His Human Queen

The Truth of the Morith

Maeve:

I felt boneless when we left the thick foliage. The trip down the mountain felt like it was going to swallow me whole, but here, on the other side, where the sun shone brightly despite the thick snow still clinging to the ground, I felt… different.

The faster we went, the stronger I felt. The closer to the bottom we got, the less the hunger seemed to hurt.

“What’s that smell?” Caspian asked, stilling us both instantly.

My knees nearly buckled from the abrupt change, from the stillness despite the racing of my heart.

Before I could tell him I didn’t smell anything, he turned me, looking me over.

“I thought you said you weren’t hurt, Maeve!” He snarled, confusing me.

“I-I’m not. I’m not even hungry anymore,” I answered truthfully as my breath left me in small pants.

“That’s because you’re dying, you foolish mortal. Your body is in shock.” I huffed a laugh until his fingers probed what I hadn’t felt, and the stinging, burning pain that laced my back nearly made me collapse.

“What happened?” I asked, trying to slow the rate of whatever death was about to claim me.

Caspian had said if I died on this mountain, my family would too.

“One of the claws from the Morith is in your shoulder; it’s eating your soul alive.” I nearly passed out from the details alone. Instead, I took a deep breath and pulled the knife from my waist, handing it over my shoulder to the man whose fingers just stilled against my skin.

“Cut it out,” I said, surprising myself with how calm I felt, how numb.

“Maeve, I…”

“Cut it out, Caspian. I can take it,” I demanded, shocked by how strong I sounded.

He guided me over to a tree; the bark seemed alive, moving with the force of life that was swaying into it.

“Put your hands on the tree and brace yourself.” His tone was low. I could tell he wanted to do anything else, be anywhere else than here right now.

My whole body shuddered at the sound of his belt undoing.

“Caspian, what are you-“

“You’ll need something to bite on.” If not for the situation, I know he would be smiling at the flush of my cheeks.

“Right…” I muttered.

Before I could say or do anything else, his hands guided mine to the tree, his body caging mine in. His hands worked a slow pathway up my arms until the belt was settled before my lips.

“Bite.” That was all he said as I took the leather between my teeth, my breathing growing ragged as his mouth fell near my ear.

“I have to cut your shirt off.” I nodded, not wanting to think about being nearly naked in front of this man.

My knife, like a hot blade through butter, slit the fabric of my shirt.

“What you saw,” he said at last, voice low, “was a Morith.”

The word settled heavily between us.

“They come from Firdilean,” he continued. “From the places even monsters avoid. Humans once called them sirens because it was easier than learning the truth. It is easier to believe that they lured with love, or beauty, or desire. But a Morith doesn’t sing to seduce. It sings to empty you. The sound isn’t meant for the ears—it reaches inside the soul and hollows it out, one memory at a time. Fear. Grief. Hope. It doesn’t matter. All of it feeds them.”

I swallowed hard. “Why me?”

Though I felt nothing but the cold air rushing off the snow, I knew he had started cutting the claw from my shoulder. “Because you’re human. Your mind is… loud to them. Bright and untethered. To a Morith, you would sound like a bell ringing in a dead world.”

A chill skated down my spine.

“They wear shapes that won’t alarm prey,” he went on. “Beauty. Familiarity. Stillness. But that isn’t what they are. The wings, the claws—that’s the truth breaking through. They were never meant to walk among the kingdoms.”

The first cut was fire. Not the clean, quick sting of a blade, but a searing agony that ripped through my shoulder and down my spine. My teeth sank into the leather, the taste of salt and sweat flooding my mouth as Caspian’s hands worked with brutal precision. “Almost there,” he murmured, though his voice was strained, tight with something I couldn’t name—pity? Fear? “Hold on.”

I didn’t want to hold on. I wanted to let go, to sink into the snow and let the cold take me. But then I thought of my family, of Caspian’s warning, and I grit my teeth harder. The Morith’s claw resisted, buried deep in muscle and bone, each tug sending waves of nausea through me. “Breathe, Maeve,” he urged, his breath warm against my ear. “Just breathe.”

And then it was out.

