by Holly Evans
“Am I not good enough?” he said, barely above a whisper.
Flickers of images formed in my mind. There was a distinct sensation of pain, accompanied by the knowledge that his old master had been disappointed in him. His brow creased with concern, he bent his legs under him trying to make himself smaller and hide his body from me. He turned his head away from me, losing himself in his own mind. I was lost. I didn’t know what to do with the fragile creature before me; he’d been a pushy shit up until that moment. I pulled the covers up over me, feeling self-conscious myself.
“You will pay me in other ways,” I said matter-of-factly.
His eyes widened a little, a flash of pain formed in the back of my mind. I exhaled slowly.
“I will not take it out of your hide,” I said.
Slowly he uncurled and focused more on me. His hands crept closer to my body once more. His eyes searching my face while his muscles remained tense, a mass of sharp lines and tangled emotions in the darkness. Having a pet was quickly turning out to be exhausting and hard work; there was a reason why I hadn’t had one before.
Against my better judgement I reached out and placed my hand on his, looking into his face as I said, “You will help us stop the hound. Then, if we can’t break this bond, you will continue to help us, as hunters.”
He pursed his lips and began to lean closer to me once more. His head tilted slightly one side, his gaze intense as he searched for something within me. My heart rate quickened as I watched him. The fragility slipped away, his mouth hardened and his muscles began to relax once more.
After a long moment he looked away and said, “No one has cared for me before. I don’t want to be alone.”
Guilt and pain bled into the back of my mind. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and it had been such a long time since someone had shared my bed. Still, he was an infernal beast. I couldn’t take him, and I certainly wouldn’t use him. I began to wonder if, perhaps, there was more to it than that. My mind flitted to the stiletto knife only a foot away to my left, tucked under a decorative pillow. If he was trying something, then I’d be able to reach it quickly; it was whether it would do enough harm that was the question.
“Evelyn, if I was going to hurt you, I would have done so by now.” The bite in his tone took me by surprise. “It is in my best interests to look after you. I made an honest request.”
I hated that cursed bond. I made a mental note to speak to Elise about how to block him from my thoughts. His lips had curled back to reveal his increasingly sharp teeth, even in the darkness I could see how his eyes had hardened. He leant closer to me, pushing.
“This isn’t easy for me either, Evelyn,” he growled, his teeth dangerously close to my throat.
He didn’t give me a chance to respond; he stood and stalked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I cursed him under my breath, I hadn’t asked to be bonded to the damn beast. The idea of treating him like a large dog crossed my mind, surely he’d be far less trouble as a dog. There would be less emotional bullshit involved then, fewer sexy smiles, more fur over those tight muscles. My mind went to forbidden places… I needed a night with a man. Not a beast.
A fist banging against wood woke me up. I buried my head under the blankets trying to hide from whatever dared wake me at the god-awful hour.
“Evie! Stop fucking around, Evie!”
“Why the fuck are you waking me, Quin? I do not love pancakes that much!”
“Dimitri needs our help. Hurry up.”
“Dimitri can fuck himself.”
“Evie, a necromancer has brought back a horde of dead. Get some clothes on, we need to go.”
I threw the covers off and pulled on the clothes closest to hand. I hopped through the door pulling my jeans on when I remembered that Lysander was around. He stood watching me, shirtless. Scars trailed along his ribs, long thin white lines that slithered around to his back.
I looked away as I did my jeans up and growled, “Get some clothes on, hound. You’re no use half naked.”
He gave me a crooked knowing smile. “Reconsidering, Evelyn?”
I glared at him; I needed a man, not a beast.
Quin said, “Evie?”
I shrugged and waved him off as I pulled my boots on. “What do we know about the necromancer and the dead? Where are they?”
Lysander stood a little too close to me as I did up my second boot.
“They’re at the big Olsany Cemetery, it’s only ten minutes away.”
