Clara unzipped the dress she was currently wearing and Caiden hastily turned around. Clara didn’t bother to tease him as she was in a rush. She pulled on the blue dress and opened up her drawer of accessories and picked out a white butterfly bracelet and her most expensive watch. The blue dress had a white trim and she was planning to add white accessories to accent it. She was ready to go in five minutes. She selected a pair of white heeled shoes from the shoe closet by the front door and went to find the driver. “Henry, can you please get me to St. James Park as soon as possible?” Clara requested when she found him. “I want to get to an event at a decent time.” The car arrived outside the park just after the start time of the event. Clara breathed a sigh of relief as she got out of the car. Caiden had gone to follow around the bullies and she knew she had got to the park before her targets as there was no sign of Caiden. Clara walked into the park and looked around for an ev
Clara’s heart began to thud loudly in her chest. Beckah had noticed she was up to something. The bully’s gaze was piercing down on her. Clara reminded herself that Beckah didn’t have any proof that she had done anything and was fishing for a guilty reaction. It was the same tactic Beckah had tried at the fashion social. Clara calmed herself down and smiled sweetly at Beckah. “I don’t understand what you mean. I just happened to be filming for a post when you three fell into the fountain. As for coming here, when I worked at my grandfather’s company I worked on a project with influencers and I became interested in the industry so I came here,” she explained. Clara realised that her excuse would prompt Beckah to think of Victoria. If Beckah had seen her video that had exposed Victoria, it would be easy for her to come to the conclusion that the woman with the blurred face was her. It was too late to backtrack now. All Clara could do was act unbothered and wait for her reply. “That’s
“I’m disappointed that we won’t have much time to go on dates,” Caiden sighed. “We can have more dates when they leave,” Clara reminded him. “There’s nothing stopping us have a movie night together.” “I have a meeting with the king in the evening,” Caiden told her with a pout. “I’ll come here as soon as he’s finished.” Clara wondered what the demon king and prince talked about when they were together. She hoped they weren’t talking about her. From the things that Caiden had told her over the years, it sounded like no one in the demon realm liked how long their contract was taking to end. “Have you told your friends in the demon realm about your true identity?” she asked. Caiden shook his head. “It would change the dynamic too much. I have been avoiding them since I found out. If they see me in a crown, it will be easy for them to work it out and they might start bowing to me.” “Do a lot of demons bow to you?” Caiden pulled a face. “They do. I didn’t find it odd when I w
“I accept that I owe you an explanation,” Clara said. “When I’ve finished with what I’m working on, I’ll tell you.” “I hope you achieve the outcome you wanted,” Arthur replied. “Please let me know when you need my help again.” “I will,” Clara promised. “I will look up somewhere expensive to eat so I can reward you.” “I want to eat at that fancy Italian place again, let me know when you’re free to go there,” Arthur said. “Bye.” He ended the call and Clara was left staring thoughtfully at her bedcovers. She had promised she would tell Arthur the truth when she had achieved her revenge. In reality she would be dead soon after so she didn’t really need to hold up her end of the promise. “I won’t really tell him the truth,” Clara assured Caiden. “I’m sure that you won’t want me to tell someone about the existence of demons and how the human life cycle really works.” The demon prince looked thoughtful. “I will allow you to tell him some version of the truth. You will have to leave ou
“I don’t want you to go to that game if she’s going to be targeting you,” Caiden said with concern. Clara agreed with him. Based on the little she had read so far she knew that Beckah was truly a murderous psychopath with the face of an angel. “We’ll talk about that after,” Clara said. “According to this report, the child stole her pencil and Beckah’s reaction was to burn the child’s arm with a cigarette lighter she took from the teacher’s pocket.” She shuddered. She had been the target of some burns over her years of bullying. Some of them had been from Beckah. The bully had certainly started out young. “...I’m not adverse to helping you kill her,” Caiden said slowly. “That’s something else to talk about another time,” Clara replied immediately. “We need to finish the report.” She continued with the report. The school had been concerned about the incident and had suggested a psychiatric evaluation which had been rejected by Beckah’s parents. The child with the burn had been pai
Clara arrived at the event location in London dressed in her most fashionable sportswear. As this event was more about speed than appearance, it had made sense to dress in a suitable way. When she saw some of the other participants arrive, she could tell that not everyone had thought the same way as her. One girl was even wearing heels and she could see someone else in a miniskirt. She received her body cam and a fluorescent pink player vest and went to find people that she knew. Billie waved at her from the sidelines. “Clarissa! You made it,” she said with visible excitement. Billie had dressed comfortably for the event in a black tracksuit with chunky sneakers and her hair was tied back neatly. “Hello,” Clara said with a smile. “Have you planned any tactics?” Billie shook her head. “I’m not interested in winning. I just want to have fun.” Clara wasn’t interested in winning either. She was just interested in surviving and finding a way to show Beckah up. “That’s nice
