“Well,” Dimitri says, suddenly beside us. “This is deliciously tense.”
We both glare at him, but neither of us moves.
He glances between us, then gives me a smirk. “She always did know how to pick a fight.”
Serenya exhales sharply and turns, striding ahead without another word.
Dimitri chuckles and follows her, boots splashing through the water.
I stand there a beat longer, heart pounding, fists still clenched, my breathing unsteady, before following after them. Idon’t know what’s happening between us. Only that it isn’t over. Not even close.
The water is ankle deep now, thick with silt and half-submerged roots. The air clings damp and heavy to my lungs the further we go. Trees loom above us, their bark warped and swollen with veins of black fungus, like the forest itself is diseased.
There are no birds. No wind. Just the unnatural stillness of a place that has not seen sunlight in a very long time.
Serenya walks a few paces ahead, eyes forward and unreadable, but her fingers twitch at her sides like she feels something stirring beneath the silence. Dimitri stalks a step behind her, unnervingly quiet for once, not even a hum under his breath. That’s how I know something is wrong. The vampire never stops humming.
“Do you feel that?” I murmur.
Serenya slows. “Yes.”
Dimitri only nods, sharp-eyed.
A low, hungry growl splits the silence. Too close. It doesn’t come from one direction. It comes from all around us.
Water erupts as hellhounds burst from the trees. They are massive and misshapen, their slick hides scorched like burnt flesh, their fangs impossibly long. Smoke seeps from their mouths with each breath, and their glowing eyes fix on us with hunger.
“Back to back!” Serenya shouts.
Shadows coil around her like living things. In one hand, she conjures a blade black as pitch; in the other, shadows gather like ink spilling across her palm. I raise my sword and brace asthe first hound lunges.
I meet it midair with a roar, steel slamming into its side. The beast yelps and skids across the water, but it doesn’t die. Its bones crack, twisting back into a grotesque angle before it lunges again.
“Of course they regenerate,” I growl through my teeth.
“Go for the heart!” she yells, ducking under another beast. She spins, her blade slicing deep into its ribs. Shadows lash outward, wrapping around the beast's wound and binding it where it stands.
Dimitri disappears in a flash, reappearing behind another, twin daggers flashing. The hound shrieks, but refuses to fall.
“They’re tethered to something,” he snaps. “There has to be a summoner nearby.”
“I’ll have my shadows find them.” Serenya’s shadows lash around another hound’s neck, jerking it sideways mid-lunge.
A massive hound barrels toward me. I brace, but its weight slams me backward. My boots skid in the muck. Its claws rip across my shoulder, searing heat spreading down my arm as I gasp for air. I stagger as another snarling hound circles. My vision blurs. There are too many.
The beast lunges for my throat. I see teeth, smoke—
Shadows slam into it like a wall. Tendrils wrap around its chest and throat, yanking it sideways with brutal force. Serenya is there, her black blade whipping through the air, severing the hound’s spine. The creature collapses at my feet, twitching, and this time it doesn’t rise.
For a heartbeat, I can only stare at her. The fury in her, the sheer, unflinching power—gods, she’s terrifying. And she just saved my life. Again.
I open my mouth, but the words die as another hound slams her to the ground before I can move, massive jaws snapping for her throat.
“NO!” The word rips out of me. Something inside me snaps.
Light bursts from beneath my skin. Warm, blinding, golden light—radiant like the first touch of dawn—surges through me, tearing free like it’s been waiting all along.
My body moves on its own, my hands lifting without thought, and a beam of sunlight erupts from my palm. It strikes the hellhound square in the ribs, blasting it off Serenya in a shriek of smoke and flesh. The beast hits the ground twitching, seared open.
