Chapter Two: Not all Monsters are Wicked

Zane and I had had a fight. Nothing all that bad… Just an argument over the fact that I was not yet ready to jump into bed with him. He knew that I was a virgin and that I had wanted to wait until I was married. Besides that, I had only met him six months before, at my dead end job as a waitress at my grandmother's dinner. He had been sweet, one of the few young guys who came in and talked to me and not my breast. And what can I say, at nineteen, well he was just perfect in my eyes for that alone.

I had ended up sitting down with him for about fifteen minutes, we talked about me and how I wanted to be an artist. How I had been meant to go to art school, but had not had the money to do so. But I had been saving and would have the money to do so in the fall, I hoped. He had smiled and asked me all kinds of questions. We likely would have sat like that forever if it hadn't been for my grandmother.

"Diana Faith, get back to work girl or you'll be here all night." She called from the kitchen eyeing Zane as she did so.

"Coming Grandma!" A blush rose up on my face at having been called by my middle name.

I looked back at Zane to find him smiling at me, something that only made me blush more. He ended up asking for my number and with in about two months we went on our first date. He took me out in his fast car to a restaurant that cost more then I made in a week of tips and we spent the night smiling and talking. When he took me home, that night he was all I talked about with my grandmother.

"He's just perfect, Grandma…" I sighed dreamily,"I mean, I know he's a bit older than me but I think that just makes it better. He has his life together, unlike the boys my age." I told her because she was looking at me like I had lost my mind.

"Girl, that boy is closer to thirty then twenty…" She sighed in a way that said she was trying to hold back what she was thinking.

She had done the same when I was little and my mother would leave me with her. She was always going off somewhere, my grandmother called her a free spirit, that is when she was in a good mood. When my mother died, I was twelve, she had been the one to take me in and care for me. After all, she had always been more my mother then my own was…

"All I'm going to tell you Diana, is that sometimes perfection isn't everything… in fact, sometimes it's even rather deceiving… Just promise me you'll be careful?" She asked me, and how could I do anything other then promise her...

Struggling under the weight of a man I thought both loved and respected me, my grandmother's words and the promise I made came back to me. I regretted letting myself fall prey to my ideas of perfections, or maybe I had just been blinded by his flashy and lavish lifestyle. After all, how could a man like him want to be with a girl like me? I had let myself become a part of a fairy tale, only mine had a much more grimm ending.

But only if I let it, only if I let my prince turned monster write the ending to my story. And I wouldn't because only two people had the right to write in the pages of my life and he was not one of them. Zane Porter did not have that kind of power over me.

As he held me down I continued to fight him with everything I had even as I begged him not to hurt me. Telling him that he loved me and this was not something you did to someone you love. But all that got me was a rather hard punch to the face, so hard in fact I could taste blood and my head hit the once soft leather harshly. I knew no one else could hear me crying out as he tried to pull my legging off only to end up ripping them because of my struggling, not that I think it mattered much to him. The storm outside drowned out my voice before words even left my lips.

Helplessness and fear filled me as I prayed to God to help me, to save me from something that I knew would kill me. I begged him to save me from this man who would use my body and break my soul as if I had no meaning…As if angered by something, I heard the storm pick up, making my pleas to God come spilling out of my split and blooded lips. And then I saw a strike of lighting that burned so brightly across the sky you would think that the sky itself had been lit on fire. All of a sudden a tree branch broke though the back window smacking Zane in the head. Making him sit up as much as the car would allow, letting go of my wrists, cursing the thing even as I sent a silent thank you.

I then used the few moments I had been bought, jamming my knee into his balls and pulling myself away from him and out of the car running out into the rain and the unknown…

Waking with a start from my nightmare. I knew I would never forget the feeling of his hands holding me down or the wicked look of satisfaction in his green eyes I had once loved so much. I sat up in the bed that I was laying in and pulled my knees to my chest and cried. I cried for what I had once thought was love, and for the naive girl I had been. But most of all, I cried for what I almost lost.

After sometime of crying, I took a deep breath, wiping my eyes on the soft red and gold blanket so that I could take in the room I was in. You would think, that would have been the first thing I would have done given that I was somewhere I didn't know and that the last thing I remembered was a man who may or may not be a Demon... And to a point you would be right. However, after everything that had happened I was just too tired to care so long as I was safe, and from the look of the richly dressed room and the fact that no one had undressed me from my wet and ripped clothes I think I was.

Who would have thought that I would be safer with a Demon then with my human boyfriend, ex-boyfriend. I could almost laugh.

Though as I moved to uncurl myself I knew laughing would have only caused me more pain. It felt like everything hurt, though I knew it was mostly my ribs and legs followed closely by the killer headache that was starting, likely a symptom of a concussion. My lip only hurt when I ran my tongue along it, and so I knew better than to mess with that.

As I slowly moved myself to the edge of the rather ornate wooden bed that was dark in color and had spires as if it was part of a church or old movie, with inlaid flowers and diamonds, I felt a rather sharp pain in my ribs from all of my movement that made it hard to breath. Each breath felt like fire in my chest and yet more tears came to my eyes.

