Volume I: Forged

Chapter 28: Monsters

Tommy didn't remember how he got under the tree, the cold, damp bark digging into his back. The tears bit at his face, stinging the corners of his eyes and leaving red marks on his cheeks.

He didn't care.

Nobody else did.

So why should he?

Ponk's words rung in his ears, accentuated by the nightmare that still tickled his lungs and nipped at the frays of his mind.

Worthless!!

Stupid child—

What's wrong with you!?!

"I don't know—" Tommy murmured, placing his head on his knees and fisting his hands into the forest debris, wings clenched tightly to his back. "I don't know—"

He shuddered through what could have been a few minutes or a few hours of tears. When he finally calmed down, chest heaving and eyes sticky—he could tell there was something wrong.

The night twisted around him, urging him to go back home where he belonged. Everything seemed to weigh down on him—the gnarled tree limbs, the rustling brush, the hooting of a distant owl, the hidden moon—it all told him he wasn't safe here.

He needed to go home.

Breath hitching at the sudden urgency that had come from nowhere Tommy got to his feet and braced himself against the tree as his weak knees trembled. His feathers rustled before going flat against his spine and ribs. A chill ruptured at the base of his skull and roped down his ribs into his heart.

Everything went tomb-cold still.

Tommy gasped as the feeling of icy fingers caressed the back of his neck.

"G-George?" he asked in a tiny voice, through he knew the Brit would never stoop to such a prank.

"Guess again."

The voice was hushed and low, filled with blood-curdling venom. A whisper on a grave, a flutter of dusty leaves.

It sounded as though a corpse had spoken.

Tommy whirled on the balls of his feet, heart in his mouth, only for whoever—or whatever—it was to slam him back against the tree with a rough hand clamped over his mouth.

Tommy struggled for half a second before he felt tiny blades dig into his throat.

Claws.

He blinked past the tears of panic and pain in his eyes as his assailant tightened the vice-grip on his face and tried to see.

All he saw was the glint of moonlight on sharp canines, a tongue rolling over pale lips, and red eyes glistening brighter than sunlit rubies.

Vampire.

The thought was a light in the dark for Tommy, a bucket of ice water to his shock.

He thrashed like a man possessed, uncaring that the claws on his throat had dug deep enough to bleed and that his face would be bruised.

He didn't care.

He didn't care.

I don't want to die here.

"Hold still."

Tommy, against his better judgement, looked into the vermilion eyes at the order.

Instantly, he—

What was he doing again?

"There we are—" the voice, honey on candy, purred into Tommy's mind like a worm, numbing him and turning his muscles to lead.