Bloodhoundhearts

The forest was dark and full of teeth.

​Betty ran through the thick trees, her breath coming in short, painful gasps. Behind her, the sounds of the chase grew louder. The Orcs were close. These were not just monsters: they were shapeshifters. One moment they looked like tall, scary men, and the next, their skin rippled into gray scales and sharp claws. They moved through the rain without making a sound, their yellow eyes glowing in the mist.

​Betty felt a sharp pain in her side. A jagged blade had cut her deep. Her blood was not red like a human's. It was a bright, shimmering gold that dripped onto the wet leaves.

​She used the last of her magic to teleport. The air smelled like burnt flowers for a second as she vanished and reappeared near a small clearing. Her legs felt like lead. She was exhausted and dying.

​Through the heavy rain, she saw an old wooden house. It stood at the edge of the forest, looking gray and broken. To Betty, it looked abandoned. It was the perfect place to hide.

​She dragged herself to the back door. She didn't have the strength to knock, so she leaned her shoulder against the wood. The rusty lock snapped, and the door swung open.

​Inside, the kitchen was warm and bright. The air smelled of rosemary and boiling potatoes.

​"Beatrice, you're putting the salt in too early," a soft voice said.

​Elena stood by a large iron pot on the stove. She was nineteen years old, with dark curls and a quiet beauty that didn't belong in such a poor, old house. Beside her was her older sister, Beatrice. At twenty-two, Beatrice was stronger and faster, her hands busy kneading dough for their dinner.

​Upstairs, the heavy thuds of their brothers, Mark and Mason, echoed through the ceiling. Their parents, Raymond and Amanda, were resting in the next room. It was a normal, quiet night for the family of eight.

​Then, the back door hit the wall with a bang.

​Betty stumbled into the light. Her clothes were torn, and the golden wound in her side glowed brightly in the dim room. She looked like a fallen star covered in mud.

​The wooden spoon fell from Elena's hand and hit the floor.

​"Oh, gods," Beatrice whispered. She grew pale and reached for a sharp bread knife on the table. She was ready to fight.

​But Elena didn't reach for a weapon. She ran toward the bleeding woman. As Elena's hands touched Betty's cold skin, the air in the kitchen turned freezing.

​A sharp pain started behind Elena's eyes. It was a heavy throb, like a heartbeat.

​"Don't... let them... in," Betty choked out. She grabbed Elena's wrist with trembling fingers.

​The moment they touched, Elena's world changed.

​Her vision exploded into a bright, glowing pink. The wooden walls of the house seemed to disappear. She could see through them. She saw the Fae woman's broken soul, but she also saw the forest outside.

​Four shadows were moving in the rain. Their human faces were melting away, turning into large, gray monsters with long teeth. They could smell the golden blood. They were coming for the house.

​"Beatrice, get the boys!" Elena screamed. Her voice sounded different, powerful and ancient. "Mark! Mason! Get down here right now!"

​Beatrice saw the pure terror in her sister's pink eyes and didn't ask questions. She ran for the stairs, screaming for their brothers to wake up.

​Elena looked down at the woman in her arms. She felt a strange, deep connection to the stranger. She didn't know it yet, but she wasn't just a kitchen maid. She was the daughter of a goddess.

​A heavy fist slammed into the back door, making the wood splinter.

​Miles away, in a dark castle made of black stone, a man's eyes snapped open. Aiden had lived for five hundred and six years, but he looked no older than twenty-five. He was a Vampire, a king of shadows who had been bored for centuries.

​Suddenly, he felt a burning heat in his chest. It felt like a string was pulling his heart toward the forest.

​"She is finally awake," Aiden whispered into the darkness of his throne room.

​He stood up, his black cape flowing behind him like smoke. The hunt had begun.

The back door did not just break. It exploded into a cloud of jagged splinters.

​The first Orc burst into the kitchen with a roar that shook the copper pans hanging from the ceiling. It was a massive, gray-skinned wall of muscle, its transition from human to monster not yet complete. Patches of hair and pink skin still clung to its distorted face, making it look like a nightmare half-formed.

