Drake straightened, his hastily tied pants hanging low on his hips, his avatar of a burly redheaded lumberjack not fooling me. Drake had always been sick in his proclivities of hurting those more vulnerable than himself, but when the tables were turned on him...his fear stunk in an instant.
His armpits released an aroma reeking of sour stress. His muslin shirt soaked with sweat, and moisture glistened in the dip of his throat. “Who the fuck are you?”
I laughed, awed at the hastily created creature I’d typed. The creature I now lived within. When I’d altered the text and coding, I’d thrown everything into the mix. Every predator, pain, and poison I could think of. I’d followed no boundaries or common-sense.
I’d embraced the nonsensical and whatever beast I’d conjured now chuckled with dread and death, its chest purring with feral blood thirst. “Don’t pretend you don’t know me, brother. You and I are well acquainted.”
Drake blanched, the redheaded complexion flushing grey. “Sullivan...?”
“Unless we have another relation I am unaware of.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Assumptions will get you killed.” I cocked my head, complete with gilded horns. “And I’ll happily deliver.”
He gulped. “What the fuck did you do?” His pompous arrogance returned, dragged around him like tatty armour. “Sick of being the fool so fashioned a monster?” He sneered. “It’s just fake. Just like this whole piece of shit fantasy is fake. Do you honestly think you can scare me? That I’d cower before you?” He stepped toward me, earning the terrifying snarls of timber wolves. He stopped but continued sneering, “You’re just the same old cocksucker as before. A laughing stock. A nerd who somehow convinced himself he’s powerful. Newsflash, you cunt, you’re not powerful. You and your computer games can take a flying leap, Sullivan, because unlike you, I don’t wet my fucking pants over something that can’t hurt me—”
A wolf lunged, snapping at his wrist.
Drake backpedalled.
Jaws bit down, missing by a hair.
He thought that wasn’t real?
That that bite couldn’t hurt him?
This is gonna be fun.
Yes, this was virtual. And yes, in the outside world, his body would remain unscathed. But in here...thanks to my careful immersion and the tweaks I’d made along the way, myth had the unnerving ability to become real.
Brain damage had been an unsightly side effect because my mirages were...entrancing. Hypnotic. A mesmeric tool to trick the mind into accepting fiction over fact.
While being used as a stage for sex, that realness wasn’t a problem.
But use it in warfare? Turn its salacious nature into treacherous?
Well, there was a reason the Pentagon had contacted me a few months after a high-placed politician came to get his kicks. Why I received offers with unlimited zeros for their exclusive use of my Euphoria.
Use my VR for anything other than its intended purpose and it became the most dangerous thing on the planet. Not Tritec, not elixir, not all the other scrapped and trialled drugs combined.
This...this was true power because Euphoria could take war into the mind. Battles could be won without troops being stationed overseas. International squadrons could be patched into a battleground where no loss of physical life occurred, only the liquefying of a brain.
Drake would not die...not physically.
But holy fuck how his mind would snap.
It would crack like bone and dribble out like marrow.
I could trap him here forever, keep him awake so he couldn’t escape, flay him from sanity, one body part at a time.
A slow, sadistic smile spread my lips. “Allow me to give you your first lesson, brother of mine.”
“I don’t need a lesson from a bastard like you. Give me back my goddess, fuck the hell off, and—”
“Ah, Drake. How sweet this is going to be.” I sucked in a sulphur laced breath. Scales hissed down my spine and thighs. Inky black, soaking up the fire flames, natural shielding for sensitive flesh within.
“Bite me, asshole.” He bared his teeth. His stupid, useless human teeth.
I grinned, my monster teeth stabbing into my lower lip, making me bleed and staining my mouth red. “Oh, it will be my fucking pleasure.”
He backed up as two wolves stalked him, their snouts low to the ground, their coarse fur quivering around their scruffs. Drool dripped from black gums, yellowed fangs glistening for his jugular.
“Not yet,” I murmured, mostly to myself, partly asking a wild animal I’d encrypted to back the hell off because Drake’s proverbial death was mine.
I didn’t expect the wolves to freeze. For their moon-yellow eyes to lock onto me. For their heads to duck in obedience.
Huh...that’s interesting.
I flexed my shoulders, feeling the colossal weight of bone scaffolding and fibrous membrane that formed the wings behind me.
When I’d hastily written this deception, I hadn’t typed anything about animals listening to a master. They were there just as background threats. An atmosphere to turn forest into boneyard.
But...
Wasn’t that poetic? Fatalistic even.
Drake had not only tried to kill me, he’d killed so many other beasts.
It was only fair his death would be shared.
“Tear off his left hand,” I whispered, the grumbling of my creature sounding part earthquake.
There was no pause.
No signal the wolf couldn’t understand.
In a single heartbeat, the wolf on Drake’s left side launched, snatched, and bit.
Drake howled.
Fuck, he howled.
The crunch of bone, the tear of tendons, and the slap of something heavy landing in the fire.
Instantly, the sizzle of skin and pop of blood scented the sky with charred meat.
Drake fell to his knees, cradling the stump where his hand used to be. Blood poured down his forearm, pooling in the dirt.
The wolves sat back on their haunches and joined in his howl. An orchestra of worship and agony.
Drake’s avatar met my gaze. The redheaded man crumpled in on himself, cuddling his arm into his impressive belly. “What the fuck! Tell them to back the fuck off!” His face twisted into livid hate, and the same haughty arrogance he used whenever he’d beaten me and killed my strays appeared.
He tried to see past my disguise
