Devoured: A Dark Monster Romance Novella (Pythonissam Filia), page 11
“Yes.” Something devious came back into her eyes. “There is much I could show you.”
The glean in her eye made me realize the truth. “You knew this would happen,” I said suddenly. “When you spoke to Ysu. You knew he would react. That he might mark me.”
Her expression didn’t change, but her scent shifted slightly—amusement mixed with something sharper. “The spider has always been a romantic. A possessive creature. It took very little to remind him of what he feared most.” She was clearly unapologetic.
“And what was that?” I asked.
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Losing you, of course.”
Heat flared in my chest, and rage awakening the serpent within. “You manipulated him. Manipulated both of us.”
“I offered truth. What he chose to do with it was his own failing.” She shrugged, utterly unconcerned. “The forest needs you, serpent. Your spider’s attachments were... inconvenient.”
Inconvenient. Everything we’d shared, nothing more than an obstacle for her and whatever agenda she held.
Yes, he had marked me without permission. Yes, he had claimed ownership in a way that echoed too closely my years with Tiberius. But unlike my Roman captors, Ysu had also held me through nightmares. Had taught me to see strength where I saw only scars. Had looked at me not as something broken to be used, but as something powerful waiting to emerge.
“He always gave me a choice,” I said quietly, more to myself than to her. “Even when he was never given one.”
Her laugh was sharp. “How touching. But sentiment won’t serve you in what’s to come. The forest has plans, and you need proper instruction. Your spider taught you to wait and strike, but serpents are so much more than that. Let me show you how to truly hunt—”
“No.” The word came out harder than I intended, surprising us both. I straightened, feeling something settle into place inside me. “I won’t be anyone’s tool again. Not Ysu’s, not the forests, and certainly not yours.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re being foolish. Alone, you’re vulnerable. Your transformation is incomplete, and there are abilities you don’t even know exist—”
“Then I’ll learn them myself.” I turned toward the deeper woods, away from both her and the direction of Ysu’s grove. “I don’t need anyone telling me what I should become.”
“You’ll fail without guidance. The serpent’s call requires understanding, finesse—”
“I said no.” I met her gaze directly. Then I stopped hiding.
Joints popped as I grew even taller, and my nails extended. Her features changed as my vision saw the heat of her, and I watched in delight as her heart started to race.
For a moment, I thought she might fight me, force me. But she grunted and turned away with a gesture that somehow managed to be both dismissive and approving.
“Your funeral, serpent. Don’t come crying to me when you’re starving and lost.”
She walked away without looking back.
My body shrank again, unable to hold the extended form. I shivered as scales sank back beneath skin. I rubbed my arms, cold and overwhelmed by the vast, open future before me.
Then my stomach growled, loudly. It had been days since I had eaten. My future could wait. For now, the hunt called.
The deeper woods were quieter, older. Here, the trees grew so thick that afternoon looked like twilight, and the very air felt heavy with ancient secrets. I found a small clearing where rabbits grazed and settled myself at the edge, trying to remember everything Ysu had taught me.
Patience, his voice echoed in my memory. Observe first. Understand your prey before you act.
I watched the rabbits for a long time, noting how they moved, where they felt safe, which ones were young and inexperienced. Ysu had always emphasized this—the importance of reading a situation fully before committing to action. He’d taught me to see patterns, to understand the subtle signs that meant the difference between success and failure.
Feel what you are, I remembered him saying during one of our lessons. Don’t fight the serpent. Let it guide you.
I let my breathing slow, let that coiled presence beneath my skin unfurl slightly. The world sharpened around me—scents became clearer, sounds more distinct, and I could sense the warm pulse of life from the rabbits across the clearing.
One young buck rabbit had wandered slightly apart from the others. I focused on him, trying to understand what the wolf-woman had meant about calling with my eyes. At first, nothing happened. The rabbit continued nibbling at tender shoots, oblivious to my presence.
Then I remembered something else Ysu had taught me—not about hunting, but about connection. How he’d said the venom had recognized something in my blood, something that called to his own darkness. Perhaps this calling wasn’t about force, but about finding that thread of recognition between predator and prey.
I thought of the rabbit’s warm blood, the quick flutter of his heart. I remembered what it felt like to be small and vulnerable, always listening for danger, always ready to run. And then I thought about the relief of not having to run anymore. The peace of surrender.
The rabbit’s head came up slowly. His dark eyes found mine across the clearing, and for a moment that stretched like cold honey, we simply looked at each other. I felt something pass between us—not magic exactly, but understanding. An acknowledgment of what we both were.
Come, I thought, not as a command but as an invitation. Come and find your rest.
The rabbit took one hesitant step toward me. Then another. His body trembled with the wrongness of it, but his eyes never left mine. Each step was a choice, even as some deeper part of him had already surrendered to the inevitable, to the cycle that would eventually consume us both.
When he was close enough to touch, I moved quickly and cleanly, the way Ysu had shown me. One swift motion, and it was over. The rabbit went limp in my hands, his suffering ended before it could truly begin. I hadn’t wanted him to feel fear, only surrender.
