“Help us!” her mother screamed as her face broke through.

“Wreia!” Caleb cried.

“I wish you were never born!” her father yelled.

“It hurwts!”

Their faces and voices flittered in, over and over, reaching into the depths of her anguish and memories of that night. A night when she had not been afraid, but she’d felt the loss of them ever since.

“Why didn’t you love us?” her mother asked with a voice filled with tears.

But I did! Her thrashing increased. I loved them so much.

It’s all my fault. They’re dead because of me. I killed them.

And Reia had paid the price of that for the rest of her life.

As an outcast. A shame. A thing to be terrified of. Alone. So alone.

She shut her eyes as she cried, fear giving away to the overwhelming grief and loss and pain. I miss them all so much.

She’d never gotten to play with her cute baby brother again outside in the spring where flowers would grow in their yard or watch him grow from a cute young boy into a handsome man. Their home had been secluded in the dangerous forest, but her family had lived there for generations safe and unharmed.

Until Reia came along.

I killed them!

She felt the sharpness of fangs scraping across her skin as a jaw spread over her face, filling her senses with foul breath, but she couldn’t open her eyes or stop crying.

I want my family. I want to hold my brother again.

She missed her mother’s cooking and cuddles, her father’s bedtime stories filled with fantasy and hope. The laughter her family shared around the fireplace. She missed everything.

Why did this have to happen to me?!

The stench was suddenly gone before a cracking thud of multiple branches being broken filled her ears. The sound forced her eyes open, and through teary eyes she saw a black figure with a white face and horns attacking the giant spider.

But Reia couldn’t stop crying at her loss and doubt to feel relief, or even worry that Orpheus found her.

Orpheus gave a bellowing roar when he saw the arachnid Demon with her jaws widening around Reia’s head. He lunged, his vision a crimson red.

Shoving his entire body with the use of his shoulder into her meaty behind segment, both of them went tumbling to the other side of her nest. Screeching, her body hit against the thick trunk of a tree while Orpheus found himself on the other side of Reia.

The silk hammock wasn’t sticky and allowed Orpheus to freely crawl around it on his hands and back paws. It was also strong enough to hold both their heavy weights as it bounced them.

He was in his more animalistic form, his legs wolven-shaped with long fur covering his upper torso while the rest of him was covered in more deer-like fur, as well as a tail.

Bones protruded from his body in sharp angles, while fish sail fins hung from his back, elbows, and the back of his calves in tall arches.

His head always remained the same, never changing.

He turned to the crying human, his head twisting to see her tears when he’d never seen them from her before.

As he was raising his claws to cut the cocoon surrounding her, a coil of spun rope was leashed around his throat and horns and yanked him backward.

“It is my dinner, Mavka,” the arachnid Demon hissed, dragging Orpheus backwards until he managed to use his claws to cut himself free.

He turned to her as he crawled around on all fours. He wanted to free Reia, but he understood he had to fight the Demon first.

“Mine,” Orpheus growled in answer, his jaws opening to show the length and sharpness of his fangs in warning and threat.

How close he’d come to losing Reia was gut-twisting.

When he’d returned to his home after fetching her water, elated with his memories of her from earlier, a pain had pierced his heart when he knew she was gone.

Hurt and rage had caused those invisible squeezing hands to grip his brain within his skull so tightly he’d instantly morphed to his more agitated state right in the middle of his home.

He’d barely been able to shove himself through the door, hearing it groan and creak under pressure as he launched himself outside. Following her scent, the feeling of a hunt, of his hunger being satisfied at the end of it, quickened his long strides.

His want to protect her fell away to the excitement of the chase and the desire to consume flesh and blood. If Orpheus had been the one to catch her, had he found her running, he doubted she would have lived past his tackle filled with swiping claws and snapping fangs.

But her elderberry and rose scent had vanished from the ground when he found only the amulet and dagger she’d taken.

Rage that his prey was taken by another dipped the squishy flesh of his brain while fear that Reia would be gone also clutched his throat.

His mind wasn’t sound. His thoughts were muddled between his want to consume and the returning pressure of wanting to protect, and they tugged on him from both sides.

Orpheus was lost to the chaos within.

His sweet memories of her that he’d never obtained from another offering was the only seam within him that wasn’t

allowing his hunger to win. If she had been like the others, he wouldn’t have tried to free her from her cocoon. He would have bitten into her before the arachnid Demon even had the chance to leash a whip around his throat.

She would have been trying to fight for the remaining parts of the corpse as Orpheus fell into hunger, eating while fighting for his meal.

But the fleeting memories of her smile, her eyes on him, and her trinket hanging above his bed, fought the gripping hands within his skull. The taste of her skin, her arousal, made his mouth salivate for that aroma just as much as blood. And her pretty voice saying his name, her laughter, and her moans of pleasure as she came, eased the tension in his muscles.

He hungered, but his want to protect soared when he found her about to be eaten by another.

“The human was in my territory,” she hissed, her lipless face contorting into fury as her mouth opened to reveal her own fangs. “I stay out of your home, Mavka.”

Orpheus backed up to be above Reia while the Demon began to walk backwards up the side of the tree so she could hang from above. It made her backwards body appear upright, and her black hair fell over her shoulders rather than from the top of her head.

“Do not touch!” he roared.

“Oh?” Her three sets of red eyes widened, before she began to give a wheezing snicker. “Is it one of your little playthings?” She crawled over the web-covered canopy above, staying just out of reach of him unless he jumped. He would have if it wasn’t for the fact he could land on top of Reia when he came back down. “How pitiful. How long will it be before you eat this one?”