Fool!

Nobody moved.

The silence was suffocating.

Bran's grip on his axe tightened. "Did — Did that thing just talk?"

Zayn's pulse hammered in his ears. His instincts screamed at him — this wasn't a monster you charged blindly.

Tobias took a slow step forward.

"We killed them because they were attacking people," he said calmly, his voice betraying none of the tension in his shoulders.

The creature's head twitched, the tentacles shifting unnaturally.

"They were hungry."

Zayn swallowed hard. "So were the boars that attacked me last week. Didn't stop me from putting them down."

The creature tilted its head further, the movement too sharp, too unnatural.

Then, without warning, it lunged.

Zayn barely had time to react.

One second, the creature was standing still. The next, it blurred forward, its tentacles extending like spears.

Kara enforced her stone wall in time.