Clever as the Devil & Twice as Pretty

II. Bound and Broken

He glanced down at the odd apple to see it had begun to melt in his hands, the thick crimson liquid forming a puddle at his feet and turning sticky in his hands.

"I warned you! Now we all must pay..." he turned abruptly to see Juliette pale with fear, her bright emerald eyes, wide in horror and agony. He took a step towards her but stopped as a searing pain in his hand became present. The now injured noble glanced down to see two small but bright red dots adorning the back of his left hand, he felt as though someone had pressed two white hot pincers onto his skin, a burning sensation began to overwhelm him. 'Now you are mine, foolish boy!' The snake hissed below him, causing both the maid and her master to cower in fear.

"Juliette, run!!" He pushed her towards the now roaring river, that replaced its once gentle flow. The stone steps that assisted them across had long disappeared under the chaotic water, but they had no other options, for returning to where the snake resided was out of the question. Juliette gripped onto the noble as he led her across the slim and disturbed waters. Propelling her onto the bank and lifting himself, the male turned back around to see that the snake had now taken the figure of a shadow that approached them at a horrifyingly rapid pace.

Without time to recuperate from the energy-draining river, the two took off in an exasperated sprint, not quite sure of where to hide from the fiendish being behind them. Adrenaline pulsed through his body like 1000 watts of electricity, filling his body with dizzying alertness that aided their escape. The once gracious clouds above them oozed and billowed across the ever-darkening sky, casting the meadow into a shadowy darkness. A jagged bolt of lightning tore the sky in half and they began to sprint, wincing as each icy raindrop pierced their skin. The violent wind whipped Juliette's chestnut hair around her fear-stricken face, tears mixing with rain as a numbing coldness began to grip her heart. Thunder rolled across the sky, seeming to crack their beautiful world in half and reveal the fury of the shadows. The serpent's cackles reverberated around the now dead landscape, eerily echoing as the noble desperately searched for a shelter for his beloved.

The now dead flowers crunched beneath their feet with each desperate step. The brown petals of the once colorful flowers were curling and stiff. The bone-chilling rain blew in at an angle, blurring their vision and smudging their possible destination from their view. The now blinded aristocrat desperately wiped at his auburn eyes to clear his vision in front of him when suddenly he felt a sharp pain radiating from behind him. His pain was an icy wind choking the breath from his lungs and making a noose around his neck. It's savage, bitter blasts cut right through his bones and gripped his brain in it's freezing claws. His heart constricted in it's wake as, if not sure if it should go on beating. Black filled the edges of his vision and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat and that of the cackling evil behind him.

Suddenly, the young patrician went numb and fell to the dead and dry ground; his breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. He turned slowly at the cause of his sudden weak state to see the shadow from earlier had taken its true shape and form. Half woman, half snake, but all evil. The creature in front of him was a woman from the waist up with sharp ebony horns adorning her head with flowing ruby locks. From the waist down the creature had a white serpent tail that contradicted greatly to the sinfully beautiful coal wings adorning her back. The noble was mesmerized by both the horror of the situation and the unique beauty of the demoness that stood before him.

An evil grin found its way onto the golden-eyed beauty she lifted her jet-black wings, propelling the weakened noble into complete darkness. A bolt of white hot lightning broke the utter blackness and caught both the male and demoness' attention. Streaks of pure white crackled against a stormy blanket of gray, shrouding all with its blinding incandescence. Jagged bolts endlessly protruded, filling the sky with undying flashes of radiance until hitting a nearby tree. Almost as soon as the lightning had struck the tree, the world became illuminated. Its large boughs setting ablaze in a matter of seconds and spreading. Auburn eyes widened in utter horror at the sight of the ring of fire being produced around him and the evil serpent.