A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 1)

“And that, yeah.” He touched his chest while shaking his head.

“Do you not usually feel your animal?”

He slapped his hand to my mouth. “No,” he whispered, standing closer. “Damn it, I knew you didn’t know much, but I wasn’t told you knew nothing at all. We’re all still suppressed. Everyone but the master. He can occasionally pull our animals to the surface with his power, but it’s rare, and in no time at all they go back to being suppressed. I’m not sure why. How you’re doing it so much is beyond me. Whatever you have lurking in there is powerful, and she never got to make her debut like other animals. She’s probably frustrated and restless and eager to work her way out, right? She’s driving you mental?”

I swallowed and nodded.

He glanced behind him. Seeing that no one was there, he continued to whisper. “When you flex your power, I can feel her lurking. The combined—”

His eyes widened, and fear leaked into them. He reached up to his throat, fingernails scoring his skin.

Alarm rang through me. I reached for him, grabbing his shoulders as he backed against the wall. My animal scrabbled to get out. Hadriel’s face turned red, and he opened and closed his mouth like a fish. No breath could force its way out. He must’ve activated the magical gag!

“Breathe,” I said in terror. I had about five minutes until his brain would suffer. I had to act fast. “Breathe!”

I felt his throat, wondering if I could slice a hole and get him air that way. Would the magical gag cover from chin to chest?

Probably.

Everlass?

My mind shot through all the possibilities as my animal bled fire into me. She shoved her way forward, up and up through my middle until she was throbbing against my limbs. As worry and panic consumed me, I slipped in my hold of her.

She filled my body like a person pulling on a latex suit. Power roared through me, and my senses heightened, the scents and sounds I was processing so complex I couldn’t make sense of them. But she could.

It was like I was a passenger in my own body, but instead of blanking out the way I had before stabbing Nyfain, I could see all that transpired.

She picked up Hadriel like he weighed nothing, draped him over our shoulder, and went running through the hall and then down a couple sets of steps. She stopped instead of continuing on to the door we’d used to enter. Inhaling, processing those complex smells, she turned left and put on a burst of speed.

A woman who’d been walking toward us stopped in confusion.

“Mind your business, Florence!” my animal roared as we passed by.

The woman, who probably wasn’t called Florence because I’d never seen her before, jerked as though she had been slapped. She stumbled and fell onto her butt as we ran by.

Florence? I thought.

Hadriel said these people were simple.

I tried to widen my eyes, but they weren’t solely mine just now, and she had more control than I did.

You can speak to me? I thought. He didn’t say they were simple; he said they did a mediocre job.

Whether or not she is simple, now she’s confused. She’ll hopefully forget all about this. I get the sense that we are a rarity in this place, and we need to keep a low profile. You’re doing a piss-poor job of that so far. Great work.

She sounded like me, only surlier. I doubted my personality needed more salt, but here we were.

We entered a small hall off the side of a little den, the ceiling low and the walls tight. Servants’ hall, probably. At the other end, she kicked through a wooden door to the outside.

How did you know—

Smell, she interrupted me. You need to allow me more room so you can access my power. That delicious alpha is letting me out of my cage. Use it until we can abuse it.

Yeah, except you clearly want to get in his pants. That’s a nope. He’s not a nice guy.

Fuck nice. I have a dark and damning need for that alpha. I want to take a running leap, wrap my legs around his head, and force-feed him my pussy. This bitch needs some cock. Wham, bam, call me ma’am.

Great goddess. What the hell kind of creature did I have inside of me?

We ran out into the deadened grass and around the castle. Hadriel kicked and writhed over our shoulder, trying to get air. She inhaled and then changed direction, running faster than I’d ever moved in my life. In a flash, she darted into the Forbidden Wood, choosing our footsteps carefully. Twigs crackled and branches whipped out behind us. The side of one foot caught a rock, and I surged up and adjusted our weight so we could drop into a roll. Otherwise it would’ve resulted in a sprain. I was an old pro at accounting for missteps.