My mind flashed back to the necromancer I’d bumped into when I had to retrieve a finger from a powerful old witch in a crypt there. Serena had insisted I retrieve it so she could make a protective amulet so the new stronger witch in the city wouldn’t kill her. She tried to kill me as thanks. The way the necro’s eyes had roved over the skeleton sent shivers down my spine; the memory of his cracked tongue sliding over his dry lips made bile rise. I tried to focus on more pleasant things. Much to my irritation, the image of Lysander shirtless was the first thing to appear in my thoughts. It was going to be a long day.
We practically jogged down the road; I glanced back to make sure that Lysander was still with us. I realised he was in the same shirt and jeans as the day before; he had no belongings. The idea of him remaining in hound form was growing on me. I didn’t particularly want to buy him a whole wardrobe. But then, watching him try all those clothes on...
I chastised myself and triple checked weapons I had on me. Two silver-coated blades, one on each hip, a set of silver-coated throwing knives on my right forearm. The dead were much like normal humans: they were vulnerable to sharp objects and heavy, blunt objects. That being said, the only way to really stop them was to set them on fire, or take their head off. I felt sorry for the families of those who had been raised and hoped they never got word of it happening.
The sun was just considering rising when we climbed over the gates to the cemetery and landed on the soft grass. I was glad that there were no humans around to witness the dead rising; that was more emotion and bullshit than I was able to deal with at that time of day. It was deathly silent, the breeze didn’t even dare whisper through the trees. Dimitri’s scream changed that. We ran in the direction of the noise. It was cut short by a large skeletal zombie sinking its fingers deep into Dimitri’s flesh. The other hunter was soon dragged to the ground in the middle of three zombies. He kicked and thrashed against them, but their state of decay didn’t stop them from being far too strong for him. Their skin was peeling from their flesh. Stark white bones glinted in the pale grey light of morning.
I pulled my blades and got straight to work. Quin would look after himself. We were a team, and the hound was a damn hellhound; if he couldn’t take down a few zombies, he deserved what he got. Viktor was on the far side of the large group of some thirty or so zombies; the necromancer must have had quite a bit of power to pull up so many dead at once. The one I’d dealt with previously had seemed frail and decrepit, not much better than those he dealt with. Dimitri yowled with rage, bursting out from the small group; blood dripped from his brow and covered his shirt, but he was fighting. Matyas emerged somewhere near Viktor, with a pair of particularly large zombies battering him, one with what appeared to be a human skull. Zombies were such classy creatures.
I slashed the throat of the female zombie closest to me; her once-bright floral dress was torn and stained, her jaw hung precariously, but that didn’t stop her from trying to sink the few remaining teeth she had into my arm. Lank pink and blond hair clung in thick clumps to the hollows of her cheeks and down the ragged excuse of a neck. Her head lolled forward, but it still didn’t stop her. She reached out towards me, her bony fingers aiming to dig into my flesh. The muscles on her hands had decayed and faded, the skin torn and peeled away, revealing sharp points of clean white bone. Something was wrong. Another zombie hit me square in the side of the head. The blow made me step sideways and shake my head, my vision blurred for a brief second. The damn thing hit harder than a living person
. Something was definitely wrong. I kicked the female zombie I’d been dealing with moments before; my foot shattered her sternum and made her ribs collapse in on themselves. Her dress sank inwards, gathering around the new cavity, old worn fabric caught on broken ribs. She didn’t give in. The new zombie, whom I hadn’t had a chance to examine, launched himself at me, teeth snapping a few millimetres from my face. He would have been a burly, heavily muscled man in life. In death he was the stuff of nightmares. His stomach was distended and bloated, black oozed from his eyes and trickled from his cracked and torn lips. Yet he still moved with power, despite his wasted muscles. I was beginning to see why Dimitri and co. needed our help.
