Tempting Darkness

"Darius can be a d**k. He will settle down," Zac said. I stared at him, confused. He almost seemed normal, nice even, as he slid a food tray over to me. Zac sat across from me, grabbing another before digging into his food.

The man beside him was a huge burly-looking man with a short beard and dark hair, and he tapped my tray. "Eat. If you're training with us, you will need it," he said. I looked down at the tray to find it had scrambled eggs on it.

"I'm Satish, that's Zac, as you know, and that one is Deacon." The other man waved; he had blond hair, a boyish face, and was clearly the youngest at the table. It was impossible to tell the actual age of full-blooded demons; they could be hundreds of years old or precisely the age they appeared.

"And that one at the end is Lyle." The man nodded, but his lips pulled back in a snarl. Note to self, stay away from the unfriendly one. I went back to my food, scooping up some egg on my fork.

"So, Darius and the others don't eat down here with you?" I asked. Zac snorted and shook his head.

"No, this place belongs to Darius. He owns and runs it."

"So, he bought it then?"

Zac shook his head before leaning back in his seat. "You don't know much about them."

"About Darius and the others? No, only what I managed to hear on the radio or see on the news of their killing sprees."

"Darius grew up here, and this was his home. Darius turned it into a dark-arts training facility. They are all teachers in a way. Who better to teach dark magic than the Demon King himself?" Zac answered.

"So, you all like it here?" I asked, glancing around at the table, wondering if I could get an idea of where here was.

"Well, we all volunteered, so yeah. We may be demons, but we want to catch the ones responsible for releasing that plague and taking over the world also sounds promising," Zac answered, and I nearly choked on my food. "Wait, Darius is building an army?"

"Why else would we be here?" Satish said with a shrug. Suddenly an alarm blared loudly, and everyone jumped to their feet.

The silent instruction had me scrambling to my feet after them, and I followed Zac, dumping my half-eaten breakfast on the bench like everyone else as they filed out.

Zac grabbed my hand, pulling me after him, and a few people trod on my feet by accident. I hissed when I felt my toenail bend back. Zac stopped, looking back at me, and I looked down at my sock, blood staining the toes. I ripped the sock off quickly, knowing the tugging would make it annoying. I pressed my lips together for a second to stop from swearing. My toenail was half ripped off. I could live with that. I quickly removed my other sock since everyone appeared to be going toward the main entry doors.

"Man, you must have really pissed him off for him not to give you shoes," Zac said, tugging me toward the door leading out. Excitement bubbled in me; this could be my chance to escape. That thought instantly died down when I stepped outside and saw vast fields with different obstacle courses and then nothing but dense forest, making me stop.

"Hurry up. Tobias doesn't like tardiness. The first lesson is with him," Zac explained, and I nodded, trying to keep up.

"What does he teach?" I asked, trying to hide my disappointment at not seeing a road leading in here.

"Hand-to-hand combat and the tracks," Zac said, and I stopped completely.

"As in fighting, like in combat?"

Zac looked at me like I had grown two heads before he laughed. "Well, that is why it is called hand to hand." He held up his fists.

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on you," Zac said, and I let out a breath of relief before letting him pull me along after him.

"So, how many men and women are here?"

"Six hundred men."

I waited for him to tell me Darius was joking about there being no women, but when he added nothing else, my stomach dropped a little. "Wait, there is really no other woman here?"

"Nope, you are the only one. Lucky you, aye?" he said, tugging me to an empty place on the field. Men started getting into different stances, and I looked around nervously. A few were stretching, and some were just chatting among themselves.

"Well, I thought you would be a complete a*****e since Darius asked you to show me around, but I am glad to see he was wrong about you," I told Zac as he led me over to his friends.

"He ain't wrong about Zac. He is the cruelest of us all," Satish said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I looked over my shoulder at him, and he took a stance behind me when I saw Deacon move to my side and Lyle come up to the other.

The four men were boxing me in. Looking over at Zac, he had a smirk on his face.

"What?" I asked, my voice trembling, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with how they were all staring at me.

"Darius told her to her face that we would make her miserable, and yet she thought we could be friends." Zac laughed, and my stomach dropped.

What the heck just happened? But they were nice a few seconds ago. Satish sniffed the air deeply, and I spun to find him directly behind me, too close. I took a step back only to be shoved.

I landed in the mud, losing my footing and headbutting the ground hard enough that black dots danced in front of me before I hauled myself up onto my hands and knees, only to be kicked in the stomach. The air left my lungs in a long wheeze. I could hear them laughing and braced myself for another blow when a whistle sounded. They all stopped, and Zac kneeled next to me while I gasped for air.

"We told you our names, not because we want to be your friends, Aleera, but so you know who to whine to Darius about," he sneered before shoving my face away. The whistle blew again, and a pair of boots stopped in front of my face. I looked up with my blurry vision.

"Get up. Why are you on the ground?" Tobias spat at me. I looked over at Zac, who smirked.

"Tripped," I told him, and Tobias reached down, seizing my arm and yanking me to my feet. I tried to wipe some of the mud off using my hands but only managed to smear it worse.

“F*****g disgusting," Tobias growled before stalking off, and I gritted my teeth, fighting back the urge to cry. I couldn't let these monsters see me as weak; I had to learn to block them out. At least until I escaped. "Twenty laps, then the obstacle course, no one-on-one today. You have your prep exams," Tobias called out to the men.

I gulped when I saw the men start running toward a field. I made my way over, trying not to slip on the mud, and the tiny sharp rocks dug into my feet. I made it halfway to the field before stopping. The mud was too slippery, making me wonder why this side was all mud and slippery.

What could you possibly do while sliding around?I clutched my knees, trying to catch my breath and also fighting the urge to throw up the little breakfast I got to eat. The backs of my legs were burning from having to unstick my feet and legs from mud. This was ridiculous; the mud was now up to my knees.

"What do you think you are doing?" I looked up and saw Tobias stalking toward me. I flinched when I saw his hand reach toward me. Losing my footing on the slick surface, I fell backward, slipping in the mud and landing on my bottom. "Get your a*s over there with the other men."

"I have no shoes."

"You need something, you f*****g earn it. Clearly, Darius doesn't think you earned them yet. Now, get up!"

"Well, can I at least have mine back?" I asked. Tobias reached forward, gripping my arm, his nails sinking into my soft skin, and I could feel the entire outline of his hand. His grip was so tight, I knew it would have been bruised.

"You don't speak to me unless spoken to, understood? You weren't supposed to be in any of my classes, but here you are, so shut up and quit whining." I nodded before he shoved me forward, and I only just managed to stay upright as I clambered to the field. A sigh escaped me when I found my feet on solid ground.

However, my relief was short-lived when I noticed the track running a circle around the obstacle course was all gravel.