Earl and Marque started doing poor impressions of lizards, sticking out their tongues, but Tegwyn ignored them, keeping his gaze on Duke. “Yes. Hand him over.”
Duke sniggered, tipping the jar upside down, and now the caterpillar squirmed on the grass.
Tegwyn’s heart thumped hard, yet no matter what, he would not hurt Duke or his brothers.
He would not let them incite him. It’s what they wanted. To bring out themonsterin him…
Marque and Earl seized him by the arms, making him watch, helplessly, as their elder brother crushed Henry beneath his boot.
When they finally let him go, Tegwyn dropped to the ground by the caterpillar’s remains, and they circled around him, calling him cruel names.
That was the exact moment he felt it. The darkness creeping deep beneath his skin, spreading its poison far and wide.
Tegwyn narrowed his eyes, glaring up at Duke, and were thoseshadowsslithering out from the trees like snakes?
Not possible…
Shadows don’t move.
Nor were they sentient.
But Tegwyn could have sworn they emerged when he got mad justnow.
“You bastard,” he growled, only having eyes for the bully who insisted on making his life utterly miserable. “He was myfriend!”
Like a hot bolt of lightning, he knocked Duke off his feet, pinning him to the ground, and the boy’s screams rent the air.
The sound filled Tegwyn’s heart with pure, wicked joy, yet he still never used his claws. Instead, he punched Duke in the face, breaking his nose until his vision splattered red.
Before he could do any real damage, Margue and Earl dragged him away, and now all three boys kicked him to the dirt. When Duke swung his fist towards Tegwyn’s face, stars sprinkled in the corners of his eyes, and something warm trickled from his nose.
Blood.
Then, when the boy pressed his knees down hard on Tegwyn’s arms, prying his mouth wide open, he made him eat the last of Henry.
It just wasn’t fair. Tegwyn never asked to be this way, yet they still bullied him endlessly.
One day, he would get them back.
One day…
Once they were finished with him, they left him shaking on the ground, and he curled up into a ball, wishing to die.
He deserved to be eaten by the carrion crows for failing to save Henry. The poor caterpillar had never even got to be a moth.
He would have made a beautiful moth…
“Tegwyn?”
His sensitive Fae ears picked up on the sound of a woman’s voice. It was his mother calling his name. Yet he couldn’t go to her. Why did she even love him? He was a monster…
Tegwyn’s mother was human, like Duke and his brothers. Yet unlike the rest of the townsfolk, she loved him dearly, as well as his grandpa. But Tegwyn didn’t deserve either of their love.
His mother still missed her human son. She never talked about him, but Tegwyn saw it in her eyes.
Six years ago, she’d sold her son to a travelling Fae merchant in exchange for his health.
Her son had been terribly ill, and it was said that only the magic of the faerielands could heal his ailments. The only price she had to pay was to never see or hear from her son ever again and to raise another in his stead.
