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Eyes wide, she stared up at me as if she was looking in the face of a miracle. I expected her to hug me, to kiss me, to touch my cheek even. Instead, she immediately dug into her jacket pocket and produced a metal flask.
She shoved it up towards my face. “Hurry. Drink.”
I almost recoiled away from the flask in her hand. Before I could even consider it, a sharp pain pierced my back. I arched into Cerri, who cried out in confusion.
I mean, I did turn my back to Faust. What did I expect?
With no clothes on my body, I had no pocket to tuck Cerri’s flask into. There was no time to take it and drink the contents. Though I trusted her, we had other problems at hand.
I spun and struck out my right hand. The hilt of a blade settled into my palm. I gripped it tight and swung through the stagnant air. Faust bent backwards so that the blade caught nothing but stray hairs.
From his inhuman pose, he grinned up at me and raised a clawed hand. Clenching it into a fist, he grabbed ahold of the magic that bound me to him. My heart stopped beating. Air rushed out of my lungs.
But I refused to be deterred. This was my one chance. We had to end Faust once and for all.
I said a soft thanks to my beast for everything that it’d given me. I would miss it, but I could endure a future without the creature so long as it meant that I would be able to live by Cerri’s side for the rest of my days.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that the pang in my chest was no longer Faust’s hold on my contract. It was the ache of loss. I didn’t want to give up this part of me that I’d grown so accustomed to. The beast was a part of me, same as this half. We were one.
Faust shoved forward and pressed closer. I had to dance back while my chest burned. Faust materialized a thin rapier and dashed towards me. I let the blade pierce my chest so that I could take another swipe at him. Grabbing ahold of his rapier, I held him in place so that he couldn’t run without giving it up.
To my dismay, he relinquished it and jumped back as if he were weightless. I yanked the blade from my chest and bent. Hand pressed to the wound, I waited for it to heal. The wound continued to dribble fresh blood across my skin.
“You can’t fight me without your beast,” Faust said triumphantly.
Upright, hand still over my wound, I stared him down. He was right, though. Past the throbbing wound, I could feel a hollow spot within my chest. An emptiness swirled in the back of my mind, a void that had once belonged to the beast. Faust had separated us.
When he opened his clenched fist, my beast appeared at his side. The sight of it would have knocked the air from my chest if I’d had any to begin with.
Behind me, Cerri whined. “This is not how I expected this to go.”
I didn’t like the look of this, either. The beast stared me down with soulless eyes. Could it remember me? If I failed here today, would Faust shove it into the body of another unsuspecting fae all too willing to make a deal with the devil? Jealousy sparked within the void that’d belonged to the beast.
It belonged to me and no one else.
Spreading my feet apart in a fighting stance, I considered my next move. The beast did the same, lowering itself like it might pounce.
“Are…the two of you in sync?” Cerri asked quietly.
To test the theory, I tossed my hair out of the way of my face. The beast raised its head and shook out its mane. The new information gave me an idea. Even from here, I could see the spark of ingenuity behind the empty mask over my beast’s eyes.
Faust could never separate us. While the beast was outside my body, it was still completely mine. There was no way to keep us from being one.
“Drink the potion.” The urgency in Cerri’s voice grabbed ahold of me.
I spun just as she threw the potion towards me.
“Steal that flask,” Faust commanded my beast.
At least, that’s who I’d assumed he’d been speaking to. I’d been horribly wrong. A dozen blue spirits burst into existence around us. A skeletal hand reached out and snatched the flying flask from the air.
“You’re such a fool!” Cerri laughed.
I stole a glance in her direction to find her wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. A smile curled her lips. Eyes clear of tears, she looked to Faust. I, however, watched her as the beasts of other fallen men gathered around her.
“Did you not realize that summing your army meant summoning the part of your army rebelling against you, too?” She gestured to the beasts at her heels.
Jealousy gripped my stomach for a hot second. I wanted to be the beast at her side, but there was no time for that. We had a war to fight. Once it was over, I would push all the others away from my princess. They would learn that I belonged to her, and that she wanted no one else.
