I smirked back at him. Prick. I hoped that he was still empathically picking up on my smugness, was soaking in my disgust for his wretched character.

Balthazar, head tilted in wonder at my taunting eyes, studied my unrelenting lack of fear as the doors to the chapel flew open and a small company of ill-prepared humans waltzed in, armed to the teeth with their iron-tipped blades, shouting at us, their screams of hatred bouncing around the confined space of the chapel.

Ignoring the humans, Balthazar uncoiled himself from where he was still leaning against a pew, raising himself to his extraordinary height, taking a step toward me, those liquid honey eyes of his stroking the lines of my face as he threatened, "I could tear out your throat, you know, and not think twice about it. This game of ours would be over. I'd have to find someone else to fixate on, but it would be worth it, Dryad."

"Then do it. Get it over with so I don't have to stare at your ugly face any longer."

Suddenly, like a cat changing its mind mid-pounce, his attitude was swift to change, going from predatorial to intrigued, as though my petty assault on his face was yet another offense that he couldn't allow to go unchecked.

There was still an underlying current of fury simmering in his body language, but his voice had become forcefully cheerful, and he waved an enervated hand around his face for emphasis, saying, "Oh, this? This is worth an entire kingdom, darling. Long ago, humans and Magic Bloods alike slaughtered each other on the battlefield – just for a chance to behold such beauty. You clearly do not have an eye for such things. Apologize at once, peasant... and as a sign of my generosity and forgiveness, I'll let you live another day."

I snorted at his imperious tone – that of a monarch seeking justice. Those strong, straight brows of his were unrelenting as he pinned me to the spot with that look of his, as if he expected me to obey his ridiculous demand. Didn't he know me better by now?

Something began to sweep back and forth over his shoulders. I could tell that he was refraining from letting his wings show, and the effort was costing him a great deal of effort. Nonetheless, his demeanour was increasingly poignant and uplifting, to the point of zealousness.

Someone with that much trouble regulating their emotions was… tiresome to be around, to say the very least.

"Get over yourself, Warlord." I seethed at him.

"There's nothing to get over, pigpen princess. This face is priceless. Children see your face and cry, 'Mummy, poke my eyes out, I can't stand to look at that thing!' Meanwhile, the poets are wetting themselves, trying to describe how dashing I look. You can't possibly compare."

The colour of his hair was midnight blue, with accents of starlight glimmering faintly on the ends… and a small part of me hated to admit that if Balthazar hadn't been my enemy for a lifetime, I might have even admired the sight. He was known as the 'Lord of the Night' throughout the adjoining regions, the Dragon Faerie Warlord of the Darkland Mountains and ruler of his kingdom, Adalantra, a secluded province of Magic Blood communities that he protected viciously. He was perhaps one of the only beings in existence that the humans did not dare to provoke so liberally.

"Balthazar, you are a troll. A scaly troll. With wings. You have more in common with a bat. And do you know what I do to bats? I hit them with my broom. Those fucking things are noisy, just like you."

Maybe our squabbling had become too much to bear, for the befuddled looks exchanged between the guards proceeded an excessive amount of wincing. We must have looked like a disgruntled married couple... one that was on the verge of getting a divorce or driving a knife into the other's back.

A human guard chose that moment to leap at Balthazar from behind, an iron sword raised over his head. Without even looking back at the human male, the Warlord raised his right fist, tightened it, and using his Dragon magic, crushed the heart of the guard before he could strike.

"So rude of you to interrupt our conversation," Balthazar said, still staring at my face, completely unmoved by the sound of a body falling.

I watched the dead guard collapse, heard the resounding thud of his body as it hit the cold floor and I gasped, not the least bit prepared for the start of a bloodbath that would inevitably ensue given Balthazar's temper.

It was too late for me to shout at them to lower their weapons. As they approached in nervous pairs, Balthazar didn't even bother gracing them with more reproachful words; that's how little he thought of them. His attention had returned to me briefly, sweeping over me from head to toe, as though checking to see if I was still fascinated by his heartless demeanour.

The answer? No, I wasn't.

