Shay dashed back to the window, heart pounding, breathless with excitement. She glimpsed action just beyond the castle gate—a brilliant green light moving flurry-fast, unmatched by the smaller figures pursuing it. Only just visible at intervals between the heavy bars of the gate.

A fight. A kill. Fresh meat!

Speeding over to the door, she yanked at the knob—but it wouldn’t turn. Back to the window in a flash, she pulled at its latch and shoved at the panes, but the damned thing wouldn’t open more than a crack. Snarling, Shay stuck her nose through the opening and sucked fresh air into her lungs. The rain had lightened to a spare drizzle, and the wind blew the scents of battle her way. The scent of Saints, of their blood and torn flesh—similar to that of humans, but more floral and metallic. Less savory. And then another scent…a new one. Rich. Spicy. Sweet.

Exquisite.

Shay’s mouth filled with saliva. Her hackles raised. The bells rang again and again—but she ignored the pain, fighting to open the window further instead.

“Stop that,” said Aster. “You must stay here, now more than ever.”

”I don’t think I will,” said Shay, giving up on forcing the window open as she scanned for something she could use to break the glass of the balcony door. “What is that amazing smell?”

”Amazing?” Nicos looked to Aster, and the two exchanged expressions of disgust.

“That’s the scent of ghoul,” sniffed Aster. “the foulest creatures in existence.”

“They’re drawn to Silvers even more than they are to humans, can sense your presence from miles away,” said Nicos, auburn brows furrowed. “You must know they are extremely dangerous.”

Shay groaned.

“It smells so good. I want to fight. I want to eat. Let me out!”

“Absolutely not,” snapped Aster.

Shay snatched up a gargoyle-shaped bookend from the mantle of the false hearth and flung it at the balcony door with all her strength. Aster and Nicos shouted, the glass shattered, and the bookend dropped to the floor. She threw herself its way as the other two bolted over to stop her. They got to her just as she hoisted the bookend back, preparing to bash it against the door as many times as it took to bend the wrought iron panes and make space to get through. But Nicos grabbed one of her arms and Aster the other, and together they began to drag her backward.

“Stop it,” snarled Shay. “I need out!”

“You need to calm the hells down, is what you need,” said Nicos through gritted teeth, struggling to keep hold of her right arm. It was all Aster could do not to lose his grip on her, too.

“If you can hold her long enough for me to get the door open, I can call for another human to—”

”There’s no way,” grated Nicos.

“I thought I wasn’t as strong as other Saints?” said Shay, twisting around so swiftly and forcefully that the pair were slammed into each other, hard, and lost their grip on her entirely. Cackling, she dove forward and grabbed the wrought iron bars of the broken door. Throwing all of her strength into it, she pulled until her muscles screamed with pain. The bars bent, but the other Saints caught up to her, yanking her back.

“Get off me.” The inhuman resonance of her voice intensified, and her hangers-on flinched—but they didn’t let go. Shay grinned nonetheless, gaze catching on that brilliant green figure as it burst through the gate. A fresh blast of wind heaved more of its scent her way, stronger now as the ghoul drew rapidly closer. As it bled. Shay swayed, half-drunk on the aroma alone. More Saints closed from all directions, but they were too slow by far. Shay’s veins thrilled with energy, her skin glowed with it. Her hackles raised. She allowed Nicos and Aster to pull her back from the door.

A heartbeat later, green light filled the room as the ghoul forced its way, shrieking and flailing, through the broken balcony door.

It was beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way. Streamlined, huge—like a man had turned halfway into a jackal and doubled in size even as his skin and organs turned to living, glowing jade.

Magnificent.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

And that scent…

Drool flowed freely down Shay’s chin, a bizarre sensation erupting in her gums as a set of longer, sharper teeth thrust forward over her original canines.

Nicos and Aster released her arms before stepping forward to form a defensive wall between her and the Ghoul.

“No,” Shay growled. “It’s mine.” Again her voice took on that indescribable intensity, and both the other Saints, as one, stepped to the side, peering back at her with wide eyes. They snapped out of it quickly and simultaneously, but it was too late. She and the ghoul lunged for one another at the same time, tangling midair. All the breath went out of her as she landed hard on her back with the ghoul atop her, jaws snapping and slavering as she fought to hold them away.

Wrapping both her hands about the creature’s neck, Shay dug her nails into it as they elongated—pressing outward from her fingertips to stab deeper into the beast’s glowing flesh. It shrieked, an ear-piercing sound nearly as bad as the bells still tolling in the background. Bells were well-known to keep ghouls at bay, and Shay had seen at work before. So why aren’t they working now? Is it really that drawn to me?

