Chapter 17 Thorne
I’m not a fucking coward. I’ve just never met anyone who isn’t afraid of me, afraid of death. She caught me off guard, that’s all. My usual tactics won’t work on her. How do you scare someone who’s already made her peace with fear? Who stared into my flaming eyes and didn’t flinch?
All I wanted was to give her a warning. A sharp one, fair enough, but deserved. She broke our pact when she let a human see her for what she really is. The deal was simple, to keep her head down, do her job and above all… stay hidden. Humans can’t know, and yet, she let him in.
This is my own damn fault. Years ago, when she stumbled into my graveyard, she was soaked in tears and dirt, with her knees torn open on old stones.
She begged me to save her family’s lives.
I should have ignored her, turned my back on her the same as I do for the rest. However, there was something about her.
A pull in her soul, dark and bright all at once. It called out to the oldest part of me.
So, I made her choose. One out of the three she loved. She made her sacrifice, and in exchange, she became mine, her soul tangled up in the roots of my realm.
Warm drool seeps through my sleeve, dragging me out of the snare of my own thoughts.
I glance down, Fionn’s muzzle presses into my arm, his growl low, as if it’s thunder waiting to strike.
His breath reeks of ash and blood. “Good boy.” My fingers bury in the coarse black fur at his nape.
“What shall we do?” I whisper, though it’s more for me than him.
Then it hits me, a spark of savage delight, flaring to life in the pit of my gut. If my name, my existence isn’t enough to break her, then Fionn’s will. Even I tread lightly around this beast when his hackles rise, and I own him. What chance does a fragile, defiant slip of a woman have?
Fionn is a cú sidhe (hellhound). I've had him since he was a pup. I found him crawling the underbelly of the underworld with his ribs slicing through fur. I fed him once and now he’d rip the throat from any god or human who tried to touch me.
She’ll tremble for him, mura mbeidh sí ar mo shon. (if she won’t for me.)
“Nach bhfuil tú deas? (Beautiful monster,)” I murmur, scratching behind his ragged ear. He rumbles his approval, the flicker of flame in his eyes echoing the hellfire caged in my chest.
“First, I’ll feed you. I’d hate for you to shred my pretty little prize before I’m done with her.”
Rising up, I proceed to the kitchen and drag a butcher’s slab out of the old wooden cabinet.
Seasoned raw flesh, slick and crimson. He devours a part whole.
Bone, and sinew cracking as if it’s brittle twigs under his massive jaws.
Blood spatters the stone floor, this is what fear looks like when it has teeth.
While he feeds, I push open the back door and step out into the chill.
The air bites and I welcome it. A balm to calm the storm under my skin.
The garden isn’t much. It’s dark and grungy, overrun with ivy and the faint scent of rot and wet earth.
The fence leans into the soil and the weeds twist through cracks like they’re claiming the place for themselves.
My thoughts churn with the same restless energy. Who the fuck dares stand before death and laugh?
She’ll learn. They all do. If my claws can’t tear the terror from her, Fionn’s will.