When the veil of darkness was lifted, he was standing over an old man with skin so wrinkled the creases could hold a diamond.
His eyes were misted with tears and a deeper form of terror that had grabbed hold of him for he could not speak, only gape foolishly at the beast that stood over him. The king's eyes lowered to the man's crotch which was dark and the stench of urine pervaded the home alongside blood.
The man continuously gaped, one hand grasping the material over his chest.
Blood trailed on the ground where a body had tried dragging itself only to stop halfway, the leg still twitching. Her throat had been torn open by claws, mouth open in a silent scream with one arm outstretched and reaching in a frozen manner for the prize in the corner.
A toddler with its intestines pooling at its feet.
The man began to cry, weep, as if the sight of the horrors around him could be avoided by the next step.
The beast allowed it.
By the time the King stepped out of the home, the human territory had gone up in flames so hot he could feel it against his skin. He smelled the smoke; the burning of flesh, fat and hair. flesh
All around him body parts bumped against his bare feet as he stepped over them gracefully. He was full, and the beast had receded into the quiet corners of his body, lulling itself back to sleep.
"My King." He turned at the sound of his right-hand Issachar who approached at a slower pace. As though dragging something– or someone.
Distinctly he heard the cries, the muffled weeping behind a gag and the heavy sound of a body thumping onto the ground before him. The king lowered his head at what was supposedly the uncle now discarded at his feet.
"Please–" the man blubbered, reaching forward and grabbing at the king's ankles like a peasant, he felt his lips next– wet and bleeding as tears fell onto the dirt of his toes washing it away. "Have mercy. Have mercy."
The King dismissed his soldier, "Thank you, Issachar."
He stooped low and quick like a shadow, and reached for the man's face with a single hand pressing on either side of his cheeks which were as soft as dough.
He held him, tenderly, and tilted his face to his own.
When he smiled it was not unkind. "She desires mercy, not sacrifice."
The man's sobs tapered off as a bemused silence settled. Warm tears trailed down the King's wrists.
"Her father had many debts, you see," he continued, gripping his face a little firmer, pressing a little deeper with the tips of his blunt nails, "and when he died she had no one to take her in. So she sought the mercy of that who was closest to her."
A pause. He smiled with all teeth. "Blood."
Only then did it dawn on the man. His cheeks quivered in the King's hand and one raised to clasp at his wrist as if to try and rip the hand away, but the Beast's grip was a vice.
The King's head tilted to the side curiously and he spoke slowly as if to a child. "Do you understand now, uncle?"
"I helped her!" He disrupted, switching from begging to justifying his case. "I saved her! I let her in— she– she would have had nothing without me–"
"Yet you chose to sell her at a price. When it convenienced you."
"I… she–she–"
"Yet I am grateful for your greed." He disrupted, rising swiftly with the man's face still in his grip, body slack and dangling on the ground. The king turned and walked, dragging his body like a limp rag across the burning village.
"Had it not been for your idol of money, I would not have found her. For this I will grant you a swift death, a merciful act."
"Please please PLEASE!"
The heat of the village pressed against him like a wildfire. It would soon be extinguished by the rains to come, the remains later found by villagers or wanderers nearby.
Perhaps even rogues– scavengers that had been isolated from the lycans, would find this solace and dig through the ashes for bones, sucking on the marrows that were yet to melt.
Her uncle struggled and wept, begged and vomited in fear. In his twisting he caught a glimpse of his wife impaled on the sharp end of a branch which the King had broken and specifically sharpened for her. The edge of it gleamed. Her eyes were missing.
The King stooped briefly and picked up the blunt edge of a wooden pole then continued on. When he glanced down at the man in his grip, his pale eyes had turned a blood-red, the irises swallowed whole in bottomless darkness.
He smiled then, strange and wide as the corners of his lips tore wide, the skin unthreading in a deranged way.
"Perhaps I will have fun with you first."
When the King was done the rains had begun.
A gentle stream of droplets falling from the sky and onto his skin washing away the blood and grime. He tilted his face to the sky and breathed in the petrichor with eyes shut.
All was quiet now. Including the beast.
His mouth ached but the wounds were beginning to knit themselves shut until only a faded scar remained on either side.
In the distance the heartbeats faded to a stillness and by morning the only thing that stood among the ruins was the body of her uncle impaled upon a pole.