The relief was so sudden it left me dizzy, my body slumping against the tree as Caspian yanked the claw free with a wet, tearing sound. I gasped, the belt falling from my lips as my knees gave way. He caught me, his arms banding around my waist before I could hit the ground. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice rough.

For a moment, we just stayed like that, his chest pressed to my back, the snow crunching beneath us. The wound throbbed, a dull ache compared to the fire before, but something else lingered—the hollowed-out feeling the Morith had left behind. “What now?” I whispered, my throat raw and my body aching from the slow death I nearly endured.

His eyes bore into me as I turned; nothing but a practiced mask lingered there, unreadable, unbreakable.

I knew then, whatever was about to happen, I wouldn’t like it.

Caspian:

“Now, we run,” I said, my voice a low growl. There was no time for gentleness, no time for the fragile truce we’d been navigating. The Morith’s cry still echoed in the peaks, a beacon to anything else that might be lurking. We were prey.

Her eyes, wide and trusting, met mine. She was fading, the color draining from her face matching the snow around us. “I can’t,” she whispered, her body slumping. “Caspian, I can’t…”

I let the change take me. It was a violence I welcomed, a tearing of muscle and bone that was cleaner, more honest, than the poison seeping into her. My spine curved, my limbs thickened, and my skin split to make way for the thick, black fur that was my true form. The world sharpened, scents exploding into a thousand distinct threads, sounds becoming a tapestry of life and death. Her gasp was the only thing that broke through the roaring in my ears.

I stood before her, a beast of shadow and muscle, my paws sinking into the snow. I lowered my head, my great muzzle inches from her face, and nudged her shoulder, a silent command to get on.

Her hesitation was a sharp flicker of fear in her scent. But it was drowned out by the stench of her own mortality. With a trembling hand, she reached out and tangled her fingers in the thick ruff of fur around my neck. It was an act of pure desperation, and I felt it resonate deep in my chest as she swung a leg over my back. Her body was a frail, trembling weight against mine. She clung to me, her face pressed into my neck, her breath hot and ragged.

Then I ran.

The mountain became a blur beneath my paws. The remaining descent of the Eupine was a treacherous maze of stone and ice, but I knew it as I knew my own heart. I leapt over chasms and tore through thickets of thorny brush, my only thought the rhythm of my four feet striking the earth. Faster. Faster.

Then I felt it.

The first drop of her blood, warm and slick, seeped through my fur and touched my skin. It was a spark. A jolt. Another drop followed, then a trickle, tracing a path down my shoulder blade. It wasn't just blood. The Morith’s poison was in it, a dark, volatile magic that should have been anathema to me. But it wasn’t.

It was power.

A raw, untamed energy flooded my veins. The heat of it was intoxicating, a burning fuel that stoked the fire in my core. My muscles, already straining, swelled with new strength. My lungs, already burning, expanded with effortless capacity. Every stride lengthened, every beat of my heart became a war drum. I felt the hollow ache of the Morith’s magic in her blood, and instead of recoiling, my own nature seized it, devoured it, and transformed it into pure, primal vitality. I could feel her fading, her life force felt like nothing more than a flickering candle, but with every beat of her weakening heart, I grew stronger. It was a monstrous, parasitic communion, and I reveled in it.

The trees thinned. The sharp, jagged rocks of the high peaks gave way to rolling, snow-dusted hills. The air changed, losing its thin, biting edge and taking on the scent of hearth smoke, damp earth, and the distant promise of ale and bread. We had reached the borderlands of Garmorr.

I didn’t slow down. The kingdom’s outer wall rose in the distance, a dark line of stone against the grey sky. The guards on the watchtower would see me soon—a great black beast, a nightmare out of legend, streaking from the mountains with a dying human on its back. Let them look. Let them fear.

I ran until the gates were before us, until the shouts of alarm were clear and distinct. Only then did I slow, my paws skidding to a halt in the slushy mud of the road. Her weight was limp now, her breathing shallow, her heartbeat a fragile flutter against my back. I lowered myself carefully, letting her slide onto the ground in a heap.

The heat of her blood still pulsed through me, a dark and thrilling power. But as I looked down at her pale, still face, the thrill soured into something else. I had saved her, yes. But I had somehow fed from her blood, now I wasn’t sure which of us was the monster.