A soul to guide duskwalk.., p.32
A Soul to Guide: Duskwalker Brides: Book Four, page 32
Her scream was swallowed up by deep water as Merikh continued to spin.
He wrapped his arms around the shoulders of the raven-skulled Mavka who had dived after Raewyn. The other was scratching at the grass where drops of her blood had fallen, licking at it and diminishing the scent.
It allowed Merikh to breathe through his mouth.
He threw the raven-skulled one to the ground, and he rolled across it for a few metres, his limbs and thick lizard tail flailing.
Raewyn broke the surface of the lake and sputtered water as she searched for the edge in panic.
“Stay in the water!” Merikh shouted, worried that if her hand was still bleeding, she’d become a target.
Unfortunately, the quills on his left arm were coated in her blood scent.
The bat-skulled Mavka lunged for his arm and bit down around it with Merikh’s hand deep in its mouth. Some of the quills broke inside its mouth, the top part having very little flesh to destroy. The Mavka yelped when the broken shards must have lanced his tongue.
Merikh faced no damage from his quills being broken. They were painless to break, since they were like hollow hair follicles.
He did, however, roar at the deep cut of fangs slicing through his flesh.
Merikh dug his claws between the Mavka’s fangs to dislodge the jaw from his arm, the pressure becoming unbearable as it tightened. The bat-skulled Mavka begun shaking his head while tugging backwards, which only made the pain more severe. At this rate, Merikh was going to lose his hand down the Mavka’s throat – he could almost feel it.
Merikh did the only thing he could think of.
With his fingers flat and together, Merikh sliced his claws into the side of its neck like a blade.
The bat-skulled Mavka’s yelping cry caused the other’s orbs to flare a brighter red in rage for his twin. He sprinted for Merikh, who was still being held immobile, and barrel-rolled into him.
With his caught arm still being tugged and his body being shoved to the ground the opposite way, his shoulder dislocated, and the popping pain sent him over the edge.
The small thread of control he had on his instinctual rage snapped, and his sight darkened to its red hue.
What happened next was faded, hazy images and senses, as invisible, invasive hands squeezed at the squishy meat of his brain. It was like he was being manipulated, controlled to lose his sense of reasoning, to just battle until he’d ravaged everything within his path.
Bloodthirsty and angry, everything was a foe.
His body shifted into his monstrous form to better fight. It heightened his senses, his speed, his strength. It extended his quills and made him even larger than he already was.
While he was on his side, Merikh let out an agonised yelp when the bone in his arm was snapped. Claws went to slash at his back, but the raven-skulled Mavka jumped back when he was impaled by Merikh’s quills. Instead, he slashed at Merikh’s side until Merikh booted him in the head.
He spun and sat on his arse, grabbed the bat-skulled Mavka’s horn, and tried to twist his head to get him to let go. He just wanted it to let go, his arm in so much agony that it radiated all the way to his spine. It felt like he was trying to pull Merikh’s body inside out through his left shoulder as the Mavka yanked and bit, slowly climbing higher up his arm with chomping bites until he was near Merikh’s elbow.
Twisting the Mavka’s neck and head did nothing, since their heads could rotate nearly three-sixty degrees. It was the only thing that saved him when the raven-skulled Mavka yanked on Merikh’s own horn with his fangs and tugged him the other way.
Merikh clawed at the underside of his neck to free himself, but to no avail. He was being torn in two from his shoulder joint, and he let out a bellowing roar.
He did the only thing he could.
Flattening his hand once more, he shoved his claws into his own shoulder and pulled. His yell only highlighted how much effort it took to rip his own arm from his body in desperation, freeing himself in a spray of blood and snapping tendons.
The bat-skulled Mavka tripped back, not expecting the sudden release. Once he regained his footing and shook his head from side to side, the upper part of Merikh’s arm wiggled in the air from his maw.
Now freed from the nuisance of his arm, Merikh rose to his knees to keep himself stable and then shoved his claws into the raven-skulled Mavka’s throat, piercing his trachea and windpipe.
His strangled choke only grew worse as Merikh swiped and tore the front of his neck completely open.
That didn’t put him down; it only made him weak. Blood poured from his wound faster than it leaked from Merikh’s shoulder, but the raven-skulled Mavka was still quick on his four limbs as he leapt for Merikh.
Merikh turned, dodging him completely. He spun, grabbed his beak and twisted it as he stood on top of the Mavka’s spine. He pulled back until the little bones in his neck caved in and snapped before exploding through the front of his wounded throat.
The roar that exploded from the bat-skulled Mavka was too late, as was his sprint to save his twin. Merikh tore the raven’s head from his body and then proceeded to carry it backwards as he was chased.
In the midst of his bloodlust, despite how little he could truly formulate a thought, he’d always done one thing when fighting these two.
If he temporarily killed one, he’d carry their skull and toss it away from the fight so the other couldn’t accidentally destroy it.
Perhaps, on a subconscious level not even he could hear, a voice was telling him to protect his siblings – even when he wanted nothing more than to destroy them.