A clean spinning kick took the legs out from under the woman; a hard stomp to her skull finished her off. She lay in a heap near my feet as the male groaned and growled, summoning some of his friends to his side. Fantastic. They were vicious, and fast. It was like trying to take on an entire pack of lycans, in full wolf-beast form. Their blows knocked the air from me, and I almost fell to the ground twice. Lysander snarled in rage. He’d shifted into his hound form, complete with fire. To say I was grateful was an understatement. He launched himself at a male zombie that was sinking its fingers into Quin’s throat. He towered over Quin, the suit he wore was somehow quite pristine, given the circumstances. That didn’t stop him from crumpling under Lysander’s weight. The hound promptly sank his teeth into the zombie’s neck and tore out its spine. Black blood splattered over the coal grey suit and coated the hound’s mouth.
I had to step away from the fray for a moment, I was panting, bloodied and bruised. Quin was still going strong, Lysander was in the thick of it, and only a few zombies remained; I felt weak, but I couldn’t afford to go down. Lysander fought viciously, he tore the knee out from under what could have been a middle-aged woman. She’d picked up a bright yellow straw hat from somewhere; it flew off revealing a pock-marked skull with a few greasy strands of grey hair. The hound wasted no time in tearing her apart.
Quin kept moving, never allowing the trio of older men to corner him. The zombies tried to work as a unit. The man in filthy ripped jeans and no nose tried to circle around behind Quin, while the others in rags pushed forward as one cohesive unit. Quin kept his movements efficient, slicing open the scrawny man’s stomach before stepping away and breaking the spine of the other.
Taking a deep breath, I readied myself for the final push. Two youngish women turned to face me, their lips pulled back showing yellowed teeth. Their mouths spread a little too far, their cheeks hung from their skulls. I was going to have nightmares for months. The brunette wore what looked to have been a pretty summer dress. It had been torn to reveal exposed ribs and a sallow stomach. The pale pink added a sickly pallour to the greyish tone of her sagging skin. The blonde, with her hair hanging in thin clumps from her exposed, peeling scalp ran at me on all fours and sank her teeth into my calf while the other sprinted at me on two legs. I kicked at the blonde attached to my leg and threw a knife into the forehead of the brunette. She didn’t miss a beat. The small silver blade stuck out from her head, just above her left eyebrow, as she went onto the balls of her feet and threw her head back to headbutt me.
It was in that split second that I noticed the burning red markings on her bare chest. They weren’t ordinary zombies. I’d freed my leg enough to side-step and avoid the incoming blow from the zombie with the knife in her skull. The pink fabric wrapped itself around her emaciated limbs, tangling around her stick-like thighs as she threw her entire upper body into the punch. I stamped on the throat of the blonde, her teeth scraping along my boots, as her friend stumbled forwards. A second heavy kick to the head finished off the blonde and left me with her friend. She grew more vicious, lunging at me, trying to dance around me and claw at me. She moved on the balls of her feet, fluid motions that would have been at home on a stage. A glance behind her showed me that it was just her and one other left. Quin finished the lean young man behind her. I kicked the brunette in the hip, throwing her backwards. Her arms windmilled trying to catch herself; a fast sweeping kick to her knees took her legs from under her. Quin’s boot to her face muffled her scream of rage; Viktor’s boot to her chest made sure she definitely wouldn’t be rising again.
Lysander shifted back into his human form and looked rather proud of himself. A grin was plastered across his face.
“Well, that was quite fun.”
Everyone glared at him.
Viktor growled, “What were those markings on them? They weren’t normal zombies.”
Lysander’s face fell.
He sighed and looked away before he said, “They were infernal markings. The necromancer who raised them was working with the other hound.”
My stomach dropped; that was not the news I was hoping for. If the other hound was already working with a necromancer, that meant he had help.
Quin said, “We need to track down this other hound.”
Dimitri put his bloodied hands up. One eye was already swelling shut.
“Don’t look at us, he’s all yours.”
I shot him a dark look, the fucking coward. I ground my teeth together and considered sending him an invoice for services rendered.
Quin smiled and said, “Don’t worry, we wouldn’t want you to break a nail doing some real work.”