And I wasn’t enjoying his obvious indifference towards their fearful reactions. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to linger here and trade barbs with him like I normally would. If I was being completely honest with myself, I was getting a little tired of our droll routine and had been for some time.

Witnessing the casual-mindedness in which he was clearly thinking about slaughtering the humans tugged at something primitive within me.

The sight was so distasteful and I...

And I...

I swept in like an ocean breeze, putting myself between Balthazar and the surge of iron swords, unable to stop myself from being a protector. Despite my dislocated shoulder, I pulled my twin daggers out before the first sword could make a landing in the Warlord's throat. He was perfectly capable of protecting himself – we both knew it to be true – but I knocked the deadly weapon away with the ease of someone who'd done it a thousand times before, redirecting the path of the longer blade with my small daggers, and then kicked the guard back into his fellow comrades.

I wouldn’t hurt them. Not really, and not badly enough to break any kind of sworn oath to myself. I just wouldn’t allow their weapons to come any closer.

More of them closed in around us, leering and swearing. They’d regained some of their morale and were flourishing their weapons with renewed vigour, although I knew it would be short-lived once Balthazar decided to stop messing around…

I felt the broad chest of the amused male at my back begin to grumble, and felt him grow impatient with every breath, his foot-tapping a trigger to my senses, my stomach filling with stones of dread. Considering the presence of the guards, our close quarters had lost my primary interest, my quarrel with him now momentarily forgotten.

It was a thoughtless process for us, the way we had this strange, wordless agreement to protect each other for a short period of time, to move around each other like water flowing around stone and it incidentally occurred whenever we found ourselves in the company of mutual enemies. Every unrehearsed step around Balthazar was like... second nature. This bleeding heart that I'd nursed for centuries, it was pitiful in the sense that it sometimes longed for a ceasefire, whereas my pragmatic mind aspired to hate every bit of him.

I'd mulishly fought the inclination to be anything other than opposing forces because it wouldn't be logical in our situation, not with the way our contentious personalities clashed against one another. We could be nothing else, I'd decided after crossing swords with him one day.

Right now, though, he'd had enough of being ignored and pushed his way in front of me.

I instantly noticed how the guards began to shrink amongst themselves and rethink their previous capture plan – in fact, some of them seemed to argue that it was a bad idea altogether.

Balthazar sighed and mussed up his hair with quick, impatient strokes, conveying just how annoyed he must have felt at my earlier disrespect and after spinning around in a circle, a pretentious smile on his face, he wrinkled his nose, clapped his hands and seemed to come to a decision.

This man... no – this creature, this being was truly, truly something else. Something that couldn't be explained.

"Are you sure you want to die today, humans?" He asked them, clearly unhinged and loving their wide-eyed outrage.

"Don't kill them. Just put them to sleep." I snapped at him.

"Apologize and I will." He bartered.

"Go to hell."

A snide look down his nose at me, and then, while he walked towards the humans, one hand poised in a 'come hither' motion, he added wistfully, "Then your precious humans will receive no mercy from me..."

Balthazar plunged his hand into the chest of one guard, yanking out a heart mid-beat. I looked away, unable to keep up the verbal barrage with him, not when he was going to unleash a world of pain on these people.

Why had Balthazar come here? The people of Duranta weren't a threat.

This was exactly what I’d been trying to prevent. I’d thought that I could ease the tension if I made myself the target of the humans’ wrath. I was the easier prey, the one that shouldn’t have been a threat. But Balthazar just railroaded everything and ensured that any future Magic Bloods found in Duranta would be met with unfailing hostility.

He'd come here to torment me.

I couldn't stick around while he slaughtered the guards. I didn't want to witness his bloodthirsty habits in full bloom. I'd had enough of wasteful carnage to last a lifetime and this right here... It wasn't a fair fight.

The guards screamed and fought for their lives, their weapons clanked and broke in Balthazar's mighty grip; he simply smiled each time he rendered each blade useless with his magic and continued to bite the throats out of each helpless victim... He was a Dragon after all, and his kind did find blood to be appealing, no matter the species.

