Souls sometimes die within a person . . .

His claws clenched ruthlessly into her wounds, drawing screams from her lips like water from a well. She couldn’t stop her voice, couldn’t swallow her agony—he pulled sounds from her the same way he pulled apart skin and muscle tissue. Hot blood spilled thick over her fur, sticky warm trails that flattened and stained her snowy fur. Crackles issued from protesting bones. Lyudmila couldn’t tell if he’d broken her—EVERYTHING hurt—but she knew better than to struggle so much something did snap. Tears raced fast and frightened down her masked visage. Cries for her mother gurgled in her throat, unable to escape, because Mila was too busy shrieking and wailing from pain to fully articulate her terror. When the beast thrust his face into her line of sight, the girl spat out another vengeful snarl. Even through the swimming moisture of her eyes, she saw the glisten of saliva dripping from his sneering lips. Like a rabid animal. A new fear stabbed her chest. Is he mad? Is he RABID? I’ll be infected, I’ll be no better than him, save me mama please I don’t want to be sick—

“You’re gross—NNG!” Mila’s cheeks swelled around the sob that threatened to burst from her as talons scraped once more over her side, the force of the brute’s full weight etching bottomless bruises. She watched in mute horror when those same talons rose languidly toward the monster’s maw . . . and he slowly licked away her blood from their crimson tips. A shudder trembled through her whole frame. Those portals that mocked the beauty of her turquoise rolled back in degenerate bliss. He likes the way I taste. But . . . wolves didn’t eat other wolves. Putnar did not feast on putnar. Lyudmila was not prey, and yet this disgusting bastard treated her like a rabbit he’d quartered into succulent pieces. “I h-hope,” the lass hissed brokenly, “that I give you a s-stomachache.”

Suddenly one giant forepaw was pushed into the side of her neck, applying just enough pressure that Lyudmila had to gag around each breath. She was literally trapped between rock and a hard place—face against the sunbaked earth and flesh pinned under unyielding force. Any growls she wanted to utter tangled and choked in her vocal cords. She glared pure undiluted hatred toward her attacker from the corner of one ivory eye, baring her fangs in a gleaming snarl. “My mommy is Nimueh. And she will destroy you for hurting me.”

Surely that title would stun him. Surely the brute would gape at her in shock, apologies and panic spewing from those tainted lips. Lyudmila waited for him to leap off her as if burned, realizing his deadly mistake. She’d even started to smirk, quivering lips daring to curl up at the edges . . . only to peel wide in the loudest scream she’d ever made. She screamed bloody murder, she screamed to shatter glass, she screamed so hard she felt her vocals tear and inflame and burn. Because instead of letting her go, the black-slashed devil had struck her shoulder and SHREDDED away a dangling ribbon of flesh—clean off her body. And her scream felt like it would never end, because this was the only way to deal with the new level of torture she was suffering, and maybe if she screamed loud enough her mother would come and rescue her and kiss all her injuries and make the terrible, terrible pain go away forever.

Lyudmila only realized another child had entered the scene when the brute’s weight upon her shifted slightly, his attention momentarily yanked by another high-pitched voice. At last Mila ran out of air, her screech stretching into a primal wail, helpless sobs wracking every inch of her skeleton. “Run away!” she gasped out between violent abdominal judders. “He’s crazy, run away! RUN AWAY!”

. . . and are replaced by others.

Kershov x Nimueh | Heiress of Crith Thalmhainn | No love | xathira