Page 57 of Huntress

“Captain!” Marley shouted, looking between the pair of injured team members. Protocol said the healer should save Elsie before anyone else. According to the hunters, Morgan was important, but since the captain outranked him, her life had priority. Elsie’s head rolled to the side, and she served the healer with a withering glare.

“Get him out of here!”

“You’ve lost too much blood, Boss,” Marley said. She couldn’t see herself, but in her opinion, Morgan was in far greater need. He was barely hanging on to consciousness.

“I’ll be fine. Save Morgan,” she ordered. Marley tried to continue arguing, but Elsie wouldn’t allow it. “I heal faster than he does! Go, save him, Mar!”

Marley nodded once, then scowled at the person behind Elsie. “There’s no place on this earth you can hide from us if she dies,” she snarled, then yanked Morgan to his feet. Grady slung the sniper over his shoulder, and they ran in the opposite direction.

Elsie tilted her head back and looked up at the other person in confusion as the rats had paused to assess the situation. Standing above her, his eyes ablaze with power, was Mutt. He’d crouched slightly in his half-form, ready to move in any direction.

The ears of a hound nestled in his curls; such a deep gray they were almost as black as his hair. The already formidable canines in that smart mouth of his had lengthened, while long, wicked claws sprouted from thickened fingers and his knees had bent around in the same way as the rats. The springy and deadly fast legs of the kind of hound who hunted wolf demons for fun.

Mutt growled, his lips curling back.

“You were safe. Why did you come back?” she asked. He should have been miles away and gaining ground in a bid to get as far away from the hunters as possible.

“It’s a hunter,” one of the rats said, confusion evident on her face. “Why are you protecting it? They kill our kind for sport.”

“This one’s life is mine,” Mutt snarled, and Elsie groaned. Of course. Hadn’t he said it before? He wouldn’t allow anyone else to take her life, because in his opinion, that was his job.

“Now you tell me how you think that’s fair,” the horny one said, half angry and half amused. “We got her first. She’s almost dead already. We did all the work, and you expect to get all the fun? Come on now, she promised to fuck me, and the fae always pay their dues.”

Mutt froze, his eyes narrowing. Elsie caught the anxious undercurrent of his emotions. There were too many of them, and he couldn’t use his magic. He might not have the experience to handle this himself, but that anger multiplied with every word out of the vermin’s mouth.

He took a deep breath through his nose, taking in their scents. “Why should I let you live after harming what belongs to me?” he questioned. “What’s your game here? Where’s the piper, and what the fuck does he want?”

Elsie’s heart thundered in her chest, and she slumped back against Mutt in shock. He didn’t acknowledge her, just took her weight without a word. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Each species had varying levels of strength, and the highest known form a rat could take was a piper.

A lord. A piper wasn’t the most powerful amongst the lords, but it was still a fucking lord. She hadn’t imagined she’d run into one here.

“You–” She looked up at the demon standing protectively over her. Fear prickled at the back of her skull. “You saw a piper?”

“Two of them, but one is subservient to the other,” a deeper growl came from her demon as he finally acknowledged her. Elsie felt sick to her stomach. Not one, but two?

Her eyes slid past him to the rats. The possessive one saw her looking and bit his lower lip, grabbing his crotch again, eliciting a hair-raising growl from Mutt.

Suddenly everything made sense, and guilt assailed her. Franklin and Jeshua weren’t useless bastards scheming against their own people and betraying the humans they were supposed to protect. Franklin and Jeshua were dead. Somewhere, somehow, they’d had the misfortune of running into the piper, and that’s when their lives had ended.

Pipers retained their elemental magic, but they also gained other, darker magics, including a scarily powerful persuasive ability. The rats were being used, too, she realized. The hoard was one hell of a security system, and a great excuse to have more hunters sent their way.

And if a rat demon or two died in the crossfire, how was that of any importance to a lord? They had a surplus of rats, and more than enough humans and weaker local demons to keep the hoard happy. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

The entire exchange and revelation had lasted seconds, and then Elsie turned her thoughts back to her team. A team who’d been led here on false pretenses.

There was no fucking way the higher-ups didn’t know the situation here was more dire than they’d let on. Roz and Mordane had better be praying to whatever gods they believed in that she died here, because she was going to raise hell when she returned.

Marley and Grady hauled Morgan toward the treeline, several of the demons hunting them down. There was no use in asking Mutt to leave her and help them. She already knew he wouldn’t comply. He didn’t care about her squad; hell, he didn’t even care about her. His only reason for coming back was some sick claim he had on her life.

Her body had already started healing itself, but it wasn’t fast enough. The stabbing pain in her shoulder throbbed with her heartbeat, and blood was still steadily oozing from a cut on her thigh. She wouldn’t be able to save her people.

She watched with dread in her stomach, her lips moving in silent prayer to her mother, the goddess of death.

‘Ayúdalos, madre. Protégelos como fallaste no me protegiste a mí!’ 1she thought as hard, loud, and clear as she could into the universe. Santa Muerte was supposedly capable of seeing and hearing everything her devotees said to her, but Elsie had begun to doubt it was true. After years of ignoring her pleas, couldn’t she help her own daughter out this once?

A flaming arrow that wasn’t shot by Morgan smashed into the eye of one of the rats Mutt was holding at bay. Elsie would recognize that black arrow anywhere, and she caught herself in a grim smile. Banks and Trisse had arrived, and Talbot was nowhere to be seen.

Trisse gave a quick salute, swung his sword in a circle, and then it was on fire. He grinned as he jumped into the fray. The pair had already assessed the situation on their approach, and they fought their way through the press, making their way to Marley and Morgan. Protecting their healer had to take priority in a situation like this. They wouldn’t survive without her.