Respect your prey, Ysu had always said. And honor the life that sustains you.
I whispered a small thanks to the rabbit’s spirit before I fed. Taking life meant accepting responsibility for that sacrifice.
As I ate, I realized how much his patient instruction had shaped me. Not just the techniques, but the philosophy behind them. The idea that strength should be tempered with wisdom, that power required restraint. He had never once pushed me beyond what I was ready for, had always waited for me to choose each step forward.
His marks ached, but the pain felt different now. Less like chains, more like... a reminder. A connection to someone who had seen the predator in me before I could see it myself, who had nurtured that darkness while teaching me to wield it.
I called two more rabbits that afternoon, growing more confident with each attempt. The serpent’s call wasn’t about domination—it was about offering a kind of peace, a release from the constant vigilance that marked a prey animal’s existence. I released one of them, still filled from the first. I had power, but I chose when to use it. I was not a slave to the hunger within me.
As the sun began to set, I settled against a tree trunk, belly full but heart strangely empty. The forest floor was hard without silk to cushion it, and every shadow could hold danger I didn’t know. But I had done this. Had learned and succeeded, using the foundation Ysu had given me to build something new.
He had taught me all I needed. Tears rose in my eyes as I remembered how I thought he had kept things from me to keep me weak. He would have never done that. He had done everything he could to help me transform, to be what I was always meant to be.
As the sun set and the cold chill of winter and night settled over me, I found no warm arms to hold me. The wind whipped the leaves, and I heard the forests call. It was muffled, hidden beneath the thrum of Ysu’s venom, but I still heard it. It offered purpose, but no comfort. It required strength, but it had never held me when I was frightened.
I had choices to make. But alone on the cold ground, missing him more than I cared to admit, I wondered if freedom was worth the price of solitude.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled—lonely despite the pack that surrounded her. And from another direction, carried on the night wind, came the faint sound of webs singing in an empty grove.
Chapter 18
Flavia
The standing stones sang at midnight.
I woke on the cold forest floor, their resonance thrumming through my bones with a vibration that originated from the earth itself. With no silk to cushion me, it was mind-numbing. Just earth and stone and the deep pull of ancient magic calling me.
I wandered into the woods until I recognized the wolf-woman’s scent.
She emerged from the shadows, her golden eyes already open and alert. “You hear them.”
“Yes.” I stood beside her, unconsciously touching the black web of scars. They tingled with each pulse of the stones’ song, Ysu’s lingering claim over that ancient magic. “Growing louder.”
“Growing impatient.” She shook leaves from her hair. “The forest won’t wait much longer.”
She paused. “I am sorry for my…cruelty before. I have not dealt with someone as human as you in many years. I forgot the wildness of the forest has not hardened you yet.”
Not much of an apology.
“I can scent the harm you have undergone. I am transformed, just as you are. I walked a path similar to yours many years ago. I should have been more mindful,” she said. “I hope that we can run as sisters, despite my misstep.”
It wasn’t enough, not yet. But as the forest called nearly drowned out all other thought, I didn’t feel this was the time to discuss manners among monsters.
“What is your name?” I asked.
She was surprised by my question. “Names as such are not so commonly used among our kind.”
I bit my lip. There was so much I still had to learn.
“But you may call me Gysgod, if you would like.”
I nodded and she turned away from me. As she did, her braids swayed, and I saw a scar on the back of her neck. A bite mark that I knew went deep.
“Did you have a…” My eyes lingered on the scar.
“A demon of my own?” Something in her eyes twinkled. “Yes, but a long time has passed since then. Perhaps a story for another time. Right now, you have a choice to make.”
I looked at this woman, touched with the spirit of a wolf, and I saw a possible path. I looked back towards Ysu’s domain, and saw another. But the future was like a spider’s web, fractured into almost infinite possibilities. I didn’t know where I would end up, but I knew I could no longer linger in this place of idleness. I needed to take my own step forward.
I wrapped my arms around myself against the night’s chill as I shivered uncontrollably. In Ysu’s grove, I’d never felt it like I did now.
“Will he be there?” The question escaped before I could stop it.
Gysod’s smile held too much knowledge. “The spider is the oldest of us all. He rarely leaves his web. Too proud. Too afraid someone might steal what he considers his.” She tilted her head. “Does that disappoint you, little sister?”
I didn’t respond, but my fresh scars pulsed, as if curious for the answer. Part of me hoped he would come, would see me standing among the others, an equal. Another part feared what would happen if he did.
Gysgod led the way with easy confidence, her pack of wolves flowing around us like gray ghosts. They accepted me, these wild hunters, though I caught them watching me with curious eyes.
The stones stood in a clearing that felt older than Rome, older than human memory. Thirteen monoliths arranged in a perfect circle, each twice the height of a man and carved with spirals and symbols whose meaning was lost to time, worn down so they would have easily been missed by mortal eyes. But my eyes were no longer mortal, and I saw how the patterns moved, how they breathed with power that made even Ysu’s ancient web seem young by comparison.
We were not the first to arrive.
