Page 85 of How to Woo the Undead

They did notdeserveto feel happiness when she only felt pain. When her heart was full of pain and loneliness. They would all feel it. She would make them feel it down to their very last breath before she devoured all their hearts and fed her forest with their parts. She could raise an army of dryads with their flesh. Their blood would make a lovely river through the center that she could bathe in.

Sabine stood at the edge of the sidewalk, eyes downcast at the concrete. As she lifted a foot, stepping forward, nature stepped with her. The concrete cracked, breaking open. A mountain of weeds and vines erupted to meet her as she stepped down. With the second step, moss seeped up and out of the sewer grates. Mushrooms bloomed around her in circles. Moths and crickets flew out of the trees as if to herald her arrival.

I am back.

Their end was upon them.

Sabine stalked down the street, ripping up their stone and machinery until she had a car dangling from a streetlight. Itspanicked alarm did nothing to sway her as vines shot out of the cracks in the ground. First it was the mailboxes, the benches, the scooters all left scattered…then she came across a couple. So sweet and in love, arms wrapped around each other, murmuring sweet nothings to each other against a front door.

Neither of them saw her until her vines engulfed them. Their screams were snuffed out with a short, sharp snap. Their blood showered her and warmed Sabine down to the bone.

It was one after the other. Machines. Stone. Buildings. People. She’d made it halfway to the council district when the first wave of Enforcer’s arrived. Her smile broadened, teeth glistening with her last kill.

“Hold your swords!” The city stood still as the large fowlst man, bearing a wicked tree upon his broach stepped forward. He dug his talons into the shattered concrete, a broadsword brandished in her direction. “Hyacinth.”

“I’m notHyacinth,” Sabine giggled. She flopped her hands out to her sides, doing a little spin for them. “I finally stuffed the little thief down into my toes.”

Sabine wiggled her bare, bloodied toes for the Enforcers in glinting, silver armor. They huddled close together. A mess of people, humans, elves, orcs, and even a fae. She could tell by the wings fluttering behind him in terror.

“Sabine, you are under arrest.” Aravis Blightwood raised a sword to her.

“I’m sorry, Lord Commander, I don’t think youquiteunderstand. You see…I’m not here to talk to the fertilizer.” She yanked her right arm hard as a tree exploded out of the concrete. It surged toward the Enforcers. They scrambled, only one of them wasn’t as fast. She turned him into the bones that held up her first dryad. As he howled in pain, his face made of bark and his mangled body standing tall in front of his friends, she grinned at Aravis Blightwood. With a flick of her hand, the dryad ran forward, screaming at his friends that scrambled into the city. Trees broke through the ground, knocking the stragglers left and right. Aravis sliced through what he could, but as she slowly crept forward, it became increasingly obvious that he was losing this fight. His eyes darkened, talons scuffing the stone beneath them.

“Oh, I love your gumption, Lord Commander,” she giggled, raising another hand. “You’ll make a fine Tree Lord. How about I make you from oak. Large, strong, heavy enough to carry that pretty beak of yours, and I’ll use you to squish all those little ants.”

Only…something bit her. Sabine stopped.Blink, blink.She twisted at the hips to stare down at her left leg. While it didn’thurt, she felt something strike her bone. She stared down at a scraggly looking rabbit, its tentacles wrapped around her calve and incisors jabbed into her shin. Sabine scoffed, kicking her leg. He held fast. She growled a warning. One, two, three kicks, yet the little bastard held on. She reached down, scruffing his skinny neck only to hear him snarl against her undead flesh.

“Unhand me right this instance, pest!” she demanded. Slapping the beast with vines did nothing. It only caused the little fucker to scratch her calf with his back feet.Thatshe felt. Sabine yowled, spinning around and thrashing her leg. The tentacled beast held fast until she jammed a branch between her skin and it. Sabine launched it from her leg. It took a chunk with it, and she shrieked, “You rotten thing! How dare you!”

She glanced around, looking for Aravis or any of those pesky Enforcers, to find herself alone on the destroyed street.Damnit!She was going to squish that tiny beast. Press it down into the soil with her heel and feed it to her roots.

“Sabine!”

She froze.

Austin.

“No,” Sabine growled, clenching her fists.Down. Down-down-down.She pressed at Hyacinth’s presence harder and harder. “I’m not done killing them all yet!”

She could have expelled Hyacinth earlier if the damn girl hadn’t fought so hard. If Hyacinth would justgo away!

That’s all she wanted. Tobealone. To be in her grove again with her trees and her magic and her heartache. She didn’t want this bustling city full of prey anymore. For a while, she thought it was so great! So many fascinating mortals, so many new hearts to rip out. But all it did was make her suffer more. She was huntedagain!No, it was best if she just went back to the hollow grove witch.

Why did they endlessly interject?

Sabine faced the large creation, her face scrunched up in fury. “You foul, rotting beast. You dare stop me? When it is you who have been poisoning her!?”

“Poisoning her?” Austin gasped, stumbling forward from the shadows.

Sabine snarled, twisting and turning her arms, summoning her magic. It launched at the giant buffoon, repeatedly it attacked. And over and over, it deflected off him. Sabine shrieked, grabbing onto the dryad she’d made of an Enforcer. “You fed her life! You fed her hope! You fed her lies!”

Austin jumped out of the way as the dryad came crashing down over the spot he once stood. “I love her! I won’t let you take her from me.”

“She!” Sabine screamed, heat burning through dead, putrid veins. The dryad lurched after Austin again. “Isn’t!” Sabineturned, forcing the dryad to knock the massive creation into a crumbling building. It shattered around him, filling the air with dust. “Real!”

“Hyacinth is real!” Austin’s bellow only infuriated her.

“Stop saying her name!” Sabine stomped toward him. The dryad pounced onto Austin, punching him square in the face. “She was a thief. A passing spirit. A floating wisp! She is an illusion I mean to wipe from my body. I will purge her just as I do all your master’s power from my veins.”