Page 7 of Unraveled (A Kingdom of Beasts and Ruins #1)

I drop to the ground from a low-hanging branch, and my legs collapse under my weight. The forest debris cushions my fall. The sleeves of my dress are tattered and torn, and the fabric sticks to the scrapes on my elbows.

I’m free.

I swipe at something wet dripping over my face, and pain pulses from the top of my cheekbone to my jaw. I wince and lift my hand to inspect my fingers, now drenched in red.

The cut is deep enough I may need stitches, and it could get infected unless I find a healer soon. Judging by how far the beast flew, it might take me a couple of days to walk back to the city.

Adrenaline pulses through me as I scramble to my feet. Everything hurts, from my face to my bruised ribs and sore legs. A branch cracks, and I turn where I stand as mist billows from my parted lips, but there’s nothing but trees.

The forest canopy is so thick I can barely see the night sky above.

Squinting in the darkness, I try to find anything that will guide me home.

My father spent the last three years of his life teaching Irene and me how to navigate these woods.

This—being kidnapped by a beast—was always a possibility we needed to know how to escape from.

While he had detailed maps of the area and took us out to study the stars, I’ve never set foot in the forest before. I couldn’t climb out there to get a better view of the constellations.

And Father never accounted for a beast who could speak, let alone fly through the skies.

I have my amulet’s magic, and while I’m drained from using it to escape, if I had to use it again, I could.

I stand still, trying to listen for something that might give me a clue of where I should go.

The Dagen River cuts through the forest and provides water to Penumbra.

I could follow it south and get back home.

And if the flying beast can use my scent to find me, I should be able to lose his trail that way.

I reach for my necklace, and the stone pulses in my grasp. Its gentle humming warms my icy fingers.

Thump thump .

It glows with the same rhythm as my heartbeat.

I turn toward the distinct crunching of leaves, and my hair stands up as I feel something watching me. Crawling closer and hidden from view. Adrenaline dulls the ache in my body as I duck under a low-hanging branch and reach for the small dagger I strapped around my leg before I left the library.

My fingers are numb, but still, they tighten around the polished bone handle. I step forward and away from the noise, following the gentle pull of my amulet. Whatever is out there, lurking in the shadows, is waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

I keep my steps light over the wet, mushy ground.

The longer I remain in the dark, the more my surroundings become clear to me.

Something scurries right in front of me, and I barely hold back a scream.

It looks like a small dog, but its weird spindly legs snap with jagged movements as it crawls over the ground like a spider.

I gasp, jumping back to get some distance from the beast in front of me. The red light of my amulet’s stone buzzes brighter, illuminating my surroundings.

The beast has a long, slender snout with patchy black hair. I hold my dagger high with a trembling hand as its red eyes pin me down. With a snarl, it opens its enormous jaws, showing me rows of jagged teeth dripping with venom.

It could be worse. This isn’t the biggest beast out here. I can handle him. I think those words again and again, but not even my inner voice sounds confident.

I take a backward step in the other direction, away, and hear a hiss from the side. And then another behind me. The hairs on my arms stand on end as I glance back to find another beast crawling from between tree trunks. They all look the same. I’m being hunted by a pack.

The beast in front of me takes one slow jerky step forward, and then it leaps. I duck, barely avoiding its snapping jaws. Sharp teeth rip through the layers of my cloak and graze the skin of my arm.

Pulling back with a cry, I kick at the beast’s head as it bites my boot. My ankle twists at a weird angle, and pain ricochets through me. Spinning around, I bury my dagger in the head of one of the beasts. It collapses, dead, its black blood splattering my fingers.

Retrieving my blade from the bone takes all my strength, but it hardly matters when the third beast jumps from the shadows and bites into my arm. I scream and drop my dagger to the darkened ground.

The beast’s rotten breath fans over my face as its sharp teeth dig deeper into my forearm, ripping through fabric and muscle. It smells like a decaying body, and bile rises in my throat. This is how I die. Devoured by animals—by monsters of nightmares.

I would’ve preferred the flying beast eat me than these creatures. At least he smelled nice. My delirious mind supplies the most useless information as I try to ignore my building despair.

