Page 71 of Shadow Weaver
He didn’t move.
“Will you please come with me? Will you help me?” I held out my hand and closed my eyes.
Long seconds passed, and then something nudged my palm. I slowly opened my eyes to find Athos’s ridged snout pressed to my hand and his glowing, red-rimmed eyes fixed on me.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Footsteps clicked down the aisle outside.
“Shit!”
Athos made a rumbling sound and nudged my hand with his snout. He jerked his head to the side as if to say get back, or … get on?
“Jemima! Where are you going?” Deana called out, super loud.
Probably to alert me.
Fuck. There was no time for fear or indecision. I scrambled up onto Athos’s back.
His body vibrated as if urging me to hurry. I was on, but how the hell did I stay this way. I ran my hands over his back, looking for something to hold on to, and then my hands skimmed hard, raised ridges. The perfect handholds. I’d barely grabbed on when Athos was in motion.
The door swung open as Jemima made to enter, and Athos bounded forward, knocking her back. He skidded across the aisle, turning his body in time to stop himself from slamming into the opposite pen.
“Justice? Justice!”
Jemima’s cry followed me as we ran into the night.
Twenty-One
The night rushed by as Athos took the lead. The fortress rose up to our left, and then it was behind us. The mist rolled toward us, surrounding us, and then we were flying. Shadows whipped past us. AM posts? People? I didn’t know. I leaned forward, pressed my torso to Athos’s back, and hung on for dear life.
He didn’t slow or falter. He knew exactly where he was going.
Long minutes passed as we ran. How long until we reached the Academy? I’d always taken the bioprint entrance behind barracks one to get back to the Academy, but there was another way which cut across the mist itself. It led to an abandoned paddock with broken fences that backed onto the edge of the forest.
How long did it take on foot to cross the mist? A couple of hours? On Athos’s back, the journey would take minutes. We’d be there in—
Something slammed into me. Hard. My grip on Athos loosened, and I went flying off the hound.
Hard ground met my back, and the air was smacked out of my lungs. I couldn’t move. My body was in stunned shock, and the pain hit, giving me the strength to roll onto my side and cough up a glob of blood.
Shit.
Internal bleeding.
Boots appeared out of the mist and stopped a foot away from me. Oh, shit. I raised my head slowly. One armored leg and one feytech.
Hyde?
“Hyde, thank God.” I looked up, noting the black veins crawling across his cheeks a split second before the huge axe came swishing toward me.
“Fuck!” I rolled out of the way as the blade buried itself in the hard earth with athunk.
Shit, it had him. The rage had him.
I stood and faced him. “Hyde. It’s me. You know me. You don’t want to hurt me.”
His expression was blank. Unemotional. Whereas Brady had been berserker rage, Hyde was calm, deadly. He advanced on me.
