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When the movements of the creature had al but ceased, I lifted my head and, without a heartbeat of hesitation, grabbed its porcine mandible and twisted with al my might. I could see that I didn’t tear the mad bore’s head off, but it was close.
As I pushed myself to my feet, a heavy torpedo hit me between my shoulder blades and knocked me to the ground.
I managed to catch myself on one elbow and one knee, using my free hand to reach behind me and drag the boar over my shoulder and fling it to the ground.
It was on its feet within a fraction of a second, facing off against me with al the fury of something possessed. As we stared at one another for the space of about two heartbeats, I tuned out the grunts and squeals and growls from around me and put al my focus onto the thing in front of me.
The huge boar’s tongue hung out of one side of its open mouth and its lips curled back over its tusks threateningly. Its barrel-like body heaved and twitched as if the creature was uncomfortable in its own skin. But it was the eyes that gave me pause.
The glowing red seemed to seep into the darkness around the pig’s head like blood spreading in a pool of water, and in them was an intel igence that made the hairs at my nape prickle uneasily. There was something ancient and evil about them, assuring me that this was no wild, mindless animal. This creature was very much aware of what it was doing and to whom it was doing it. It was on a mission to kil me and it would let nothing stand in its way.
The instant before I moved, I purposely bunched my muscles and reminded them that I could move with lightning speed. And so I did. Before the boar could even take its first step toward me, I had reached inside its open mouth and wrapped my fingers around its upper and lower jaw, pul ing sharply and separating the pig’s head and snout from the rest of its body.
The lifeless boar’s corpse had only just slipped from my fingertips when something hit me from the left and from behind at the same time. Face down in the leaves, I scrambled to get turned over, but it seemed as though there were too many mouths and hooves tearing at me to al ow for me to move.
I kicked with my legs and made contact at least once with something firm, but my struggles didn’t seem to even slow the ravenous creatures that bit at me. I felt a slobbering mouth at my neck just before two thick tusks penetrated the skin there.
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.
