Agony swirled around his heart as a light whine rattled the bottom of his lungs.

“No,” he demanded.

He did not want Reia to end up like the others.

“I can see how much you don’t want to,” she snickered, moving above him until he had to turn around to face her.

“It ran from you. It hates you.”

Orpheus growled in answer, his anger spiking, but it was tangled with sadness. She was right. Reia had run away from Orpheus, just like many others.

He’d felt this before, this cold taste of sadness. Orpheus becoming fond of a human only for it to leave because of its disgust in him. Is Reia the same? Would things end up as they did long ago?

“It left you, Mavka.” Her head twisted to look down towards Reia’s face. “I see its memories. It was always planning to leave you.” The Demon turned her grinning face back to Orpheus, its red eyes bowing with nasty humour.

“You will not be able to keep it.”

That swirl of sadness took charge, and he was filled with hopelessness like a constant ache in his heart that he’d held for eons. His vision turned to such a deep blue that it made everything appear darker and lonelier, like a veil had been laid over his face.

“It will end up like her.”

His sight turned down to Reia to find her green eyes were still tear-filled but wide as she stared up at him. Orpheus shuddered as he reached up to the top of his head to dig his claws in. It felt as though his skull was cracking under the pressure of his mind, the Demon reaching into his deepest uncertainties, doubts, and fears.

She will never want me.

Why was Orpheus bent on trying to find a companion, even a bride, when it always ended in tragedy? The humans, this human, would never grow fond of him. No matter what he did, what he tried, he would lose them one way or another.

“I sense your guilt.” The Demon’s voice turned softer.

There was almost a comforting, caring, hint to it, like she cared for Orpheus despite it being nothing more than a cruel

manipulation to get what she wanted. He knew this, but it was hard to ignore for it was the first time anything had truly spoken so kindly towards him. “You do not want to eat them. You do not want to harm them, but you cannot stop from spilling their blood.”

Faces began to flicker over the Demon’s, showing him each human he’d lost over the last hundred and eighty years, with an additional one filtering between each of them. That one face, repeating when the others didn’t, was to ensure he felt overwhelmed in loss, in pain.

Gone. All of them gone. All of them lost... because of him.

Dead because of his actions, because he brought them here. Gone.

“This human will be no different.” She pointed a claw at Reia. “Why bear the memory of you eating it?” Then she dared to come a little closer, her voice even gentler. “Give it to me. I will punish it for leaving you. I will take that guilt away so you may try again.”

Red flared in his vision, bright and as dangerous as ever.

“No!” he roared, making her flinch back.

She was trying to get into his head, trying to latch onto the tethers of his pain to have her meal. She was the Arachnid Demon of Sorrow.

Orpheus wouldn’t allow it!

He spun to Reia below him and slashed his claws. Her cocoon split apart, leaving only a few strands that he tore away carefully with his other hand.

“She is mine!” He jumped forward, away from Reia, to grab a hold of one of the dangling arms of the Demon.

They both fell with the spider on top of him before they rolled over the hammock. It bounced, followed by the vibrations that came from where Reia was as she moved now that she was free.

The Demon shrieked when he ripped his claws into the back of her human torso before she scuttled away from him on her eight legs. Purple blood oozed from her in heavy

drops as she sprinted forward with her claws bared to attack him.

A spike swiftly extruded from where her spinnerets were and she curled her body, raising on four back legs as the four front lifted around him as she tackled.

The spike stabbed into his side, and he felt the cold rush of a liquid enter his body.

Despite her intentions, she placed herself around him where Orpheus was able to open his mouth and place it where her spider segment met the human-like part. He bit, his fangs slicing deeply, while thrashing beneath her to rip his claws into any part of flesh he could.

He cared not for his own pain she attempted to inflict.

She screeched, running her own claws down his chest, before he managed to grab her neck with one hand as his pawed feet pressed against her spider behind. He started pulling, gnawing his teeth at the same time.

“It hurts!” she screamed. “Stop! It hurts!”

Foul-tasting, rich blood entered his mouth, but he refused to stop. He refused to stop until he’d chomped his way enough through the tough section between human and spider, until he was able to push her lower half away while pulling her upper body.

The wet sound of skin and muscles tearing filled his ears as he tore her in half and severed her body.

He threw the pieces away from him, huffing deeply as he got back to his hands and paws.

The eight legs twitched in the air as her spider half lay on its side, wriggling and contorting. The human-like half used its hands to crawl around as she cried and gargled, life slowly fading from her. Heaving with terrible sounding wheezes, purple blood stained the nest as she moved around.

Then the top half slumped forward, bleeding out from her ripped torso as blood dribbled from her teeth.

A maelstrom of emotions swirled like a cyclone inside Orpheus. He shuddered and shook, as pain from his injuries flared through him at almost the same intensity.

And Reia was gone.

Red flared deeper in his vision, and he leapt in the direction she’d gone. Chasing her. Hunting her scent.

Mine! She was his human! His offering! His to touch, his to see, his to eat.

He was inhuman. He could never be human. So why would a human ever want him? But I want her. Every kind of hunger inside him wanted her. His desire, his loneliness, his need for flesh and blood.

He was a monster. They’d all called him one. He was a nightmare to them.

Her scent grew stronger as he got closer and the sound of leaves crunching under quick, but light, footsteps told him she was running.

Orpheus gave a bellowing roar with parted fangs, the chase sending an electric thrill and excitement through him.

Those hands squeezed his brain, and he panted. His vision dazing as it pulsated in and out.