Sinister Secrets Book. 3

❅ Chapter 12 - Sebastian ❅

Night was my only companion.

I could feel the sun, as if I had some internal alarm clock that would buzz in my skull as the sun's rays began to dance over the horizon - as night slowly turned into day.

It wasn't that the sun hurt, no. Quite the opposite. It's warmth felt good on my cool skin, warming me, almost bringing me back to life for the time being. But that alarm, it wasn't a warning to get out of the heat, but to hide in an entirely different way.

* * * * * * *

The rain had been constant - a strait downpour from the sky for two solid days. My hair was wet, my clothes were wet. Even the skin on my fingers and toes had begun to shrivel like a grape in the sun. I had begun to believe that I wouldn't see the sun again, that clouds and rain were going to drown this earth and rid it of all the awful monsters that inhabited it. And I was one of them.

Even after the constant downpour I couldn't get the doe's dried blood out from under my fingernails. It was now brown, falling out in small flakes that I would brush away from my pants.

And I could smell her, feel her. Every time I thought of her the saliva in my mouth would pool, nearly choking me. I remembered how it felt as my teeth slid through her abdomen and into the soft, fleshy sack beneath. I remembered hearing her terrified bleats ring into the canopy above me. And I could clearly picture her fawn, lip in my hands after I had torn its throat out and feasted on its blood.

It had only been a few days since I had conducted the ritual, and I could feel the darkness inside of me. It was something dark, something sinister and completely foreign to this world. Something, that when I gave it my attention, made the very marrow in my bones turn to mush.

It was growing hard to ignore, the weird hunger it caused deep in the pit of my stomach. As the sun would rise I would feel the change within my features - the shifting and pulling of muscles and tendons - and as if brought on by the heat, a hunger unlike any I had encountered before took root.

I knew what it wanted. How could I not? The first night, the night I had slain the doe, something had claimed me as its vessel. An entity that only roused to the surface when the moon was high and and the thrum of heartbeats where near.

Blood.

And though I could feel myself slipping, it shocked me how okay I was to share my body with something so dark. Perhaps it was because I felt as if we were one in the same. As if the creature I was becoming would've happened with or without the spell I had cast. I don't know. Maybe it would've. But I was certain now that there was no going back. I was in it for revenge, and nothing could stop me.

* * * * * * *

I had stayed fairly close to the others' camp, tracking their movements, making sure they didn't wander too close. At least not yet. I wasn't ready to be discovered - the dark spawn in my chest hadn't grown to its full potential. And the Spring Court was a wet, dripping region of a wide array of animals. Deer, bear, rabbits and squirrels. And obviously it had its dangers, but I wasn't worried about the fae snickering in the underbrush.

It wasn't until the third night that the demon clinging to me finally rose with a defiant roar. It was out of nowhere. I had been sitting by a small, absent stream, washing my hands of blood from a rabbit I had just skinned. Close by, only ten feet away, sat the small camp I had constructed, the corpse of the rabbit skewered above the fire. I had been trying to eat as normally as possible. I didn't really like the idea of sucking blood out of screaming animals, no matter how delicious they seemed or hard my stomach grumbled. But it was as if the blood on my hands became the most appetizing thing I had ever smelled. So rich. So thick.