Page 18 of Creatures that Breathe

“Get up.” I tell him, harsh voice slicing through the air, directed not just at the Annihilator but the wall of stone-faced spectators who frothed for my demise.

I clap, slow and mocking as I circle the cage, a hyena on the hunt. “Get the fuck up! You wanted to fight? Get. Up.”

Lev’s vibrating, smiling with all his teeth.

Revenge seizes control as I stalk toward my opponent—a grown male trembling on hands and knees, spittle dripping down his chin, genuine terror in his eyes.

Horrified thoughts smear across his bruised face, mirroring the crowds. What’s happening? Where is this coming from? I want the other guy back.

Tough shit.

I’m out for blood. Each movement deliberate and precise as my fist launches into his face and shatters his nose. Energy crackles around me, tendrils of black skating around my arms like smoking snakes.

I yank his face into my knee just to watch him crumple onto the ground, groaning and rolling.

“How about the other hand?” I’ve given up on him. Now I’m talking to her.

To the woman who seems to have taken up permanent residence in my thoughts.

Her good hand still clutches the fence, revealing an unexpected resilience, but her frosty eyes have tinged red and her lips are pressed. Angry.

In an instant, I’ve got the Annihilator by his wrist, and one by one, his fingers snap. It’s not a harrowing sound, it’s soothing, oddly satisfying, like the gentle click of a clip signaling empty.

He screams.

I’m louder. “What else?”

I’m a pile-up on the highway, stares fixating on me, disgusted and terrified and thankful they’re on the outside looking in. Wicked satisfaction fills me. “His neck?” I ask her, breathless with anticipation and twisted pleasure, already going for the kill.

“Wait!” Leni calls and fool that I am, I look. I devour. Blue. “Please,” she says. “Don’t—”

Pain becomes me. Engulfs my being and sears violently. Wraps around me like a vise, merciless and unrelenting.

Ramming, bone snapping pain seizes fervent and constant. The tattooed bands on my wrists tighten with brutal force, cutting into my skin, while the one on my throat threatens to crush me.

My right foot gives way beneath me, and I go down on one knee, wheezing, struggling for air. My muscles spasm involuntarily, desperately attempting to fight the torment. Blinding white flashes and engulfing black spots mar my vision, and I can’t inhale.

The curse has come. My punishment for failing to protect the King, for failing to avenge him swiftly and with zero reservations: pain.

Pain, pain, pain. It lances up me, around me, lashes like electric whips specifically designed to agonize.

The first time I ever felt it, it struck like lightning. It happened minutes after Kadmos took his last breath. Thick dark bands burning around our necks. At first, we thought the band was a mark of failure, nothing more, a symbol of the Blackguard and it’s disgrace.

It wasn’t.

Together, we’d vowed to find the king’s killer, purpose the only clear way through the darkness. But our progress was infinitesimal. Creatures despised us. Queen Vinia banished us, and Calydon, our expert in arms, the kindest of the lot of us, the most tenderhearted, was slain by the Queensguard in a display of power.

Our anger became sorrow. A fallen brother. A dead king. No hope. We abandoned our search.

And the curse returned. It’s simple: if we stop trying to avenge the king, we get punished. Tortured. Dominated and beaten.

Ten years after Kadmos died, a second band appeared on our wrists in the same heartless black, and the interval between torment shortened. Another ten years and our other wrists blackened. We couldn’t go a month without our noses in the grindstone or blacking out from the excruciating pain.

Thirty years have passed. Tattoos ensnare our throats, our wrists, one ankle each, and the grace period for vengeance has shrunk to mere days, a week at best.

I’ve been distracted all week.

Fixated on magnificent blue.

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