Page 7 of Bound By the Beast Man
But I do not go far. Once I am deep enough in the shadows to be invisible, I circle around the clearing, my movements silent and swift. I find a high ridge that overlooks their profane ritual, a perfect vantage point hidden by dense foliage. Her words echo in my mind.A well from which we can draw.They are not just keeping her prisoner; they are feeding on her, studying her like an insect pinned to a board. The knowledge solidifies my resolve into something harder than diamond.
A plan begins to form, reckless and desperate. I cannot fight their magic head-on. But a spell requires focus, and a ritual requires harmony. I will be the chaos that shatters both. My attack will not be aimed at them, but at the very heart of their ritual, the instrument of their foul experiment: the coffin itself. The odds are against me. Failure means a swift, agonizing death. But as I look down at the glowing coffin, at the woman they are slowly dissecting for her power, I know there is no other choice. Tonight, I will bring the fury of a manticore down upon these witches. The risk of death is a small price to pay for her freedom.
10
DIANA
The warmth I felt from the stranger’s presence has not faded. It has solidified, becoming a steady pulse in the void, a rhythm I can cling to like a heartbeat. It is a powerful, grounding force in the timeless, formless sea of my imprisonment. After years of nothing but the cold, cruel magic of the Purna, this new connection is like the first rays of dawn after an endless night. It is a feeling of solid, unshakeable strength, like a mountain in my formless world, and I know it does not come from me.
I focus on it, drawing on a will I thought had been eroded to dust. I reach for the connection, not with phantom limbs, but with my consciousness itself. It is a terrifying and exhilarating experience after so long as a passive vessel. The closer I get, the more I can feel from him. There is a deep, simmering rage that flows from him, an anger so profound it almost scorches my mind. But it is not directed at me. It is aimed at my captors. And beneath the rage, there is something else, an overwhelming, fierce protectiveness that wraps around me like a shield.
He believes I am his. The thought is not frightening; it is the most comforting thing I have ever known. It gives me a strength I have not felt since before the attack. Gathering all of mycourage, I push a fragile piece of myself along the link I can now feel between us. I offer him the one thing I have left that is truly my own. My name.
Diana.
The response is immediate and powerful. He receives my name not as a word, but as a treasure. He speaks it back to me in his mind, and the sound of it, the feeling of it, gives it a weight and reality it has not had in years. It reminds me that I am a person, not just the “specimen” I hear the Purna hiss about in their distorted whispers. His presence solidifies, and I can feel his thoughts with a startling clarity. He is a warrior. He is honorable. And he is planning to get me out of here.
A new kind of terror seizes me. He feels strong, his will like iron, but he does not know the true nature of the Purna’s cruelty. I cannot let him walk into their trap unprepared. I must warn him. I open the floodgates of my trauma, sending him not just words, but images and feelings, a desperate torrent of the horrors I have endured.
I show him how they have kept me alive in this stasis, not out of any mercy, but to slowly drain my life force. I make him feel the leeching sensation of their magic, pulling at the latent power in my blood for their profane rituals. I am a battery for their evil, and they have been slowly draining me for what feels like a lifetime.
I also share the fragmented horrors of what has happened to others. I send him the echoes of screams I have heard in my stasis, the flashes of other captives—men and women from raided villages or travelers taken from the mountain passes. The Purna bring them to the clearing, and their terrible experiments are things my mind refuses to fully remember. I can only share the echoes of their pain, a warning of the absolute evil he faces.
Do not underestimate them,I plead, pushing the thought with all my might.Their beauty is a mask. They are monsters.
I feel his rage intensify as he receives my warning, but there is no fear in him. There is no hesitation. His response is not one of pity, which would feel demeaning and small. Instead, he sends me a burst of pure, unwavering conviction, a promise that cuts through the last vestiges of my despair like a white-hot blade.
I will free you.
It is not a vague hope or a gentle reassurance. It is a declaration of intent, a warrior’s vow from a being I instinctively trust with every fiber of my soul. It is the most real thing I have felt in years. The hope that sparked within me before now bursts into a steady, determined flame. I now believe that this is not a dream. I believe that I might actually be saved.
This is the moment I truly feel seen as a person again. The years of being treated as an object, a resource to be used and discarded, have stripped away my sense of self. His focused, protective intent begins to restore it piece by piece. He does not see a specimen. He sees me. Diana.
I cling to his mental voice, to the powerful, comforting feeling of his presence, wrapping it around my consciousness like a warm cloak.
I push the thought from my mind that I am still terrified and that this will all fade, he will disappear and leave me alone in the darkness once more.
But, I truly believe that he will not. He is coming for me. And I will be ready.
11
CORVAK
Night falls like a black shroud over the Prazh Mountains. The clearing below is illuminated by the cold, silver light of Protheka's twin moons and the eerie, pulsing blue of the runes on the glass coffin. From my vantage point on the ridge, I have watched the Purna for hours, memorizing their movements, noting the subtle shift in their chant as the moons rise higher. My muscles are coiled, every nerve ending alive with a primal readiness for the violence to come. The time for observation is over.
I reach out through the strange, new connection I feel to the woman in the coffin. I focus my entire will into a single, clear thought, a promise and a command.
I am coming now. Be ready.
I feel a faint, answering flicker of hope and terror from her before I sever the link, needing all of my concentration for what comes next. I slip down from the ridge, moving like a shadow through the forest. A century of training has taught me how to be a ghost, how to place my feet so not a single twig snaps, how to use the wind to carry my scent away from my prey. The Purna are arrogant in their power, confident in the supposed safety oftheir sacred grove. They have posted only two outer sentries, and both are lazy, their attention on the ritual in the clearing, not on the darkness of the woods that surround them.
The first sentry is leaning against a tree, her beautiful face turned up toward the moons. I close the distance between us in three silent strides. Before she can even register my presence, my hand clamps over her mouth, and with a brutal twist, I snap her neck. She goes limp in my arms without a sound. I drag her body into the deepest shadows at the base of a thicket before circling around the clearing, my movements swift and sure. The second sentry is no more difficult. She is humming along with the chant, her eyes closed in a moment of reverie. She dies never knowing I was there.
With the sentries gone, the path to the clearing is open. The ten remaining Purna are lost in their trance, their voices woven together in a hypnotic, otherworldly song. The air around them crackles with the raw power they are channeling, the magical ward around the standing stones shimmering like heat haze. I take a deep breath, the cold mountain air doing little to cool the fire in my blood. I am one against ten. I am flesh against magic. The odds are impossible. I do not care.
I burst from the tree line not as a man, but as a beast unleashed. A roar rips from my throat, a sound of pure, primal fury that shatters the night’s stillness and the Purna’s concentration. Their chanting falters as they break their ritual.
But I have given them no time to react. I am already moving, my powerful legs eating up the ground between the forest and their sacred circle.
