DALIA, the secretary of the Moon Goddess, is met by the deity's most troubled victim; the first and only lycanthrope. In a violent heist, the lycan abducts the loyal secretary as leverage.
Two figures from different worlds are forced to revaluate t...
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With everything going on, not limited to but including the radical delivery of life changing truths, god defying herbs, and a miraculous escape from becoming fertilizer to this harsh landscape, I had forgotten that he knew. He knew I'd been communicating with a god and was just as soon prepared to swoop me up and smuggle me to the next destination.
A brittleness persisted along my throat. That old, familiar sense of powerlessness gnawed, never having truly left.
"Nothing has changed," he assured, breath riding my neck, this time with a certain unperturbed voraciousness.
I winced at his directness. Although I shouldn't have held out hope that the two of us connecting without the complimentary animosity had altered his mission. It was only a few conversations, however it was those exchanges that would produce the scaffolding of my affection. He was pained, horribly. A man(-ish) who believed himself to be tending to his wounds, unaware of how his unrelenting attention buried him deeper under the split skin. I faulted him, yes, except the me who awaited his ministered medications and leaking admissions couldn't fight the urge to console. My stubbornness wasn't all-enduring, and more than anything I despaired over Dima, whom I no longer wanted to call so familiarly.
"I've left a shift for you, dress yourself. We'll be departing before nightfall." He promptly removed himself from my vicinity, suddenly becoming colder.
While my wounds had greatly healed, it was difficult to move to some degree, the pain still imprinted.
Folding and discarding the soiled outfit, I covered myself with the simple cotton shift. Braving myself to limp at a painstakingly slow pace through the burdensome dimensions of haunt, I stepped out. I traveled with ease along the basement passageways with ease, until I was fed into the vestibule minutes later. Ghostly lit, the pressure was more intense than I had ever remembered. I sheltered myself within my arms. Hunched and alert, I backed up against the wall as a tremor rattled me. I was moderately weakened, and while I reasoned there was no one else here, the following shriek that hailed had me pale.
I erratically scanned the room and the wide outbranching chambers smothered in shade for a culprit, or a whole clan of wailers. Ear grating reverberations warped the space. There had to be a limit to haunted. The effect was so strong, yet so phantom it had me questioning my own reason.
"Enough."
The cries ceased, chased away by a single, effortlessly potent command.
The Beast stood two stories up, one hand on the banister overlooking my distress. I couldn't see his face, backlit by the rising sun approaching from behind.
Madly, I glanced around, confirming my suspicions. We were alone. I don't know what came over me, a surge of idiocy spurred me to honesty. It wasn't just the desire to act, to do something, but I was tempted nonetheless. I practically regurgitated my nerves. Our relationship was beyond delicate, and I was apparently still dangling over the six foot pit of demise, if his plan to kill me hadn't altered. I craned my neck and spoke flatly, trusting his inhuman senses to overcome the distance. "Beast, we don't have to leave. I received another contact by the god, he gave me thirty days, and is entirely unaware of the aglaophotis."
