I don’t move. I feel it instead, the intent, the heat, the split second where his decision locks into place, and I reach for the cold coiled beneath my ribs. Power slides free with practiced ease, flooding my lungs as I exhale, breath frosting thick and white in the air.
The space between us freezes. Moisture rips itself apart midair, layers of ice stacking and hardening in a heartbeat, a solid wall of frozen air forming just ahead of my chest. The bullet slams into it with a shriek of tortured metal and explodes on impact, fragments of the bullet bursting outward before drifting down through the trees like a fall of frozen steel.
I hold the ice barrier where it is.
Not because I need it.
Becauseheneeds to see it.
His breath comes fast and ragged as realization creeps in, eyes darting between me and the ice that separates us, the forest suddenly too quiet, too still. I meet his stare and tighten my fist slowly, deliberately.
And with a sickening thud, the ice drops an inch.
A sharp crack splits the night as the barrier compresses, frost cascading downward in glittering sheets.
His rifle trembles in his hands.
I clench my fist, and with another loud thud, it lowers another inch.
Cold spills outward, crawling over his boots, frosting the ground at his feet, the temperature plunging hard enough to steal the air from his lungs. He stumbles back a step, breath fogging in frantic bursts.
Another clench of the fist.
It falls another inch, the thuds becoming softer.
The wall presses closer, not rushing, not threatening, just advancing with the inevitability of a glacier, the sound of ice grinding, filling the silence between his ragged breaths.
“Please…” he chokes, the word tearing free before he can stop it.
I don’t answer, I just let the ice drop again, close enough now that he can feel it leeching through his clothes, through skin and bone, fear freezing solid in his veins.
That’s when something heavy shifts in the shadows to his right.
Branches snap under sudden weight when Rhett steps into the clearing, his hellhound form unfolding from darkness and flame, massive and inevitable. Fire rolls off him in waves, steam hissing where it collides with the cold, eyes burning bright as he lowers his head and growls.
The sound isn’t loud.
But it vibrates through the ground, through muscle and bone, a promise felt deep in the chest.
“Demon!”the hunter screams, panic finally shattering him as he whirls toward Rhett, rifle swinging wide, aim gone, survival instinct screamingtoo late.
I let the ice stop falling.
Because I’ve already made my point.“Hellhound,”Rhett projects his answer with savage amusement into all our minds, then lunges forward with speed that opposes his massive frame.“There’s a difference, but you’re about to be too dead to appreciate the distinction,”he sends, seeing as he cannot talk while in Hellhound form.
Bennett descends in a rush of wings and light, landing with enough force to crater the frozen ground. His hands grip the hunter’s shoulders with casual strength that could crush steel, and when he speaks, his voice carries the weight of divine authority.
“Judgment has been passed. Your crimes against the innocent—”
“Innocent?” I interrupt, letting frost crawl up my neck and across my jaw. “We’re many things, angel. Innocent isnotone of them.”
Bennett’s expression doesn’t change, but something shifts in his eyes. “Perhaps not. But we areoursto judge, nothis.”
The hunter struggles in Bennett’s grip, rifle forgotten, eyes wide with terror as he stares up at wings that shouldn’t exist, at a face beautiful enough to make mortals weep and terrible enough to stop hearts. “You’re… you’re an angel. You’re supposed to protect people. Stop them!”
“Divine protection extends to the worthy,” Bennett replies with the kind of serene conviction that makes my dragon want to burn him just to see if he’ll maintain that expression. “You fired iron bullets at an unarmed being. You tracked and hunted those who wish only to be left in peace. Tell me,mortal… where in that equation do you find yourselfworthy?”
Rhett circles closer, claws leaving deep furrows in frozen earth, sulfur intensifying until it’s almost visible in the air. “Can I eat him now? I’m starving, and he smells like bad decisions and hamburger grease. Two of my favorite things,” he projects.
