I smiled as Charity, Hope, and Faith encircled the shivering Aidan. "King of Glasswood." I smirked. "What have you become?"
"I was nothing, to begin with." he snarled.
"You were the King of Glasswood. Now you are a wasted, weak criminal?" My laugh resonated through the room. Aidan bared his teeth and stumbled backward, his sunken eyes glowing with hate.
"I am still the King of Glasswood."
"Charity." I nodded at her. Her silky jet-black ears perked up and her lip curled in a snarl. I leered. "My hounds know the truth, Aidan. We all know the truth. Don't you, Hope? Faith?"
Hope's silver tail lashed and her ears pinned back against her head. Faith's brindle coat shone in the moonlight streaming through the broken windows. Her teeth gleamed in what looked like a hound's smile. Faith had always been my favorite, although I favored all my hounds above anything else.
"I would rather die by Aegr's wrath than die by your hand."
I nodded to Faith. She lunged for Aidan, snapping her jaws, but missing on purpose. Aidan scrambled away, eyes burning with unfiltered hatred. "Maeve, what have you become?" he whispered.
I smiled. "You know what makes me so very, very sad about this?" I asked. "It's that you find that I'm the villain in this." And with that, I signaled to my hounds and let them rip into his body, hurting but not killing, tearing but not severing, leaving a small bit of life in him, just as much as the small bit of heart in me.