Beastly Beauty

Seven

The stag is careless. Hunger has made it so.

It steps out from a stand of swaying pines and into a clearing. The beast, hidden in a thicket of frost-kissed bracken, is watching.

Why did the men come to the castle? They should not have. Now the one they left behind will pay the price.

How it envies the foolish stag. It knows nothing of sorrow or regret. It knows nothing of fear. Not yet.

The beast tenses. It crouches and springs. It is ruthless but quick, and howls over its kill. Night creatures hear it and run for their dens. They know what comes next.

The beast will tear out the stag’s still-beating heart.

Because it cannot tear out its own.