​"Get back, Elena!" Mark shouted.

​At thirty, Mark was the strongest of the siblings. He charged down the stairs with Mason right behind him. Both brothers were hauling heavy iron wood-axes they usually used for the winter timber. They didn't have armor. They didn't have magic. They only had the desperate need to protect their sisters.

​Mark swung his axe with a grunt of effort. The blade bit deep into the Orc's shoulder, but the creature didn't even flinch. It backhanded Mark, sending him flying across the room. He crashed into the sturdy oak dinner table, snapping one of its legs like a dry twig.

​"Mark!" Elena cried out.

​She was still on the floor, her hands pressed against Betty's glowing wound. The golden blood was warm and sticky, staining Elena's apron. The Fae woman was drifting in and out of consciousness, her breath a shallow rattle.

​Mason stepped over his fallen brother, his face a mask of grim determination. He was twenty-seven and leaner than Mark, moving with a quickness born of years of manual labor. He dodged a swipe from a second Orc that had squeezed through the ruined doorway. Mason buried his axe in the creature's thigh, drawing a spray of thick, black sludge.

​"Beatrice, take the girls upstairs!" Mason yelled over his shoulder.

​Hilary, the twenty-five-year-old sister, had rushed into the kitchen to help. Unlike the others, Hilary was the peacemaker of the family. She wasn't a fighter, but she was Elena's favorite. She was the one who always shared her extra crust of bread, the one who combed Elena's hair when the world felt too heavy.

​Hilary reached out to grab Elena's arm, trying to pull her away from the carnage. "Elena, please! We have to go!"

​But the third Orc was faster.

​It lunged from the shadows of the larder, its claws extended. It wasn't interested in the men. It wanted the golden blood. As it leaped, Hilary threw herself in front of Elena.

​The sound was sickening. A wet, tearing noise followed by a sharp gasp.

​Hilary fell to her knees, her hands clutching her stomach. Dark red blood began to seep through her fingers, staining her simple cotton dress.

​"Hilary!" Elena's voice was a broken whisper.

​Time seemed to slow down. Elena watched as her favorite sister collapsed, her face turning a ghostly shade of white. The kitchen was a chaos of violence. Mark was struggling to stand, his face covered in soot and blood. Mason was being pinned against the wall by two of the shapeshifters. Their parents, Raymond and Amanda, were at the top of the stairs, held back by the sheer force of the struggle below.

​Elena looked at Hilary. She looked at the blood. She looked at the Orc that was now looming over them, its jaw unhinged to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.

​Something inside Elena didn't just break. It snapped.

​The dull throb behind her eyes turned into a searing, white-hot explosion. The pink light didn't just glow. It erupted. It filled the kitchen, the parlor, and the forest outside. It was a wave of pure, ancient power that smelled of ozone and the cold, distant moon.

​Elena stood up. Her feet didn't seem to touch the floor. Her dark curls drifted around her head as if she were underwater. Her eyes were no longer brown. They were two orbs of brilliant, pulsing rose light.

​"Enough," she said.

​The word was not a shout. It was a command that vibrated in the very atoms of the room.

​The Orcs froze. Their predatory rage turned into absolute, soul-crushing terror. They tried to growl, but the sound died in their throats. Their massive, gray bodies began to shrink. Their bones cracked and reset at an impossible speed. Their skin didn't ripple this time. It folded and tightened.

​In a matter of seconds, the four terrifying monsters were gone.

​In their place, four small, brown mice sat on the kitchen floor. They looked up at Elena with tiny, black eyes, their whiskers twitching in fear. With a collective squeak of horror, the mice turned and scrambled out through the cracks in the wall, disappearing into the rainy night as if the devil himself were chasing them.

​The pink light faded slowly, leaving the kitchen in a dim, flickering orange glow from the tipped-over candles. Elena collapsed to her knees beside Hilary, her breath coming in ragged sobs.

​"Hilary... oh gods, Hilary, stay with me," she wept, her power gone as quickly as it had arrived.

​Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, the atmosphere in the Obsidian Castle was significantly less dramatic.

​Aiden, the five-hundred-year-old Vampire Prince, was currently standing in the middle of his grand dressing room. He had felt the surge of power. He had felt the moon goddess's daughter wake up. His soul had burned with a legendary, destiny-filled fire.

​He had reached for his ceremonial black cape, ready to leap from the balcony and sprint across the kingdom to find his bride.

​But then, he stopped.

​He looked at his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling silver mirror. His dark hair was slightly messy from his five-decade nap. His silk tunic was a bit wrinkled. Most importantly, he realized he was holding a very large, half-eaten chicken leg.

​"My Lord?" his butler, a very old and very tired vampire named Silas, asked from the doorway. "You seemed to be in a hurry. Is the world ending? Or did you finally find that missing sock?"

​Aiden looked at the chicken leg. He looked at his cape. He felt the pull of the goddess in his chest, but he also felt the fact that he hadn't had a proper bath since the last century.

​"She is awake, Silas," Aiden said, his voice deep and serious. "The daughter of the Moon. The one the prophecies spoke of. I can feel her soul crying out."

​Silas looked at the chicken leg. "Is she crying out for poultry, Sire? Because you are currently wearing your slippers. The ones with the fluffy rabbit ears."

​Aiden looked down. He was indeed wearing the rabbit-ear slippers a confused Duchess had gifted him in 1742. They were very comfortable, but they did not exactly scream 'Ruthless Vampire Prince.'

​"I cannot meet my destiny in these, Silas," Aiden muttered, his dramatic aura deflating like a popped balloon. "And I am actually quite hungry. Five hundred years of sleep does terrible things to the metabolism."

​"Quite right, Sire," Silas sighed, taking the chicken leg from him. "I shall draw a bath. Perhaps you can save the kingdom tomorrow morning? After breakfast? I believe we have some aged blood and perhaps some toast."

​Aiden sighed and slumped back into his velvet chair. The connection to Elena was still there, humming in his blood, but the thought of running through the rain in his pajamas was suddenly less appealing.

​"Fine," Aiden grumbled. "But find my silver armor. And Silas? Make sure the rabbit slippers are hidden. If the prophecy mentions them, I will burn the library to the ground."

​Back at the cottage, the silence was broken only by Hilary's labored breathing and the sound of the rain. Elena held her sister's hand, unaware that her "beast" was currently debating whether or not to have a second helping of chicken before coming to her rescue.

The kitchen was still thick with the smell of ozone and the metallic tang of blood. Elena sat on the floor, cradling Hilary's head in her lap. The pink glow in her eyes had faded, leaving her feeling hollow and cold. Every time Hilary winced, Elena felt a sharp pang in her own heart.

"Hold the bandage tighter, Mason!" Mark shouted. He was leaning over his sisters, his hands shaking. Even the strongest brother in the family looked small in the face of such a wound.

Just as the panic began to swallow them, the front door burst open. This time, it wasn't a monster.

"Elena! We saw the light from the ridge!"

A young man with broad shoulders and golden-brown hair rushed in, followed closely by a girl with a bow slung over her shoulder. This was Carlson, twenty-one years old and Elena's oldest friend. Behind him was Leah, nineteen, her dark eyes wide as she took in the ruined kitchen and the splintered back door.

Carlson dropped to his knees beside Elena. He didn't ask questions about the dead-quiet forest or why there were mice trapped in the corners of the room. He saw the blood and immediately went to work. He was the son of the village healer, and though he hadn't finished his training, his hands were steady.

"Leah, get me the clean water from the stove. Now!" Carlson commanded.

Leah moved with a hunter's grace. She grabbed a fresh cloth and a basin, her eyes darting to the ruined back door. "What happened here, Elena? It looks like a war zone."

Elena couldn't find the words. She just looked at her hands, which were still stained with the gold of the Fae and the red of her sister.

"Orcs," Beatrice whispered from the stairs. "But then... Elena... she did something."

