Daystar (70 page)

“Ah, no one in Eden wants to touch you.”
 
He smiled.
 
“So you have to come abroad, perhaps to fuck the animals?”

Bean shook her head frantically.
 
“I was looking for you!”

“Me?”
 
Jegudiel grinned.
 
“To try and persuade me again?”
 
He licked his teeth.
 
“I do not need persuading.”
 
He pressed his body to hers rubbing up against her.
 
“I have decided on you.”

Bean went rigid.
 
“What?”

Jegudiel grabbed her wrists, pinning them above her head.
 
“Why have you made yourself so ugly?
 
I was expecting you soft and sweet.”
 
He looked at her wounds and hair.
 
“You have done my work for me.”
 
He dug a finger into her cheek, gouging the flesh.
 
“Though I suppose I can always add.”

Bean blinked against the pain.
 
She pushed against him.
 
“Jegudiel, stop!
 
You’re hurting me!”

Jegudiel licked the blood from her face.
 
“Am I?”

“Yes.”
 
Bean shook as Jegudiel grinned at her response.
 
She panted in fear.
 
“Jegudiel, please just think for a minute, please.”

Jegudiel inhaled, taking in her fear.
 
“I have done plenty of thinking.”
 
He pressed his thumbs into her muscles, pressing into the bone.
 
He watched her flinch and smiled.

“Stop!”
 
Bean kneed him in the chest.
 
His ribs broke on impact, a wet crunch.

Jegudiel hissed and punched her in the face.
 
“What?
 
Changed your mind?”
 
He punched her in the stomach, enjoying the sensation.
 
“You don’t get to, Bean!
 
You don’t get to try to assault someone, to try and seduce them, and then stop in the middle.”

“I said I was sorry for that!
 
I realized I was wrong!”

Jegudiel bit part of her ear off, savoring her muffled screams.
 
“The only one that gets to change their mind is me, Bean.
 
Because I am in control now, not you.
 
I get to say what I do to you.”

Jegudiel ripped off the remainder of her shirt, groped and scratched at her chest.
 
“You are mine now, my object.”
 
He bit her cheek open and trailed bloody kisses to her neck.
 
“I realized that you need an education.
 
Your behavior spoke volumes about your lack of experience and your lack of
empathy
.
 
You are like an animal in heat, with no understanding.
 
So I will graciously give it to you, I will show you what it’s like, Bean.”
 
He kicked off his pants.
 
“I will be your first, and you’ll remember me when you’re with all the others.”

“Jegudiel, don’t!”
 
Bean pushed at his hands.
 
“Please!”

Jegudiel pulled her shorts off and looked her over.
 
He watched her struggle.
 
“Bean, don’t you want this anymore?”

“No—”

“Good.”
 
He cut her off with another biting kiss.
 
He ran his hands across her body.
 
“I felt as you did now.”
 
He reveled in the fear in her eyes.
 
“Afraid, no one to help you, violated.”
 
He bit on a breast, drawing blood.
 
“But you haven’t been violated yet.”
 
He slipped his hand down between her legs.

“Yoshi!”
 
Tears poured down her face.
 
“Please don’t do this to me.”

“I begged too, Bean.
 
That didn’t stop you did it?”
 
He looked for the realization there.
 
“Yes, you remember what you did.
 
You didn’t stop when I asked.
 
So why should I?
 
Please, Bean.
 
Tell me.
 
Why should I be any different than you were?
 
Why should I be any better than you?”

“I was in the wrong!
 
I’m sorry!”

Jegudiel smiled.
 
“Aw, another apology.
 
Too late though.
 
You already proved just how little you valued us, me, and yourself.
 
I’m afraid I’ve become like you now.”

“I didn’t know better!
 
I didn’t know how you felt!
 
Please, Jegudiel.
 
I was just a child!
 
You’re not!”

He nodded.
 
“That’s why I am going to do this, Bean.
 
So that you’ll know.
 
This is for your own good.
 
You’ll understand what you did and perhaps, maybe I’ll understand you just a bit better.
 
I will be getting to know you intimately after all.”

Bean pleaded with him, “Yoshi, please, you’re just sick.
 
You’re not yourself right now; you don’t really want to do this.
 
We can talk; we can get you all better so that you’re not sick anymore.”

Jegudiel sneered.
 
“Sick?
 
No, I
was
sick.
 
I was weak, but I’m strong now.”
 
He pressed her legs open and moved in between them.
 
“I am much stronger than you.
 
How about I show you how much?”

Helion landed in the clearing behind Jegudiel.
 
He grabbed Jegudiel’s hair and wrenched his head back.
 
He clapped a hand over Jegudiel’s mouth.
 
“Bean, leave now.”

Bean scrambled to her feet and grabbed at her clothing.
 
“I did not have time to whistle.
 
He surprised me.”

Jegudiel kicked at Helion, scratched his skin.
 
Helion ignored him.
 
“I know, Bean.
 
It is okay.
 
Go and run back to the city now.
 
Do not stop for anything.”

Bean gaped at Jegudiel as he continued to struggle.
 
