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Author's Chapter Notes:
Betad by Mabel Marsters. Be sure to read her stuff. She's a great writer!
”Oh, God, make it stop!” Almost blinded by the sharp pain, Rowan stumbled down the stairs. “I’m on my way, dammit,” he hissed between gritted teeth as he finally slammed his fist into the door. “Just stop!” He felt like his head was about to explode, and the pain shooting through his hand at the contact with the hard surface of the door was a welcoming distraction.

The door swung open easily and Rowan knew that he had been expected. Strangely, he felt no fear. Stepping into the small room, he almost sobbed with relief as the headache was finally starting to ease. He looked around, wincing at the sight of the large slices of demon flesh in the corner. Closing his eyes for a moment, he silently prayed that he would get to keep his dinner.

“New rules,” the dark voice stated behind him, and Rowan spun around. “No more useless trash. Morou needs stronger toys.”

“Stop calling them ‘toys’.” Rowan felt sick. “They’re not toys. They are...”

“Worthless demons,” Morou finished, his face twisting into a cruel smile. “You said so yourself once.”

Rowan was quiet for a moment, knowing the monster in front of him was right. He swallowed. “Yeah, well, not all demons are like that.” It was true, he knew that now. Of course, just because he had come to see things differently didn’t mean he could take his thoughtless words and actions back.

He wondered how his new friends would react, should they ever find out his secret. More than once, he had considered the possibility of coming clean. Tell them all about the beast living down in his basement, explain to them what he was really doing after office hours. But he was afraid.

At first, it had all seemed so simple. After what happened to Julie – the love of his life – he had been bitter and angry, convinced that all demons were the same. Evil creatures that needed to be destroyed. He had wanted revenge, so he had jumped to the opportunity when it presented itself. At first, he didn’t see anything wrong with what he was doing.

He and Julie had been happily in love for almost three years. Of course, he had just been an ordinary man back then, a nobody. But Julie had loved him, nevertheless. For almost three years, his life had been like a fairytale. Perfection. And he had been naive enough to think that it would last forever.

That horrible night six months ago had left a permanent mark in his memory, an open wound in his heart that could never be truly healed. Never again would he find such a woman like Julie; the countless girls he kept bringing home every night were nothing but substitutes, paling in comparison. Sometimes he wondered why he kept torturing himself. But deep down, he figured it was nothing more than he deserved.

It had been his twenty-fourth birthday and he had been out celebrating with his friends. On the way home from the restaurant, Julie had suggested that they would take a shortcut back to their apartment. More than a little tipsy from all the booze he had been consuming, not to mention horny and eager to finally have her all to himself – preferably in bed – Rowan hadn’t objected.

But, as it would turn out, leaving the crowded main street and entering that dark alley had been a fatal mistake. When the big hairy creature jumped out in front of them, roaring mercilessly, Rowan was hit by the sickening realization that his life was over. The last thing he heard – before he got knocked to the ground and everything went dark – was the blood-curling scream from his girlfriend as the demon sliced her throat open.

When he woke up in the hospital, two days later, he was at first unable to accept the fact that Julie was really gone. It just couldn’t be true. How was he supposed to go on living the rest of his life without her? When he was finally forced to realize that she was not coming back, he wished the demon had killed him as well. Death would have been a sweet blessing compared to a life without Julie by his side.

He had been released from the hospital a week later, having amazingly enough gotten away with a few broken ribs and a mild concussion. By then, he had made a sacred promise to himself. The fact that demons were real didn’t come as a surprise to him; he’d always had an open mind.

Besides, he had heard rumors about monsters and vampires living among them since he was a kid. People were talking, although nobody really seemed to know much. Maybe because not many had seen one and lived to tell the tale. Well, he had. He knew they were out there. And that day, he swore to himself that he would dedicate the rest of his life to take out as many as he could.

