Rage

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The Beast

D arkness has become my playground, that comfort blanket in the darkest night. It’s the only thing keeping my anger company that my rage finds solace in.

All the other emotions have come and died upon my sorrow.

Time has no measure. Though the sun comes and goes, sprouts and dies daily, the stars and moon and nothingness wilt and blossom in days that feel like seconds.

Every memory I used to have has faded into the dust of this place. Fragments of my broken mind relinquish bouts of sadness here and there, but for the most part, it’s my anger keeping me warm, my rage for what was taken from me sharpening my jagged edges.

I can’t even remember what I used to look like, and though this form feels comfortable, I can’t bear to see myself.

Every mirror in the Gothic mansion has been covered.

And while the sun seems to rise and fall often, no light touches the grounds.

Hecate Manor has been the place I’ve been bound to for longer than I know how to measure. Filled with dark furnishings, every wall is painted black with red accents.

The clang of the trap outside is what roused me awake.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a decent meal.

Slipping out of bed, the patchwork of my skin and fur glimmers golden from the candlelight, shimmering and catching the light like a predator in shadow.

Caw! Caw!

Quill, my raven, swoops in from the open window.

I sweep my robe over myself, covering my gnarled fur and hold out my hand, the long black talons stretching out to the darkness. “Hello pretty girl. Come to mama.”

Quill’s silver-tipped feathers glisten as she cascades toward me, landing on my outstretched finger. “In shadowed halls, I dwell alone, my name unknown, my fate my own. My captor’s heart is cold as stone, yet power is mine, mine to atone. Though walls confine, my spirits fly, my voice is soft, but never die, release me, and the truth is clear, but at a cost, you’ll learn to fear. What am I?”

“Oh, bird your riddles will be the death of me.”

I kiss her on the beak and release her. She flies out the room and into the house.

“We have company,” I announce to the ghosts.

The air feels heavy as I glide down the sprawling staircase, the flickering candles cast shadows that crawl along the walls. My talons click against the polished black-wood steps, a sound that echoes through the silence. Quill’s riddle gnaws at the edges of my mind; each word laced with an ominous truth I’m not yet ready to decipher.

The trap outside.

I haven’t seen a soul brave the forest in years—not since the stories of what lurks here grew teeth sharper than any warning. My hunger stirs a pang that makes my chest tighten. It’s been so long since I’ve fed properly. My rage sharpens it, fueling my steps as I cross the grand hall.

The house does what it can to keep me fed, producing magick breads, cheeses, and stews, but meat is something it cannot give me and I am in need of a delicious, juicy steak or even something else for the manor to put into the soup.

I am sick to death of bone broth and carrots.

The manor creaks as though it, too, is curious. The chandeliers sway slightly in the draft of unseen winds, and the painted eyes of long-forgotten ancestors seem to follow me. Quill perches on a rail above, her silver-tipped feathers catching the dim glow as her dark eyes glitter with mischief—or perhaps, foreboding.

I reach the iron-bolted door that leads to the outer grounds. The trap lies just beyond, hidden among the thorn-covered maze that encircles the manor like a crown of despair. My heart quickens as I grip the cold iron handle.

What waits for me beyond this door? Prey to satisfy my hunger, or something far worse? Something that might remember what I was before I forgot myself.

With a deep breath, I swing the door open. The rain pours in sheets, thick and unyielding, drenching the ground into sludge. The world beyond the garden’s boundaries is hidden, shrouded in mist and darkness. But the trap…

There, tangled in the iron jaws, is no ordinary animal. It’s a man, ragged and bleeding, his breathing shallow but determined. His face is pale from the blood loss, yet his eyes—piercing and defiant—lock with mine. Something flashes there, something unnerving.

“Help me,” he rasps, his voice breaking the heavy silence.

I step forward, the rain soaking through my robe as I crouch over him. My talons hover just above his face, and for a moment, I see myself reflected in his wide terrified eyes.

The beast. The monster. The forgotten.

“Why did you come here?” My voice is a low growl, more animal than human.

He flinches but doesn’t look away. “My family…they’re starving.”

My anger stirs at his answer. It’s been so long since I’ve had something to destroy. But beneath the fury, something else flickers—a faint ember of curiosity. What is he doing here?

Quill caws from her perch, her riddle echoing in my thoughts. Release me, and the truth is clear, but at a cost, you’ll learn to fear.

I bare my fangs in a snarl, but something stays my hand. I lean closer.

“What would you give,” I whisper, “to save them?”

The silence stretches into eternity, mixing with the thunder and the pelting rain.

“Anything,” he utters, so soft I almost swear I didn’t hear him say it at all.

I pace around him, thinking of what it would mean to send him back to Wyndhallow.

I’ve been persecuted in witch hunts before.

One of the many things that led me to the darkness I live in now.

That was hundreds of years ago.

The whispers and rumors of the phantom I’ve become have long ago been covered by dirt and dust and grime, fading into nursery rhymes of the past.

I turn to go, to leave him to die in my garden.

“Wait!” he shouts, and I stop at the archway hedge. “I’ll do anything. Please.”

Anger floods me.

I rush at him, one quick and deafening maneuver of strength and wit and fury, nearly stomping on his head as he lies on the ground where the fountain caved in and the trap came out. The trap, with my most precious and haunting and enchanting bloom, to ensnare antelopes and bears and elk—anything with meat.

Never a human.

Nay, never a human man.

He flinches as I raise my taloned foot to stomp him out of his misery.

How dare he come here and threaten my existence!

How fucking dare he cripple my wards and trample my garden, attempting to steal from me!

“You were going to steal from me! What, were you just going to take the enchanted flower back to your village and sell it to the highest bidder? What happens to me then? When they find out where you got it from? And then you tell them of what you saw, only for them to come trampling through my grounds to tie me up and kill me, too? To sell me to some freak-show circus? How does that help me?”

Wincing in pain, he tries to move his legs, which are trapped in the jaws. “I won’t! I won’t tell them anything of what I saw. Please. Just let me go. I’ll leave here and never return.”

I lower my leg and scratch my chin, the talon thick and cool and coaxing against my angry skin.

Again I go to leave when Ryx pops out from behind one of the hedges.

My mischievous and sometimes irksome raccoon who’s bound to the grounds as much as I.

“You could always strike a bargain with him,” Ryx says, standing on his hind legs and plucking an apple from the tree above him.

I quirk my brows. “Strike a deal?”

Biting into the apple, he says, “Yes. Give him money to send home as long as he stays here with you on the grounds.” Bits of apple fly out of his mouth as he speaks.

“What good would that do? What would that give me?”

His mouth quirks up in a smirk. “Companionship, m’lady. And dick.”

I nearly choke on my own spit. I grab him by the tuft of fur behind his neck and wing him up to face me. “No man in their right mind would ever have sex with a beast like me,” I snarl.

He tosses the apple and pets the side of my face. “Oh my dear sweet Reverie.” He leans in close to my ear to whisper the next part. “If you get him to see the beauty within the beast, our curse will forever be broken.”

I think on that thought for a few seconds before setting him back down.

He’s right.

This could be my chance to break the curse for good.

I amble back over to him and kneel down. “Okay, I have a proposition for you.”

His rich, amber-colored eyes set behind dark lashes peer up at me.“Anything.”

“Stay here with me. I’ll give you money and food to send home. But there’s one condition.”

His nose crinkles as he scrunches his eyebrows together. “What?”

“You can never leave.”

He blinks slowly, pondering his choice. “What’s the other option?”

A wicked smile seeps between my teeth. “Death.”