Subtlest Game: Book One - March of the Pawns

Chapter 9

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The unknown girl tiptoed between the tree trunks. Her breathing was fast and ragged, but not heavy. She didn't know where the danger was, not yet, and consequently her body believed it could afford to slow and relax, that it didn't need the vital oxygen to run.
Tress rustled softly, gently waving branches. That's all there was; trees. Too dense to see the sky, too dark to see ahead.
"Hello?" she called out into the trees timidly, clasping her hands in front of her chest. She was dressed only in a ragged shirt and shorts, her pale skin peeking out through the tears. She was soft and plumply curvy, but her eyes were gaunt and hollow, set deep in her face, flickering around at every rustle of leaves or creaking branch. She had the look of someone who'd only recently gained access to a good supply of food.

"Hello?" she called again. The instinctive part of her brain told her to shut it, to run and hide before whatever haunted these trees heard the cries of a lost lamb, but the rational part stubbornly insisted that she wouldn't have been taken in from the streets, fed and sheltered just to be sent to die. Or perhaps that was just the hopeful part of her brain.
"Hello?" one more call, and this time, whatever it was heard.

"Come to me." the words were at once proudly authoritative and alluring beckoning, domineeringly loud and seductively, teasingly quiet. Do as you wish, but there's only really one choice. You wouldn't leave me hanging, would you?

The words snuck an insidious, hypnotic grip around her mind, twined into her mouth and twisted it into words.
"Yes..." she walked deeper in, stumbling a little over roots, scratching her face on slapping branches.

No more words came, but a soft, quavering note of song rustled the leaves, high and low and everything between. It was the whisper of a lover, it was the command of a master, it was the begging plea of a child.
She followed. Why wouldn't she? Such beauty promised her warmth and comfort...she could never be heart by such a lovely sound...

Then...the spell broke. The song stopped, broke for just a moment, and the girl glanced up, her eyes widening as she realised how easily, how simply she'd been taken. There was still time, there'd been a mistake, she could still run–
She felt the most incredible, impossibly white hot pain in her throat. Then, darkness took her.

***

Arabella buried her face in the blood spurting from her prey thing's throat, relishing the sweetness, the lush, red warmth. The world around her was the familiar dullness brought on by vampiric vision – or Siren vision now, she supposed – perforated by the warm reds of living creatures, with their glowing pink tangled of veins and white, beating hearts.
She took one more gulp, and threw her head back, blood running down her cheeks. This was power, this was might! What could stop her? She was a Siren, the most powerful being to walk this earth, she took what she wanted, she brought prey to her and made it hold out its neck and beg, she was–
"Arabella."
Arabella snarled and turned. Oh yes, the demoness, the succubus, so arrogant in her power and experience. Well, Arabella would show her. She bared her dripping red fangs and lunged, iridescent black wings sending forth a gust of wind as she reached for that pretty white throat, already imagining the delicious life that would pour from it in torrents of crimson.

Sin sighed, and batted Arabella aside with ease. The Siren crashed into a tree trunk, and Sin heard the snap of her spine.
"You've got the predatory side well enough, but you need to work on your self preservation. You very obviously stood no chance of defeating me. Not to mention, you lost control just before you made the kill. What if she'd had a dagger?"
Arabella gave an animalistic growl. Saturation returned to her vision, the alluring sight of Sin's slow beating heart fading, and there was a crack and several pops as her spine healed.
"What do I care? Maybe I'm trying to be a lost cause so you'll let me go."
Sin laughed dryly, squatting down in front of her. She was enviably curvy yet muscular, mind numbingly attractive yet as powerful and sturdy as a war goddess. Her eyes flickered with cerulean soul fire as she regarded Arabella.
"No, I don't think so. I've been starving you for over a week, your primal instinct should be at it's peak. But you're not a hunter, you're a suicidal glutton."
Arabella raised an eyebrow.
"That's not much of a pickup line, given your obsession with having children with me."
Sin's eyes narrowed. She didn't seem to have heard Arabella's taunt, as she took the Siren's chin in her hand.
"What's missing? How can your primal instinct just be gone? It can't just be strolling down a street on its own."