Of course, he could kill a thousand demons and it still wouldn’t bring Julie back. But it didn’t really matter. It gave him something to do, a purpose. A reason to go on living instead of putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He would search them out, one by one, sending them back to Hell where they belonged. And if he died while at it, then so be it.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a fighter. It soon became painfully obvious to him that he wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the demons. At least not by himself. He did manage to take out a demon or two sometimes, but more out of pure luck than anything else.

Then came the day that would change everything. The day when he first discovered his power. He had been out drinking in some random bar when he spotted the wallet on one of the tables, probably left by some absent-minded customer. It had never been his intention to steal it, but he had picked it up, and that was when the wave hit him.

Suddenly he found himself watching the world from another man’s eyes. He was somewhere outside, wandering in the middle of the street when the sound of screeching tires caught his attention and he looked up. He could still remember the face of the shocked driver behind the windscreen as the car rammed into him.

Although the sensation was over before he knew it, it scared him half to death. However, Rowan pushed his strange experience to the back of his mind, waving it off as a hallucination, telling himself it had just been his drunken mind playing tricks on him. It worked, until the next day when he read about the accident in the newspaper.

It didn’t take him long to realize that he was now able to sense other people by touching various objects they had recently been in contact with. He didn’t understand where his new ability came from, or if he would be able to use it to his advantage in the fight against evil, but he had accepted it. And then one day, he was approached by a woman from the law firm – Wolfram and Hart.

The young woman had introduced herself as Eve – claiming the firm could use a man with his special skills. She had never given him her last name and Rowan had never asked. He had been suspicious to say the least, demanding to know how they had found out about him. Vaguely stating that ‘we have our ways, sweetie’, she had assured him they were all on the same side.

It came as a total shock to him at first, learning that not only was the CEO of the law firm a vampire, but other demons were working there as well, side by side with humans. But if he found that a bit hard to take in, it was nothing compared to the fact that the vampire in charge – Angel – happened to have a soul. And apparently, he was not the only one.

To his surprise, most of the demons working at Wolfram and Hart – as well as the humans, for that matter – seemed to accept him without hesitation. Angel knew about his hatred towards demons, after all, Rowan had been instructed to sing to Lorne like the rest of them. But for some reason, it didn’t seem to bother the vampire.

In fact, some of the demons actually treated him better than his former so called friends. The friends he had not spoken with since the funeral. Truth to be told, they had always been more Julie’s friends than his. He hadn’t realized it at the time, though, but the fact that they had all pretty much ignored him after awkwardly patting his back and giving him their weak condolences was all the proof he needed.

The demons on the other hand considered him one of them, an equal. Still, Rowan had refused to trust any of them. Until the day one of them risked his own life to save his. Slowly, he started to accept the fact that even demons could have a decent heart, even though it wasn’t always beating.

After a while, he found himself actually starting to like them - some of them, anyway. However, it was already too late. By then, he had found the large house up on the hill. Of course, the house wasn’t really the problem. No, the problem was the evil thing already living there. The thing posing as a man, but what was something completely different.

“I won’t let you hurt my friends,” he now told the creature, pleased to notice that his voice didn’t tremble at all. “In fact, I won’t let you hurt anyone else, period. I’m out.”

“Out?” Morou sounded a little too calm for Rowan’s liking. “You will no longer bring Morou toys?”

“That’s right.” Rowan nodded, firmly. “I’ve had it. I won’t help you anymore. You’re on your own.”

In a blink of an eye, Morou had grabbed his hand, the beast’s long, claw-like fingers digging into his skin. Rowan cried out in pain as Morou’s fist curled around one of his fingers, breaking it easily with a flick of his wrist. As the ruthless creature reached for the next finger, Rowan tried to pull away in panic.

“There is no ‘out’.” Morou watched him through dark eyes, his expressionless face now chilled Rowan to the bones. “You have no say. Morou owns you.”


TBC


Chapter End Notes:
There will be Spuffyness in the next chapter, I promise. ;)



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