As if it were magnified a thousand times, I heard the hungry chomping and slopping as it enjoyed my flesh. And then, as quickly as they’d come upon me, with a roar, they were gone.
Dazedly, my blood stil swimming with adrenaline and fear, I rol ed over in time to see Bo tearing the boars into pieces, angrily dispatching limbs and heads this way and that. As the deafening throb of my pulse slowed in my ears, I watched with pride and appreciation as he quickly dominated the creatures.
Making my way to my feet, the four of us stood looking al around for more pigs, but there were none to be found. Bo turned to me, taking my face in his hands.
“Are you alright?”
His eyes searched mine, concern clouding the beauty of his face.
“I-I’m fine.”
Bo released my face and brushed the hair back away from my neck, gingerly checking my wound. I knew it was only one of many, but I was too frazzled to think about the rest, too frazzled to real y think at al . I was stil in survival mode.
His gaze final y returned to my face and he smiled, a smal smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“You’re already starting to heal,” he said in relief. “I should thank Heather for making it harder for anything to take you from me.”
“Touching moment, lad, but I think we real y need to move,” Lucius said, coming to a stop in front of us.
“We’re close to the second mine, aren’t we?” he asked Lucius.
“We are indeed,” Lucius said, turning to lead us on.
“How did you know?” I asked Bo as we fol owed Lucius as he darted through the trees.
“I’d bet my life that those were some sort of sentries that Sebastian put in the woods to keep us away.”
“He knew we’d come,” I breathed, a sinking feeling dragging at the pit of my stomach.
“So it would seem.”
I saw no reason to voice what I knew we were both thinking. Somehow Sebastian knew that we’d find Devon, which meant that he knew that we had a way of tracking him.
Could he know about Cade? How much did he know about what my skin would tel Bo?
I had to put my ruminations aside as Lucius slowed. I became instantly hyper alert, as did Bo and Annika.
Careful y, thoroughly, we scanned the forest around us, watching and listening.
When it seemed that there was no herd of wild, possessed boars launching an attack, Lucius moved forward to skirt yet another smal hil . On its east-facing side, a huge opening was carved out, but the mouth was boarded up and littered with warning signs. It looked as if it had remained undisturbed for a couple of decades at least.
Disappointment and frustration burned in my gut.
“Obviously he’s not in this one. No one’s been in there in years,” I ground out through my tightly gritted teeth.
Bo ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that said he felt as irritated as I.
His sigh was a sharp hiss in the eerily quiet woods.
“Wel , maybe I should check anyway. Maybe Sebastian found a way to get in there without disturbing the entrance.”
I wanted to tel him that I seriously doubted that, but I didn’t. No extra negativity was needed at this point.
As Bo approached the mouth of the mine a low rumble sounded. It trembled in the ground beneath my feet and made its way up my legs, tickling the nerves of my calves.
Bo stopped mid-step, but the rumbling continued. We al watched and listened, and when it appeared that there was no imminent danger, Bo moved to resume his approach.
There was one spot of exposed earth right in front of the mine’s entrance. It was a fairly large patch of dirt, bare of leaves as if the area had been recently cleared of debris.
And very purposeful y, I might add.
The instant Bo’s foot touched the dirt, two hulking wolf-like animals appeared on the crest of the hil above his head. At least four times as big as the boars, these animals were clearly just as unnatural. Their heads, easily the size of a horse’s, were dominated by two eyes that glowed orange with a flame that licked at the air around them. Smoke arose from them in thin, curling tendrils and then disappeared above their enormous ears.
Between their shoulders was an exaggerated hump on which raised hackles stood at attention. Their especial y wide mouths were partial y open, baring dozens of razor sharp teeth, much more numerous and deadly than on any dog I’d ever seen.
As I fol owed their hairy, black bodies to the ground, I saw that their legs didn’t end in the paws typical of canines.
Instead, these hybrid creatures stood on cloven feet with two large, grasping talons that held them securely to the earth of the hil .
Other than paralyzing fear, the only thought in my mind was the question of what these strange animals were. As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered asking anyway. Lucius unwittingly answered me with two words. They were uttered so quietly his breath barely disturbed the air.
“Hel hounds,” he whispered.
I saw Bo slowly move his foot to take another step forward. The wolf on the left dipped his head to turn his burning stare on Bo. He growled more loudly and the ground beneath us grumbled in agitation. The hound’s long tongue licked hungrily at his wet lips and thick globs of sticky drool dropped from its trembling jowls to splatter on the forest floor. The saliva hissed when it landed, as if searing the earth with acid.
Bo took one more step forward and the wolf’s flaming eyes blazed hotter, tiny sparks flying from their red-orange centers. As it stared at Bo, the putrid smel of burning flesh began to saturate the air and Bo began to stagger backward.
A sizzling sound crackled and spit into the tense moment and Bo fel to his knees with a strangled cry. He raised one hand as if to shield himself from the glare of the dog and it was then that I realized from where both the smel and the sound had arisen.
Bo’s exposed hand and arm were blistered and blackened, as though they had been burned to a crisp. My breath hitched painful y in my chest when I saw his face turn to the side and it looked no better than his hand.
“Bo!” I cried lunging forward.
I had no idea what my plan was; I just knew that I had to get to him, had to help him. I knew that I had to save him, like he’d saved me so many times.
I made it several steps before I heard his strained voice.
“Ridley, stay back,” he cautioned, but I didn’t listen.
I fel at his side just as he toppled over, his head fal ing right into my hands. His face was charred and completely unrecognizable. My heart squeezed inside my chest just before I felt a searing heat scorching the skin of my neck and shoulders. In my mind’s eye, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the hound’s fiery gaze was now upon me where I knelt with Bo’s head in my lap.