"Come on, Stom. Give it to him," the big guy grunted.

"Fuck no. He's just faking it, like Yara said. Kick him in the balls or something, and you'll see."

Much to my surprise, the shithead didn't hesitate to do so for too long.

Of course, he didn't kick the dead bastard in the balls as the mage had told him to do. He just booted his side, and not too hard at that. Much to my relief, though, to do so, he lifted his leg off me, allowing me to draw a full breath.

"Hey! Ravel! Stop fucking around and get up!"

Naturally, the dead bastard didn't move, his terrified eyes staring somewhere beyond the reach of my domain to see.

Gut-wrenching. So much so that instead of pouncing and making them all follow the dead bastard’s example as the beast instincts urged me to, I writhed in disgust at what I had done and vomited up the remaining contents of my stomach.

Weak! That's what I was - and a murderer, a trash of humanity, a disgusting piece of shit like the vomit I was lying in.

"He's not, you know, dead, is he?" the bitch holding the unconscious Ria by the belt like a sack asked, the concern in her voice over the dead bastard nonetheless cutting me deep at heart. To her, he wasn't the monster I had killed. To her, he was someone she knew, maybe even grown up with, or more. Did they have a family?

'No, fuck no!'

That was just stupid guilt eating away at me.

'If they had a family, kids of their own, they wouldn't have thought of hurting Ria, let alone selling her for money. Only a monster would do that!'

And that was what they were.

'Monsters!' I kept repeating in my head to get my shit together.

"Tits, he's dead!" breathed the shithead after bending down to the sleazy bastard and feeling his jugular.

"What? You fucking serious, Kif? I mean . . . "

For how big he was, the shithead moved surprisingly fast, giving me little chance to dodge when he reached for my throat again. All I managed to do was a weird wiggle - considering that my feet and hands were still firmly tied quite a feat. No matter how hard I tried, the improvised ropes just wouldn't come loose. A courtesy of Mrs. Scoresby, I guess, who didn't give me any cheap clothes.

'Maybe if I turned into a beast and grew bigger, stronger, and fiercer, then . . . '

But I didn't. For whatever reason, even after I let the beast in me have its way, it refused to come out, and I remained human, while having to deal with more savage urges of the beast.

"What did you do, cunt?" the shithead spat in my face, pinning me against the wall once again, my feet not touching the ground.

" . . . f-farted."

"The fuck did you say?"

"Th-that I farted."

'If only Ria could hear that.' I chuckled to myself, actually glad that the little kitsune was still out. What was to come was certainly not going to be pretty. And no, this time, I didn't mean the beast, which, to my utter bafflement, was refusing to come out. No, instead of pouncing back, I braced myself for the pain.

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The shithead's face twisted with rage at the defiance and mockery oozing from my overly cocky words and the next moment, predictably, came the pain when he punched me in the stomach - then again and again.

'Come on, what are you waiting for?!' I shouted at the stubborn beast in utter disbelief at what I was saying. In fact, I couldn't even tell if the tears streaming down my face came from the pain, or from what desperation was forcing me to do. 'Come on! Take me!’

The beast remained stubbornly silent, though, only its fierce fury burning in my veins.

"Stop it, Kif! You're going to kill her!" the illusionist whispered the shout at the big guy.

"You spineless son of a bitch. That cunt killed Ravel," the bitch hissed.

"I couldn't care less. More money for the three of us."

"We'll get that even for a dead one."

"Sure, but no doubt, she's worth more alive."

"You! If you'd given him the antidote . . . "

"That's enough, Yara. He's right. Ravel brought this on himself."

'You all did!' Another bold claim I had nothing to back it up with. The shithead had beaten every last ounce of strength out of me, leaving me as weak as a kitten. Without the beast taking over, the toothless rage was all I could throw at them.

'Why? Why, though? Why didn't it come out?'

What did I do wrong? It was so easy the last time. Was it because I was weak? Because they beat the shit out of me and not the other way around? Was the beast trying to prove a point to me?

'Okay, I Get it. I'm weak! So do your fucking thing. Make me a monster!'

Yet, to my utter despair, the trio of thugs remained the only monsters in the back alley.

"Fine! Fine, you fuckers," the bitch snarled grudgingly, her eyes piercing me with rage. "But I want to see her suffer. How about an eye for an eye?"

"No, Yara! She's a guide."

"You really are a spineless son of a bitch, Stom. Grow a pair, for tit's sake. Just like you didn't give a shit about Ravel, nobody's gonna give a fuck about some scrawny brat - except this cunt."

A shiver ran down my spine. There was so much bitterness and malice in her voice that I didn't think for a moment that she wouldn't follow through with her threat. Because of what I did, Ria was supposed to suffer.

'Don't you dare to touch her!'

But powerless as I was, left by my inner beast at the mercy of these monsters, there was nothing that I could do to stop her except beg, and so I did.

"P-please . . . don't . . . "

The bitch sneered. "Why shouldn’t I, cunt? Let's see . . . what should I do . . . ?"

"Kif, tell her something. This is nuts. We should get the fuck out of here."

The shithead, a little less pissed after making a punching bag out of me, growled back, clutching my throat a little tighter. "Just make sure your illusions hold."

"Fuck," the mage cursed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . are you guys fucking nuts?!"

“Sooner or later . . . "

"Shut up, Stom! I've got it," the bitch rasped with a smirk on her face, and walked over to me with the unconscious Ria still in her hand. "It was your tail, wasn't it?"

'What?'

"It was. What do you say we give this brat here a little sniff?"

'She couldn't be serious, could she?'

Of course, when she reached for Sage to prove to me her insanity, I moved my tail out of the way and then back again. And if it meant keeping Ria out of harm's way, I'd swing it back and forth till the end of time - were it not for the big guy giving my stomach a massage again.

"That's the look I wanted to see," the bitch snarled, her smile giving me more of a shiver than her grip on my tail. She was really going to do it; that crazy bitch wanted to poison Ria with my own tail.

" . . . p-please, don't."

'PLEASE! Not her. Not like this.'

I was the one who deserved to die, me, a fucking freak, a beast, a murderer, not Ria. But the crazy bitch didn't seem to care and moved my tail closer to the little kitare.

'Kill me instead! Please.'

'Not her.'

'I said LEAVE HER ALONE!'

"Tit's! Yara, stop!" the shithead shouted, realizing all too late what they had eventually managed to wake up. With the next beat of my heart, all three of them froze in fear under the weight of the beast's might.