Prologue

A woman cried out and the sound echoed through the halls of the old dreary house.

"That's it, Grace. Push, I can see her head now," another voice rings.

In another room, a boy sits with his baby sister and father. His black hair was just getting long enough to cover his blood red eyes. They had a slight glowing to them. He didn't like the sounds echoing through his home, they put him on edge.

His father was angry, you could tell by the heavy set lines in the corners of his eyes. The frown was a permanent fixture on his face.

But as long as Mistress Grace was the head of the household, he couldn't take his anger out on him or his mother without fear of retribution from her.

They were just the demon family she created after feeling so alone in Asladon. She created his mother years before and then his father to help the woman not feel as alone as she had felt. They had two children and their daughter was the one the man loved most. Fear constantly hung in the air that one day his father would hurt him and his mother.

It was a fear that he had shared with Mistress Grace when he spent time in the library with her, assisting her as she was very pregnant.

No one knew who the father of her baby was, but the child had a room here already and you could feel the love that the house's mistress had for her baby Rosalina. She had created a beautiful room for her baby months before any pregnancy test the humans had made could have told her she was having a baby.

A single cry sounded in the house down the hall. A knot formed in the boy's chest. He couldn't place why it was there or what it meant, but it existed. Just as he was going to ask his father what it meant, pain ripped through his chest. He looked into his reflection and felt the burst as he made eye contact with his own glowing red eyes.

~~~~~

A woman held her adopted son in his bed after his nightmare. His light brown hair was soft to the touch as she ran her fingers through it, then wiping away the last of his tears. The angel boy had the dreams often, more so than not. He had told her that they were about a girl with silver hair with dark brown underneath. He had said that he believed that she needed help, but he was unsure if he could reach her. He said in each of his dreams, she died each time worse than the last.

Once she felt he was as asleep as he was going to get, she went to slip out, only to feel a tiny hand grip her pajama shirt.

"Mama Angelina?"

The woman smiled down at her son and sat back down on his bed.

"What is it, Levi?"

He stared at her with one single tear slipping down his cheek. The woman reached out and wiped the tear away and pressed her lips to his forehead.

"Hush now, you're safe. That girl is going to be safe, we'll find her, okay?"

She felt him relax and heard his soft snores not soon after. She chuckled lightly and laid him back down on his pillow and started the move back to her room. Outside, a single strike of lightning caused her to jump.

She stared out the window, gathering her wits before she made her way back into her own room. She missed the single knock on her door.

Later that night, she had woken to her son wiggling himself into her arms and curling into a ball at her side. She sighed and tried closing her eyes again, only to feel something off within her home.

Levi whimpered as she sat up and started towards the door of her room.

She heard another clap of thunder following by the wailing of a child.

She followed the sound to her door and opened it as the rain picked up and another lightning bolt hit the ground outside of her home. She looked down at a box on the porch and into the bright silver eyes of a baby. She watched as tears welled up in the child's eyes again as she reached down and pulled the baby into her arms again. The child's doe-like eyes stared up at her as Angelina shut the door behind herself.

"Mama Angelina?" a voice joined her in the foyer. The baby stared up at her. The smell of the baby's diaper caused the woman to crinkle her nose. Just how long had this child been on her front porch? The blanket swaddling her was stained and smelled of urine. There was a white piece of paper pinned to it.

"Mama?" The boy tried again as he watched his mother figure take the small child in her arms into his old nursery and come back out with the child in clean clothes and cradled against her chest.

"Levi, come meet your new sister," Angelina called to her son, bending down to his height. "Her name is Rosalina, but we're gonna call her Rose."

Levi was skeptical at first, staring down at the baby with suspicion in his eyes. In his mind, he could almost picture this thing taking all the attention of his mother away from him.

He let his mother put the child in his arms and he stared down at her.

The child looked back up at him, her eyes changing into a sparkling blue as she managed to free her right hand and boop Levi on his cheek. A small giggle erupted from the baby.

Levi felt his face warm as the feeling of love and admiration filled him at the sound of her giggle. It made pride swell in his chest and he looked up at his mother with a single nod and started waddling away with the baby. The four-year-old didn't stop at his own room, instead traveling into Angelina's room with the infant.

Angelina sighed and shook her head slightly as she lifted the paper back up to read it.

'Angelina-

Please take care of Rosalina for me. The child will be safest with you. She is only five months old, but my husband seems to be prepared to rip the child's head off. In his mind, she is the last piece of Grace that stands between him and becoming the head of Asladon, the one thing she left behind when she died.

When things settle down here, I will come to get the girl and I will take her away from her misery, along with my children. For now, raise her as your own.

I owe you dearly for this.

Marissa of Asladon.'