Page 130 of The Prince of Demons

Reaper must be doing the same. Did he always do this? Engage in a frantic search, hunting for a creature more elusive than he was.

These woods were so vast, and the gumiho might be so small—

And when I realized that, I swore at my incompetence.

Hadn’t he once said she was beautiful? Was that all I had to go off of?

But if that was all he had, too, then we were on this witch hunt together.

Frustration held me.

Who did the gumiho think she was?

Murdering left and right? Being an eternal source of torture for my companion? Impeding my proposal?

The screams and body parts should have deterred me.

Tracks of flesh and fighting hung in the branches, scattered across bushes, and littered the soil when I got close.

I feared this kind of destruction once. Not anymore.

The gumiho may be deadly, but I was the princess of death.

I crept to the portal. Stepped over what she left of my classmates.

And when a scream lit up the sky, and darkness clouded over the moon, I ran into the darkness toward the gumiho.

Past trees, boulders, and any lingering apprehension, I ran until I localized the source of the sound.

It was as ghastly as I expected.

Blood-streaked hair. Tattered dress. The slurping and drinking sounds characteristic of eating.

I grasped my shadows in my hands.

“Reveal yourself, gumiho,” I called out to the thicket of woods.

“Moon princess,” a horrifically familiar voice called out. “I missed you.”

She turned.

Sweat beaded on her brow. Her skin was clammy and cold as if she was ill. She panted for air.

Blood dribbled down her delicate chin as Aubrey smiled at me.

Shock—shock so cold and gripping, I nearly fainted—hit me like a brick.

“How long,” I stuttered. “How long have you—”

“I was born a nine-tailed fox, the gumiho cursed to live endless lives and never be happy in any of them,” she tutted in her valley girl voice, wiping the blood off her chin.

“You were my friend,” I spat.

“I still am,” she said plainly.

“Aubrey—gumiho—you’re the murderer!”

She wrung her hair out like a mop, twisting out droplets of blood. “I never hurt you.”

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