Page 15 of Stegian: Project Exorcism 4

She looked around and shook with fear and confusion. “Daddy?”

Without thought, Jacquelyn took another step forward. The panthers growled, and the sound took her instantly back to the day of her attack so long ago.

Her power surged, changing the scenery around her, making it look identical to the spot she’d been horrifically attacked so long ago. Everything else faded away.

She spun around in a small circle but found none of the others.

"Jacquelyn, come quick." She turned more, listening as her sister Nina's voice filtered through the tree line. "Hurry, Father needs you."

"Daddy needs me?" she questioned, sounding so young, so innocent.

“Jacquelyn!”

She twisted at the sound of her father’s voice and looked down the length of herself to see she was as she had been at that time—just a little girl. “Daddy?”

“Jacquelyn, come quick, I need your help, half-pint.”

A broad smile spread over her face as she ran in the direction the voice came from. As she broke into a clearing, she spotted her father there, larger than life. There was no sign of Nina. Strange.

Her father was tall, handsome and looked to have been carved from marble. His jet-black hair rivaled her own, and as he turned to face her, a sick feeling came over her. Something in his gaze was off. The way he leered at her.

“Daddy?”

He bent and put his arms out wide. Evil emanated from him and her still-developing senses picked up on it instantly.

She backed up and shook her head, understanding fully she'd just walked into a trap. “Y-you’re not my daddy. You’re not him.”

“Such a smart little girl.” His shoulders arched in a strange way and in the blink of an eye, he was in full shifted mode. His form, that of a black panther, was huge and terrifying to Jacquelyn. It always had been.

Two other panthers emerged from the dense foliage. They advanced on her—and the moment the first one’s jaws clamped down on her throat, she was ripped back into the present.

She looked up to find all eyes on her, each set as wide as the next.

Her brother looked as if he’d seen a ghost and clenched his fists. “Dear gods in the heavens, it can’t be.”

“Jacquelyn?” Christian asked, taking a step towards her, his face ashen.

The terror over reliving the attack was still too fresh to think clearly. Screaming, she ran, and one of the two black panthers lunged at her. She went ramrod stiff, awaiting her end.

There was a flash, and she tumbled and fell to the ground. Suddenly Stegian was there, snarling at the panther, almost daring it to come at her again. He leaned over her and she cried harder.

The panther roared and Stegian lifted a hand. Magik shot forth, slamming into the beast that was technically his pet.

Jacquelyn scrambled away, her power taking hold once more. She dematerialized, only to resurface in the cavern she’d spent the majority of the night in, being held by the man she had foolishly believed she could save from himself.

---