I knew that I could not just sit here for the rest of my life, though the pain in both my ribs and my head made me want too. I slowly stood on shaking legs almost falling and taking hold of the smooth wood of the banister of the bed. Breathing slowly, I painfully steeled myself and began making my way to one of the three doors I could see in the room. Picking up a throw from one of the low chairs in the room, I wrapped it lightly around me as both a way to keep my modesty seeing as how my legging were all but trash. It was a good thing the shirt I had on with it was somewhat long, it made me feel just a little safer as I stepped out of the relative protection of the beautifully old fashion room.

I wandered the halls of the home I was in, taking in all of the somewhat dark victorian decor, though it made it no less awe worthy, making my sore fingers ache with the need to put it on paper. The halls of the home where nothing compared to the study that I found at the end of one of the endless halls.

The room had bookshelves that looked like something out of a old beauty and the beast novel. It was two stories, with unbelievable cherry colored wood, and black rod iron railing that was twisted to look like dark vines growing out of the wood. The best part, however, was the tree that was carved so that it curved into and wrapped around the room as if it was alive.

As I stared at it in awe, I saw something move in the corner of my eye, that almost had me jumping out of my skin, though I held it back the sudden tenseness of my body, which only made my ribs hurt more. I slowly turned to the desk, taking in for the first time the man who was sitting at it. Crowley the Demon, if I was not completely crazy yet, but he was also my saviour. After all, he could have left me and yet he didn't.

He had his hands where I could see them one with a glass of what looked to be alcohol of some kind. He never moved to get up as he locked eyes with me seeming to be waiting for me to do something, though I'm not sure if he thought I would run, cry, or maybe faint again. Pulling myself together after a minute of just looking at the suited man, I decided that I had to speak to him.

"Thank… Thank you." I said softly, having to clear my raw throat, grimacing as I did so.

"You don't need to thank me, Dove. I maybe a lot of things, but I am not that kind of a monster..." He looked at me with sadness in his brown eyes before clearing his own throat and asking me if I wanted a drink.

Though I had not done much drinking in my life I felt now was one of those times I wanted one, if only to help numb my mind to the memories that threatened to take over every time I felt the burning in my ribs or the way my ripped clothes brushed against my skin. Slowly, I made my way to the soft velvet looking loveseat, pulling the blanket around myself more firmly as I watched him pour my drink.

He stood the length of both our arms from me and held out the drink for me to take. Reaching out for it, I let out a pained gasp as the movement of my arm pulled at my ribs painfully, bring tears to my eyes. I slowly pulled my arm back to my body as if that would somehow lessen the pain. It didn't. I heard the sound of a glass being put down and looked up to see Crowley was looking at me with thinly veiled concern.

"Would you allow one of my Demons to look you over? He was a doctor in his past life." He asked me, adding the last part when my eye widened at the idea of someone I didn't know touching me. "I would also stay with you… If you'd like that, that is, Dove." He also added, after what it seemed my uncomfortable silence about the fact, allowing me some comfort that he would not be leaving the two of us alone together.

I reluctantly agreed, though it was mostly due to the ever increasing pain in my head. It had gotten to the point where I felt like my head was being compressed in a trash compactor and my ears rang only making the feeling worse; the ringing made me feel like I was going to be sick and had me rethinking that drink I had been offered.

Soon after agreeing, an older man came into the room who had a surprisingly grandfatherly air to him. He was around fifty and had graying hair cut and styled into something from nineteen fifty, all slicked back but not greasy looking. He smiled at me and asked if he could take a look at my injuries, making me smile somewhat at him.

"Alright my dear, can you give me a better idea of what happened to you, and where you are in pain?" The doctor who's name I learned was Daniel requested.

The tears that had been building started to escape from my eyes, "I… I… My boyfriend… ex-boyfriend, attacked me in the back of his car, he held me down and he tried…" I let out a sob that made the pain in my heart equal the pain my body was feeling, and though my body would heal I was not so sure about my heart.

"My dear, it will be alright, though it doesn't feel like it just yet it will be. Nothing hurts forever, I think that's why it hurts so much to start with…"

After I had pulled myself somewhat together I allowed Daniel to poke at me and let me know what the damage was.

I knew about the concussion, I could feel it in the way my head felt like it was being popped. It would be weeks before my head no longer felt rattled, and I would get very little sleep for the next twenty-four hours. It also would seem that I had cracked at least two ribs and would be both in pain and at risk for pneumonia for the next four to six weeks at least if not more. And lastly my lip, luckly, would not need stitches as long as I left it be. To sum it up, I would be bruised and in pain for more than a month before I could even start to put this behind me.

"She needs rest but also someone to look after her for at least the next twenty-four hours, she can sleep but for no more than about four hours before she needs to be woken up to prevent a coma. I will also give her something for the pain so that she can be more comfortable." Daniel said leaving to get my pain meds and then leaving once again after he had seen I had taken them.

"It would seem your going to be stuck with me for tonight, Dove," Crowley made a face as if he had just had something occur to him, "I never did ask your name, I'm Crowley, King of both Hell and the Crossroads."

I gave him an odd look, the King of Hell? And the Crossroads? What did that even mean?

"My name is Diana Lane. What do you mean the King of Hell? Isn't Lucifer the King of Hell?"

"Such a fitting name for a fighter, Little Huntress." He said before adding, "Ah, no not for a long time though I'm sure he'll have something to say about it when he gets out of his cage. After all can't trust Moose and Squirrel not to end the world." He said with an over dramatic eye roll.

This banner was made for me by the lovely DayStrom! If you would like to read her work there are links on the fanart page.