Twilight Siege

15

What an injustice for someone so evil to have dimples. Only kindhearted, good-humored people should be allowed to sport dimples, otherwise it was false advertising. Like a vampire bunny or a rabid puppy, dimples and insanity just didn’t go together. “The Hunt is after you, they’ll find you, and when they do you’ll wish you had never even considered turning your back on them.” “It’s not turning my back on them if I was never on their side.” “So whose side are you on? Who is it you’re working with?” His hand shot forward and a blast of energy slammed into me, throwing me back against a large tree. The air wheezed from my chest upon impact and I fell to my hands and knees struggling to breathe. As soon as air began to filter back into my screaming lungs, I scrambled for my purse where I had stashed the knife Lochlan had given me. Relief flooded me when my fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife and I threw myself backward sitting against the trunk of the tree. When my eyes flew up to Ronan’s, his grin widened with sick delight. Not only was he not deterred by my knife, I was pretty sure he was turned on by the sight. My hand shook violently and my heart was close to pounding out of my chest. Just then a feral growl sounded from around the side of the tree I had leaned against, so deep and guttural that it resonated through my chest. My eyes cut to the right, wondering what new horror I had to face. Well above my head was the enormous white muzzle of a dog. His snarling lip was curled back with his teeth bared and saliva dripped from his jowls. Head low in warning, his black eyes were trained on Ronan as he slowly advanced. I was stunned, not only because the beast had Ronan retreating, but because I would have bet money that the wolf-like dog was the same one I had seen out at the Beltany stone circle. A month prior I would have said that it was impossible, but that word no longer fit in my vocabulary. The beast was enormous up close, weighing nearly two hundred pounds, and each of his coiled muscles was poised and ready to leap at Ronan. “Get out of here,” he spat at the dog, sweat beading on his brow as he tried to assert his dominance over the dog with his command. It hadn’t worked. In fact, the beast snapped his teeth in Ronan’s direction before growling even louder and positioning himself between me and Ronan. Ronan’s maniacal eyes flew back and forth between us, his face screwed up in anger and frustration, before he spat at the dog. “A mutt and a human girl aren’t going to stop us. I’ll be back for you, Rebecca.” And then he blinked out of sight. As quickly as it had started, it was over. The giant beast continued a low growl as he scanned our surroundings. Once he was convinced the threat had gone, he relaxed and turned to face me. I wasn’t sure if I had some innate sense that the dog wouldn’t hurt me or if I had reached my maximum tolerable terror level and passed into a state of shock. Regardless of the reason, I couldn’t bring myself to fear the dog and instead relief swam through me with dizzying effects. I sank back into the tree and my shaking hand that had still brandished the knife dropped to the ground. The dog sat back on his haunches and gave a small tilt of his head as if I intrigued him. “Thank you. You’re quite the knight in shining armor coming to my rescue like that,” I offered to the dog, who then tilted his head to the other side. I gathered my purse and tote, continuing to hold the knife in my sweaty palm. When I gingerly stood on my shaking legs, the dog stood too and looked at me expectantly. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” I hobbled back toward the gate with my giant white shadow in tow. “You can go home now.” I waved my empty hand toward him, attempting to shoo him away, but it had no effect. On a defeated sigh, I turned and slowly made my way home. When I reached the front door to my apartment, I held it open as my new companion trotted inside and then proceeded to make himself at home on the couch. I gave a small laugh as I shook my head and walked inside but my smile instantly fell as my eyes landed on the kitchen table. The tissue box coffin lay empty, leaves undisturbed. I assumed his family had retrieved him hoped they knew how heroic the little brownie had been. It was with a heavy heart that I lumbered upstairs to change. By the time I was ready to go to Lochlan’s for our training session the dog was out cold. “Hey big guy, time to get up. I need to leave so you have to go back outside.” His eyes peeked open but he made no move to separate himself from the couch. I walked over with the intent of pulling the dog off my sofa but chickened out at the last second—he was enormous and while he had helped save me, that was not necessarily a guarantee that he wouldn’t decide to eat me. “Here’s the deal, if I let you stay inside you had better mind yourself. If I come back and find so much as a cracker out of place or a single thing chewed up, your ass is gone.” I looked at him as sternly as I could with my hands on my hips but he seemed entirely unimpressed. With one more warning, I closed the door and prayed the giant beast wouldn’t destroy my apartment. I was completely sapped of energy, but that attack was exactly why I couldn’t afford to skip training. However, there was no reason I had to walk all the way there and waste what little energy I had left so I caught a cab and enjoyed a moment of calm silence to process what had happened. Fergus had sent me out into the graveyard—had he known Ronan was there? I couldn’t believe that Fergus had intended me any harm, but two weeks ago I wouldn’t have imagined Ronan would have tried to hurt me either. We desperately needed to get the sword to help us determine who was friend and who was not. When I walked into the building lobby I found it empty. I took the elevator to the club level where I tracked down Lochlan busy in his office. “You ready?” In response he simply stood and led the way to the elevator. Heaven forbid the man engage in an exchange of standard pleasantries, but I was too worn down to give him a hard time. All I could muster was an eye roll aimed at his back as I followed him down to the basement. After my warm-up and more work on punches, we added in a couple of evasive maneuvers to break free of an attacker’s hold. “How did you feel after yesterday’s practice?” Lochlan asked as I worked some punching combinations.