I’m frozen, but not from fear, from calculation. Slowly and deliberately, I push myself up off the floor. Stepping forward I press my hands through the bars, and rest my elbows so I’m eye-level with his monstrous snout. I let him see every ounce of my disdain as I tilt my head.
“Why?” I ask, all mock-innocence. I shrug, my lips curling into a dare. “Why should I be afraid, huh? What are you going to do to me?”
He staggers back as though I shoved him. Confusion flits across his red face, and he sputters, actually sputters. “Because… because,” he shakes his head, fury twisting his features so tight.
Then he plants his hooves, or whatever the fuck they are, and roars, his voice rattling the iron bars and my bones right down to the marrow. “Because I AM DEATH and I could end you with a click of my fingers!”
The floor hums with his rage, but all I feel is the rush of my own pulse. Good, let him roar.
Undeterred, I stand my ground. My fingers curl tighter around the cold iron bars. “I’m not afraid of death,” I say, calmly. My tone low and even. I won’t match his thunder. “So, if you dragged me here to kill me, get on with it. Otherwise, let me go. I’ve got better things to do with my day than rot behind these bars staring at your ugly, sunburnt face.”
Stunned, he stares at me, as if no one’s ever dared speak to him this way before. Good, let it sink in. His hulking form goes stiff, with shadows flickering in the hollows of his scales. For a heartbeat I think he’ll lunge, or spit fire, or snap these bars apart with his bare hands. He doesn’t.
Instead, the great red bastard lifts one clawed finger, clicks it,snap. Then vanishes in a whisper of black smoke.
“Faitíosach. (Coward.)” The word leaves my mouth like venom. I shout it louder, so it echoes through the stone walls, hoping it’ll find him wherever he’s cowering now. “COWARD!”
Let him hear me. Let him remember it when he tries to roar at me next time.
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 oldestpart 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 acú 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.
The thing is, I’m a little scared. Not of the ugly red fucker, hell no. It’s not his horns or his black-fire eyes that twist my gut. It’s the truth I don’t have yet. The unknown, that’s the monster scratching under my ribs.
With a sharp huff, I lean back against the cold bars, my eyes slipping shut as if pretending to sleep might drag me somewhere safer. For a heartbeat I let my mind drift, let the dark hum with half-formed thoughts. Comfort’s a fool’s wish and it lasts all of two seconds before the cage beneath me shudders then vanishes altogether. My back hits the stone floor with a bone-deep thud that rattles my teeth. For a moment I just lie still, glaring up at the nothing above me. My breath knocking out in short, sharp bursts.
Fucking brilliant.Fucking tipiciúil.(Fucking typical.)
My stubbornness holds me in place. I should move, scramble up,get my guard back in place, but I don’t. What’s the point? He’s not here to kill me, not really. If he were, I’d be nothing more than smoke on the wind by now. Maybe death isn’t the threat here, maybe it’s worse than that.
A soft chill curls over my skin where the bars used to be, and somewhere deep in my chest, my fear tastes like iron and stubborn rage tangled together. If he wants to break me, he’s going to have to do a hell of a lot better than dropping me on my ass.
The sound of padded steps slices through the quiet and my blood runs cold. I don’t move at first because I half expect to see those horns again, that smug red bastard come to gloat.
It’s not him.
