It hadn't been but two days since he left and I already felt betrayal. Of course, I trusted his words, he's wasn't a jackal after all. Being the lone protector, I had believed that he wouldn't betray his blood. But brutality has a multitude of faces and that truth can never be ignored. He was after all worse even than me. 

I waited for what seemed like an eternity until he appeared from the mist that covered our little haven. His long limbs and his lanky form made him a prominent fixture in my memory. His human form had the ability to tirelessly enchant all those who surrounded him. His little tricks had destroyed the little fairy settlement that folks insisted on call a coven. The moment his eyes dropped onto mine piercingly the very first time we'd met, I knew what he was and his charms had been futile against the lives that our little harras needed to prey upon. Yes, needed. 

"Your trust in me is quite endearing. I do wonder if I'm not finally beginning to crack through your defence.” 

“I trusted only in your ability to be a good protector, Leo. Now, are you ready?”

“I'm here, aren't I?”

 I smiled and he returned it, unwillingly. Perhaps, our kind was meant only to be destroyed by each other but I couldn't believe these words. I had seen too much to believe them. The narrow path had always made me cringe. A small mental scar from the years of human experiments, being humiliated by a species with not half my abilities and intellect or experience. The cages, the glass compartments of hell. I had always heard that Hell would be burning, blazing with heat but only the cold had stung me so. 

“Why, Saya, I finally see that your heart isn't dead,” Leo said, softly. 

“And, why would you say that?”

The following wink left the question unanswered for the rest of time. He seemed, to me, more human than beast. I almost pitied, almost felt for him. He would be drained of his life force, of his core and of his spirit, as I had been. 

“Why, I underestimated our little rescued subbeast,” I heard Arjan say. 

I could only bow my head and pray that this sin would return to me the body that I was born in, hooves and freedom from all my shackles. I had no other option but to believe that my body was still within me as they had said. 

“You will come to meet me, won't you?” Leo asked me. 

“Yes.” 

If nothing, I would forever remember the parting smile of an almost comrade, an almost enemy, an almost memory. 

“When will it return?” 

“Oh, darling, probably never or… Within four days. It'll be a gamble, an almost circumstance.”

“That's not what Arjan said.” 

“Arjan wanted Leo. And, he accepted a subbeast like you into the Harras, into our sacred tribe. You would do well to be grateful and not question his methods.”

I nodded. I knew this was coming. The betrayal, the pain and the disappearance of a core I never really had. And, when I felt no pain, I laughed. I laughed until I cried and the pain surfaced. I cried until I fainted and I woke up with a crater filled with pain in my stomach. Oh, the pleasantness of pain. I enjoyed it, for, it was but the only emotion I could feel. 

“Perhaps, they recognised your talents,” Leo had assured me on our first after-capture meeting. 

“Oh dear Leo, haven't they drained you of your charm? I thought it would be the first thing they would take from you.” 

At that, he had laughed. Laughed because he knew I was correct and that his charm was gone and left within him was the acute kindness that never defaulted, thereafter… Until they drained him of it and left him with brutal honesty. 

“No, they are all but trustworthy, Saya. Why not leave? Go live with those humans who don't know who you are. You are…beautiful. Their ideals of Beauty look like you.”

“Who would talk to you after I leave?”

“Will there be a being worth talking to? I've lost all that I need for survival.”

I vowe