Page 53 of Their Promise

I leapt onto her back and tore into her, breaking the bone and tearing one of the wings from her back.

She screamed and I realized it was a human scream as she had shifted back to human form. She lay bleeding and crying, but it wasn’t enough.

The torment she had inflicted upon me and, more importantly, others, was not so simply ignored. The anger within me wanted more blood. More pain.

Trey stood before me, the darkness in his aura swirling higher. “Lily?” he whispered.

“Blood,” I whispered back. “There’s not … enough.”

“You’re a monster,” Norma cried.

“You tormented me. Forced your posse to come after me. You tried to pluck me from the lake while I was reuniting with a friend and on a courting date. You are a monster. You are a piece of trash that should be burned away from this planet!”

She cowered and backed away from us, crawling on her hands.

Mason ran out to us with Kayden right on his heels.

“Lily?” Mason asked. “Can you shove it down?”

Looking at the three of them, I realized they all had the darkness.

Maybe … maybe Norma was right about me being a monster.

“The darkness … it’s infected you three.”

“What are you talking about?” Trey asked.

I waved my hand at them. “You’ve got darkness in your aura. Darkness that you’ve gained. Darkness like mine. Did … did I infect you?”

Mason’s eyes widened. “You can see auras, too?”

“‘Too?’” I asked back.

“She tore my wing from my back!” Norma screeched at Trey behind us.

I spun, but Mason and Kayden each grabbed an arm to keep me from approaching her. “I know what you did to Estelle!”

Norma flinched. “Wh-What?”

Estelle was a chicken shifter, an extremely rare form that had earned her a lot of ridicule. “You plucked her feathers, every single one of them. Then, you told every guy who showed interest in her that she had a disease and that’s why her feathers had fallen out.”

“I-I didn’t.”

“She almost killed herself, Norma!” I screamed. “I stopped her, barely. That is not an easily forgiven incident. You are a piece of trash! Trash should burn!”

I tried to rush her again, but Trey grabbed me by the face and kissed me, distracting me from my fury.

“Take Lily to the house,” Trey whispered. “I’ll deal with … her.”

Kayden led the way while Mason walked behind me, forcing me to walk down the path back towards their house.

Collapsing on the couch, a warm blanket was set on me and I closed my eyes, feeling the pull of sleep.

“We’re here, Lil’. Go to sleep,” Kayden whispered.

“Blood,” I whispered.

“Tomorrow,” Mason promised. “We will hunt tomorrow.”

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