Page 83 of Mortis

He slapped our cheek twice. Not hard enough to injure, but enough to remind us who held the leash. Then he turned his back on us once more.

“In Mammon’s name we pray!”

The congregation answered as one.

“Per avaritiam gloriam!”

Through greed, glory.

They filed from the chamber, returning to lives of freedom they scarcely deserved. One by one, the candles died, until darkness swallowed everything.

A beast and its vessel remained behind. Bound by blood and shackled by covenant. Buried beneath the earth, left to wither and rot. We strained until iron cut into flesh. We roared until only echoes answered us.

But no chain loosened.

No prayer was heard.

On the first day of my existence, I learned that Hell was not the cruellest prison.

And freedom was nothing but a dream.

13

TEDDY

I found Kael in the living room when I got home, wrapped in a blanket in his human form and watching Blue Planet on the TV.

He had biscuit crumbs around his mouth, and there was an empty Tupperware box on the floor beside his feet. A box I’d previously filled with leftover stir-fry and hidden at the back of the fridge. The meat was courtesy of an elderly woman we’d prepared a few days ago. I’d even slapped a sticky label on top that read FOR KAEL, DO NOT TOUCH, just in case Arlo got any ideas.

After cleaning up the mess, I dragged him into my bedroom. He’d immediately shifted back into his usual form while I exchanged my scrubs for an old but comfortable pair of pyjamas. Then we crawled onto the bed, backs against the headboard, and I felt like I hadn’t moved a muscle while Kael told me his story.

I’d barely breathed as he explained the horrors he’d faced at the hands of the cult. How he’d been forced to tear apart innocent people. People manipulated by a group of Mammon-worshipping lunatics and branded as sacrifices without their consent. How he’d been treated like a glorified guard dog, made to murder dissenters and anyone considered a threat to the group’s fucked-up promise to a demon.

I hadn’t even realised I was crying. Not until Kael was finished and leaned in to remove my glasses, placing them on the bedside table. He wiped the wetness from my cheek with his thumb. But for every tear he brushed away, another ten seemed to replace it.

Eventually, he gave up trying to dry my face. Instead, he pulled me into his lap, moving me around like a doll until my thighs straddled his fur-covered legs. I immediately wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face against his skin, dragging in deep breaths of his bonfire scent between sobs. Kael’s arms tightened around me as he began to slowly rock us back and forth. His lips rested against the top of my head.

Part of me felt guilty. Selfish. He was the one comforting me despite having been forced to relive the worst parts of his existence.

But the rest of me was heartbroken. Devastated that he’d been through something so horrific. Every time I managed to calm myself down, my mind conjured the image of him in chains, completely alone in the dark, and suddenly I was bawling all over again.

“I-I’m s-so sorry,” I hiccuped between sobs. “What you w-went through, it’s just so . . .”

And there went the waterworks again.

Honestly, I was surprised I had this many tears in me.

I wasn’t an overly emotional person. I didn’t really cry during sad movies, unlike Arlo, who maintained that the opening of Up was the most heartbreaking thing ever committed to film. My eyes didn’t even burn on the rare occasions I assisted Grandad at a service, surrounded by the sobs and wails of mourners.

The last time I’d properly cried was about a year after Arlo moved in with us. When he’d finally told me why he’d run away. When he’d filled in the gaps about his home life, his family, and everything he’d suffered before finding his way to Blackthorn.

Even then, I hadn’t cried as much as I did now.

Perhaps my body had finally grown tired of me being emotionally stunted and had decided to make up for lost time. And as the tears kept coming, snot pouring from my nose in the least attractive display imaginable, I was worrying about dehydration.

Kael kissed the side of my head and ran his fingers through my hair. His claws tickled my scalp, making me shiver, and I buried my face deeper into the crook of his neck. I was getting tears and snot all over his skin, but he didn’t complain. Didn’t make me move or ask me to stop. He just held me tighter while I continued to shatter for him, gathering up every crumbling piece and refusing to let a single one fall away.

“I ran for a long time,” he said, his lips still brushing my skin. “It felt as though days had passed, but I believe it was only hours. I only stopped when I grew exhausted. When my hooves ached and my legs refused to carry me another step.”