by Natalie Erin
“Yes, Kennu. Pick the one who has your interests at heart.” Reagan moved towards him in a confident manner. “Me.”
Allie made a loud, angry noise as Kennu blinked. Reagan shrugged and said, “I mean, I’m looking out for you. I didn’t do a darn thing to Allie, and she instantly hated me for no good reason. She can’t stand that I like you. She’ll never let anyone else around you. All the stuff that Wyntier has done to you has been her fault. If she wasn’t around, you’d have never been kidnapped in the first place, and he wouldn’t be after you now. If you ditch her, Wyntier will leave you and your family alone. He doesn’t want you, he’s after Allie.”
“Don’t listen to her, Kennu,” Allie hissed.
“Everything I’ve said so far is pretty true,” Reagan said snidely.
“Kennu, she’s not good for you! I know what’s best, and she’s not it!” Allie protested.
“There she goes, telling you what to do again!” Reagan pointed her finger at the griffin. “Like I said, if you had never met her, you would just be a normal fairy with a family that’s still together. Just because some psycho wants her, that doesn’t mean you and your family have to suffer. I bet if she wasn’t around your dad would come back. Your parents broke up because of Wyntier, anyway. Just send her away and all your problems would be over and we would get to be together. You know it and I know it.”
Kennu turned away. Allie’s beak fell open in shock as the fairy said, “I’m not sure.”
“How can you blame me for all of this?” Allie hushed. “This isn’t my fault!”
“I know it’s not your fault, Allie,” Kennu said quietly. “I know you can’t help who you are.” He looked down. “But being bonded to you has caused a lot of trouble.”
Reagan smirked as she watched the griffin’s wings droop to the ground in disbelief. You could practically see her heart break. “Is that how you feel? After all I’ve done for you?”
“Is that all I am? Somebody for you to take care of? Do you think I owe you?” Kennu snapped.
“Of course she does. Your health problems distract her from how messed up her life is, so she sticks around,” Reagan commented.
“Kennu, Kennu, why are you listening?” Allie had tears in her eyes now, and she was furiously lashing her tail. “You’ve only known her for a few weeks, and I’ve been with you all my life. I’m your Changer!”
“And you’re the reason why he’s in so much pain! None of this would be happening to him if you weren’t here,” Reagan said. “I can make him happy. All you can do to him is make him miserable.”
Allie looked like she nearly believed her. She never let any of the tears fall, but whispered menacingly, “Just pick, Kennu.”
Minutes passed. Kennu looked from Allie to Reagan, torn between the two. After a while, Reagan shrugged and said, “If you finally make up your mind, you know where to find me. I think we both know what the right decision is.”
Her words left an ominous ring in the clearing long after she had gone. Changer and Accompany stood staring each other down, a light rainfall beginning to tricklefrom the twilight skies.
“I can’t believe you,” Allie said.
“Can’t believe what?” Kennu snapped.
“How gullible you are. You believe anything she tells you.” Allie gave a sarcastic, pitiful noise. “Ionan tried to warn me about this, but I didn’t listen. I thought you’d know better than to pick a girl over me.”
“I’m not my dad!” Kennu shouted.
“You’re just like your dad,” Allie sneered. “He lost his head when he met Kia, and tossed Ionan to the side. What, are you going to abandon me, go to Reagan and then come crawling back a few years later when you’ve finally figured out how horrible she is? Or are you just going to cheat on her when you get bored?”
“My dad cheated on Mom because Wyntier came back! If Wyntier hadn’t shown his stupid face in the forest again, looking for you, Dad wouldn’t have left!” Kennu said furiously.
“If you really think that you’re just as dumb as your father is.”
“Don’t talk about Dad like that.”
“I’ll talk about anybody who abandons his wife, his sick kid, and his Changer for someone he hasn’t seen in years,” Allie said. “Even if he is your dad.”
As twilight dissolved, the world darkened. The skies were black with glittering stars, shadowed by gray clouds. A heavy windstorm was picking up, and thunder echoed in the distance.
