fell to my side as the wolves behind me overtook my run and ended up rounding me with one wolf blocking my way.

My small frame slammed against the wolf, and I was thrown back in an instant. My ass hit the ground with a loud thud before my back followed after, making pain course through my whole body from the impact.

I think I broke my spine.

I remained laying down on the dirt with my eyes closed and my chest heaving. I wondered if my small backpack was enough to protect me.

I heard shuffling and I knew they must be shifting back to their human forms.

"She’s fucking too fast for an omega." A deep voice made me snap my eyes open to see a bulky naked man looking down at me with his dick straight up to where I could see it perfectly.

"But we’re faster…" Another dick answered, and I just remained still, wondering if I would be able to function normally after this.

"What’s your name?"

My adoptive father and my mother were both shifters, and they were fated mates. They’d been together long before I was born.

No. My mother didn’t cheat on him. Everything was my father’s doing.

Lucien, my father, the Prince of Darkness, wandered the human realms from time to time. His libido was not only limited to the she-demons throwing themselves at him. He wanted to taste all the species of this world. And one day, he saw my mother and took a fancy to her.

He tried to woo her into coupling with him. But my mother never bent. She had a mate, and she had chosen her mate over and over again. So, being a demon prince, my father couldn’t take the rejection.

He went after her in his incubus form and took her forcefully, over and over again. He came back night after night until he got tired of her. It was only then that he left her and never bothered her again.

But what he didn’t know was that an offspring was conceived from his horrible act.

My mother’s mate, Diego, knew everything and he didn’t leave her. Instead, he helped her raise me and never once made me feel I was not his child.

In fact, I didn’t know I was not his until I accidentally summoned my power and killed a rabbit with fire when I was six years old.

With my power unleashed, the portal and my connection to the underworld opened. And in seconds, my father, the Demon Prince of Darkness, appeared before me and claimed me as his child. His only daughter.

My real father didn’t take me that day, but my life was never the same after that.

I knew one day he would come for me. My mother had been preparing me for that day - I tried to take in as much as I could, but with a young mind, I couldn’t comprehend everything.

The necklace I had around my neck was from my mother — she buried it in the cemetery near our home together with some money that she and my father saved up. She hid them there after my stepfather, her fated mate, died. She knew she didn’t have any time left and she wanted to make sure I had options if the time came that I didn’t want to remain in the demon world.

My mother, and her fated mate, my stepfather — they loved me. And the love between them was the only thread that was keeping the light in me, stopping me from falling into the depths of hell.

Even with them gone, I had hope instilled in me that one day I would find the same love that they found with each other. A love that would cross all boundaries, a love that would save me from the darkness looming inside me. My saving grace.

And that’s why I was still here, treading into the wilderness on my own, protecting the part of me that was giving me hope that I had a mate meant for me.

But without a wolf, I had no idea if I would ever find him. Or he would ever find me.