“What are you going to do with him?”

“That is between him and me.
 
Do not, under any circumstance, share this story with your parents if you want him to live.
 
I leave that choice with you, but they will not spare him if they learn of this attempt.”

“I won’t say anything!”
 
Bean looked at Jegudiel.
 
“I know you’re just sick, Jegudiel.
 
I know this isn’t you.”
 
She turned and took to the air.

Helion threw Jegudiel into the ground and sat on his stomach.
 
“You!”
 
He slapped Jegudiel.
 
“Need to wake up.”

Jegudiel bared his teeth.
 
“You interrupted me, Helion!
 
That is not right!
 
I was to consummate our relationship.
 
She wanted it, Helion.”
 
He shoved at Helion, but could not budge him.
 
“Move and let me have her!”

Helion leaned over Jegudiel.
 
“You are not going anywhere, Jegudiel, until you return to yourself.”

“I am fine!
 
Get off of me!”
 
Jegudiel stared at Bean’s retreating form.
 
“Bean!
 
Bean, come back!
 
Helion is hurting me, Bean!
 
Bean, help me!”
 
Bean faltered in the air.

Helion put both hands around Jegudiel’s throat.
 
“Bean, keep going!”
 
She flew on.
 
Helion squeezed his neck.
 
“You are not yourself.”

“I do not want to return to myself.”
 
Jegudiel hissed.
 
“I am stronger this way, better!”

“Listen to yourself!
 
You tried to rape her!
 
That’s what you want to be?”

“So?
 
She tried to do the same with me.
 
I was just giving her back what she gave to me.”
 
Jegudiel snapped his teeth at Helion.
 
“She’s nothing but garbage anyways, and she loves
me
, Helion.
 
That means I am no better!”
 
He burst into tears.
 
“She doesn’t mean anything to me!
 
I don’t mean anything to her!
 
We deserve this.”

“Is that what you tell yourself to justify your behavior?
 
That she deserves it?”

“She does!
 
Why else did she come to me?”

“She was trying to save you because, if you have not noticed, the attack has started!”

Jegudiel ignored him, his thoughts fixated on her.
 
“Prancing around, trying to seduce others.
 
Did you see her clothes?
 
She wanted me to desire her and she has wanted me to desire her as long as she has known me.
 
Now when I act on that, she recoils?
 
I think not, she is playing another game.”

Helion ground his teeth.
 
“Jegudiel, I do not have much patience on this topic.
 
Having my sister’s memories your language is very similar to Uriel’s.
 
It brings about a particular violence to my thoughts.”

Jegudiel gaped.
 
“No, no that situation was different.”

“How?”

“Belial was innocent; she and Andy were in love.
 
Uriel was an interloper, a thief, stealing her from him.
 
Bean has already given herself to me.
 
I cannot steal what is mine.”

“Bean is innocent and inexperienced.”

Jegudiel sneered.
 
“
Hardly
.
 
She tried to rape me first!
 
Did she tell you that?
 
The only reason she failed is because her fathers prevented it.
 
She deserves to know what it felt like to be afraid.”
 
Jegudiel sobbed.
 
“She needs to know what I felt!
 
What she caused
me
to feel!”

Helion put a knee to Jegudiel’s throat to free his hands.
 
He pinned Jegudiel’s wrists to the ground.
 
“She frightened you and so you retreated.
 
You built walls and defenses, you are upset by her.”
 
Helion caught his gaze.
 
“But she is different now so you can come out from behind this miasma.”

“No!”
 
Jegudiel sucked in air and denied it.
 
“No!
 
I am not afraid anymore!
 
I am stronger than she is!
 
I am in control!
 
I am the strong one now!
 
I say how things will go; I will do what I want.”

“So you hurt her, Jegudiel?
 
She hurt herself after you left because of what you said!”

“Good!
 
My words were meant to hurt her!
 
I hope she never forgets them!”

Helion lifted Jegudiel up and slammed his head to the ground.
 
“Listen to your words!
 
This is not the Jegudiel I have known!
 
You are kind.
 
You champion the weak and innocent.
 
You do not take advantage of them!”

“And what did that get me?
 
I was kind to her and she attacked me!
 
She hurt me!”

“When she spoke with you before you left, was she trying to hurt you?”

“Yes she was—”

Helion snarled.
 
“You are honest with me while we talk!
 
Was she trying to hurt you, Jegudiel?”

Jegudiel sputtered and his eyes returned to blue.
 
“She was trying to apologize to me.”

“Tell me why.”

“She was embarrassed by her actions, afraid that I would not forgive her.
 
She had changed from her talk with her parents.”

“So what did you do?”

“I saw that fear and vulnerability and it made me feel good, so I pushed, I made it worse.”
 
Jegudiel closed his eyes, his soul entangled in shame.
 
“I felt satisfied when I hurt her, and I wanted to harm her more and more as my desires and thoughts turned to sadism.
 
I—I kissed her; I would have fucked her there and then made her feel worse for it, but I—” Jegudiel gagged and could not continue.