Viktor cursed him in Czech before he pulled Matyas’ arm around his shoulders and trudged away.
“Fucking cowards,” I spat.
“They could at least have said ‘thank you,’” Quin grumbled.
Lysander simply shrugged and started moving the bodies into a neat pile. There was no way we’d be able to get them all back into their own graves, and I was too tired to care what happened.
I patted Lysander’s arm when we’d moved all of the remains to a pile. “Well done, and thank you. I assume your fire can incinerate them?”
His eyes danced at the thanks. He gave a small shrug and shifted back into his full fiery hound form. The bodies were gone within half a minute; I wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or impressed. The grin was firmly back on his face when he returned to his human form. I walked ahead and ignored him. My muscles screamed, another pair of jeans had been ruined, and worst of all, I had to visit the cursed elf. Again.
Kadrix looked a little bit too happy to have Quin, Lysander, and me stripped down to our underwear so that he could apply the healing paste. I’d rung Elise on the way over to fill her in on the goings-on; she’d rushed over to the elf’s place at once. Fortunately, she’d brought some of her own healing paste with her, so I didn’t have to have Kadrix’s hands on me. Elise’s pale silver cream tingled and fizzed against the wounds, but it healed them quickly and painlessly. She smirked when she watched Kadrix spend a little bit too long on the gash on Quin’s ribs. Lysander had pulled his jeans back on, but left his shirt off. He made no excuse, but he did watch me carefully for a long moment. I looked away from his toned muscles, with the faint scars. I wanted to run my fingers over them, to explore. I needed to get laid. The adrenaline from the fight was making that need worse.
Elise whispered, “How long has it been? You keep squirming.”
Blush crept over my cheeks, I hadn’t realised I’d been that obvious about it all. “Eighteen months, 9 days. Not that I’m counting or anything...”
Her mouth fell open, she quickly covered it. “You poor thing.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought your lady specified that you had to be a virgin...”
She gave me a cheeky smile. “Not quite, she specifies that I can only enjoy the company of... certain people.”
Quin finally got dressed again, and I broached the real reason we were there. “Kadrix, darling, we need a tracker for the other hound.”
His eyes lingered on Quin before his attention snapped to me. He looked over at Lysander who was leaning against a table, his strong arms crossed over his broad chest. Kadrix’s tongue slipped over his lips. He was like a kid in a sweetshop. His mouth quirked
into a small smile, his eyes brightened.
“I’ll make you a deal, dear Evelyn. One drop of Lysander’s blood, that is what you call yourself isn’t it? And I’ll do whatever work you need for a year.”
I ground my teeth together, that was a big ask. Blood could be used for many nefarious things, particularly when willingly given. There was a chance that his blood could be used against me, due to the bond.
Quin beamed, “That’s very generous of you, Kadrix, thank you!”
I glared at him. “I think you’re forgetting whom Lysander belongs to.”
Lysander said, “I think you’re forgetting that I have a mind of my own.”
I stroked the silver bracelet and eyed his collar. He scowled at me, but said nothing more. It was cruel, but he was a beast, and despite what my body may have wanted, I wasn’t ready to see him as anything else.
Kadrix walked between the tables and stacks of books with practised ease. A sway in his hips added some feline grace to his lithe form.
“Elise, you look ravishing today, I’ve barely said a word to you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What is it you’re after, Kadrix?”
A smile slowly crept across his mouth. “I haven’t had the chance to explore a priestess before, I’m sure we could find some mutual benefit in such things. Of course, I’d be willing to offer you, Evelyn, or Quin services in return for such a delightful experience.”
A calm facade settled on her face; she stood a little taller and said, “I don’t believe that will be necessary.”
He pouted and said, “I’ll just have to console myself with a particularly thorough check of Lysander then.”
I glared at him and went to tell him to leave my hound alone but Quin spread his hands and mouthed ‘Seriously?’ at me. It was a very good offer from the elf.
“Fine. You may have a drop of Lysander’s blood.”