Page 115 of Evil Hearts

Mari

T he beast was coming.

The beast was coming, and there was no escape. My wrists burned, rubbed saw from the ropes they’d used to tie me to the stone altar. I had fought them with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough.

It was never enough.

How many times had I watched in horror and relief as they dragged another woman from her home in nothing but an underdress? How many times had I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t me being hauled out to the woods to be sacrificed to the beast? How many times had we all prayed for the poor girl’s soul, even as we damned her?

We never talked about what happened to the girls once they left the village. We never spoke our horror into existence. We never talked about how one day it could be one of us. We never thought about what it might be like to have everyone stare at us with pity and relief.

We never talked about it, but we’d all imagined it. Imagined the terror of being dragged out of the village into the beast’s woods. Imagined the feel of the ropes and stone as they tied us to the altar, left alone to wait for death to come.

I hadn’t imagined the numbness that settled over me after I realized there was no way to get free. I hadn’t imagined how the cold ripped through my thin underdress. I hadn’t thought I’d ever stop fighting and just give into the inevitable.

I was going to die.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

A branch snapped, and I craned my neck to find whatever was making its way to me. Was it something curious? A predator looking for easy prey? Or was it the beast?

For as long as our village had existed, there was the beast. It haunted the woods that surrounded us. The legend said the beast kept the village safe from the other predators in the woods, so long as the village offered a sacrifice every five years. I had no choice but to believe it was true. In my twenty-seven years, there hadn’t been one incident in the village.

Another branch snapped. Closer. My breath caught in my chest. At that moment, everything froze.

And then it appeared. The thing that stepped free from the woods was large, black as the night. Its eyes glowed red in the darkness. It moved on two legs, lumbering but swift as it neared me.

My breath was coming in tiny pants. This was it. This was how I died. Not at home with a family around me, but by the sharp, curved claws that flashed in the moonlight.

I had always loved the full moon, felt a pull to the gentle glow and silver light. Now I hated it. I hated the brightness that showed me every bit of the beast that would end my life.

“Please,” I begged. It was useless. You couldn’t rationalize with a monster. But I couldn’t stop. “Please, please no. Please.”

“Silence.” The voice was a growl and the shock of the beast speaking stole my words from my throat. “Godsdamn humans.”

The beast drew up next to the stone altar and stopped. It stared down at me with those red eyes. I couldn’t take it anymore. I closed my eyes and waited for death to take me.

My heart pounded hard in my ears, my breath game in sobbing gasps. Every muscle tense. I just wanted it to do it already, put me out of this misery.

Instead of the pain of claws, soft fur brushed my skin along my arm and chest. Its muzzle snuggled into my neck and made me shudder. I couldn’t stop myself from arching into the warmth.

“Sweet little human.” I opened my eyes, finding his face next to mine. It pulled away and then came the moment I had been waiting for. Claws flashed in the night as his paw swung at me. The ropes binding my wrists fell away, and the beast turned away from me.

“What? Why?” I sat up and rolled my shoulders to ease the pain. “Where are you going?”

My brain was whirring. Nothing made sense. Why hadn’t it killed me? Why was it walking away? What would happen to my village if the beast didn’t get its sacrifice?

“There’s a village a day’s walk to the west. Just follow the sun. Stay to the path and you’ll be safe.” The beast kept walking away. I jumped off the altar and started following it.

“Where are you going? Why didn’t you kill me?” Sharp rocks and twigs dug into my bare feet as I chased after the thing of my nightmares.

“I’m going home. I suggest you do the same.” It didn’t pause, but it did slow, allowing me to catch up to it.

“What home? The one that just left me for dead?” Anger burned through me like a flash fire as I thought about it. “How many women have you killed?”

“I don’t kill women.” The growl was fierce and caused me to shudder more than the cold. “Only a coward goes after women.”

“Then why? Why demand the sacrifices? What do you do with us?” The beast sped up and I broke into a near jog to keep up with it. I needed to know. I needed to know why the beast let me go. I needed to know where the women were if they weren’t dead. I needed to understand.

“The same thing I’m doing with you. Nothing.” The beast stopped and spun, giving me its full attention. It grabbed my upper arms and shook me. “Stop following me. Go back to your village, go to the one to the west like the others before you. Just leave me alone.”

We stood face to face, the beast stooping to stare me down. Warmth radiated from it, warming me. But despite the fire in its eyes and the claws pressing against my arms, I wasn’t scared.

Maybe the hours I’d laid on that stone altar had broken me. Maybe I had always been broken. But there, in the frigid woods facing down the monster that haunted all of our dreams, I had no fear. For what was probably the first time in my life, I felt safe.

“No.”

“No? No, what?” The growl vibrated through me.

“I’m not going.” I shrugged out of his grip and moved to walk around him, prepared to head deeper into the woods. He grabbed my arm and swung me around, slamming me into his body.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His chest vibrated against me, and I shuddered. I have no idea what gave me the bravery to stand up to the beast. I don’t know why I believed him about not killing women, but I did.

“I’m going with you.”