A ripple of agreement surges through the crowd. You catch the glint of silver amulets around their throats—crude charms of rowan berries and iron nails. Your designs.

"I don't want any trouble," you tell them. You already intend to leave this place forever; all you need to do is convince them to let you go in peace. "I swear it. I condemn the demons that plague the village just as you do."

The blacksmith's shout cracks like a whip. "Liar!" He thrusts his pitchfork toward your cottage and the crow feathers littering the threshold. "Found your nest o' nightmares. Bones under the floorboards. Charms written in your hand guidin' those beasts!"

A teenage boy hurls a rock. It grazes your temple with a thump that rings in your skull. "She fed my sister to the black dog! Saw its yellow eyes in her window the night she vanished!"

Then a torch arcs through the dusk. It crashes against your doorframe, tallow and embers cascading onto dry thatch. The farmer's wife screams, "Burn the hellspawn out!"

Other voices roar in agreement. The mob surges forward as one. Their amulets glow faintly as they near your wards, rowan countering rowan.

You slam the door shut, scattering glowing red hay, and bolt for the back door instead. You flee toward the forest. Warm blood slides down your face and trickles into your collar. You crash through the tree line. Brambles tear your cloak. Torchlight dances between birches behind you. They’re gaining.

"Kill her before she calls the beasts!" one voice shrieks.

Another voice, a child’s, cries, “There! By the elder tree!”

Your boot catches on its massive roots. You hit the forest floor hard. Pine needles stick to your bleeding palms as you scramble up—and freeze.

Yellow eyes blink open in the shadows ahead. A wolf.

The blacksmith’s heavy gait clatters to a halt. “Christ preserve us.”

The hound steps into the fading daylight, scars rippling across its muscular flank. Ghost. He bares teeth longer than your fingers.

You back away only for another shadow to fall from the trees above and land next to you soundlessly. The shape is feline—Gaz—but he's no longer the size of a housecat. He's as massive as a tiger. A growl thunders through him. He levels his gaze past you. At the villagers. They don't stand a chance.

You whirl back on the villagers with wild eyes. "Get out of here!" you cry at the mob.

The blacksmith shoves a trembling boy behind him. "Back! Back to the—"

Ghost lunges. Not at the villagers. At you.

His jaws snap inches from your thigh, herding you backward into Gaz's flank. Gaz pins you with one paw on your chest. He keeps his claws sheathed, but the pressure is enough to bruise. His rumbling purr vibrates through your ribs as he licks blood from your temple wound.

"Demons!" A villager hurls a torch. It bounces off Ghost's shoulder. Embers catch in his fur. He doesn't flinch.

Soap's cawing laughter rings from the treetops. He drops down as a raven, shifting mid-fall into human form. He lands in a crouch. "Och, look at these brave lads! Come to play with the big bad devils."

The blacksmith thrusts the pitchfork at him. "Back!"

 Soap catches the shaft and yanks the smith forward. "Careful now. You'll poke someone's—" He drives the smith’s own weapon through his boot, impaling foot to soil. "—eyes out."

Screams erupt. The mob fractures. Some flee. Others stand frozen.

"No, don't hurt them!" you gasp out. You try to push out from under Gaz's paw, but it does you no good. "Leave them alone!"

Gaz's purr deepens into a predatory rumble as he drags his rough tongue up the side of your neck to taste your sweat. His hot breath stirs your hair when he growls, "Too late for mercy, love. Smell the fear on 'em? Ripe as summer fruit."

Soap wrenches the pitchfork free from the smith’s screaming form, flicking gore off the tines. "Aye, let's make it a proper feast! Been ages since we had fresh meat that fought back."

"Enough."

Price's voice cracks through the woods like thunder. He stands under the pines’ shadow as if waiting for the last motes of sunset to vanish before he ventures out.

"You lot should've heeded the warnings. Salt your thresholds. Avoid the woods after dark." His gazes pauses over a young child frozen in fear, no parents in sight. He tuts. "But you meddled. Stole from my witch. Harmed her."

The blacksmith finds his voice. "W-We didn't—"

Price steps forward. His boot crushes the smith’s bloodied foot into the ground. Bones pop. "See, that's the trouble with mortals." He crouches to stare into the terrified villager’s face. "You don’t admit you’re wrong."

"Price, please, just take me instead," you plead. "I'm what you came for, aren't I?"

Price's gaze snaps to you. He rises slowly. The flicker of your burning cottage on the horizon behind you reflects in his eyes and makes them glow. His expression tells you how little choice you have in that particular matter. Where you go, they go.

Then he looks past you. “Gaz."

Gaz’s hand slides up your inner thigh. "Already on it."

"No. Save the foreplay. We've got a village to raze." He grabs the bloodied collar of your cloak and hauls you to your feet. "You'll watch. Then we'll discuss your ungrateful actions." His gaze flicks away. "Ghost. Gaz. Clean up."

You can only watch Ghost and Gaz bound into the screaming mob. Your body feels lighter than the air. Then you remember the weight of the henbane in your cloak pocket. The next moment, it's in your hand. You crush the glass, ignoring the stab of pain. You send it sailing through the air, and it lands right on its mark—the roaring torch discarded in the leaf litter.

The henbane catches and wafts up into the air as smoke. It curls upward in thick, narcotic tendrils. The smell is heady, its effect potent and immediate. Soap snarls as the first plume hits his nostrils. He staggers back and clutches his head. Gaz convulses mid-pounce, collapsing into ferns as his tiger-like form shrinks to housecat size. Ghost whines low in his throat and shakes his massive skull like a dog with water in its ears.

