Page 102 of Hounded

When I came into view, he glanced up. Amidst the smoke and the tears cutting glistening channels down his cheeks, his eyes were wide and pleading. Afraid. More terrified than I’d ever seen him, and it shattered every ounce of my control.

I bolted forward and dropped to my knees before him. He sagged against me, sobbing one moment and struggling the next, clinging on then pushing me away, screaming.

“What happened?” I turned on Sully, who stood by, stricken. “What did you do?”

She failed to reply as Indy wadded my shirt in his fists. He shoved back far enough to catch my gaze while trembling and sniffing wet breaths.

His expression softened with recognition. But it was deeper than that. More aware than he should have been after only the few weeks since we’d met this lifetime.

“Lore?” he rasped.

It was all I could do to stammer, “What is it, Doll?”

He blinked long, tear-clumped lashes, and his mouth formed a mournful smile. “I’m sorry, baby.” He shook hishead. “I didn’t wanna leave you.”

My face washed cold. He looked so sincere, so determined to make me believe what he was saying that I couldn’t help but ask, “Then why did you?”

He let out an agonized whimper. His face contorted, and he pulled so hard on my shirt that I thought he would tear it.

“Indy!” I shook him.

As his body ragdolled, a chunky pendant thumped against his chest. The necklace looked handmade with a glass vial full of a dark purple liquid, beads that might have been bone, and a lock of blue hair braided around the leather cord. It was arcane. Magical.

I snugged one arm around Indy’s waist and freed my other hand to grab the charm.

“What the hell is this?” I thrust it toward Sully, testing the length of the cord.

Her mouth fell open, wordless, but I knew.

She’d made Indy the same offer she made me. I refused it but, of course, he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He was always more brash and ready to run into trouble. He lived like he knew he didn’t have much time, and he wanted to make the most of what he had. I took the opposite approach, trying to guard and cherish every moment. I didn’t want him to suffer, and I never wanted to see him like this.

“Get away from me!” Indy bucked in my grasp.

I glanced at him and found the fondness of earlier replaced by icy indifference. It was the same way he’d looked at Hopeful Horizons the day I dropped him off, when he’d kicked and screamed and said he didn’t knowme.

He lashed out with a stinging slap across my jaw. It whipped my head aside, and I stayed there, stunned, until I heard him sobbing anew.

“Oh, no. Oh, shit…” He started to sink and drag me down with him in a rapid collapse.

I caught him by both shoulders and jerked him upright, risking another slap or punch to hold him face-to-face with me.

The shift in position seemed to jar him, and he met my gaze again. His golden eyes were fully round and glossed with tears. He called my name as if I wasn’t right in front of him. One hand fisted in my shirt while the other grabbed my hair and yanked.

“I don’t wanna burn. I don’t wanna die.” Indy’s words were so garbled they were barely comprehensible. “I don’t wanna go…”

He gave another sharp cry, and I seized the vial around his neck and jerked on the cord. It snapped, and a shudder rocked Indy’s tense form. The charm was in my palm for an instant before I tightened my fingers around it. Glass bit into my skin, and my palm flooded with warm, wet blood and the purple liquid leaking out.

Indy’s cries weakened. Another repetition of my name became a pitiful whine as he slumped forward. His painted nails scrabbled like talons across my body.

“Baby?” His voice muffled as he buried his face in my chest. He said it again and again until the word was little more than a sigh drifting out.

I held him, rocking slowly back and forth while cradling his head in my hand. He felt feverish, and hiscurls were damp with sweat.

“Loren?” It was Sully this time.

I’d heard my own name so many times in the last few minutes that it was beginning to chafe. My eyes cut over to meet hers.

The clicking sound of her swallow was audible to my sensitive ears. “He asked me to make things better…”

---