He ditched raven skull’s head when he couldn’t support himself on his bowed, bear-shaped back legs for too much longer. He dropped back down to all three limbs and then sprinted towards bat skull, who was already heading in his direction.
It only took a few moments for Merikh to wrap his thick, meaty legs around the Mavka’s flailing arms and trap them to his sides. He wrapped his only arm around bat skull’s face to keep him in place as he squirmed and snapped his jaw with sharp clicks.
Then Merikh tore into the Mavka’s injured neck with his fangs, spitting away muscle and bone until he’d decapitated him as well.
Although his quills were useful in any fight, a Mavka would just keep fighting. Even if their heart was pierced, even if they were down to no limbs, they would keep fighting, would keep moving, growing more and more lethargic until the fighting had stopped.
The only way to stop one was to remove their head, and hundreds of years of knowledge had imbedded that into his subconscious. Even when his mind was muddled, he went for the weak spot of every creature.
For a Demon, it was their spine and throat. A human’s was their heart and throat. Animals were generally weakest at their soft exposed underbellies.
Once the fighting stopped, Merikh was in far too much pain to return to his normal state, both physically and mentally. He sniffed at the ground, at the blood that wasn’t enticing at all, searching for a safe place to lie down.
Darkness was taking hold, the cliff wall making it seem like night was falling long before it actually did.
Two fully intact Mavka skulls lay metres away from each other without their orbs. Their bodies eventually disintegrated into black sand.
Merikh limped over to the entrance of his cave and lay down next to it against the wall.
He whimpered, licking at his shoulder in hopes of getting it to stop bleeding. When it did, he rested his head against the ground, too agitated from fighting to sleep, too panicked to let himself be vulnerable.
Any sound caused him to growl in warning, even if it was only a fluttering leaf.
If anything approached him... it would die.
Raewyn remained in the water after Merikh had thrown her into it to hide her scents of both fear and blood. The sounds they produced as they fought were awful, and the smell of their blood was like sweetness and iron. She wanted to gag.
There were things she was never supposed to hear, like yelping cries, whimpers, skin and body parts tearing.
She’d shuddered every time and just buried her face against the dirt, waiting for them to finish.
Once the fighting stopped, only one remained. She didn’t know who it was, but she thought it might be Merikh. His echoes of whimpers and growls made her heart burn.
None of this was her fault. It didn’t take away from the fact that she was the cause of it, even though she hadn’t meant to injure herself.
His whines drifted over the area, and she had no idea where he’d gone, since she was thrown off her placement within the ward. She thought it might be near the entrance of his cave due to the dome’s edge disappearing through the cliff’s rock, but she wasn’t quite sure.
The heat from the sun faded, but the water was warm from being bathed in its light all day. That didn’t stop her from shivering from the cold that came from blood loss, or the pain that radiated up her hand.
She could barely move it. Not just because it stung – she’d also damaged something vital in it. The only fingers that could move were her thumb and pinkie, and trying to move only made it ache more.
The water stung, but she kept it submerged to minimise her blood scent.
The water was so deep there that her toes barely skimmed the muddy ground. She floated and held on to a rock jutting from the edge.
He’s in pain, Raewyn thought with sympathy as his high-pitched, quiet whines continued. He must be really hurt.
She waited until they faded before she lifted her head over the side. I hope the other two Duskwalkers are okay.
The tears that pooled in her eyes during the fighting had long ago abated, and they started up again at the thought that Merikh might have killed them. They were siblings. She couldn’t imagine killing her own family.
She didn’t want her being the cause to weigh on her conscience.
“M-Merikh?” she cried, wondering why he hadn’t come to fetch her from the water yet.
She wanted to get out, to see if he was okay.
His answering growl had her shrinking momentarily, until she lifted her head over the edge again. She growled back like she sometimes did, hoping that would help calm him.
His deep, echoing snarl was so frightening that she submerged herself completely, head and all. When a few seconds passed and he didn’t approach to attack her, she came up for air.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there. Minutes? Hours? She eventually grew tired and held onto the ledge as she rested her head on the crook of her elbow and closed her eyes.
Everything went quiet, and she thought Merikh may have fallen asleep, like she was beginning to.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” a feminine voice whispered. She sounded so far away, and yet Raewyn could tell she was right there, beyond her hand.
She opened her heavy eyelids, and a ghostly, human-shaped white wisp darted away. They had loose, curly hair, and sharp but kind eyes.
Just as she was beginning to drift off again, a groan carried over the short distance. She peeked her eyelids open but didn’t move.
“Shit,” Merikh wheezed before letting out a curt whine. “Everything hurts.” His voice was groggy, like he was tired or dizzy. “Shit! Raewyn!”
He sprinted over to where she was within a few seconds of shouting her name. It was odd to hear him approaching, since he was usually so light on his feet.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice back to its normal bass as one of his hands wrapped around her thin wrist.
The dull ache in her hand instantly faded, and she became stronger, like the blood she’d lost was returned. He’d healed her before he’d taken her out of the water, probably wary of her scent right now.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she admonished quietly, as he slid his hand down her biceps to pick her up at a stronger point in her arm. She grabbed the torn shirt around his shoulders to help support her weight. “You’re injured. You didn’t have to add to your pain. I stopped bleeding.”
