“Oh you have no idea who you just messed with.” I let the darkness seep into my eyes and gave her the look that ran in my family’s bloodline. The one that was supposedly the scariest thing ever. She just grinned, her white teeth shining in the dark.

“Trust me, I know exactly what you Ghealachs are,” she said then snapped her fingers. The shadows around her moved and took shape. There were three of them, one cadrac that ran at Yuri and two simuns. Damn monkey-like almost humanoid creatures, with long sharp claws on their hands. They had big glowing eyes and no mouths and their skin was grey and wrinkly and disgusting. How I hated these creatures of the darkness. One jumped at Scott with supernatural speed moving like a monkey. The other went for me. I swung my dagger aiming at the creature's eye, in the same time I yelled: “Scott, the eyes!” To make sure he would know what he needed to do. The creature dodged and tried to grab at my foot with its long claws. I jumped on one of the pipes that ran through the tunnel and then as the simun hurled for me I jumped off and instead of my foot the simun was aiming for, there was my dagger. It shrieked as its own momentum impaled it on the dagger. It blinked and the cold light in its eye turned into fireflies. As they flew away, the simun’s body melted in a horrifying way.

I turned and saw that Yuri had killed the cadrac and was now dancing with Scott around the last simun. I left them to it and instead focused my grey eyes on the Mercenary.

“Bravo, little Prince. You’re quite agile, I like that,” she said in a sultry voice that made all the hairs on my body stand on an end.

“We’ll see how you like it when I rip your throat out,” I growled at her and bared my fangs.

“So cocky.” She laughed. “But I counted on that, who else would waltz right into the den of Mercenaries with nothing but two lapdogs other than the banished Prince?” Right as she said that the simun behind me shrieked as my ‘lapdogs’ killed it.

“Hmph… I liked that one.” She pouted. Okay, I was about done with her. I took a step forward then stopped dead as the darkness around her was suddenly penetrated by dozens of those cold yellow eyes. Oh fuck… I felt Yuri behind my back tense and Scott was crouching halfway behind my legs.

“What did you think, hm? That you’ll come in here and there will be a few Mercenaries with two to three beasts?” she said in fake sympathy. Actually yeah I thought that… Because one person couldn’t possibly control more than three such beasts. They corrupted the barer’s soul and if they tried to summon more than three they would die. That was the law of nature. And Mercenaries traveled in small family groups. This was way too many beasts for a small family group… “Oh, stupid little puppy…”

More eyes popped out of the darkness. Okay… maybe Yuri was right. Fuck. We were in way over our heads. This was such a bad idea. Goddamnit, why do I always think I can do everything alone? Why couldn’t I just man up and call my damn Father? Well, it was too late to cry now.

“Go. Run. Go back to Father,” I told Yuri while keeping my eyes on the woman. She smiled.

“Reid—”

I gathered all my dominance and in my best attempt to imitate Father’s voice I said: “Yuri, Scott. Go.”

They didn’t want to. I felt Yuri’s muscles tensing as he fought the urge to run. But I was my Father’s son and he had no choice other than to obey. The second they turned to run the beasts leaped forward. Cadracs, simuns, and many many other horrible creatures. I needed to give them a head start. I needed to make sure the pack would know where to go. Now… I wasn’t just idiotically sacrificing myself. I was a Ghealach, I had a good fighting chance against these beasts. And so I called to the creature in my soul that had been singing about revenge and bloodshed this whole time.

I cried out in pain as the darkness inside me stretched and encompassed my body in a dark tar-like substance.

“Ah! There it is… The Power of the Cŵn Annwn, the hounds of Annwn, the hunting dogs of the Otherworld…” she said in a fascinated voice. I would’ve done a surprised double-take if the beasts didn’t charge me all at once. My body morphed into the shape of a two-legged monster wolf and I swiped my clawed hand stopping the beasts from following Yuri and Scott, turning many of them into dust and mush. I danced around all the beasts catching as many of them with my claws and fangs as I could. Fuck there were so many of them. I was fast, really fast especially with the Cŵn Annwn inside me feeding me raw power. It felt like a vibration invading my every muscle and making them thousand times more effective. I could push myself even more, make myself even stronger by fully succumbing to it. Ah, but with such power came hunger, the need to kill and feast and never stop. It was so damn tempting to succumb to it, to rip apart all these beasts and Mercenaries. I could, I knew I could… But I wouldn’t stop there… There was a whole poor town of innocent people that would be dead by dawn.

I roared as one of the simuns sank its claws into my side, it was followed by a searing pain in my leg as one cadrac ripped into my thigh. Fuck! And then there was the sound of a bowstring releasing. I clenched my jaw in the anticipation of the arrow since the creatures were holding me in place. But the pain never came. Only a cold feeling that crept from my shoulder to the rest of my body. I looked down at my shoulder absolutely dumbfounded. There was a whitish blue arrow lodged in it but I didn’t feel it hit. It took me a second to realize it was an astral arrow.

A witch! I growled out as my body slowly gave up, filling my body with the cold magic and dread. From behind the mercenary came an older woman in a white fluffy coat surely made from some poor innocent animal. Her hair was white and her eyes were like two ice crystals.

What the hell was this? Witches hated Mercenaries and vise versa. What the fuck is going on? But before I could really think about it the cold was joined by the terrible burn of the cadrac venom. A scream died in my throat as my brain shortcutted and everything went black…