Free A Short Trip To Hell: Hellcat Series Origins Volume 1 by Sharon Hannaford Page B

easing just slightly as the warm lifeblood once again flooded his mouth, seeping into the very cells of his body, regenerating, repairing, soothing.
    A sharp pain across Fergus’s face, jolted him awake him from a dreadful nightmare.  He blinked his eyes open, clapping a hand to his bleeding face and then looked down.  The tiny girl in his arms gasped and dropped the dainty, jewel-handled dagger, the one he’d given her just weeks ago for her birthing day celebration, then her eyes rolled back and her mouth fell open.  Horror flooded him, freezing his body, piercing his brain. 
    Not a dream…not a dream…not a dream. 
    “Noo,” he screamed, his voice a soul-deep keening.  “Noo, noo, noo, noo, noo….”  He pulled the limp body of his precious daughter close to him, hugging her, rocking her.  Then desperately running his hands over her, checking her pulse, turning her head to see the ragged tear marks in her flesh.  His breath was coming in short, panicked gasps.  He was whole, he was alive, he was healed.  He didn’t understand, just didn’t understand. 
    “Lass, oh Emelia, please wake oop,” he begged the child, shaking her slightly, but there was no response.  “Oh please, please God, let this be a dream, a nightmaur.  Please, please let me wake frae this horrur.”  Frenzied with grief and fear he searched his surroundings looking for aid from any quarter.  He was in his bedroom in the house on his estate, Isabel’s favourite rug on the stone floor, her hand-woven tapestries on the walls, their bed neatly made. The remains of a stout wooden box the size of a coffin and a velvet mort cloth lay tangled beside it.  Not far from him lay the crumpled form of a woman. 
    “Isabel…” he tried to say but the word never left his lips.  She could no longer hear him.  She was no longer drawing breath and her heart no longer beat in her chest.  Just like the child in his arms. 
    His mind was a frantic maelstrom as he tried to piece together what had happened. 
    What had he done?  What had he become?
    He had done this…he had done this…
    He looked back to the girl in his arms, his tears flowing freely to mingle with the blood from the cut on his face.  Utterly bereft he began shaking her again, calling her name, begging her to come back to him, apologising.  But his angel, his light, his reason for living did not respond.  The girl was gone, her spirit flown, as dead as her mother.  His knees gave way and a ragged animal cry rent the air as he owned the fact that he’d taken the lives of the two people most precious to him in the whole world. 
    And then the Beast returned.
     
    The Beast awoke once more.  Hungry again, but not as painfully hungry as the first time.  Its surroundings were damp and smelled of earth and rock and small vermin.  Its instincts had been good; it was in a safe place, away from those who would try to harm it, while it was vulnerable.  It was wily and strong, and once it fed, it would complete its duty.  For it had a calling, and its calling was vengeance. 
    Its keen sense of smell lead it from the narrow cave into the cool evening breeze, down a rocky mountain and to the smouldering ruins of what had been a collection of houses, large and small, not long before.  Neatly trimmed gardens and fruit-heavy orchards surrounded the wreckage, the greenery entirely incongruous to the scene of destruction.  Smoke still hung in the air from remains of buildings not quite finished burning.  Its fire had done a good job covering what had occurred there.  The area was utterly devoid of life; no human, hound or fowl remained.  Those still living had abandoned the cursed place for other quarters.  For the rest it had become a funeral pyre.
    Something stirred inside the Beast and it knew its duty would eat at it until it was done. 
    It prowled the edges of the estate in the waning moonlight until it found the scent it was seeking, and then it began to run.  It