He thrashed in the lava-racked earth. He mumbled and moaned, turning dirt rusty with his blood.
The wolves took off, sated with what they’d eaten, no longer bound by my control. They were free, just as all creatures should be.
Another carnivore arrived.
A sabre tooth tiger that only existed in history books and fiction. Its sable coat gleamed in the fire as it prowled around Drake, sniffing the remaining pieces.
I crossed my arms, flaring my wings and flying back a little. “Fancy a taste?”
The tiger growled, licking its chops.
“By all means, please shred my brother of his clothing.”
The cat didn’t wait. With unsheathed claws and a paw bigger than Drake’s chest, he sliced ribbons into my brother’s skin.
Drake’s pain reached levels that threatened to pop eye vessels and cause cardiac arrest. He writhed and tried to crawl away, but the cat rolled him onto his stomach and slashed at his shirt from behind. Furrows of blood erupted down his back as the sabre grabbed the sliced muslin and threw it to the side.
“Good, now his trousers.”
The tiger snarled and swiped at Drake’s ass. Claws cut through dense material, sinking into his flesh and dragging him across the ground until the cat shook his paw to remove him.
Drake’s caterwauls mingled with sobs as the tiger repeated the shredding, dragging its sharpness down Drake’s legs, catching on the stump of his missing foot.
Taking the trousers in his teeth, the cat shook until Drake fell out of them. A naked, bloody, still-breathing corpse who could never die.
Not here, at least.
I could tear out his organs, one by one, and he would remain breathing.
He was a true condemned immortal.
He was sentenced to watch himself be eaten by creatures he’d never dined on but taught an agonising lesson what it felt like to be an unwilling meal.
The tiger dragged its sandpaper tongue along Drake’s footless leg. It grumbled in delight, suckling at the wound.
Drake sobbed harder. His chest heaving, his nose flaring over the web, his eyes popping out of his head.
“One bite. You can choose,” I whispered, never taking my eyes off the graphic smorgasbord before me.
The cat roared before pinning Drake onto his belly and sinking its fangs into his shoulder. With an effortless tug, he shredded a steak of flesh from Drake’s back, revealing the whiteness of his shoulder blade, the beads of his spine, the innermost workings of a man who was full of evil.
I stayed silent as the cat gulped back his delicacy before slinking into the dark forest.
For a moment, we were alone, and I flew back to Drake. Rolling him onto his flayed back with my cloven hoof, I murmured, “I actually pity you, Drake. I pity the man I am because of you. I wonder if we’re as bad as each other, and if I should die beside you tonight.”
My wings stabbed into the ground with their hooked barbs as I braced myself. Drake tried to claw at my leg with his handless stubs. “Mweeassssseeeeeeeee!”
“I have a secret, brother.” I looked down at what I’d done. I took responsibility that he was evil but…so was I. I’d just chosen different victims. I’d used humans. I’d purchased souls. I should be beside him having my sins ripped from equally rancid flesh.
“I’m on borrowed time.” I hissed in the fiery gloom. “My heart is close to its final beat, and I have one chance of staying alive…if I choose to use it.”
I ducked to my haunches, cupping my perspiring, pained brother’s cheek. “But…if I can do this to you and feel no regret or want to stop…I don’t think I deserve that chance, do you? It proves exactly what I feared. That I’m unredeemable, just like you. That I deserve to die. I should end our line…eradicate the last two Sinclairs from this earth because really, it’s a better place without us.”
Drake’s gaze caught mine, amber pupils instead of our inherited blue. He was drawn and haggard, white-fleshed and small.
An echo of the man who’d locked me in a cage and tortured me.
I’d never seen him so petrified or so defeated.
It was a look I’d craved to see my entire life.
I’d finally earned it.
Finally taken vengeance on so many things.
And all I felt was empty.
Empty because it didn’t bring Serigala back. It didn’t stop him from laying his hands on Eleanor. It didn’t make me a better person. If anything, it showed me just how fucking similar we were because I liked seeing him this way. I liked destroying him in every depraved and despicable way possible.
We’re as bad as each other.
I’d come here knowing my intentions weren’t heroic. Accepting my selfishness of keeping Eleanor for myself and removing my brother so he couldn’t ruin our future but…what sort of future did a man like me deserve?
By doing this, I’d just condemned myself because how could I ever claim a happily ever after now? How could I sleep beside Eleanor and believe myself to be worthy of her after I enjoyed the sick pleasure of watching my brother bleed out?