Heir of Beasts

[Wattpad Featured Story: Fantasy Hidden Gems]

When we were children they whispered about beasts that hid amongst the shifting dunes, dark things with sharp teeth and loud howls and an insatiable thirst. Animals that gutted their prey and left intestines rotting in the sun and bones sprawled out across dried riverbeds. We listened with rapt attention and shivered despite the searing desert heat.

But I'm not a child anymore, and I know better. The sand-dusted coyotes, the sleepy vipers-they're just animals, dumb and slow. I've met the real beast of the dunes, and he's nothing like they say. He wears the skin of a man, and the silks of a noble, and spins lies with a silver tongue sharp enough to make the earth bleed...

And he holds my life in his blood-stained hands.