“Gag him, his screams are tiresome.”

It happened faster than Drake could suck in a breath to beg. A web of silky strands shot from the spider’s funnel and slapped over his mouth with sticky, silvery strands. It covered his nose too, making his chest heave for a proper breath.

His intact hand rose to scratch it off, achieving a small tear to breathe.

“Another snack?” I smiled at the timbers. “His right hand, if you please.”

Two wolves leaped on him this time, both biting down on his forearm, tearing more than just his hand but everything below his elbow.

The pack lost its hierarchy, pouncing onto Drake as dirt flew. My brother was stampeded by starving canines, and his hand and forearm were devoured.

His screams were muffled, his eyes flowing with disbelieving tears. He shook his head, holding up the stumps he now had, blood spurting from ripped arteries.

The spiderweb still hushed him.

“Muuuuuummyyy.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I bowed over him, my wings cocooning us in a morbid cape where earth scattered, and wolves continued to squabble over his tissue, fighting each other in a tumbling mass of fur. “Are you saying Mummy or Sully? Because neither of those can save you.”

“Mweeeassee.”

“Please?” I stabbed a claw beneath his chin, tilting his head up until our eyes met. “You’re begging me now?”

He nodded so fiercely that he punctured his own chin on my talon. “Mweeeassse!”

I clucked my tongue, sounding like a snake hissing over its prey. “Ah, brother. When did you ever show me mercy? Do you remember me begging when it was me you hurt?” I cupped his cheek, shaking my head. “No, you can’t remember because I never begged for my own salvation. I only begged for those I tried to protect. But you don’t have any idea what that feels like, do you, Drake? No loyalty to an animal, a lover, a friend. No loyalty to a brother who was your only kin.”

“Memanor.”

“Eleanor?” I squeezed his jaw in my fist. “You dare try to say her name. Why? You think by reminding me of her that I’ll take mercy on you? That I’ll stop before I go too far?”

He nodded, his nostrils flaring over the web gagging him. “Mont.”

“Don’t?” I chuckled right in his face. “Oh, there’s no going back now, Drake. I couldn’t stop myself, even if I wanted to. Even if you showed some meagre redemption at this late hour, I wouldn’t be able to prevent myself from extracting every droplet of pain I can.” I let his face go, swooping to my feet. “Not because I need revenge for myself, but because you owe it to Serigala, to my otters, pigs, dogs, rabbits, apes, and everything in between. Your screams are for them, Drake. Your howls are for Eleanor. Your agony is theirs because it’s justified...but your death...” I grinned, once again revealing blood-stained fangs. “Your death is mine, and frankly, I’m having far too much fun to rush to that finish line, aren’t you?”

He thrashed in the lava-racked earth. He mumbled and moaned, turning dirt rusty with his blood.

The wolves took off, sated with what they’d eaten, no longer bound by my control. They were free, just as all creatures should be.

Another carnivore arrived.

A sabre tooth tiger that only existed in history books and fiction. Its sable coat gleamed in the fire as it prowled around Drake, sniffing the remaining pieces.

I crossed my arms, flaring my wings and flying back a little. “Fancy a taste?”

The tiger growled, licking its chops.

“By all means, please shred my brother of his clothing.”

The cat didn’t wait. With unsheathed claws and a paw bigger than Drake’s chest, he sliced ribbons into my brother’s skin.

Drake’s pain reached levels that threatened to pop eye vessels and cause cardiac arrest. He writhed and tried to crawl away, but the cat rolled him onto his stomach and slashed at his shirt from behind. Furrows of blood erupted down his back as the sabre grabbed the sliced muslin and threw it to the side.

“Good, now his trousers.”

The tiger snarled and swiped at Drake’s ass. Claws cut through dense material, sinking into his flesh and dragging him across the ground until the cat shook his paw to remove him.

Drake’s caterwauls mingled with sobs as the tiger repeated the shredding, dragging its sharpness down Drake’s legs, catching on the stump of his missing foot.

Taking the trousers in his teeth, the cat shook until Drake fell out of them. A naked, bloody, still-breathing corpse who could never die.

Not here, at least.

I could tear out his organs, one by one, and he would remain breathing.

He was a true condemned immortal.

He was sentenced to watch himself be eaten by creatures he’d never dined on but taught an agonising lesson what it felt like to be an unwilling meal.

The tiger dragged its sandpaper tongue along Drake’s footless leg. It grumbled in delight, suckling at the wound.

Drake sobbed harder. His chest heaving, his nose flaring over the web, his eyes popping out of his head.

“One bite. You can choose,” I whispered, never taking my eyes off the graphic smorgasbord before me.

The cat roared before pinning Drake onto his belly and sinking its fangs into his shoulder. With an effortless tug, he shredded a steak of flesh from Drake’s back, revealing the whiteness of his shoulder blade, the beads of his spine, the innermost workings of a man who was full of evil.

I stayed silent as the cat gulped back his delicacy before slinking into the dark forest.

For a moment, we were alone, and I flew back to Drake. Rolling him onto his flayed back with my cloven hoof, I murmured, “I actually pity you, Drake. I pity the man I am because of you. I wonder if we’re as bad as each other, and if I should die beside you tonight.”

My wings stabbed into the ground with their hooked barbs as I braced myself. Drake tried to claw at my leg with his handless stubs. “Mweeassssseeeeeeeee!”

“I have a secret, brother.” I looked down at what I’d done. I took responsibility that he was evil but...so was I. I’d just chosen different victims. I’d used humans. I’d purchased souls. I should be beside him having my sins ripped from equally rancid flesh.

“I’m on borrowed time.” I hissed in the fiery gloom. “My heart is close to its final beat, and I have one chance of staying alive...if I choose to use it.”

I ducked to my haunches, cupping my perspiring, pained brother’s cheek. “But...if I can do this to you and feel no regret or want to stop...I don’t think I deserve that chance, do you? It proves exactly what I feared. That I’m unredeemable, just like you. That I deserve to die. I should end our line...eradicate the last two Sinclairs from this earth because really, it’s a better place without us.”

Drake’s gaze caught mine, amber pupils instead of our inherited blue. He was drawn and haggard, white-fleshed and small.

An echo of the man who’d locked me in a cage and tortured me.

I’d never seen him so petrified or so defeated.

It was a look I’d craved to see my entire life.

I’d finally earned it.

Finally taken vengeance on so many things.

And all I felt was empty.

Empty because it didn’t bring Serigala back. It didn’t stop him from laying his hands on Eleanor. It didn’t make me a better person. If anything, it showed me just how fucking similar we were because I liked seeing him this way. I liked destroying him in every depraved and despicable way possible.