“Ohshit!”Ibreathed,staring at the spot where Dominick had just been. Death had come swiftly and silently. One second, he was there. The next gone. Dead. Kaput.
I shook my head wordlessly, feeling a faint sense of revulsion.
Connor was as close to dumbstruck as I’d ever seen. The sound of crunching came as Alches finished devouring every bit of Dominick. Down to his very bones.
Alches’s form had lost definition, morphing into something that was closer to a dense shadowy blob. No amount of straining on my end enabled me to peer through those shadows. Even my other sight couldn’t penetrate the darkness. Not that I tried too hard.
Some things weren’t meant to be seen. I had a feeling this was one of them.
A second later the shadows reformed into the familiar figure of my dog. Alches licked his jowls and whined in satisfaction.
I wasn’t sure what to say as he trotted toward me. The situation had changed too fast for my brain to keep up. I was still processing the fact we were safe when moments before I’d been pretty sure we were about to be dead.
Alches tried to lick my face, which broke me out of my stupor.
I batted him away. “Stop that.”
Alches’s followed me with his wet nose as I tried to duck out of reach. Mostly unsuccessfully.
“No licking—especially after you just ate someone.”
A girl had to have standards. Right now, mine were not getting up close and personal with the mouth that had just gobbled someone down like they were a happy meal.
It was a sad comment on what my life had come to.
It was only when he’d finished his inspection that Alches sat down with another whine. He thumped his tail on the ground and gave me puppy dog eyes.
My heart softened. “We are in so much trouble.”
I scratched behind his ears as I considered our situation. I was pretty sure Liam and Thomas were planning on using Dominick as a hostage against Vitus. At the very least, they could have used him as leverage.
That couldn’t happen now.
Whether Dominick was guilty of conspiring with the hunters or not, Alches had killed a representative of the council who was owed due process before his execution.
We were so far up the creek that I wasn’t sure there was a way back.
“Yes, you are,” Thomas agreed from a few feet away.
There was a pop of air as Liam joined the group, his relief at finding me alive and whole making me forget the severity of the current situation.
I smiled at him. “Eric and Daniel?”
“Injured but alive,” he informed me. “Daniel got the worst of it. He took four bullets to protect me. Joseph is with him now.”
That was a relief. I was worried when I’d seen him go down.
“Tell me that’s not a realm guardian,” Thomas said in a neutral tone of voice.
I made big eyes at Liam.
His lips twitched but he made no move to intervene on my behalf. Instead, he knelt beside me. He lifted his wrist to his mouth, sinking his teeth into it before holding it up to my lips.
I took his wrist, licking the trail of blood that had escaped before closing my mouth around the wound he’d made. Fire lanced my veins, forcing me to bite back my moan of pleasure.
Liam folded me into his embrace, holding me closer as he stroked my hair in a soothing gesture.
The sound of someone’s approach made his hand slow.