Clara kept a careful watch on Beckah’s activity as she got onto the first train leaving the station. Her target seemed to have taken a taxi instead of a bus judging by the continuous movement. “I think she’s taking a simple route to see if she can catch up with some of the easier targets,” Caiden commented after looking over her shoulder. “Some people did not look like they came here to run.” Clara agreed with that. Not everyone thought tactically and took public transport to get away from the starting area as fast as possible. Beckah’s tracker came to a sudden stop and Clara could only assume she had seen someone and had got out of the taxi to tag them. Clara’s phone buzzed with a message from Billie asking where she was. Clara texted back to say she was on a train and Billie texted back saying she was going to do the same thing. She wondered how many people Beckah would be able to track down and tag. There were 100 players scattered around the playing area hiding with membe
“How hurt is Beckah?” Clara asked eagerly. It was now the evening and she had been sitting on her bed waiting for Caiden to return. She had sent the demon out earlier to find out how Beckah was doing after her fall down the stairs at the train station.“She was taken to the minor injuries department at the nearest hospital. She doesn’t have any major injuries and her head is fine. She was treated for shock and various grazes. The nurse told her that she will have a lot of bruising tomorrow. That was it. She went back to the hotel after being discharged.” Clara was pleased to hear that Beckah had survived the fall with minimal injuries. She had experienced an attack of nerves on the train ride back to the park. She felt guilty that she had deliberately pushed the bully down the stairs with the intent of hurting her. Clara had come to realise that she wasn’t cut out to be a bully herself. To her, it didn’t feel right to hurt someone deliberately. “You look like you regret what happ
“I’m getting married!” Clara announced happily. She smiled over her coffee and Arthur watched her with a bemused look on his face. "When is the wedding?" he asked. “Next month,” Clara told him. “I was planning to invite you. We’ve only just decided on the date so there’s no invitations to give out yet.” “Do you not have wedding planner then?” the hacker questioned. “Invitations are normally sent out much sooner.” “I don’t want a big wedding,” Clara replied. “James was fine with it and just asked that I invite him.” She was a little surprised that her grandfather had agreed with her desire to have a very small wedding. They both enjoyed high positions in society and people like them normally had grand weddings with a long guest list and a high budget. “I shall consider an invite as a great honour then,” Arthur quipped. “How many guests are invited?” “I’m inviting 12 people,” Clara said. “Caiden has invited a couple of friends. He doesn’t have any relations to invite.” “Of cour
Their first month of dating passed by quickly. They soon fell into a routine of meeting after work and going on dates. Clara was blissfully happy, but she knew they needed to discuss their future together. Caiden was only living temporarily in the UK after all. She chose to ask after they had finished eating Caiden’s latest attempt at a home cooked romantic meal. His cooking skills were unique to say the least. “Are you going to stay here in London when your job here is finished?” she asked. “Where would you like to live?” he questioned. “Here or in a different country? We have lots of options.” Clara thought about the matter seriously. She had grown up in the US and had been unexpectedly pulled into a different country. She did prefer living in the UK, but there were other countries to try as well. “We can move around,” Clara said. “I think we should make this our main country and travel to other places. That is if you want to. This is a decision we should make as a couple.” Ca
Clara kept a careful watch on the office building opposite so she wouldn’t miss seeing Caiden leave when his work day had finished. She had already missed seeing him before, she wasn’t going to do it again. Fortunately, he was one of the first people out of the building and Clara immediately began to pack up everything she had brought with her. Caiden entered the coffeeshop and beamed when he saw her waiting by the door. “Excellent. You’re ready to leave on our date,” he said and held his hand out to her. “Can we take a diversion first?” she requested. It was only fair to let Arthur know that she had found Caiden, but she had decided a text wouldn’t suffice and it was better to let them meet in person. “Will it take long?” “I want to introduce you to someone,” she explained. “Arthur has been helping me look for you and I think he would like to see the success of our search.” Caiden looked thoughtful and then he nodded. “I would like to meet him. He has provided assista
