Chapter 24: A hound.

Chapter 24

“Be silent, abomination,” Lucian’s voice was a whisper, barely audible over the sound of her own thudding heart.

He was leaning heavily against her, his weight almost crushing her into the dirt. He was trembling—not with fear, but with the sheer effort of staying conscious.

His other hand was gripped tight around a jagged piece of wood he’d picked up, his knuckles white.

Through the gap in his fingers, Isabella could see why he had hidden. Through the mist, not twenty yards away, a low thudding was approaching.

It wasn’t the sound of boots. It was the sound of something much heavier, something that made the very earth beneath Isabella’s feet shudder.

The mist curled and parted, Isabella’s eyes grew wide, her heart hammering so hard against her ribs she was sure the thing could hear it.

Towering over the ferns was a creature that defied every law of nature she knew. It was a mass of matted gray fur and protruding bone that stood easily twelve feet tall.

It was bigger than Lucian times two—which made it roughly five of her stacked on top of each other.

The creature didn’t have a face so much as a collection of nightmares; a skull was fused with flesh that looked like rotting leather.

But it was the eyes that stopped her breath. They were two blazing suns of red, glowing straight through the fog.

Isabella stiffened, pressing herself back into Lucian’s chest until she could feel the cold dampness of his shredded silk shirt. She was practically vibrating with terror.

What the… her mind stalled, unable to even finish the curse.

“The Sentinel,” Lucian hissed in her ear, his voice so low it was almost a ghost of a sound. “A witch’s hound. Half demon, half wolf. Controlled by a witch to guard their threshold.”

The creature tilted its massive, skeletal head, its nostrils flaring as it tasted the air. A low, vibrating growl started deep in its chest, a sound that felt like grinding stones.

It was looking right at them—or rather, it was looking at the space they occupied. Isabella realized with a jolt of horror that the creature was exactly between them and the safety of the cave.

“Don’t move,” Lucian groaned, his grip on her mouth so tight. “It sees movement and blood. And we are currently made of both.”

He was right. Lucian was practically a walking wound, the violet light from his neck pulsing in the dim light like a beacon.

The creature took a heavy step forward, its massive clawed legs digging into the frost. The smell hit her then—the scent of a thousand years of decay mixed with the sharp tang of magic.

Isabella’s eyes darted from the red-eyed titan to the dark mouth of the cave. The creature let out a huff of breath that blew the mist aside, revealing rows of teeth as long as Isabella’s forearm.

It knew they were there. It was just waiting for the first heartbeat of weakness. Isabella felt Lucian’s weight lean even more heavily against her.

He was slipping. If he collapsed now, the noise would be their death warrant. Think, Isabella, think, she screamed at herself. You’re the one with the working brain, even if it’s currently melting.

She looked at the creature, then at the jagged piece of wood in Lucian’s shaking hand. Then, she looked at her own hoodie pocket. Her fingers brushed against the small, heavy metal lighter she’d swiped from the pack’s kitchen today as she was arranging—a habit of a girl who always wanted a way to burn things down if she needed to.

“Hey” she mouthed against his palm, barely moving her lips. “I’m going to distract it. When I move, you get to that cave.”

The hand on her mouth tightened in a silent, furious No, but Isabella was already calculating the distance.

If she could just get the thing to look away for five seconds, the “King” might be able to crawl into the shadows and rest before the sun but what about her?

Isabella mentally prepared herself for the worst. Her heart frantic against her ribs, but her mind was strangely clear.

She knew the statistics: she was small, she was wolfless, and that thing could swallow her in two bites.

But Lucian was a dead man if he stayed in the open. “On three, you move your royal ass” she mouthed against his palm, ignoring the way his fingers dug into her skin in a silent, desperate command to stay put.

One.

She felt the heat of the Sentinel’s breath as it took another step, the earth groaning. Her fingers curled around the cold metal of the lighter.

Two.

Lucian’s head dipped, his forehead resting against her shoulder as his strength fades. He was a falling star, and she was the only thing catching the sparks.

Three.

Isabella wrenched herself out of Lucian’s grip, ducking low as she was about to sprint ten feet to the right, away from the cave entrance.

But before she could she saw as Lucain moved with a sudden, violent burst of speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a unholy man whose veins were filled with holy water.

Lucain moved straight to the creature. Before Isabella could even ignite her lighter, he had bridged the gap.

He drove the jagged piece of wood deep into the creature’s massive, fur-matted foot. The Sentinel let out a glass-shattering scream, its front leg buckling as it crashed to one knee.

Isabella skidded to a halt, her jaw dropping. “What are you—” Lucian didn’t wait for her to finish.

Using the creature’s own protruding bones as handholds, he scaled its side like a mountain lion.

He stabbed upward with every lunge, his face a mask of agonizing effort. He knew he couldn’t kill it; the thing was a puppet, a dead husk animated by an ancient powerful coven-witch.

The only way to stop it was to sever the connection between the puppet and the strings.

As he reached the beast’s massive shoulder, the Sentinel thrashed, its skeletal head swinging wildly.

Lucian looked down at Isabella for a fraction of a second. She was frozen on the forest floor, her eyes wide with shock that he had ignored her stupid plan—and a deeper, more paralyzing fear for what was coming next.

Can he trust her? The thought flickered through his fading consciousness. If he fall, will she leave him for the wolves?

He didn’t have time to find an answer. The hound roared, tossing its head back to snap at him, and Lucian seized the opening.

He plunged the stake into the creature’s left eye socket, the beast’s head jerking upward, Lucian grabbed its matted fur to pull himself level with its remaining eye.

The red glow was blinding, reflecting the violet poison weeping from Lucian’s own neck. He channeled every remaining drop of his royal blood, every ounce of his crumbling will, into a single, crushing mental strike.

“Sleep,” he whispered. The word wasn’t a suggestion; it was a king’s decree. The effect was instant.

The Sentinel’s blazing red eyes rolled back into its skull. The massive creature’s muscles turned to water.

Simultaneously, the light in Lucian’s own eyes vanished. He had spent his final reserve. Isabella watched in terrifying slow-motion as the twelve-foot titan collapsed, the impact shaking the trees and sending a cloud of dead leaves into the air.

Lucian fell with it, his limp body sliding off the creature’s shoulder like a broken doll and hitting the dirt with a sickening thud.

The forest went deathly silent.

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