“So what’s it going to be, Kennu? Are you going to come home with me, or run after that bitch, just like Keota did?” Allie snarled.
“Don’t call Reagan names,” Kennu said, clenching his fists. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding her and making everything difficult.”
“I don’t know what you see in her. She’s such a whore.”
“I told you not to call her names,” he warned.
“I’ll call her whatever I want, the withering, vile, bitter, feather biting...”
“SHUT UP! Shut up right now!” The rain droplets fell across their faces as Kennu took a step towards the griffin.
She clacked her beak. “Is that an order, Kennu?” She raised her wings, until they pointed directly upward, quivering in rage.
“It definitely is,” Kennu said harshly, under his breath.
Allie’s eyes were fearsome as she stepped forward, placing her face inches from her Accompany. This would have terrified anyone else, but not Kennu. He stood his ground and looked her right in the eye. “You don’t scare me.”
Allie cawed at his reply, viciously whirling around. “I should.” She ran to a lone tree nearby and tackled it, uprooting it clean away from the ground.
“Wonderful, I suppose you feel great now. Real mature.” He rolled his eyes.
There was a crushing sound as Ionan landed nearby, shaking the rain off his scales. “We must hurry home, you two. This storm grows in strength.” Ionan paused, looking between them as he noticed the tension. “What is going on here?”
Allie ignored Ionan, and turned to face Kennu. When she spoke, her voice was full of poison. “Well, that’s too bad what you want. I don’t have to follow your orders. I have the power not to. I’ll call her whatever I like. And you know what else? I’m glad your dad left. All he ever did was fight with you, Kia and Ionan. He ditched his family AND his Changer. He’s a useless bum. And if you choose Reagan, so are you.”
“That’s enough!” Kennu screamed. He took a few steps forward and Allie stopped in mid-sentence with an open beak.
“You’re always trying to control me and telling me what to do!” Kennu screamed. “You act as if I can’t take care of myself! Here’s a secret, Allie, I know I’m going to die, so you’re just going to have to get over it! None of this would have ever happened to me if you were gone!”
“Kennu...” Allie gasped, stepping backwards.
“No! Go away, Allie! Go away, and never come back!”
Allie, finally, started crying. She shook her head violently, crouched down and sprung into the sky, taking off into the incoming storm.
“Kennu, go back to the house,” Ionan said sharply. “I’ll bring Allie back.”
Kennu watched the dragon give chase, the rain blurring his vision. The anger fled from his face, to be replaced with an expression of utter regret as he tangled one hand in his green hair. “What have I done?” he whispered.
Chapter Fourteen
Thunder and Bullets
“Allie, come back!” Ionan roared against the thunder. The wind hammered against the dragon, and both Changers struggled to stay in flight and not be carried off by the growing storm as they flew over a large canyon. The river was swelling with the falling rain, and crashed against the walls of the canyon far below the flying creatures.
“No!” she cried.
“Allie don’t do this! Kennu loves you!” Ionan protested, head down.
Allie cackled bitterly. “He loves me. He loves me less than some girl he met a month ago.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing! Come home!”
“No!”
She dived straight for the canyon’s edge to try and lose him. Ionan tailed her, avoiding the sharp edges of the canyon and maneuvering carefully to avoid crashing into the rock and being swept into the ravaging current below.
“Allie!” Ionan cried one last time, in an effort to bring her home. “Stop!”
Just before he reached her, something large slammed into his side, throwing the dragon out of the air and unto the cliffside above the canyon. Ionan snarled as he saw the wyvern Lukas stalking towards him, his venomous tail twitching in delight. The two Changers collided, biting and scratching at each other in an animalistic duel.
“Ionan!” Allie screamed. She flew back to help him, wings beating furiously against the wind, talons extended towards Lukas in an attempt to pull the wyvern away.
Thunder crashed at the exact moment a gunshot echoed across the sky. Ionan pinned Lukas underneath him and looked up.
