Chapter 7

LUNA

It was back to life as normal, or as normal a life as I ever came to having. I'd left my princess tucked safely under the sheets of our bed, collected Gailie and made a special trip. A week had passed since she was given to me. Delivered to my door like a meek lamb ready for slaughter. My princess had a fire. Some snark. Her growth stifled no more. Although, she still wasn't happy with the job I had to do, she'd adapt.

Ivory was the perfect match for me. The dark to my light. Beauty to the beast. There was no need to hide my true nature. My obsession with her bordered on violence.

"Mistress, is this really necessary?" Gailie asked me for the twentieth time since we'd arrived on the balcony of Charles Weatherby's bedroom at his estate.

He lived there in relative peace while he'd locked his daughter away. I wanted answers, Maybe a bit of revenge on top of it. I'd allowed Paralese to sleep peacefully for days in a row. Lured them into safety as if their gift had satisfied me. While Ivory tamed a bit of the cruelty inside me, but that part was only for her. I still cared for no one else. They'd suffer as they always had, but first, a treat for me.

The door flew open in front of me, I entered with a nervous pixie dancing around my shoulders. I nearly flicked her away but knew Ivory would be quite irritated with me if she found out I damaged her new best friend. Gailie had stopped vibrating with fear in my presence. I was unsure how to deal with that; I preferred the tiny, delicate creature on edge. It kept her obedient.

A large, rotund man slept peacefully in the center of a bed. Two women who appeared young enough to be his daughter on either side of him. He slept as if he had no cares in the world. My supposed taming probably gave him a false sense of power among the humans. He was so very wrong. Flames lit up the center of my chest. I hissed through my clenched teeth as smoke swirled in front of my face. My body grew, lengthened. Muscles stretched my skin until they stood out grotesquely like thin flesh over bone. My arms lengthened, hands more skeletal, and claws sharper.

My body took the form of my people. The one tales were spun about by survivors of a visit by a Hag. I lifted one foot onto the mattress, and then the other. Crouching on the foot of the bed, looming over the three humans that had no idea what awaited them. I leaned forward, my hands and claws sinking in the bed on either side of Weatherby.

I opened my mind, searching for his greatest fear. Everyone had something. Even the strongest creatures had something that would break them. There it was. So mundane in nature; death. Mortals always had a fear of leaving this realm, passing into heaven or whatever nirvana their faith dictated would be their end. Pushing deeper, it was right there. Being buried alive was such a cliched one, but it was something I could work with.

The images formed, the coffin closed tight. Dirt raining down on the lid. Air quickly disappeared from the cramped space. The dark all-consuming. A smirk tugged at the corner of my twisted mouth. The human's chest worked frantically as he tried to draw in breath after breath, but his lungs wouldn't fill.

"Oh my, I don't—" Gailie's own fear came through, but I pushed it aside. Her agitated wings spreading sparkles through the air as she fretted.

Weatherby fought at his sheets as if they were pinning him down. Fear filled all my senses, the sweet scent of it heating my blood further. I missed this and told myself I'd make more personal visits in the future. He tore at his throat, leaving scratches, and then I locked him to the bed. I took his ability to move. At that moment he'd feel as if the weight of the world was on his chest. His eyes worked in a frenetic pace under his closed eyelids, and then they slowly opened. His terror increased as his gaze met my face.

"Hello, Weatherby. At this moment you can't breathe. Can't move. You feel as if you're suffocating. The scent of Earth closing in around you."

"Wh-what are you doing?" The demand held no strength as he struggled to breathe. "We had—" He gasped as I closed his hand around his throat.

"There was no deal. You sent me the sacrifice. Acceptance of said gift, well, you shouldn't try to make deals with demons. You sent your daughter to what she assumed were the gallows. I will make you and everyone else pay for that fear."

I reached into the pouch at my hip, pulled out a small handful of mirror dust. Aiming it first at one female and then the other. They gasped as they inhaled in their sleep. Their eyes opened in a rush, wide and filled with insanity. Straightening, I stayed couched on the end of the bed. Weatherby paralyzed with fear, unable to move or fight as the two women began to tear into him with their nails. Jagged edges of wounds ripped open as he remained immobile—unable to fight back.

His screams and pleas for mercy were weak as his lungs wouldn't expand as I slowly suffocated him. The women's screeches would make banshees proud. Large chunks of flesh were under their teeth. Blood soaked the three humans and the bed, pristine white cotton turning crimson as they ate him alive.

Warm sprays of blood hit my face and chest, wetting the age worn burlap of the sack dress I wore. I licked the drops from that landed on my lips as I chuckled as they continued to literally take him apart piece by piece. I gave the women terror, but heightened their survival instinct, pushing them further into madness.

All the horror and terror I needed to survive infused my veins, days of hunger easing away in the wake of the carnage before me. Weatherby's hands worked as if trying to fruitlessly protect himself. There was nothing he could do. I snarled in disappointment as the door of the room burst open. Men with weapons drawn rushed into the space. They froze taking in the nightmare playing out in front of them.

No one could see me or Gailie, she was turned away and I watched it all with pleasure. The shock wore off as they pointed their guns. Shouted orders for them to stop didn't make it through the bloodlust I'd filled their minds with. Nothing would stop them until I allowed it. Once I released them, the true horror of what they'd done would hit. They'd know the taste of blood and flesh in their mouths, pieces stuck between their blunt human teeth.

I eased off the bed as I felt the tiny pixie cowering against my back. Tears and helplessness, the smells of fear and pain. Days without those had seemed like a lifetime, but now it was there, I once more felt at home in my skin. The bony spike along my spine sang as they rubbed together. This was my true nature. The Hag lineage firing in my flesh. The power of it was addictive.

Chaos reigned before me. Three men each grabbed the females who were lost in the horrific visions playing out in their heads. When they were pulled off Weatherby, more blood spurted into the air as flesh and muscle was severed from bone.

With a snap of my fingers, Weatherby was released and an agonized scream rent the air. Long minutes of pain transitioning into pure terror. His glassy eyes locked into me; no one else would know I was there. To them I was an invisible ghost, I wouldn't alert the others to my presence.

I stepped farther away as a man with a medical kit ran into the room. I barely registered him telling Weatherby paramedics were on their way. The medic couldn't push pressure on all the wounds. Rumors would spread quickly when he was released from the hospital, useless threats of retribution. The upper human echelon of councils and government had no power there. We allowed them freedom, but that could be taken away at any time.

Weatherby would survive. Yet he'd wished he hadn't by the time he healed. He'd always bear the marks of the punishment he'd earned for abandoning my female. I'd keep visiting him. I find all the secrets he kept from Ivory. He'd pay for the loneliness he caused the female that was mine.

I made my way back out into the humid night. Glancing to the side I found my assistant glaring at me. I smiled at her with bloody lips at her adorable indignation.

"Mistress, I'm telling your human on you," I snorted as she smacked my arm with one of her powdery wings.

"I can still get rid of you, Gailie, Ivory or no Ivory."

"We'll see," she said through clenched teeth and then she was gone, nothing more than a streak of glitter behind her. I chuckled at her weak exit.

It was time to go home, my princess was waiting for me.