No. I can’t die wishing for another beast to eat me instead. I have surely gone mad. My eyes blur with tears, exhaustion, and fear. I don’t know where one emotion begins and the other ends.

With my uninjured hand, I call for the fire spell to burn hotter. My skin blisters as the flames lick my fingers. The two small beasts that remain yelp, scurrying back into the shadows. Their muzzles ripple when they snarl at me.

I turn around and call off my spell. The amulet is scalding my chest, and I know without a doubt I have pushed it too far. I search for my blade in the darkness but can’t find it under the layers of fallen leaves and sticks, and my sense of urgency is making my movements jerky.

A massive shape barrels into my side, knocking the wind from my lungs. I hit the ground hard, and my world spins over me. A new, much larger beast’s fetid breath fans across my face.

“Get off me!” I snarl, and my magic scorches my veins, but nothing comes out of my hands. I’m bleeding so much, dark spots dance over my vision, though not so much that I can’t take in the creature’s form.

Its skin is gray like death, eyes hollow and milky with a white haze that barely obscures a red iris. It’s bald, its face looks almost human, but it lacks lips and its teeth jut out of bleeding gums.

I lose my breath. This one is heavy, and with my wounded arm, I can’t hold it off. I cry out, twisting my torso as I try to get away from underneath its armpit.

Its claws dig into my flesh, drawing lines of fire across my sides. Pain laces my scream, mingling with fury as I struggle beneath its weight.

I plead with the amulet to give me one last push, for magical objects like these—or the grimoires of the library—are living, with a power I don’t fully understand. But it has dimmed, its magic spent the same as my strength. The creature recoils at something howling in the trees, a scream perhaps?

I can’t tell. My ears are drumming with my pounding headache. Yet its grip doesn’t falter as it drags me deeper into the forest, where not even the moonlight reaches.

“Help...” I force the word through my torn vocal cords. My plea is lost in the void.

Mist swirls around my ankles as I’m hauled through the underbrush, my mind racing with the tales of those who ventured into the forest and barely escaped with their lives.

Panic gnaws at me as I push off the ground, ignoring my injuries, and strike out at the beast with my fist. I’m sure it hurts me more than it, but losing my dagger and spending my magic left me without any other defense.

The creature snarls in pain but only tightens its grip on me.

A shadow descends from above so fast it’s merely a blur until it crashes into the beast, forcing it to loosen its grasp on my leg. They intertwine in a mass of blackness, and I inch away, dragging myself over the ground, trying to put as much distance between them and me as humanly possible.

I need time to hide somewhere and recharge. I track the massive wings and black feathers, and I know who this is.

His magic is a storm of golden light that bathes the area with such intensity it burns my nostrils.

The winged beast from Penumbra glances over his shoulder and meets my gaze. His face twists with something I can’t place, and now more than ever, he looks more beast than man. The spell he throws at the bald creature that attacked me erupts in a plume of yellow and black.

The creature disintegrates right in front of my eyes. Cell by cell, it becomes ash.

I raise my chin as the beast slowly straightens. His golden markings flow thickly over his cheeks, like tears made of molten metal dripping to his chin.

He moves toward me with steps strangely fluid for a monster.

I press my back against a tree, and I know I can’t escape him again. He is so large, with massive shoulders that narrow to a small waist. Feathers cover every inch of his body. From his chest to his feet—no, not feet, but claws.

He extends his hand, and his brows pinch in the middle as he studies me. “Come now, Monster, you have played enough.” His voice is a low rumble that stirs something deep within me.

“Monster?” I echo. “Have you seen yourself in a mirror?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t in a while.” He tilts his head as he speaks. His gaze does not waver. “I don’t have time to waste in this place. This is your last warning. Come willingly and save some of your dignity.”

“Fuck you,” I snarl, my hands trembling with both fury and exhaustion. I don’t even feel pain anymore. “I will fight you until the end.”

My words hang between us, charged with my promise and his steely resolve. I knew he would come for me even if I wasn’t injured or tired. Beasts don’t cease their hunt, not even after their prey gets away the first time.

“If you think I’ll give you another opportunity to escape.