Allie’s eyes were wide with shock as a red spurt of blood spotted within her chest, staining her golden feathers red. She hung suspended in midair for a few sacred seconds before her eyes closed, falling downward headfirst.
Ionan bellowed and went to catch her, but Lukas wriggled free and snagged him by the tail, holding him in place.
Allie was falling in a slow, graceful way. She had nearly reached the river before Ionan saw two figures reach out and grab her from the air. Ionan watched in horror as Aravon and Carmilla each bit a side of Allie’s chest, ripping it open with their mouths in jagged, barbaric movements. Her organs and muscle were exposed to the Ortusans as Carmilla reached her hand inside and tore Allie’s heart away by the strings, splitting the still-beating organ into two pieces, handing one half to Aravon and taking the other half for herself. Under the light of the full moon, against the power of the storm, Carmilla and Aravon slid a piece of Allie’s hearts down their throats. Heads bent backwards in ravenous glory of their feast, the two Ortusans began howling in ecstasy. In their arms, Allie’s body slumped dramatically in death, blood spilling out between the opening in her torso the monsters had created.
Ionan felt Lukas’ stinger sink just behind his neck, into his spine. With the poison filling his blood, the Changer’s strength left him, and he crumpled to the ground.
The rain was falling more slowly now. Ionan got shakily to his feet, limbs watery. Lukas might have poisoned him, but Ionan’s size had prevented the poison from causing death, a miscalculation that Wyntier had obviously missed.
Death. Panic filled his veins and he took off crookedly to the sky, scanning the cliffs and struggling to stay aloft.
He didn’t have to go far. He he let out a terrible roar as he landed, a sound that was devastated, unknowing, filled with the tragedy of loss. All that was left of Allie was a bloody pool of feathers. The halter Kennu gave her laid on the ground in broken fragments. Her body was nowhere to be found. The Ortusans had taken it with them, to devour everything but the bones.
Ionan picked up the pieces of Allie’s broken halter with his claws, holding them fragilely before breaking into horrified sobs, mourning the loss of his eldest daughter.
It was the darkest hour of the night, a time just before sunrise. Kennu had been up all night with his mother, waiting for Ionan and Allie to return. Kia couldn’t have looked more tired if she tried, yet she refused to go to sleep, her hands nervously shaking as she held them pressed together in her lap.
The sound of whooshing wings caused him to jump. Kia went to the door. “Stay here,” she instructed her son, hustling into the yard.
Kennu looked out the window. Ionan was outside, but Allie wasn’t with him. Kennu’s heart sank. He tried pushing the terrible possibilities of everything that could’ve happened out of his head, but they wouldn’t go away. Something was wrong. He knew it. He felt it.
Ionan’s head was down. Whatever he was saying, he was saying very quietly. Kia was still, then her hands flew to her mouth and she shook her head fiercely back and forth, as if she was denying something was true.
The door was pulled slowly open. Kennu’s heart was beating so fast, he felt it would burst out of his chest. A bout of nausea hit him, and he clung to the armrest of the couch as his mother sat beside him, taking his hands in hers. Ionan, as a rabbit, hopped onto the couch on the other side of him. The Changer appeared completely devastated.
“Mom, where’s Allie? What’s going on?” he asked.
“Allie…” she stared, tears rolling down her face. “Allie’s not coming home, Kennu.”
“What are you saying?” Kennu asked the words slowly, feeling as if he was sinking into a terrible nightmare.
“Wyntier had a gun, and two Ortusans were with him.”
Kia’s words weren’t real...it was as if she was speaking from another room, another time, another place.
“It was Carmilla and Von,” Kia continued. “Allie was flying away from Ionan, and Lukas tackled Ionan to the ground. Wyntier shot her…it was very quick, Kennu. Carmilla and Von took her body.”