At the northern stone stood others. A bark-skinned man whose fingers had become gnarled as ancient roots. Twins who moved with vulpine grace, their amber eyes sly and knowing, moved around the stones with frantic energy.
And at the southern stone...
“Sister!” The voice rang with delight as another serpent-touched woman emerged from the shadows. Her transformation was further along than mine—scales covered half her face, and when she smiled, her jaw unhinged slightly. “Oh, they said you might come! The youngest of us. How brave.”
“Rashka,” Gysgod introduced. “She is also serpent-blessed, claimed by the forest fifty winters past.”
Fifty winters. I studied this woman who might be my future, noting how she moved—always flowing, never quite still. Her eyes held depths that spoke of decades spent more snake than human. But there was something else there too. A power that called to the magic inside of me like a beacon.
“And still sane,” Rashka said, reading my assessment with eerie accuracy. “Though sanity, sweet sister, is a flexible concept when you’ve swallowed men whole and felt their last thoughts dissolve in your belly.” She circled me slowly, nostrils flaring. “You smell of spider silk and sorrow. He marked you deep, didn’t he?”
Her expression softened slightly. “I had one too, once. A guardian who thought to keep me. But serpents aren’t meant for webs, little sister. We’re meant to move, to flow, to swallow the world one piece at a time.”
Around us, others gathered, and behind them, great spirits watched from the forest’s edge—a bear with eyes like stars, a wolf the size of a horse—whose eyes followed Gysgod wherever she went—and beside the eastern stones, a stag whose antlers glowed like a dying star. These were the true guardians, the ones who had answered the first call. Ysu’s kin, though he stayed away.
“The children gather,” Gysgod announced. “The moon wanes. The Romans mass their forces to the south, planning to burn what they cannot conquer. The forest has been patient. The forest has waited. But now—”
The stones flared with cold light, and suddenly I understood. The patterns carved into them weren’t decorative—they were a map. A living representation of the land itself, showing Roman settlements as infected wounds, showing their roads like scars. It showed their steady advance into territories that had been wild since the world began. The wind rose and I heard the forest whisper, We are the same, you and I. They have marked us, scarred us, but we will not bow, and we will not break.
“Now we take back what is ours,” Rashka hissed, and her voice echoing with the hiss of a thousand serpents. “But first, youngest sister, you must complete your becoming.”
“I’ve transformed,” I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were incomplete truths.
“Partially.” Rashka moved closer, and I could smell old blood on her breath, decades of hunts. “You’ve let spider venom change you, yes. You hunt, you feed, but you have not claimed your birthright fully. You have not completed the cycle.”
Understanding crashed through me like ice water. “Tiberius.”
“The one who first broke you. The one whose cruelty opened the door for transformation.” Gysgod stepped forward. “You must consume the source of your pain to truly become. Only then will you be complete enough to serve in the war to come.”
I felt suddenly, desperately alone as every eye on the grove fell to me. If Ysu were here, he would rage at them for suggesting I serve anyone but him. Would wrap me in his possessive fury and declare me his alone. I would have pressed my face into his chest as he blocked out everything but him. But he wasn’t here, and I had chosen that.
“I left him to rot,” I said quietly. “Bound in web and madness. He is dead already.”
Rashka shook her head. “Finish what you started, sister. You must complete this curse, if you are to ever truly be free.”
From the circle’s center, the earth began to crack. What emerged wasn’t quite mist, wasn’t quite light, but something between—the forest’s will made visible. It touched each of us in turn, and where it passed, transformations accelerated. The bark-skinned man groaned as roots burst from his flesh. The twins fell to all fours as their forms locked into massive fox shapes.
When it reached me, the pain was exquisite.
My spine elongated with audible pops. Scales erupted across my skin in waves, each one a small agony that built into a transcendent sensation. I felt my jaw restructuring, bone reshaping to accommodate the unhinging motion I’d only played at before. The serpent in my belly became my belly, became my entire being.
But this time, no strong arms caught me as I convulsed. No familiar presence anchored me through the pain. I writhed alone on cold ground while the forest worked its will through my flesh, and I understood with crystal clarity the price of the freedom I’d claimed.
When the light faded, I lay gasping on the ground that felt too solid, too limiting. My body had returned to mostly human shape, unable to hold the transformation. I could feel the potential coiled within—the full serpent waiting to emerge when I claimed my final prey.
Soon, the forest whispered through stone and soil. Soon you will be ready. The circle must close.
Rashka helped me stand, her touch gentle despite her monstrous strength. “The transformation is not easy,” she said quietly. “It is never easy. But we endure, little sister. We serpents always endure.”
Around us, the other chosen began to disperse, returning to their territories to prepare for the battle the stones had shown us coming. I stood on shaking legs, feeling more unsure than I had since that first night in Ysu’s grove.
“Where will you go?” Gysgod asked.
I touched my neck, feeling how the marks burned with my transformation, how they called to their maker even across the distance I’d put between us. The forest had shown me my path—back to the villa, back to Tiberius, back to the completion of what I’d started.