..” His voice is gravel wrapped in velvet, distorted somehow, different from how he sounded before.

It’s as if each syllable dragged itself from the depths of his throat, scraping past those elongated, razor-sharp teeth that gleam with his golden magic.

I recoil back into the tree. But the world blurs, and space folds around us as he closes the distance with unnatural speed. He is upon me before I can think of an incantation strong enough to paralyze him.

Not that I could, even if I had any energy left.

His arms—like iron shackles—wrap around me, sending a jolt of pain through my body. I’m going to be sick, and I hope it would be all over him.

“Ah,” he murmurs, almost to himself, the ferocity melting from his face to reveal something unreadable underneath. “You’re hurt worse than I thought.” His golden gaze flicks over my shoulder to where the ashes of the bald creature remain, a neat pile on rotting leaves.

Disbelief threads through my fatigued mind. Is he concerned? Impossible. And yet, I can’t shake the odd feeling that this beast might not eat me tonight.

The sweet scent of pine envelops me as he kneels at my feet. How can all the other beasts feel like death, but he, in contrast, be so... alluring?

I despise it—despise him—for making me so powerless. With all the strength I can muster, I push against his chest, my hands sliding over the sleek texture of his velvet coat of plumage. “Don’t touch me!” My voice comes out hoarse, but at least I sound defiant, not afraid.

The beast doesn’t seem to hear, nor care about, my demands as he stands fluidly. He turns toward a sound in the distance, a clicking of jaws, and it’s approaching.

Then he reaches for me and lifts a brow when I flinch. “More lunargyres are coming. Unless you want to be their dinner, I suggest you cooperate.”

What the hell is a lunargyre? Is that what he calls the beasts?

The dry blood on my cheek cracks as I peel my lips over my teeth into a new snarl. “I would rather take my chances with the stupid beasts than you.”

“That’s enough now. You’re mine, Monster, and no other beast will have you tonight,” he says in a low, commanding tone. His words send a rush of warmth through my body I can’t decipher, but whatever it is, it has no business being there.

Then he reaches for me so fast I don’t have time to move away—not in my current condition. His touch is as light as a moth’s wing as he brushes one long finger across my forehead.

A sudden drowsiness cascades through me, heavy and irresistible. With laden lids, I glare at him, blinking slowly and trying to keep my eyes open, to resist whatever magic he used on me. When he lifts me from the ground, I can’t fight him.

It’s a similar spell to what he used back in Penumbra when he took me from the scientist quarters, but different.

“I don’t want you to use your trickery on me again,” he says, and surely, that apologetic look is only in my imagination.

He leaps gracefully onto one of the thickest branches overhead, and it groans under our weight. I clutch at his shoulders, hating how soft his feathers are under my hands.

“I’m not yours,” I whisper, more to myself than him.

But he tilts his head and observes me in silence before jumping to another branch, and then another, until we break through the canopy to where the air is fresh.

“I tried to leave you behind tonight, after you burned me,” he admits, not looking at me as he leaps into the sky.

“And w-what do you expect from me? A thank-you?” The spell is making me stutter. I narrow my gaze at him.

He smirks, and the expression transforms his features. It’s almost like he’s slowly losing some of the feathers on his face. “Why yes, a thank-you would be appreciated. After all, I put my life at risk to save you by entering the forest during the blood moon.”

My lips part. “A-are you mad? Y-you are kidnapping me from my city, against my will!”

He shrugs and looks away. “Only after you tried to kill me.”

True, but I’m not about to agree with him. “Because you were trying to take down the v-veil!”

And if the veil failed, Penumbra’s citizens would be at the mercy of the creatures that almost killed me tonight. Whatever guilt churned within me for shooting at this beast vanishes.

While he had saved me, it’s also his fault I was in danger in the first place. He went into our city and tried to get innocents killed.

The pleasant expression on his face changes into something horrible. It matches my feelings exactly. I suspect this beast hates me as much as I do him.

When he looks at me again, the magic lulling me to sleep grows thick enough I can taste it on the back of my tongue. Blackberry and vanilla.

Fear courses through me, and my vision dulls at the edges.

“Go to sleep, Mia.”

And then, darkness takes me.