“No,” he gasped. “No, you’re a liar! You’re lying! No…”
Kennu screamed loudly in the worst pain he had ever experienced, clutching the griffin amulet that was twisted tightly around his neck. Kia rushed forward to comfort him, but he pushed her away, tears streaming down his face as he yelled his grief. Kennu had never been in so much agony. He had been so close to Allie that the fact that she was no longer alive was ripping him to pieces. There was no escape, no refuge from this suffering. All that existed was hell, and he was in it.
Chapter Fifteen
Transformation of the Bloodlusters
Under the light of the full moon, Aravon and Carmilla lay on the ground, shaking violently. After eating, they had crawled into the cover of some trees by the river, and left the griffin’s lifeless body on a nearby bridge. Other animals would come along and finish off what the Ortusans hadn’t. Wyntier was no longer concerned with her. The prophetess was now out of the way, and now, not even her power could compare to the strength of the monsters in front of him.
Carmilla clutched her stomach, eyes rolling in the back of her head. Aravon pressed his hands against his ears as if he were trying to block out a loud noise, both of them twitching and screaming as loudly as their lungs would permit. The transformation from Ortusan to Bloodluster was obviously very painful. Eventually, the change began, first in Carmilla, and then in Aravon.
Carmilla suddenly stopped shaking as her legs and arms grew slightly longer. Sharp claws sprouted from her fingers and her fangs became sharper, longer. Her eyes went from caramel to black, and her skin became as white as snow. Her features became sharper as her body thinned into something lithe and stretched.
Aravon changed seconds after she did. His limbs and claws became just as long as hers did, although his teeth grew longer, and much sharper, eyes melting into cold darkness. He released a deep, throaty growl before turning toward Carmilla. The two Bloodlusters stared each other down until Wyntier, who’d been watching nearby, stepped between them. “You know what you have to do now.”
“Sure,” Carmilla replied coyly. Even her voice had become more menacing, colder...crueler.
“Of course we know what to do,” Aravon said in a slightly deeper, stronger voice. “It’s time to show off what we’ve become.”
He began to laugh, a cruel, echoing sound that petrified those who were close enough to hear it. It wasn’t long before Carmilla joined in, adding her own ringing laugh that had once been beautiful, but was now only horrifying.
Wyntier smiled. The Bloodlusters had been born. The only thing that was certain was there would be blood.
Reagan pranced joyfully through the forest, looking for Kennu. She’d slept wonderfully that night, certain the next morning, he’d pick her. She’d done everything she could to get him to hate his Changer, and she was almost certain it worked. She headed towards the old hut, but when she arrived, she noticed t
hat nobody was there. Confused, she circled the area before throwing caution to the wind, letting herself inside and climbing the staircase to Kennu’s room.
Kennu was sitting on the floor, his arms wrapped around his legs and his head staring listlessly off into nothing. His eyes, rimmed with red, flinched to her face.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked the question harshly, not feeling in the mood for waterworks.
Kennu didn’t say anything. Not right away. “I never had a chance of being with you, did I?”
She looked down at the ground. “Sorry. No. I was just having fun. You know, just a bit of playing around. It was a joke.”
The confession made his eyes darken, though his expression didn’t change. “Love isn’t something you give to someone, then take back when you like.”
She flinched, placing her hands on her hips. “Whatever. At least you’ll have more time to spend with Allie now, right? I mean, I sort of took it too far the other day. Maybe now that this fling between us is over she’ll come around.”
At the mention of her name the fairy said in a flat voice, “Allie’s dead.”
Reagan’s voice cracked as she asked, “What?”
“Did you hear me?” he asked harshly. “I got in an argument with her, and told her to leave. She was flying away, and Wyntier killed her. It’s my fault she’s gone.”
“I…I never meant it to go that far.” Reagan shook her head as her chest tightened. “I was only trying to get your attention.”
“Why do you care? You got what you wanted,” Kennu snapped. “I got in a fight with her because of what you said. I told her I wanted her gone forever. Looks like we both got what we wished for.” His voice had dissolved into a shaky whisper.
Reagan couldn’t say anything more except, “I’m so sorry, Kennu.”