While he drank and slaughtered in a merry frenzy, tore out entrails and yanked off body parts, decorating the floor with buckets of gore, I proceeded to shove the meat, bread, fruit and cheese into my rucksack before leaving the chapel unnoticed. Balthazar was heavily distracted, a chance that was rare in itself; and I seized the chance to escape before it could disappear, fleeing down the hillside, using my preternatural speed to barely touch the ground, the full moon a witness to my shame as I did my best to shut out the pleas of the guards.

I fled down a network of cobblestone paths, meandering through a maze of mud and granite walls that had been built into the layout of Duranta many years ago. Without my cap, my hair was too noticeable, and the villagers would sooner drive their dinner forks into my eyes than give me shelter – and since I couldn't just walk back through the gates, where a bunch of Duranta guards now stood, harassing commoners on their way home, I decided to climb over the outer wall.

The townhall bell went off just as I was heading behind a bakery, causing widespread alarm in the streets. People knew what to expect from this sound, had come see it as a harbinger of undignified trespassers. Magic Bloods.

I scarcely had a second to throw myself behind a hedge of greenery, the shrubs barely higher than my waist. I crawled on my hands and knees until I'd found a secluded corner away from worrying voices and stampeding witnesses, and then I stood up, jabbed my claws into the nearest wall and began climbing. My left arm screamed every time I reached upward, stabbed my claws into the mud for a stable hold, before pulling myself into a higher position and then repeating the painful process.

When I got to the top, I laid on my belly and thoughtlessly flipped myself over. After centuries of performing diligent, death-defying moves from heights that should have broken my bones, I trusted myself to fall forward, landing in a crouch that would have been devastating to most humans given the steep drop.

It was several feet down to the bottom of the hill, but I'd survived the landing with ease, my hands braced on the gravel and my knees bent underneath me. Dozens of interconnecting lines – similar to that of a spider's web - were spread out around my body, branching off from where I'd hit the ground on impact. I didn't waste a second after catching my breath, raising myself up in a fluid motion and taking off.

Spikewood Forest was straight ahead, a neighbouring realm to Duranta, except it wasn't considered amiable or 'human-friendly' for many reasons. Deadly creatures lurked in there and it wasn't a place for the faint of heart.

It would suit me just fine for tonight, then.

The Spikewood Forest was preening as I burst through the thorned, tightly woven tree line, my hair returning to its natural state as I, at long last, pulled up in a pretty plateau of budding orchids and long, swaying grass. Trees were gathered on either side of me, welcoming sentinels that lurched overhead, bowing, groaning, their roots crawling under the earth while I patted them in passing, the dark undergrowth rustling with potential dinner that I pointedly ignored in favour of my rucksack.

I let my eyes adjust to the dark and carried on, hefting my bag higher upon my shoulder. I thought of the guards as I rushed at a punishing pace, my worn-out shoes barely keeping out the rocks and damp soil as I trudged through the emerald underbrush, my mind replaying the terror on their faces as they'd begged and pleaded for mercy from a man who killed without breaking a sweat.

I'd caused their deaths by going to Duranta. If only I'd stayed away. It seemed so shockingly trivial to admit this now, but I swear, I’d been drawn to this place somehow. Travelling so far away to get game was usually the kind of thing Galadryn did.

Wildling wolves bayed at the moon nearby, the bitter cold biting at my lips and face as I determined which way to go in the forest. Spindly trees, barely covered in autumn's red coating, fluttered and dropped their boughs for me to walk under and admire, each imperfect arm of wood a testament to the wonders of nature.

The beautiful green land spoke to me – each rock, plant and bush and insignificant speck of the wilderness dripping with untold stories that begged to be voiced, that begged to be heard. As the only one who could listen, I was forced to. I had no relief, no choice in the matter. There were a millennium of secrets rumbling through the ground, swarming around my head like a hive of bees let loose; and today was the day they seemed to scream over each other.

I clamped both sides of my head with white-knuckled hands, leaning against a boulder. Listening to the secrets of the trees, being able to hear the thoughts of plants, and understanding every crevasse of a river, or knowing what animal had last touched a pebble and stick in the forest – that was my terrifying power as a Dryad. It was exhausting and beautiful and no other Dryad had a similar power like mine... Still though, it wasn't something I could reveal to others out of fear of rejection from my own community.