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Under a folded towel and bag of clean-up supplies—for that just-in-case he was covered in blood again—he pulled out his modified bulletproof vest. The smiley face drawn inside next to his name got him every time. Quinn’s idea of making the vests more tolerable.

Demon hunters were damn hard to kill, but a severe abdominal or chest wound, and that could be it. Bennett barely survived a fight a few years back. No protection was tough enough against a lot of the baddies they faced, but against a wyvern? He’d take all the protection he could get—as long as he could still swing his sword and run like hell.

A knife strapped onto his thigh, vest secured, and his sword hooked to his back.

He stood on the edge of the hillside and searched.

Silence. No birds chirping. No rustling wildlife. The wind was slow and steady, ruffling a few leaves.

In the distance, a siren chirped, but it faded into the distance.

No solid evidence, but he followed the few data points he had, plus a whole lot of instinct to narrow his search.

Target acquired. He took off down the hill. He hurdled over downed trees, slid down muddy slopes with feet perpendicular to the slope, and pushed branches out of his way.

A creek crossed his path before he could climb the next hill. Assessing without slowing, he mapped his route. He parkoured across the boulders that littered the river, but he didn’t care to get soaked today by risking a rock that wouldn’t withstand the force of his landing.

Instead, he gauged the distance. Yeah. No fucking problem.

He picked up speed and found a straight shot, low foliage, not too muddy, no loose gravel.

Midair, arms pushing back for extra momentum, he shifted his feet forward for landing.

Fucking nailed it. His feet crashed down on the far bank. He teetered, but threw himself forward and into the next step.

On the move, he sprinted up the hill.

Did the victims wander into their territory, or were the wyverns hunting? Or, worse, had someone trained these wyverns, and they were protecting a demon’s lair?

Close, he stopped. Listened. Scanned the forest.

There.

As silently as he could walk, one foot at a time, he moved into position.

He perched alongside a boulder, sticking to the shadow that had grown longer in the short time it had taken him to reach the site.

On powerful legs, wings tucked in, the creature shuffled down a worn path. It had been here a while. This one was hardly more than a baby, matching him in height.

Plural. Lexi had said wyverns, and not just wyverns.

Backup would have been a good idea.

Serial observations.

Patience and careful assessment.

But… sometimes one had to poke the hornet’s nest to fully understand the threat. This hornet had stung enough around here, and he didn’t have time to move one pawn at a time.

He drew his sword and moved.

Slow, steady, silent, he drew closer.

Almost there. If he startled it, it might fly off, and he’d never see it again. If these guys were half as tough to train as it sounded, their puppet master would be pissed as hell to find their puppet dead.

The wyvern twitched. Its glassy green eyes scanned in his direction.

He slipped the knife from its sheath on his thigh.