New voices joined those of Aster and Nicos as other Saints poured into the room through both the broken and unbroken doors. Whatever power had been blocking off their scents and auric colors had finally lapsed. But Shay ignored the flood of fresh information. Stabbing her claws even deeper into the ghoul’s neck, she yanked herself upward, ready to plunge her freshly-grown fangs into flesh. But her teeth snapped closed around empty air, the ghoul’s scream adding to the horrible clangor of the bells as Saints attacked it from all sides. Others grabbed Shay’s arms and torso, dragging her forcefully back.

“No!” she howled. “It’s my kill! My meat! Mine!”

“Are all Silvers like this at first?” Astar stood unhelpfully to the side, watching as the six other Saints in the room—half of them soaked from the rain—wrestled Shay back and turned the ghoul into a pin-cushion of wasted flesh. “Or just the peasants?”

“She’s going berserk,” said Nicos through gritted teeth, doing his best to keep hold of her right arm.

“Just let me eat it!” cried Shay. “That’s all I want. You’re wasting it!”

“Get her to a cell. Now,” said a tall, broad-shouldered Saint who smelled like a frigid winter night. A seraph with narrow eyes and silvery-white hair pulled back into a sleek tail, their auric colors resembled a whirlwind of fractured ice. Briefly, very briefly, they held her attention. Those of angelic gender—who lived neither strictly as men nor as women but rather as something more akin to the Almighty themselves—they were not born so often among commoners. Or at least, those who were often found themselves called into question, usually made to live out their lives as either man or woman. After all, why would so exalted a being ever be born so low? The scriptures warned against such pretenders.

The same scriptures which taught that nobles were people personally chosen and Sainted by the Almighty, when in fact they were just hosts for parasites. Fertile ground for fungal growths, like the stuff Shay used to scrub off the bottoms of toilets back at Heatherstone Manor. And that was what she was now, too.

A wild peal of laughter ripped out of her, drool whipping from her mouth and down her chin. The world was absurd. Absolutely mad. Almost everything sacred she’d ever been taught was a lie. And all she cared about, all she really cared about, was sinking her teeth into that ghoul.

With one exceptionally powerful jerk of her arm, she freed herself from Nicos. Perhaps they were lying when they said I wasn’t as strong as them. Twisting around to face her other captor, a red-haired woman she didn’t recognize, Shay drove her knee up into her groin, throwing her off-balance before punching her in the face. The other Saint lost her grip on her and reeled backward, all of it happening so quickly that neither Nicos nor anyone else could stop her as she whirled on the spot and lunged for the freshly dead ghoul.

Shay landed on its shoulder, teeth bared. Her mouth met torn flesh just long enough to taste the barest bit of blood before every Saint in the room converged to pull her back. But at that taste, that one perfect taste, a shockwave of energy so powerful it actually stung surged through her body, and her Saint’s glow flashed and flared, lightning bright.

Shrieking—inhumanly, horribly—Shay sounded more like the ghoul itself had as she clawed, flailed, punched, and bit at everyone who dared hold her back. Then there was a shock of pain, an impact at the back of her head. Everything went dark again.

When she came to, it had all changed.

Firstly, it was dark…but not pitch black. Nothing ever was, anymore. Not with the glow of her skin to light it. She sat up, peering at her surroundings, taking in the scents and sounds. There was no trace of the ghoul’s aroma, save what little still lingered on her. Shay bared her teeth at the injustice of it, though there was no one around to see her. The room was small and square. A cell, the seraph had said earlier. Only this didn’t look like any cell she’d ever seen or imagined. There was a half-open door which appeared to lead into a tiny washroom, silver-framed landscapes hanging on the silver-papered walls, and a well-polished gleam to all the fixtures and the dark wood furnishing.

Tossing aside the duvet, Shay slid out of a bed with a high, ornate headboard and into a pair of slippers waiting at its side. Someone had removed her undergarments, ruined as they’d been by ghoul-blood, and wrapped her up in a silk dressing robe instead. Noting with interest that all feelings of modesty and bodily shame had left her, Shay padded over to the main door to check that it was, in fact, locked. It was. But it was also strange, because centered in its upper half was a little arched opening. Big enough perhaps for Shay to shove her head through.

“Hello?” she called, peering out of it and seeing only a wood-paneled corridor. There was a ruffling of feathers, wingbeats, the smell of bird. Something black appeared in a flurry, and she took a step back. A crow landed on the edge of the little opening, turning its head sideways to peer at her.

“Greetings, Silver One,” it said. “I am Xavir, your keeper.”