Her father the forest lord was dual-natured. He had the form of the sidhe, and another of a forest fae. Ariana’s beast was born of that heritage, but had her father not brutalized her with pain and the terror of the hounds he commanded, it would never have materialized. The beast, a creature of the forest, unlike Ariana, could not disobey a direct order from the forest lord—what had started out as a punishment had borne useful fruit for Ariana’s father.
