Chương 26: Chapter 24 — Warm Blood

Chelsea dropped. Her wings flared just enough to guide her descent as she came down behind them. Two men hadn't turned yet, their backs were exposed. Her hands moved before her mind caught up. One claw drove into the base of a neck, punching through cleanly. The other struck lower, tearing into the side of the second man's throat. She landed between them as they collapsed. One of them hit an artery. Blood sprayed outward in a sudden, forceful arc. Chelsea didn't even have to think about it.

She turned her head and opened her mouth, catching it instinctively. The warmth flooded in, and something inside her locked onto it completely. The world narrowed. Her breathing slowed. Her eyes lifted, already searching for the next target. A man with a massive axe turned just in time to see her. Chelsea was already inside his reach. Her hand drove upward beneath the rim of his helmet, her fingers forcing their way through the soft flesh under his chin. There was resistance for a split second, then it gave.

Bone cracked as her claws punched through the roof of his mouth, and then there was something else. Soft. Fragile. Important. She knew exactly what she had reached. For a heartbeat, she considered it. The urge to dig deeper, to hook her fingers and pull something out, to see it, to feel it in her hands. After the battle, she told herself. After the battle, she would feast. She would see if human brain was as good as human blood. She ripped her hand free.

The man collapsed backward, his axe slipping from his grip as his body hit the ground with a heavy thud. Chelsea stepped away, her chest rising and falling as she took in the scene. Too many still standing. She needed space. She needed to control the situation. With a flex of her wings, she leapt back toward the trees, catching a branch and hauling herself up into the canopy again. From above, she could see them shifting, no longer scattered, no longer careless. They were adapting.

The survivors pulled together into a tight formation, backs nearly touching, forming a rough oval. Every man faced outward, weapons raised, eyes scanning the trees, the ground, each other. They were afraid now. Good. Chelsea crouched low along a higher branch, watching them. Counting. Tracking their movement. Waiting. There. She spotted a gap. It was small. Brief. The kind of opening that disappeared if you hesitated. She didn't hesitate.

She climbed higher first, moving carefully along the branches until she reached one that stretched directly over their formation. It bent slightly under her weight, creaking in a way that made her pause for just a fraction of a second.

"Don't break," she whispered under her breath as she eased forward, one foot placed carefully in front of the other. The branch held. She reached the center. Then she dropped. Chelsea landed without a sound in the middle of them.

"Watch the trees," one of the men said, his voice tight.

"If you see any movement, call it out. This isn't where we die." He never finished turning. Chelsea moved. Her claws flashed out, precise and deliberate. She targeted what she had learned. The back of the neck. The spine. The place where life could be cut in an instant. One man dropped. Then another. She pivoted, her body flowing from one target to the next, each strike placed with growing confidence. Her fingers punctured flesh, severed connections, ended motion before it could begin. She didn't linger.

Didn't stop. Didn't look back. The temptation was there. The blood on her hands called to her, warm and thick, begging her to taste it, to indulge. Not yet. She kept moving. By the time the twelfth body hit the ground, the illusion shattered.

"She's inside!" someone shouted. The remaining four men broke formation instantly, stumbling backward, weapons raised, eyes wide as they tried to track her movements. Chelsea stood in the center of the carnage, her body slick with blood from head to toe. It dripped from her fingers, streaked across her face, soaked into her clothes. Two of the men held one handed swords. One gripped a heavier two handed blade. The last held something that drew her attention immediately. A spear. Simple. Unadorned. Perfect.

Her eyes lingered on it for just a moment too long. The attack came from her right. The first swordsman brought his weapon down in a heavy overhead strike while, at the same time, the spearman lunged forward, the tip aimed straight for her torso. Chelsea twisted, barely slipping past the first strike. The spear followed, faster than she expected, forcing her to shift again, her body folding into an awkward, off balance position. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

That was when the second swordsman moved. She didn't see him coming. She felt it. A sharp line of heat tore across her cheek as his blade connected, splitting the skin open. It was shallow, but it was close. Too close. If she had been a fraction slower, it would have taken her head. Chelsea straightened, her focus snapping back into place. She moved forward. The second swordsman reacted just in time, bringing his blade up between them. It didn't matter. Chelsea drove herself onto it.

The sword punched through her, the force of it stopping her body for the briefest instant before she forced herself forward anyway. There was pressure. Resistance. The sensation of being pierced. No pain. Her hands came up. Her thumbs sank into his eyes. He screamed, dropping his weapon as his body collapsed beneath her. Chelsea ignored the blade still embedded in her abdomen and stepped back, the wound already losing importance in her mind. The remaining three had retreated, putting distance between them.

One of them turned and ran. The man with the two handed sword bolted down the path without looking back. Chelsea's head snapped toward him. Something inside her shifted. He was fleeing. So this is how cats felt when their prey tried to run. Her wings flared as she launched after him, closing the distance rapidly. He didn't even have time to turn before she was on him. She hit his back, her body slamming into his shoulders, her arms wrapping around his head as her mouth found his neck. Her teeth sank in.

