To my surprise, it was Jann who spoke up first.
“You’ll never get under his skin with threats—the only way to touch him is to force him to watch his mate be harmed,” my best friend muttered.
Tearing my gaze from Gall’s, I gaped at Jann.
Gall tossed me aside and snarled at the others—including Jann—to back away.
“Fight me, or go after her. Those are your choices. Either way, I’ll win,” Gall growled.
I pushed to my feet, rising slowly, weight on the balls of my feet and eyes scanning all of them, but I ended on Gall. “I’m not going to fight you. I’d never hurt you.”
Gall scoffed, but before either of us could speak, those haunting howls rose again to my left. I snapped my head to look towards it, then launched directly into flight, clawing at the air and powering away from them as fast as I was capable, reaching for Yilan in my mind as I did so, my heart breaking when I felt her brush the bond.
She was frantic, exhausted, andterrified.
36. Creature of the Night
~ MELEK ~
I was almost too late. I whipped between trees, desperate to sweep her up and climb her into the sky andaway,but my cursed senses were still scattered by the blow from… whatever it was that Lucifer had used to pluck me out of flight. By the time I located Yilan, she was sprinting straight for the cave—where she’d lead the hounds directly to the army.
“Yilan!”I roared, barely reaching her as she scrambled for the rocks and ferns that guarded the cave mouth.
She whirled, eyes wide with fear, and her shock and relief crackled in the bond.
I dove straight for her, but flew over the back of the hound to reach her a mere second before it did.
‘Shroud!’I screamed at her through the bond, just in case it could help, but she sobbed and threw herself at me, shaking her head as I turned to face that fuckingcreature.
‘I can’t. I’ve tried. I’m used up, Melek—or they’re blocking me somehow. Something… I can’t get a grasp on the dark!’
I stood with my back to her, facing the approaching hound, my skin crawling as it prowled towards us.
The hound locked eyes with me and hesitated, its eerie countenance gleaming in the dim moonlight.
Hunched like an over-large hyena with broad, steeply-sloped shoulder blades, that protruded so sharply it seemed they should break through the skin, and a thick neck that thrust its angular head towards the earth. The hound’s muzzle was narrow and curved down, like an eagle’s beak.
And yet, it moved with preternatural grace, its massive paws silent as it stepped, each digit tipped in an inches-long talon that gripped the dirt, but was equally capable of tearing the muscle from a bear.
Its pelt swallowed light—slick and oily black, each hair long enough to hang from its body, shot-through with veins of silver. Yet, its eyes glowed, as if all the light absorbed by its body was fed to those strangely wide, golden irises, while the deeply black, circular pupils expanded when it focused on me.
A growl so deep it seemed to rise out of the earth puttered in its throat as it approached—tipping its head and opening its mouth—a gaping maw of razor sharp teeth—to taste the air. Its nostrils flared like a dog’s scenting the wind.
Thethinghesitated, and lifted its nose higher. I realized it was confused by my appearance—Nephilim were not prey to a hell hound. Yet, here I was. It tried to scent past me, but sank back on its haunches as if preparing to leap.
Hands raised and ready, I snapped my wings wide open, praying I could obscure its sight of Yilan until she had time to run into the cave mouth and be barricaded with the others.
I prayed we weren’t too late.
As I reached for Yilan in my mind, the hell hound paused, tilting its head, and its piercing gaze raked my body.
I sensed its confusion, it’s uncertainty about my soulless state, when it scented a soul nearby. I knew it wanted Yilan.
I half-crouched in front of the cave mouth, Yilan perched on the rocks behind me, her heart fluttering against my back.
“Melek—”
‘Go,’I growled at her through the link, because this fucking creature’s ears perked when she spoke.
