I exhale. “Okay.”
“What’s that?”
“I said okay. Be… the shepherd.”
He watches me closely, his face blank but his eyes sparking. He rises to his feet and tells me to follow him. In front of the glass wall overlooking the city, he carefully pulls off my shirt. “Oh my. The wolves are tearing you apart, aren’t they?”
I don’t respond, because the answer is written all over my skin. I’m caught off guard when he pulls me into a hug. “You are no lamb, my dear. Not anymore.”
I’m exhausted, body and soul, disgusted by how safe I feel in the arms of this monster. Against my common sense, I hug him back.
“That’s it.” He rubs my back, his fingers stroking the ink he forced into my flesh. “I wouldn’t have chosen you if I didn’t think you could survive this. No, not survive—triumph.”
“I’m not triumphing.”
He breaks the hug and holds my face. “But you will.”
I don’t even flinch when I see his tail swaying next to his head. It undulates toward me like a snake.
“Hold it.”
His tail feels like leather, hard and strong. The pointy tip is sharp like a claw.
“I will now make the rest of the painkiller fade from your body,” he says. “It might tingle.”
It feels as though a curtain is violently lifting from my senses, allowing everything to pass through unfiltered. I gasp in pain, resting a hand on his shoulder for balance.
“Go on,” he says.
“Can’t you do it?”
“So you can pretend it wasn’t your choice? No.”
I take a deep breath and hold his tail tightly, then cut the right side of my chest. It burns like hell. Warm blood flows down within seconds. I wait for the pain to pass like it did last time, but it doesn’t.
“Why doesn’t it work?”
“Did I say you should stop?”
I grunt and cut myself again, this time above my heart, but there’s still no remedy. I cut my arm, then my stomach. Blood flows, forming a puddle around my feet. I can barely stand, my heart pulsing in my ears and my head spinning like I drank too much wine. I’m about to stumble when a sudden wave of bliss engulfs me, carrying the pain away until I’m floating peacefully. I don’t care how fucked up this whole thing is. Right now, it’s worth every cut and drop of blood.
I let go of Hector’s tail and sway on my feet, gravity playing tricks on me. Strong arms lead me down to lie on the couch, even though I’m staining it with blood.
“Look at me,” Hector says softly. “Open your eyes and look at me, my champion.”
My champion.
His face is blurry, but his eyes shine brightly with a yellowish glow. I should be scared, but my body is more alive than it has ever been. I feel the blood flowing in my veins and the steady draw of oxygen into my lungs.
“Don’t you already have a champion?” I ask.
“I do, so you will have to take his place.”
“Who is he?”
“A remnant of a failed experiment.”
“Your experiment?”