When Clara finally looked up from her phone and glanced back at the door, the person she had been waiting for had already left. She had missed a lot in the two minutes her attention had been diverted.A member of staff approached her table with a cup of coffee in her hand. Clara looked around in confusion. “I didn’t order anything,” she said. Clara was aware that she was the strangest customer in the coffeeshop and the staff were probably wondering when she was going to leave. She had been the first customer of the day and had only ordered two drinks in the past three hours. “One of our regulars came in a couple of minutes ago to pick up his online order. He saw you looking tired and bought an expresso for you,” the staff member explained with a smile. “He’s a nice person.” Clara blinked in surprise. She had never noticed any of the customers paying attention to her. The incident must have occurred when she had been occupied with her phone. She checked the name tag on the girl’s
The weeks quickly turned into months and soon an entire year had passed. Clara had taken a position at St. Clair that had enabled her to travel around the world just so she would have better chance of finding Caiden. She returned to the family mansion on the anniversary of her return from the demon realm after an unsuccessful trip to New York. Her actual work had gone well, she just hadn’t found any signs of Caiden in the city. There hadn’t been any traces of Caiden in any of the 10 countries she had travelled to over the past year. He didn’t have any presence on the internet either and Clara didn’t have any idea of how she could improve her search methods. Clara collapsed onto her bed and closed her eyes. She was physically and emotionally exhausted from her search. Despite everything, she wasn’t going to give up. She would sleep for a while and then she would look at other highly populated places to visit. “Clara Kennedy.” Clara’s eyes opened immediately at the sound of
Clara landed on the floor of her bedroom alone and fully aware of the gravity of the situation. She didn’t have Caiden at her side anymore. She needed to find him for that to happen. Clara stood up and realised that her legs were shaking. She had been feeling intimidated by the demon king and had refused to let him know. Now her nerves and lack of sleep had got to her. She took a deep breath to calm down. She had vowed that she would be able to find Caiden and she needed to start working on that.One person came to mind immediately. Arthur would be able to help her. She took her phone out of her pocket and called him. “...Hello?” Arthur asked cautiously when he picked up the call. Clara realised he had assumed that the phone call was someone else using her phone to inform him of her death. “It’s me, Clara,” she told him immediately. “Things have changed. Can we meet up? I have a lot to tell you.” “Of course,” he said. “I think we'll need to go somewhere that allows for private c
Caiden was lost for words as he watched the events that he had foreseen so many times play out in front of him. It was no longer a vision of the future; it was happening in reality. It was finally the end of Clara’s life. Her soul floated in front of him as her eyes slowly closed. Caiden made his decision in that moment. He grabbed hold of Clara’s soul with his hands and pushed it back into her. Despite being very light, her soul wouldn’t move until he exerted all of his power. Clara’s eyes snapped open when her soul returned to her. “...What’s going on?” she asked breathlessly. “I can’t take your soul,” Caiden admitted. “I want you to keep it.” He had no real idea what was going to happen now. The contract had not been fulfilled properly. He had completed his part of the contract and he had stopped Clara from fulfilling her part. There was no precedent to follow here. He was the first demon to refuse a soul. “What’s going to happen to both of us?” Clara questioned weakl
Clara knew that her grandfather was confused to hear her sentimental words. They rarely talked about their personal feelings. “I haven’t been the best grandfather,” James replied with a deep frown. “I brought Beryl here to be your mother figure as I had felt that it would prevent you from becoming like my daughter. It turned out to be the worst decision I have ever made.” Clara could not deny that James’ decision to date Beryl and bring her into the family had been lethal for Clarissa. She decided to focus on something else. “Thank you for rescuing me when I was a baby,” she said. “I’m sure Clara would also thank you for looking for her.” “You don’t need to thank me for that,” James replied. “I would also like to thank you for taking me in instead of leaving me to the care system,” Clara continued. She didn’t know much about the British care system, but it was likely similar to the American one she had lived through. She had been lucky to be adopted by a decent set of foster pa
“It was a good ride,” Arthur said with a wink. “You kept me guessing for so many years. I’m so pleased to finally know what was going on the entire time.” Clara relaxed. The hardest part was over now. “Is everything over now?” he asked a moment later. “You’ve brought all of your targets down apart from Xavier King.” “It is,” she confirmed. Arthur nodded and then he looked deep in thought. He coughed awkwardly before speaking again. “Where did Clarissa go if you are in her body?” he questioned. Clara had been expecting this question. Arthur was the only person who had a connection to Clarissa and knew that she was using her body. It would have been odd if he didn’t ask where Clarissa had gone. “...She died when she committed suicide four years ago,” she explained. “Her body was alive for a short time and I was put into it. I’m sorry to tell that she died all that time ago.” Arthur frowned and looked away. “I see... That’s sad,” he said. “It’s odd to hear that Clariss