Page 85 of Hunt the Dusk
I couldn’t wait any longer.
I burst through the door and down the corridor toward the sound of terrified screams, and then into the next dorm shrouded in gloom.
But there were no children in here.
Just masses of flesh dotted around the room, and smack bang in the center of it all was the largest cold one I’d ever seen.
An alpha female.
A breeder.
I could tell by the markings on her back. Oh God, had she laid any eggs? How had she gotten into the room? The door I’d just come through wouldn’t have accommodated her frame, and the windows were too small.
She was flanked by two sentinels—silent, lithe watchers waiting for their alpha’s orders.
I took a step back, and a low, menacing growl spilled from her throat, locking my limbs in place.
Shit.
She watched me with bright, intelligent eyes, and then she smiled.
Ice gripped my nape because this was crazy. Cold ones were beasts that acted on the primal instinct to procreate and grow in number. They didn’t smile, they couldn’t?—
Low-pitched laughter filled the room, and every hair on my body stood on end.
“What the fuck?”
“There you are,” the cold one said. “Trying to hide from me.”
My heart beat faster, harder, pulse thick in my throat. “This isn’t real.”
“Oh, it’s real,” the beast said. “You and I. We have history. So much history, but right now I’m hungry, and your soul will make the perfect dessert.”
Soul?
The sentinels slunk forward, pressing in to flank me. I rushed for the exit, but they were faster, moving to block me off.
Shit, shit, shit.
The alpha attacked, sudden and violent, and I barely had time to evade before she was on me again. I rolled across the floor, missing the crush of her paw by a mere hair’s breadth each time, then scrambled under a bed, flipping it back in her face.
But there was nowhere to run. Nowhere except the windows. I launched myself at the nearest one, arms coming up to shield my face in preparation for impact. The air behind me moved as the alpha leapt at me.
Fire cut across my back, and I was knocked off course, hitting the bedframe so hard the world rang.
“Orina!”
Ordell?
The scent of burning fur filled my head, followed by the ichor stench of cold one blood. Relief at their arrival was tempered by the knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to kill them.
Not without me.
Not without my sword.
I had to get up. Up, dammit! My insides screamed in protest as I hauled my ass up, sword hilt slick in my grip. The world was dark at the edges, bloody and fuzzy, but my markings flared down my arm, power circling my wrist like a guiding hand. I connected with a sentinel, burying my sword deep then yanking it free to decapitate its companion before swinging my body toward the alpha.
She was cornered by Ezekiel, Hemlock, and Ordell. Why wasn’t she attacking? She could easily knock them aside. They had no weapons aside from Hemlock’s fire, which seemed to have petered out now.
