Page 75 of Junkyard Dog

When nothing but the cursed bloodline filled his nose, he locked on to the scent and continued to prowl through the unchecked terrain, his ears perking up as Bo’s coarse howl carried through the park, followed by Ryan’s sharp yelps of warning. He barked back in spurts, allowing his brothers to track his location easier as he closed in on their howled replies.

Ryan’s lithe form was first to appear over a ridge, his graceful stride almost regal against Bo’s predatory skulk. He lowered his ears while he crossed the dirt road separating them, crouching down when he approached Ryan and sitting back as his brothers transformed.

He couldn’t join them, couldn’t risk them seeing the panic that was settling in his bones with every passing minute.

He needed to breathe. Needed to cool his head.

Needed their help.

Bo stretched his arms over his head, cracking his back. “I’m putting the Pirithous a mile south of here and moving slow. We can be done and drinking mead with Dionysus within the hour if we don’t fuck around.”

A peculiar look crossed Ryan’s face before he looked into the desert. “We could bring him down and hold him,” he said quietly, glancing down at Alex. “Give you ti—”

“Fuck no.” Bo’s eyes darkened. “We do this. Now.”

Alex shifted into human form in a heartbeat, rising to his feet and watching Ryan. “We could find her,” he said, unable and unwilling to hide the plea in his voice. “The three of us could cover the park easily. Once we do, we can pick up the trail here…” He trailed off when Ryan glanced in Bo’s direction. “What?”

Ryan’s mouth opened as Bo barreled into him, knocking him to the ground and pinning him down by the throat. “One mile from freedom,” he snarled, grunting when Ryan flipped him over and shoved his face into the sand. “It’s not fucking worth it!” he spat, bucking his head back and making contact with Ryan’s jaw.

As Ryan’s hold loosened, Alex knocked his older brother off, jumping onto his twin. “Nothing’s ever been worth it for me,” he growled, panting to catch his breath when Bo’s knee made contact with his gut. “I need one goddamn hour before I’m sucked back into hell to play show pony for gods who would sacrifice us to the sun if they thought it would gain them followers.” Scrambling to hold Bo down, he shoved his forearm against his twin’s face. “One. Goddamn. Hour.”

Bo began to transform beneath him, his jaw locking on Alex’s arm in a vise grip before Ryan dove in, the long canines tearing a chunk from Alex’s skin as the jowls were pried open and Bo’s face morphed back into human form. He booted Alex in the ribs, shaking off the echoes of his bite from his own arm. “I’m fucking dying up here,” he hissed, doubling over as Alex’s foot made contact with his gut. “It’s not. Fucking. Worth it.”

Alex jumped onto Bo, dropping him into the sand and grappling until Ryan leapt in. The eldest brother tossed his full strength into the fight, shoving Alex aside and keeping the upper hand until he finally subdued Bo enough to look over.

“Two miles southwest,” Ryan growled, digging his knee into Bo’s back. “Cluster of rounded rocks. We’ll hold the Pirithous.” He rose up off Bo as Alex took a step toward them. “Get her to safety and get your ass back here.”

Pushing himself to his feet, Bo used the back of his hand to wipe the blood and sand from his mouth. “Not fucking worth it,” he spat again, widening his stance as Alex closed in on him.

He stopped his advance.

The bloodshot eyes.

The almost imperceptible twitch of his nose.

The scars crisscrossing the length of his torso.

Bo was right. He was dying up here. His twin needed to get back to the underworld, back to the place where Dionysus’s hand channeled his most destructive urges, held him back from the ledge. Neither Alex nor Ryan had the power to control whatever it was in Bo that drove him in his search for the ultimate high, and the human world was a little more than a wasteland of temptation.

But Charlotte was in that wasteland, and he needed to find her. Needed to see for himself that she was okay before he joined his brothers.

Ryan continued to regard him with the stoicism that had earned him his place as their master’s favored, his face showing the strain and pressure he’d carried throughout this last hunt. The weight of Bo’s self-destruction and Alex’s screw-ups had fallen to Ryan’s shoulders as it always had whenever they were topside, out of the powerful control of Hades. The completion of the mission was more than a job to him, more than an order to be followed. Everything Ryan was was wrapped up in his service to his master and mistress, and failure was not an option Ryan could live with.

Bo took a step toward him, halted by Ryan’s staying hand. “Don’t fuck us over, Alex. We don’t belong up here.”

He looked over his shoulder to the southwest and his chest tightened. “I’m sorry, Bo. But I need to do this,” he said quietly. “Find him and hold him. I swear on Charlotte’s life I’ll be back.”

*

Charlotte squeezed hereyes shut and tucked her head down into her arms as another small tremor rippled under her feet and shook the rocks surrounding her, the ground too volatile to inch across the precarious pathways out. She released her breath and dropped her head back when the aftershock eased, unwilling to open her eyes and look at the freedom she was so close to.

Patting ridges she could reach, she assessed the positions of the rocks surrounding her and crouched low, sliding her feet over the smooth stone.

Butch’s sharp bark cut through the silence of the park, growing steadily closer as she wound her way down a steep incline.

“Here, boy!” she yelled out, slipping her flashlight out of her pocket to do another scan of the caverns and to mark her route.

The barking morphed into a yelping natter, as though the beast was attempting to reassure her of his presence as his nails clicked against the narrow ledges of the Chasm. She shifted her weight on her legs, her muscles aching as she remained perched in preparation for another tremor.

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