“Why are you up so early?” My brow arched at her.
“Early for you maybe. But for most people, ten in the morning is almost lunch time.”
Sebastian laughed while tucking his hands into his pants. “I’ve been telling her that since I had to escort her to classes last fall.”
My eyes drifted across the lawn, halting on a familiar figure.
Sawyer sauntered through the covered terrace, a permanent scowl on his typically charismatic face.
“I’ll be right back.” I rose and started off in a jog over to him. He and Sebastian were hardly on speaking terms, and with how I’d left him the other night, I had a feeling he could use someone to talk to.
“Sawyer.”
He turned to me, pausing in his tracks. “Hey.”
A deep breath pulled into my chest before I spoke. “How are you?”
His brown arched. “Um…fine?”
I nodded softly. “Good. Good. Um…I wanted to apologize for the other night in the arena. I shouldn’t have?—”
My words lost me when a low growl filled my ears.
Silently and deliberately, I pivoted in a tight circle, searching for where the noise came from.
“Did you guys hear that?” Sebastian called across the courtyard.
Sawyer and I nodded and the same noise began to play on repeat. A wet, tumbling snarl, inching closer and closer to us.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me into him, using his body to shield me as he guided us to where I had left Sebastian and Delani. He let go of me upon arrival and I sidestepped into Sebastian's hold instead.
“I’ve never heard anything like that,” Delani whispered, backing herself into Sawyer’s chest.
“Me either,” Sawyer answered under his breath.
Another deep growl congested the surrounding area.
“I have,” Sebastian murmured.
Our eyes settled upon it at the same time, standing yards from us, its distended jaw dripping drool and blood.
A Hykah.
“How the hell did it find us?” My voice wavered as I buried my body into Sebastian’s, pointlessly trying to hide. There was no way that the other Draemornian had already made it back to Draemor, and by the looks of the thing, the Hykah couldn't move that fast.
“I don’t know,” Sebastian whispered through the tight barrier of his clenched teeth. “But I’m not going to question it right now. Everyone just back the fuck up.Slowly.”
The Hykah’s jaw snapped open and shut at such speed and force, that one bite from it would decapitate its prey. Its ribs expanded so far with each breath that I thought they would rip through its cream-colored flesh. Its eyes were black—soulless—and its fist glimmered with five different jewels. This Hykah in particular had the power of Thea, Emrys, Jesper, and two jewels from Zenith. Quite the combination. It had height to its advantage, but it’s body was so disfigured that there was no possible way it moved quicker than we could run—and good fucking thing, because chances were that we would need to.
The small steps we had taken put only a minimal amount of distance between the creature and us, so when the thing lunged—moving much quicker than I’d expected—we had no choice but to run. Sebastian pulled me by the arm, sprinting across the threshold that brought us back into the palace, not daring to take a glance back.
Delani and Sawyer crashed in behind us, one of them slamming into my back, shoving me forward.
Sawyer wielded a heavy stream of water which Sebastian froze on command, the two of them crafting a thick wall of ice to barricade the open archway in hopes it would hold should the thing try to get in.
“Yup. Those things are just as terrifying as I remember,” Sebastian panted, his non-frozen hand still clenched around mine.
“How did it get here?” Delani whimpered, her fear peeking through every aspect of her body as she stepped further away from the barricade.
