The Wicked Born

Chapter 14

Tabitha sensed the creatures way too late to do anything about it. They were only about fifty feet away from where she and Ellias stood before she knew what was about to hit them. Both she and the warlock were too into the heated argument that ensued after Dacre had stormed off that they'd let their guard down. This mistake turned out to be a fatal one. They were both surrounded in seconds.

Tabitha fell into the killing calm that she did every time she was in a fight. Her dagger and sword became an extension of her body, their sharpened blades slicing the air around them as if it were a tangible being. The air cried out in return, the metal of her blade reacting with it to create a beautiful hum that she'd grown so used to hearing. It was almost a thing of lullabies at this point.

She was hyper aware of all things going on around her—she knew the position of each animal, their weaknesses and strengths, where and what Ellias was doing even if he wasn't within her line of sight. Ellias' weapon of choice, a curved blade he'd so humbly named Cutthroat, slashed and stabbed at the surrounding creatures. They were able to expertly keep out of range of Cutthroat, almost as if they were simply taunting their prey before they decided the game wasn't worth the energy expenditure anymore.

Tabitha had never seen the monsters that they were fighting before—she had never even heard of a description close to what they were facing now. There were six of them in total, outnumbering her and her warlock counterpart three to one. Under any normal circumstances, Tabitha could have taken them all by herself without so much as breaking a sweat. But these were no normal creatures.

The best way that she could describe them would be that they were much larger versions of demonic, wolf-like hybrids. Their fur was wiry and pitch black, matted together in hundreds of different places across their hide as if they'd been living in the wilderness since the beginning of time. Even standing on all fours, they easily were as tall as Tabitha's shoulders and twice as wide. Muscles rippled under their matted coat with each movement they made, no matter how big or small. The hybrid part, Tabitha guessed, came in at their mouths and their eyes.

When these animals opened their maw to snap at the witch and the warlock, the crevice of their mouth stretched from ear to ear. The sight was enough to make Ellias behind her cringe and force her to choke back her own feelings of fear. Each tooth was sharper than even her own beloved blades, reaching five inches long in length and about two inches wide in diameter. The fresh smell of blood that coated each and every one of them told her that they'd run into some lesser-prepared travelers before they reached Tabitha and Ellias in the clearing. If the ripped flesh that riddled their teeth was any indication, those travelers hadn't been able to put up much of a fight against the creatures.

Their eyes were an obsidian black that made even Tabitha's skin crawl. Looking into them for more than a few seconds were enough to send a chill creeping up and down her spine. They stared at her with an intense blood-thirst that let her know there could only be one outcome--only one could walk away from that fight alive. For the first time in a long time, Tabitha didn't know if that one would be her.

Sure, the Helios creatures were able to best her when she was eight years old, but she instinctually knew that she was dealing with two very separate kinds of deadly here. The Helios' were easily fooled, seemingly driven by blood lust and the need to maim with no real thought to how they went about it. While these wolf-like beings seemed to share the same thirst for death as the Helios, they were much more calculated than the bipedal monsters that Tabitha had disposed of in the past. Their dark eyes almost seemed to study her and taunt her. Like they knew which move that she'd make before even she did.

"What the hell are these things?" Ellias whispered behind her, his back flush against hers as they turned in circles around and around, both brandishing their weapons in front at the ready to ward off any impending attacks. Tabitha didn't have time to answer before she felt more than saw or heard one of the wolf-like beings in the left of her peripheral vision make the first lunge.