Page 11 of Bound By the Beast Man

CORVAK

N ight 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 of their 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.

I slam into the shimmering magical ward with the force of a battering ram.

The impact is agony, a searing pain as the raw magic burns my skin and sends a jolt through my entire body.

The barrier holds, but I roar again, this time in defiance, and rake at it with my claws.

They are not mere nails; they are manticore claws, sharp enough to rend steel.

They tear through the shimmering energy, the ward cracking and splintering like ice under a hammer blow.

With one final, desperate heave, I shatter the barrier completely.

The Purna are on their feet now, their shock turning to outrage and fury.

Their hands glow with gathering magic, their beautiful faces twisting into masks of hate.

But they are too late. Their ritual is broken, their concentration shattered.

They expected me to fight them, to engage them as a warrior would.

They did not expect me to ignore them entirely.

My entire focus is on the glowing glass prison in the center of the clearing.

I leap over the remains of their shattered ward in a single, powerful bound, my eyes fixed on the woman within.

She is my only purpose. I land before the coffin and, without a moment’s hesitation, bring my fists down upon its surface with all the strength I possess.

The enchanted glass does not shatter like a normal pane.

It explodes. Raw magical energy erupts outward in a blinding flash of blue light, throwing me back a step.

Crystalline shards, each one glowing with a faint inner light, rain down around me.

The Purna’s screams of fury are a dissonant shriek in the sudden silence that follows the blast.

I ignore them. My eyes are only for the woman who now lies on the cold, bare earth where the coffin once floated.

I rush to her side and scoop her limp form into my arms. She is lighter than I expected, her body cold to the touch from her long stasis.

But she is real. She is in my arms. As I hold her, I can feel the air around us begin to crackle and burn with the Purna’s retaliatory magic.

I turn to face them, shielding her body with my own, my claws extended, ready for the fight of my life.

I have her. They will not take her back.