Leah stopped, her hand hovering over the water basin. She looked at Elena, really looked at her. She had known Elena since they were children, playing in the streams and hiding from the village elders. Elena had always been the quiet one, the one who saw things others missed. But this was different. There was a lingering heat coming off Elena's skin, a pressure in the air that made Leah's skin prickle.

"They're gone," Elena muttered, her voice sounding far away. "I made them go away."

Carlson ignored the talk of magic for a moment. He was focused on Hilary. He peeled back the blood-soaked fabric of her dress, his jaw tightening when he saw the depth of the claw marks.

"It's deep," Carlson said, his voice low so the parents wouldn't hear him from the stairs. "The Orcs carry rot on their claws. If I can't clean this out properly, the fever will take her by morning."

Elena's heart skipped a beat. "No. No, Carlson, you have to save her. She saved me."

"I'm trying, El," Carlson said, his brow furrowed in concentration. "But I need more than just water and herbs. I need a miracle."

Leah stepped forward, her hand resting on Elena's shoulder. "Elena, look at me. When the light happened, what did you feel? There is still something... strange about the air in here. It feels like the woods before a storm."

Elena looked at her friend. She looked at Leah's steady gaze and Carlson's desperate work. She looked at the Fae woman, Betty, who was still unconscious against the wall, her golden blood slowly stopping its flow as if the house itself were trying to keep her alive.

"I felt everything," Elena whispered. "I felt the truth of them. They weren't just monsters. They were small, hateful things. So I made them small."

Carlson looked up then, his eyes searching Elena's face. He reached out and touched her forehead. He jumped back, his fingers stinging as if he had touched a hot coal.

"You're burning up," he said. "Elena, whatever you did, it's still inside you."

Leah knelt on the other side. "Use it, Elena. If you can change a monster into a mouse, can you change a wound into whole skin? Can you see the truth of Hilary's body?"

The idea was terrifying. Elena didn't know how to control the pink light. It had come out of her like a scream, a raw reaction to her sister's pain. But as she looked at Hilary's pale face, she knew she had to try.

She reached out her hands, hovering them just above Carlson's busy fingers.

"I don't know how," Elena cried.

"Just want it," Leah encouraged, her voice a firm anchor in the storm. "Want her to stay with us more than you fear the dark."

Elena closed her eyes. She stopped listening to the rain. She stopped listening to Mark's heavy breathing. She reached deep into the center of her chest, searching for that spark of rose-colored fire.

The heat began to grow. It spread from her heart to her shoulders, then down her arms to her fingertips.

Outside, the wind picked up, howling through the trees. Miles away, in the Obsidian Castle, Aiden paused as he stepped into his steaming bath. He felt a surge of pure, healing light ripple through the tether in his soul. It was so bright it almost blinded his inner eye.

"So," Aiden murmured, his voice echoing in the marble bathroom. "She isn't just a seer. She is a healer too."

Back in the cottage, the kitchen was suddenly bathed in a soft, warm glow. It wasn't the violent explosion of before. This was a gentle, pulsing light, the color of a summer dawn.

Carlson watched in awe as the jagged, red gashes on Hilary's stomach began to pull together. The skin didn't just stitch itself back; it glowed for a moment before becoming smooth and unscarred. The gray tint of the Orc's poison vanished, replaced by the healthy flush of sleep.

Hilary's breath evened out. She sighed, a deep and peaceful sound, and drifted into a natural slumber.

Elena slumped forward, her strength completely gone. Carlson caught her before she hit the floor.

"She did it," Leah whispered, her voice full of wonder and a little bit of fear. "She really did it."

Carlson looked at the girl in his arms. He had loved Elena in his own quiet way for years, but the girl he was holding now was a stranger. She was something ancient. Something that the kings and vampires of the world would kill to possess.

"We have to hide this," Carlson said, his voice grim. "If the Palace finds out what she is... if the Bloodhound Prince hears of a girl who can turn monsters into mice and heal the dying... she will never be free again."

Leah looked at the ruined door, the dark forest waiting outside. "I think it's too late for that, Carlson. Look at the Fae. Look at the sky. The world already knows she's here."