Page 67 of Dream Reaper

The hound lunged again, and Jerrid swung his other fist. But this time, the hound predicted his movement and ducked out of his reach at the last second. He slid past Jerrid, angling toward the helpless girls.

Brynja shouted at the hound.

Well, not completely helpless as long as the cranky one was on her feet.

Jerrid launched toward them as Brynja kicked out with one foot. She caught the hound in the side of the neck and deflected its trajectory. It snarled and shook its head as it came at them again.

But Jerrid tackled it from behind and drove it to the ground. A squeal of pain greeted his efforts, and he punched remorselessly into the hound’s neck, aiming for the tender part of its throat. If he could hit it hard enough, it might stop breathing—or at least struggle to draw breath—and give the girls time to get back to the camp.

The hound tried to clamp its jaws around Jerrid’s forearm, but Dragon sent a wave of scales rippling up his arm, over his elbow, like greaves made of dragon scale. The hound’s teeth slid harmlessly over his armored arm. It howled furiously, something desperate and driven lacing the sound.

It knew. It knew it was no match for him.

For them.

They let the hound scramble to its feet, baring their elongating teeth as the predator backed away, its eyes wide.

“That’s right,” Jerrid snarled. “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew tonight. Literally.”

He held up his armored arm as proof. The hound followed his movements, backing away with interspersed growls and whines. Its head began to lower in submission.

Jerrid stalked toward the hound and drove it deeper into the woods, away from the girls. Away from Ava.

Eat it, Dragon encouraged. Hungry.

But Jerrid shook his head. He needed to stay in control of their body. He couldn’t risk Dragon running on a rampage and leaving him to the mercy of the shadow in their thoughts. It lingered beyond Dragon, smug and seething and…

Happy. The thing inside them was happy. Was it enjoying this battle? Or did it think it was winning its battle to take control of them?

Jerrid shook his head, trying to ignore the pounding headache, the vile whispers in the back of his mind. He couldn’t make out words, but he could sense the implications. The vile intentions. The wicked ideas.

The hound yelped and spun around, dashing into the woods with frightened yips and howls. Jerrid halted his approach and breathed raggedly as the hound disappeared into the darkness. Then he spun and raced after the girls, back to Ava. He wouldn’t leave them, leave her, unprotected in these woods. What if there were more hounds? More monsters?

This place teemed with danger.

They could sense it all around them, a steady whisper of imminent peril.

The Shadewood was a terrible, terrible place to be.

It was a miracle that the human girls had survived in this place as long as they had. How had they managed to survive on their own? It was a mystery he’d like to unravel later. But now…

Now he needed to find Ava.

His meat pasty.

She and Brynja crashed through the undergrowth ahead of him, bickering back and forth as they struggled to carry the dead weight of the girl between them. Both girls looked so thin—and while they had strength in their limbs—a full-grown girl was no easy thing to carry.

He caught up with them near the outskirts of camp.

Ava glanced over her shoulder, her gaze flicking over him and lingering on his armored hand. He ignored her, although every fiber of his being seemed to come alive as he drew closer to her. What did it mean? No one had ever made him feel the way she did right now.

Perhaps it was the blood oath between them. The camaraderie of battling together against common foes.

Surely that was all.

You’re an idiot, Dragon laughed, but his chuckle broke off mid-roll, as if cut off by an invisible hand.

The pain in his temple grew harder to ignore.