The Last Theiro

28

Tessa
•••

The ground shook beneath my feet and my head felt dizzy as the beawulf towered over me. My hands trembled with fear. If Anthony couldn't fight the beawulf, I stood no chance.

Beside me, the boy aimed his hands at the gaunt creature and incantations unraveled from his tongue, like yarn unfurling, as the creature advanced on him. It's dark cold eyes shimmered with hot anger. Every step it took rattled my bones and struck my heart.

In a swift movement, the Beawulf's daunting claws struck the boy across his face and he retreaded backward, holding his scarred face, momentarily stunned. The Beawulf turned on me and proceeded on doing the same, but my hand gripped onto his fur-covered limb firmly and I gazed into its black swirls. Something rushed within me as we stared at each other, unmoving.

Adrenaline.

My lips curled up and a blue light flashed from my hands, sending the Beawulf spiraling into the air. The Beawulf stood up and shook his head, blinking rapidly.

I jerked into action and aimed my clenched fist at the Beawulf's left cheek. It dodged the punch, but instead of trying again, I seized its arm and wrenched it to the side. The beawulf groaned, but instead of succumbing to my force and sinking to the ground, it hunched its back and threw my weight over his shoulder.

A groan left my lips as my back collided with the floor and my breath was knocked out of me. Nails dug into my side and a pierced scream roared from the beast within me, dark spots appearing at the edge of my vision.

"Leave her alone!" The boy shouted. For a moment, I thought it was Anthony. But it couldn't have been. Anthony was dead. A sickening guilt unfurled in the pit of my stomach.

While the Beawulf was distracted, I kicked it hard in the knee and it fell to the ground. It surged toward me in a half-crouch and punched me in the stomach, its long nails grazing the wound it already inflicted on me.

That pain didn't stop me. It only made me more powerful.

I let out something between a groan and a scream and launched myself at it, my left elbow pulled back near my mouth so that I can slam it into its face. The wound on my stomach throbbed but I hardly felt it through the pulse of adrenaline.

"Stop!" The beawulf groaned.

The sound of its voice halted my movements and I stood over it, shocked that it could speak. It sounded like...like us.

"Please, stop!" It cried out again but it sounded like a 'he'.

"Why did you kill him? Why did you kill Anthony?" My words were almost a murmur of awe and hatred. Could there be such a combination?

The creature looked at me with a bewildered expression. "What are you talking about?"

"You...you killed Anthony. I watched you kill-"

But the rest of my words were cut off as I was thrown off my feet and dragged down to the floor. Now, it was I who looked up at the Beawulf: its black eyes envious, lips curled into a nasty snarl.

"There is a reason why we are the most feared." He dragged his nails at the base of my neck, down my collarbone. "We are rather devious. We are greedy. We are inhumane. We are Beawulf."