Page 132 of Hounded

While she shied from my attention, I returned my focus to Nero. His eyes blazed wrathful orange as he drew a chest-swelling breath, then blew it out so forcefully its heat washedover me.

“Well,” he began, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. “It would seem I backed the wrong horse in this race.”

Moira lurked at the edge of the gathering. Whitney stood beside her, his posture perpetually perfect and his collar tethered to our mistress by the chain in her hand. Realizing he wasn’t with Nero reminded me of his statement when he released me from the kennels. He wanted to return to his home, to the fate he’d embraced far more fully than I had.

It appeared he’d gotten his wish.

Nero appraised me once more. I was barely recovered from the attack in Ohio only to be battered in a multi-car collision. My muscles pulsed and throbbed as they knit themselves together, and my skull ached as it tried to push out a dent from where my head must have cracked against the truck’s window.

“You were first to find the bird, I understand,” the archdemon said. “All on your own.”

I knew better than to think he expected a response. I wasn’t muzzled, but Nero made no secret of his opinions about we hounds and our place in the underworld. So, I held his gaze and pressed my lips in a firm line. Let him assume whatever he liked. For this, I preferred myself silent, too. Less risk of betraying the fragile confidence in which I found myself.

The archdemon walked closer until he towered overhead. His lips curled in a sneer that showed the tips of his sharpened teeth. “My question is,” he rumbled, “if you found the creature, why is it not here now?”

My eyes flicked away. Hedidwant an answer now, andmy mind churned through responses that wouldn’t damn me and Indy both. My injuries muddled with growing mental discomfort, and I shifted, testing the chains that held me in the submissive pose.

Nero let out a snarl and grabbed my collar. The links cinched down as he hauled me off the floor to hold me suspended and helplessly restrained.

“Speak, you mindless mongrel!” he roared. Spittle struck my cheek.

My hound cried out, riddled with terror that seeped into every part of me. I jerked and thrashed but could only dangle from the chain putting relentless pressure on my throat.

“He escaped,” I rasped. “The phoenix did. I don’t know where he went.”

Nero’s brows dipped low. “It eluded you? Or did you run away? The way you were found looked rather like you were running.” He shook me like I was little more than a doll in his hand. “Toward or away?” he demanded. “Which was it?”

Air came and went in a wheeze, carrying whispered words. “Away. I saw him destroy the other hounds, and I ran.”

Nero’s gaze narrowed further. I thought he might bore a hole straight through to my soul, but I didn’t dare look away.

I needed him to believe me. Send the hounds the opposite direction, far from Pennsylvania and farther from New York. It was all I could do to mislead them because I was certain my next destination, perhaps my final one, was a cold metal box in the kennels, where Iwould languish until my mind fragmented and I forgot about Indy. Then, only then, it was a blessing to know that eventually he would forget me again, too.

With a look of disgust, Nero let me drop. My bruised knees knocked against the stone floor, and I toppled forward, unable to catch myself or stop my chin from striking so hard my teeth clicked together in a hard bite.

“Useless,” the archdemon spat.

He spun away, and I watched his retreat while lying stomach-down on the ground.

I stole another glance at Moira and Whitney. I expected my mistress to be vindicated, pleased to see me caught and punished. Instead, she looked concerned, and her worry bled onto me. Whitney maintained his steely stoicism. I’d learn to read him better one day, maybe in another hundred years.

Before me, Nero paced. He scowled and shook his head until he drew up short. When he faced me, determination hardened his features.

“You’ve found it before,” he said without a modicum of doubt. “You will find it again.”

I gaped, dumbstruck by the implication of the archdemon’s statement. But he had more to say.

“Youwillfind the bird,” he repeated with mounting fervor. He walked forward again, coming uncomfortably close while I writhed on the floor. “You will lead me to it. If you fail or try to escape, I will flay the skin from your bones, watch it grow back, then strip it away again.”

He stooped toward me, and I flinched, expecting an attack. Instead, I heard the clink of metal and felt a pull on my collar. I peeked out through eyes I’d squeezed shutand saw the leash trailing from my choke chain to Nero’s hand, and I understood the situation all over again.

Nero didn’t own Whitney anymore. He owned me. And I wasn’t headed to the kennels at all. I was going back to Earth at the archdemon’s heel, tasked with taking him to the phoenix.

My phoenix. My treasure.

Nero jerked the leash, and I craned my neck upward to meet the smoldering embers of his eyes.

“Say ‘Yes, Master,’” he commanded.

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