The Second Beast

*Isaac*

Blood drips down from my temple where a gash runs from my forehead to my chin, right over the bridge of my nose. It’s not healing with the usual speed my powers award me. I’m not like my mother. I can’t heal others. But my body rapidly heals itself…. At least, it should have by now.

The young warrior, Emmet, one of the six survivors I found after the battle in the plains, crouches beside me while we watch an enemy encampment from a large, jagged rock on the base of the mountains.

Both of us are drenched in blood–most of it belonging to others–and sweat, filth, and dirt from the forest. It’s impossible to keep track of time when the whole forest is under a spell of pure darkness, but I’d guess we’d been out here for days now, watching, waiting to strike.

Emmet, a boy of fifteen, had snuck out of his home and joined the cause illegally. Too young to shift, some would have thought he’d been helpless during the battle.

But when I found him, he’d been wielding his great-grandfa