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t feel it, since I don’t have that hand right now.”
Sitting on her hip against the ground between Merikh’s crouching knees, a cold chill crept down her spine. Dread took hold, and her eyes widened as she patted his chest.
“What do you mean, you don’t have that hand right now?”
Just as she touched his left shoulder joint, her hands retracted when he hissed out a breath.
“Holy maiden, Merikh, your arm is gone!”
His answering chuckle was surprisingly filled with humour before he let out a groan. “Yeah. Noticed that myself.”
This was what he found funny? Raewyn burst into tears, wishing to wipe this day from her memory completely.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologised as she covered her face, too worn out to care if he found her tears awkward. “I should have been more careful.”
“The fuck you apologising for? Do you know how close you were to dying?”
She had a feeling she was close to death with the three Duskwalkers around. “Yeah, but–”
“I brought you to my home with the intention of protecting you, and I almost failed on that promise today. I didn’t realise the twins would come here. If I need to leave the area, I’ll take you with me, so you aren’t attacked again.”
“N-no, it’s fine. I kind of liked them.”
“You liked them?” His tone was aghast.
“Sure. They asked me to name them and then got into a fight about who would be named first. It was silly, but was also kind of funny, like two kids fighting over a toy.” Then she rubbed her arm as she said, “I just didn’t like being the toy.”
His silence was uncomfortable. She could almost feel him peering at her in a certain way.
“Merikh... Did you... Are they...” Gosh, she couldn’t even bring herself to ask the question.
Would she judge him for it? She wished that wasn’t one of the reasons she was so hesitant about asking.
“No, I didn’t kill them. Even if that is my intention, I can never bring myself to do it – whether I’m in that enraged state or not.” Her shoulders sagged in relief. “They’ll grow their bodies back in a day, like I will with my arm.”
“Their bodies?” she asked as she wiped at her face to remove the stain of her tears.
“I beheaded them,” he answered without a shred of remorse.
The idea only made her dizzy. “Can we go inside? I really want to go inside.”
“You can. I, on the other hand, am covered in blood and will make a mess.”
She nibbled at her bottom lip, wishing there was something she could do for him. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any healing magic.
Then, her chest ached as she said, “I lost my cane. I think it’s in the lake.”
It must be lost forever, but she really wanted it back.
“I’ll find it for you. If not, I’ll make you a new one.”
She wished she could offer him a thankful smile, but she couldn’t muster one right then. “Thank you.”
He helped her to her feet and guided her back towards his home. Her ears twitched the entire time, hating that he was suppressing his whines like he was ashamed of them. She could tell he was limping, and she thought he might be more wounded than he let on.
“I think I broke the flowerpot when I dropped it,” he grumbled quietly when they made it to the entrance.
“That’s fine. If it’s mostly intact, we can strap it back together.”
Standing near the entrance of his cave, Merikh watched the Elf and the two Mavkas spending time together. Raewyn was sitting on the ground with the raven-skulled Mavka acting as her back support, while the other had his bat skull resting in her crossed legs.
When Merikh had tried to chase them away from his home after they’d grown their bodies back – and his arm returned – Raewyn had intervened with a loud shout. When they slowly scampered away, their tails down in submission, she’d managed to coax them back.
Their surprise had been unmistakeable, but their dark yellow orbs of curiosity had turned bright in joy.
She’d offered them sweet smiles and head pats, and they’d grown smitten with her. They’d spouted a hundred apologies and tried to give her head pats in return, which caused her to explode in a spout of soft giggles.
Since then, they’d been talking. When she sat, they’d each found a way to nuzzle into her.
There had been a small fight about who would get to lay their head in her lap, which she’d managed to control before another incident occurred. From a distance, Merikh listened to them asking her questions about what she was, where she came from, why she was on Earth.
It was obvious they didn’t understand all of it, but they didn’t mind. They’d found a friendly creature to talk to who wasn’t like them, and they were curious about her.
At first glance, had he not known better, it would have appeared like they’d known each other all their lives. Raewyn was exceptionally patient with them.
Any time Merikh tried to approach, the twins would shirk away, lowering themselves after their defeat yesterday.
He was forced to remain away from them, from her.
He felt like a fucking outcast.
He couldn’t remember if his orbs had ever turned green in jealousy, but the emotion clawed at his chest like a rabid beast. It wounded him deeper than the arm he’d torn from his own body.
Forced to stand on the other side of the yard, he watched to make sure she didn’t come to harm. Arms folded and back leaning against the wall, he dug his claws into his arms in annoyance.
Any time she laughed, his sight would become green with envy that they had managed to make her so content while he struggled to do so. Then his orbs would turn red in anger that he was experiencing these negative waves of emotions because of her... in his own territory, his own damn home!
The sun was bright today. Although it was dropping down the horizon, it bathed them in light like a pretty, warm scene. Merikh was in the shadows, like usual.
