Page 14 of A Siren of Beasts

My instant response was to hiss at him when he took another step. Milin froze and his orbs seemed to flicker black and his features started to shift into something far more fearsome than I’d seen out of him so far. The ent balled his hands and his face contorted like he was trying to hold something back. Perceiving him as far more dangerous than I’d assumed, I took a step back.

“Don’t,” a voice snarled in my head. It had a vague reminiscence of Milin’s voice, only it was much more sinister. “Don’t you fucking take her away from me.”

The gentle but powerful ent morphed before my eyes. His bark changed from white to black, with more gnarled knots and thorns appearing and what had been black shadowing before turned white. Almost as if everything about him had become the opposite. The soothing feeling I’d gotten from him as we talked vanished into something that made my feathers stand on end. I knew dark energy, I was dark energy. You couldn’t be a todesrabe, or death-raven as the humans called u,s without being intimately familiar with the sensation of evil.

“So, is this the consequence of the queen saving you from madness?” I asked, letting my power create a shield around Shiny and myself, unsure of what this dark and twisted ent might do.

“She never saved me,” Milin’s darkness snapped. “All she did was take the madness and put it in a cage where it wouldn’t hurt anyone. The thing she didn’t account for was that when you cut off a branch of a tree it sprouts and grows new life. In trying to help Milin she created his worst nightmare living inside him.”

“Have you given yourself a name?” I asked.

This question seemed to catch the darkness off guard. “Why would you ask me that?”

“You said it yourself, that you’re a new creation within Milin. If you considered yourself part of him you’d have used his name, but you don’t,” I explained calmly before blasting him with my power and tossing him across the grove and slamming him into a tree.

My feathers fluttered in the wind my magic created as it swirled around me as my anger grew. This ent had made the wrong move trying to lure me in with his nice healer tree act. I’d bet my favorite trinket that Milin was the side of him that didn’t come out often. This twisted gnarled monster was who was in control.

“If you were thinking that appearing and showing me the kind side to you, who wanted to heal her, would convince me to let you get close to Shiny, you’re a fucking idiot. I’m not scared of you, Ent. Todesrabes can eat the soul of any creature who has one and no one can stop me from doing it,” my threat lingered in the silence as Milin, or whatever he wanted to be called, got up. “Come near me and my Shiny again, and I’ll rip your bleeding heart out, right along with your soul, and feed it to her. That’s all the healing you’re going to give her.”

Using my magic, I cloaked us in darkness and took off running. Using this trick also made us incorporeal so I could run right through the trees that blocked our path. It wouldn’t work with living things that had a soul, I’d crash right into them just as I would while fully visible. As useful of a trick as this was, I couldn’t use it for too long, or it would take a toll on my physical body. Learned that one the hard way when I gained this ability and ended up vomiting blood for days. Magic and power were great, but it always took its pound of flesh if you didn’t respect them. Right now though, I’d risk it to keep Shiny safe until I got her back to my nest - where I was never going to let her leave. Today had shown me just how much trouble she was going to be if left to wander the Hollowed Forest alone.

Didn’t she know that monsters lived here?

eight

Warmth surrounded me, and I was the most comfortable I’d been in days. Not wanting to wake, I burrowed deeper in the hopes I would be able to go back to sleep. Something in the back of my mind told me I didn’t want to wake up and remember what happened. A feather tickled my nose and I sneezed, waking me up the rest of the way. Cracking open an eye, I found myself in the large nest in the stone house. Sitting up a fur pelt slipped off me and I noticed I was naked, not that it was something all that unusual for my life.

Looking around the room I noticed the window had been shuttered keeping the room pitch dark, but I had the sense it was morning. Standing, I made my way out of the nest and pulled back one of the shutters, peering out at the forest. The mist wasn’t as heavy and tiny shafts of sunlight littered the ground like reflections of a diamond on a wall. Even with the light, the forest held onto its darkness though, creating more of a twilight.

Images of the monsters I’d run into yesterday flitted before my eyes. The red eyes, teeth, leathery skin, giant trees that wanted to strangle me, and the vague memory of a man coming to my rescue. His scent was like that of the night, crisp sage, musky bergamot, and the barest bite of pepper. Pausing, I turned to look at the nest where I’d just been sleeping and lifted my arm catching a faint trace of that exact aroma on my skin. Did that man live here?

I scanned the room for any other signs of a person, but there were none. There was, however, a black dress hanging from a peg hook on the wall that hadn’t been there before. Walking over to it I brushed a hand over the fabric, it was soft and a much thicker material than the nightgown I had on. Slipping the dress over my head I pulled it on, finding it fit me perfectly. I loved the way it hugged my body with long sleeves and the front covered my chest, just showing off my collarbone. It fell to the floor but just brushed along it so I didn’t trip. There were two stilts up the front that followed each of my legs until they stopped at my hip bones.

While it covered a lot, it still showed off a fair amount of my body without me getting too cold. Whoever left this for me had thought about us both when he’d picked it out. The dresses that I wore back in Estya were only flowing fabric that covered enough to make me decent in public. This was warm, covered almost everything, but the structure and fit of the dress showed off everything in a seductive way. Combing my fingers through my hair, I picked out twigs and leaves that had found their way into my ridiculously long mane of hair.

Pulling it over my shoulder, I braided it using a strip of red ribbon I found in one of the piles of treasures. Perusing the odds and ends that were scattered all over the place made me question if another person could really live here. It seemed so chaotic, but then again I’d never had more than one or two trinkets to call my own. Letting out a heavy sigh I shook myself out of my self-pity and headed downstairs. When the aroma of food hit my nose I bolted the rest of the way, remembering I’d left the fucking acorns boiling.

Skidding to a stop in the cooking area, I gasped at the sight of a roasted rabbit laid out along with a few other things that I couldn’t guess on sight. My head moved from side to side as I searched the space for another person. Even going back to the common room there was no indication that someone else was here other than one of the armchairs had been cleared of treasures so someone could sit. There was also a bright fire glowing in the fireplace, brightening the room.

“Hello?” I called out. “Is someone here?”

My answer was a caw and my raven flew in from the library to land on the small round table with two chairs. He hopped about as if excited to see me, his tail feathers spreading wide to keep him balanced.

“Good morning to you, too,” I greeted, and padded over to him.

A smile grew on my lips as he shoved his head under my hand as if begging for affection. Gently I scratched his head, careful not to ruffle his feathers the wrong way. He chittered happily, puffing up his feathers in his enjoyment. I absently continued looking back toward the library.

“So, is it just you here?” I asked.

He answered with an affirmative caw and nibbled at my fingers when I stopped petting him. Laughing, I resumed. “Greedy little guy, aren’t you?”

“Only when it comes to my treasures,” a voice said, drifting through my mind.

Yanking my hand away from the raven I took a few steps back, my heart thumping in my chest. Oh fuck, I ended up in the home of another monster—willingly. I knew that raven was too smart to be normal but I was too stupid and desperate for help. I’d let him lead me right into another trap.

“Shiny, if I wanted to hurt you I could have done that long before now,” the raven chided me. “Now get the food I made you and eat. I’m sure you’re starving, you didn’t get to eat last night before everything happened.”

“You?” I blurted. “How?”