This time, she didn't rush. She held on. Blood poured into her mouth in heavy, unstoppable waves, hot and thick and overwhelming. She swallowed without thinking, again and again, her body drinking it in like it had been starving. For a moment, nothing else existed. Just the taste. Just the warmth of his life pouring into her mouth.. When she finally pulled away, his body crumpled beneath her. Chelsea stood slowly, turning her head back toward the last two. They hadn't followed.

They stood a short distance away, close together, speaking in low, urgent voices, trying to come up with something, anything. Some sort of a plan. Chelsea began to walk toward them. There was no need to rush. No need to be cautious. She was eerily calm. Each step deliberate, her body felt loose, and her breathing steady. This felt right. This felt natural. Hunting. Feeding. Everything else faded away. As she approached, she focused on them, letting The Eyes flicker across their forms. Ben and Morris.

Names to go with the fear on their faces. She knew what they saw. A small girl, soaked in blood, walking toward them without hesitation. Chelsea tilted her head slightly. Then, softly, almost playfully, she began to sing.

"Ring around the rosie…" As she stepped close enough for them to hear her clearly, Chelsea tilted her head and let her voice flatten into something unsettlingly calm.

"I didn't ask for any of this," she said, dropping the song with her tone soft and empty.

"I was happy eating the hearts of boars and wolves." A quiet giggle slipped out of her, light and wrong against the carnage surrounding them. She pointed lazily at one of the bodies on the ground.

"Now I'm going to eat his." Her finger shifted to another corpse nearby.

"And his." Finally, she lifted her hand and pointed directly at the two men.

"And yours." Ben's breath hitched, and a dark stain spread down his pants as fear overtook him completely. His sword wavered in his grip before dropping entirely.

"P-Please," he said, his voice breaking.

"We didn't want this. We never wanted to j-join them. They took us from our village. Said they needed five men or they'd burn the whole village to the ground." Beside him, Morris slowly lowered himself to his knees, his hands coming up in surrender. He looked like a man who had already accepted whatever fate Chelsea decided for him. Ben followed a second later, raising his hands as well. Chelsea watched them in silence. For a moment, she didn't move at all.

Then, without a word, she turned and crouched beside one of the fallen bodies. She picked up a nearby rock and brought it down hard against the man's chest. The impact cracked through bone with a dull, heavy sound. She reached inside. Halfway through, she glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes locking onto the two men as if making sure they hadn't dared to move.

"They won't eat with me," she said, almost conversationally.

"My family. They say it's too gross. Or too hard to watch." Her hand came back out holding a heart, the arteries still trailing from it. She turned back toward them and held it out, offering it like it was something normal. Something polite.

"Will you eat with me?" Morris hesitated, then slowly began to crawl forward, his movements stiff and cautious. His eyes never left her face. When he got close enough to reach for it, Chelsea pulled it back with a small, sudden motion.

"I'm joking," she said lightly.

"I'm not going to make you eat human. That'd be weird." She took a bite. Her expression changed immediately. Her eyes widened as she looked down at the heart in her hand, surprise flashing across her face. She chewed quickly, then took another bite, more eagerly this time.

"Hey," she said around the mouthful, looking back up at them.

"Can I have that spear?" Morris didn't hesitate. He scrambled backward, grabbed it, and tossed it toward her in a quick, nervous motion, as if holding onto it for even a second longer might get him killed. Chelsea watched as it clattered to the ground beside her. She nodded her thanks.

"Chelsea!" Adriane's voice carried across the clearing. Chelsea looked up to see both of her sisters approaching, stepping over bodies as they made their way toward her. She immediately straightened, her face lighting up as if she had just accomplished something she was proud of.

"Adriane, you have to try this," she said, holding out the half-eaten heart.

"I know I offer you organs as a joke sometimes, but this is actually really good." Adriane dragged a hand down her face, her expression caught somewhere between exhaustion and disbelief.

"No. I am not eating a human heart."

"Chelsea, that was incredible," Bea said, her grin wide and unrestrained.

"You bit that guy's throat out." Chelsea took another bite, a small smile forming as pride crept in. Then it hit her. The two men. She turned her head slightly, looking back at Ben and Morris. They were still there, still kneeling, still watching her like she might change her mind at any second. They were victims. They didn't willingly become… whatever this group was. Bandits? Marauders? The adrenaline drained out of her as quickly as it had come. The world sharpened in a different way now. The bodies. The blood.

The smell. The weight of what she had just done settled over her all at once. She looked down at the heart in her hand. Human. A person's heart. Someone who had a mother who loved them at one time. A father who probably was proud of him for some vague childhood accomplishment. And Chelsea was just eating his heart casually. Her fingers loosened, and it slipped from her grasp, landing wetly on the ground. Chelsea's stomach twisted. She looked around the battlefield again, really seeing it this time. The damage.

The stillness. The finality of it.

"I'm so sorry," she said quietly, turning back to the two men.

"I didn't… I'm sorry if I scared you. I got kind of lost in my… I don't know. I'm just sorry." Bea frowned at her.

"Why are you apologizing to them? They're bandits." Morris swallowed hard before speaking, his voice shaky but steady enough to carry.

"She wants to spare us. We told her we were taken from a village. Forced into this." Ben nodded quickly beside him, wringing his hands together. Then, more cautiously, he looked past Chelsea toward Adriane.