Chaos erupts. Villagers seize the chance to bolt. The blacksmith drags his wailing son toward the tree line.

Price grips your arm hard enough to leave talon marks. His other hand clamps over his nose, veins bulging in his temple. You cough into your sleeve. Your vision swims. Henbane's poison works both ways, after all. It’s powerful for those who know how to use it for their own ends. Black henbane is what you used to summon your familiars and what bound them to you. But its hallucinatory effects are more pronounced on those who have surrendered the greater part of their souls to magic—or for those whose bodies are already flush with it. Price, Gaz, Ghost, and Soap don’t stand a chance. Even your soul is so considerably marked by witchcraft that you quickly fold to its effects. But you, at least, can twist it and warp it to weave a spell that might protect you.

Cloaked in smoke, you transform.

The shift hits you like a lightning strike—bones crackling, muscles twisting, vision narrowing into a something wide and preylike. The forest tilts, and suddenly Price's grip is gone. He holds your sleeve, but not you. You slip away, tumble through your limp clothes, and hit the forest floor on four paws. The world sharpens into smells of damp moss and wolf musk. Your rabbit heart hammers against ribs as thin as wishbones.

You dart left--straight into Gaz's waiting claws. The tomcat pins you with a paw, purring as his claws prick your scruff. Then he sneezes, henbane pollen glinting in his whiskers. You writhe free.

You race deeper into the forest with the wind at your back. The woods close in, but thorns no longer claw your clothes; roots no longer trip you. You are no longer an intruder. The forest itself turns toward you, opens to you. Thorns tug pleasurably against your fur as you bound past. Old magic stirs beneath your rabbit feet.

"Clever girl. Find her." Price's voice slithers through the trees far behind you, syllables slurred but venom intact. "And keep her whole enough to scream."

...

← part 2 / [part 3] / part 4 ➡

Coupled with a knowing smile, his gaze is one of a predator, not prey. You’re seconds away from shifting into something with more teeth and appendages when he backs off to slip his clothes on, relaxed and unbothered. He seems to know what he’s dealing with, but you don’t, so once again, Johnny walks away alive and well.

At this point, you know you need to cut him loose. He’s clearly more dangerous than you realized, and as filling as his energy was, you won’t be able to consume much of it anyway. You have to release anything too toxic to eat, freeing your web for viable meals.

You abandon that nest. It belonged to a former victim anyway, so it’s not an issue to move on to a new one. The search for your next source of food begins in the usual spots—clubs, bars, pubs—except every place you stalk, Johnny shows up.

The few insects you’ve released before never flew back into your web, so his behavior perplexes you. He flirts with you still, making the most half-witted spider jokes and trying to convince you to give him another chance. You’re not receptive to any of it, though, not when the memory of decay on your tongue is so fresh in your mind. You subsist on life, not death, and Johnny’s energy is just the saccharine coating around a foul glob of poison.

The real problem, though, is that Johnny is intent on running interference between you and any potential meals. It’s leaving you both starving and irritable.

He’s tracked you down again, encroaching on your hunting grounds and chasing off the snack you were so close to luring away from the club and back to your nest. Thanks to Johnny, it’s been ages since you’ve last eaten, so you’re too weakened by hunger to do much more than snarl and hiss as he drags you to the empty bathroom in the back and locks the door. Your anger subsides when while on his knees, Johnny reminds you of why it took so long to get your first taste of him.

When he’s later got your legs wrapped around his waist (and you’re debating forming another pair to latch onto him tighter), Johnny stuffs two fingers in your mouth and coos, “I know yer hungry. You can handle a nibble, I promise.”

As condescending as his tone is, you’re so ravenous that you bite down anyway and suck. A rush of delightful life energy floods your mouth, followed by the unpleasant flavor of death. It churns your stomach, but your guts are currently being rearranged anyway, so you endure.

All of your needs are sated by the end of it. You were able to draw out much more energy than your first attempt at draining him, and Johnny made up for all the lost time between now and when he last made a meal out of you. You feel as though you might melt down into the shapeless puddle of darkness that you were born as.

“See? Not so bad once you get used to it,” Johnny smugly remarks, grinning like he’s not missing the energy you consumed. “Just gotta keep buildin’ up a tolerance.”

You really should have bitten his fingers clean off, no matter how talented they are. Being caught in someone else’s web stings your pride, but Johnny kisses your fingertips right under your claws, and you unconsciously let out a pleased chitter. A permanent food source would be less work when you think about it, allowing you to conserve your energy for other endeavors.

Steve Harrington - Domesticated Dog ( Anatolian Shepherd )

Billy Hargrove - Mountain Lion

Eddie Munson - Maned Wolf

Chrissy Cunningham - Snow Leopard

Dustin Henderson - Domesticated Dog (breed undecided)

Max Mayfield - Bobcat

Jonathan Byers - American Barn Owl

Tommy Hagan - Timber Wolf

Jim Hopper - Grizzly Bear

Important Links:

♫ SPOTIFY PLAYLIST ♫ (it’s still being edited and refined, so if songs disappear that’s why haha)

Tags: #Amber Eyes AU, #Shifter Leo

AO3 Series: Amber Eyes

I Never Let Them See the Worst Of Me

Original Doodles (And bonus fanart ;w;)