Page 4 of Bound By the Beast Man

DIANA

F or a heartbeat, the world is frozen. The scream hangs in the air, a single, terrible note that has silenced everything. Ingrid’s hand flies to her mouth.

“What was that?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said, my own voice tight.

Then the world explodes into chaos. Doors are thrown open, people spilling out into the lane. Some run toward the sound, armed with farming tools and foolish courage. Others, wiser, try to bolt for the woods. It makes no difference.

From the shadows between the cottages, the figures emerge.

They are all women, tall and graceful, moving with a liquid speed that isn’t human.

They wear dark, flowing cloaks, but the hoods do little to hide their impossible beauty.

Their faces are perfectly sculpted, their skin luminous, but it’s their eyes that make my blood run cold.

They gleam with a predatory malice, a deep and ancient cruelty that has no place in our peaceful village.

These are not ordinary raiders. They are something else entirely, something torn from the darkest corner of a nightmare.

Kael, his jaw set with fierce determination, rushes forward with his father’s wood axe.

He is strong and brave, and my heart lurches with a terrible premonition.

He swings the axe at the nearest woman. She doesn’t even flinch.

With a lazy flick of her wrist, she sends a bolt of crackling black energy into his chest. Kael is thrown backward, his body hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

He doesn’t move again. A ripple of horrified shrieks rips through the onlookers.

This isn’t a fight. It’s a slaughter. Panic, raw and absolute, takes hold.

The villagers scatter like frightened birds, but there is nowhere to run.

“Inside! Now!” I grab Ingrid’s arm, my nails digging into her skin as I try to pull her back toward the safety of our cottage.

But it’s too late. Our parents are already rushing out, my father clutching a pitchfork and my mother a long kitchen knife.

Their faces are pale with fear, but they move to stand in front of us, a fragile, hopeless barrier.

“Get back in the house!” my mother yelled.

“Get your sister and run!” my father yells, his voice cracking. “Go out the back! To the woods!”

But the Purna, for that is what they must be, the witches of old tales, are everywhere.

They move with a terrifying, systematic grace, cutting people down not with blades, but with gestures and whispered words.

I see Elara fall, the milk pail rolling away from her outstretched hand.

In the screaming chaos, Ingrid is ripped from my grasp.

A Purna with hair like spun silver grabs her by the arm and begins dragging her toward the village square.

“Ingrid!” I screamed.

“Diana!” she cried.

I lunge after them, my only thought to get my sister back.

But a fleeing man, his eyes wide and unseeing with terror, crashes into me, sending me sprawling into the dirt.

The impact knocks the wind from my lungs, and for a moment, the world is a dizzying blur.

When my vision clears, I push myself up onto my elbows, and I see it.

I see it all with a horrifying, crystalline clarity.

A Purna with eyes like chips of violet ice stands before my parents.

My mother, brave and defiant to the end, shoves my father behind her, holding her small knife aloft.

The Purna almost looks amused. She raises a hand, and my mother collapses, a single, perfect red flower blooming on the front of her dress.

My father roars, a sound of pure animal grief, and charges with the pitchfork.

He doesn’t even make it two steps before he falls beside her.

A strange, numb silence descends upon me.

The screams of my neighbors, the crackle of dark magic, the smell of burning thatch—it all fades into a distant hum.

All I can see are my parents, lying still in the dirt lane where they had stood just moments before.

All I can feel is a cold, hollowing emptiness where my heart used to be.

The sounds of fighting die down, replaced by the soft, triumphant laughter of the women in black.

Slowly, I become aware of movement around me.

One by one, they turn their attention to me.

They form a loose circle, their beautiful, cruel faces looking down at me as I lie helpless on the ground.

They took Ingrid. They killed my parents.

They’ve destroyed my entire world. And now they’ve come for me.

I expect a final, killing blow. I almost welcome it.

But it doesn’t come. They just watch me, their smiles cold and predatory.

One of them, her silver-white hair braided with what look like tiny bones, steps forward.

She crouches down, her violet eyes boring into mine.

“This one has potential,” she whispered to another.

“Yes,” the other whispered back. “The blood is strong in her.”

She doesn’t need to say a word to me. I know, in that terrible, silent moment, that they are not going to grant me the mercy of a quick death. My fate is something far, far worse.