Page 31

CARNAGE

The compound gates start opening, metal grinding loudly across the yard. Something hits me before Coil even walks through.

My hellhound jerks awake.

I stop where I’m standing, heat stirring beneath my skin as the beast pushes forward hard enough to tighten every muscle across my chest.

What the fuck?

Coil comes through the gates first with one hand wrapped around a woman’s arm.

And there it is again.

Stronger.

My hellhound shoves closer to the surface, but there’s no growl in my chest to go with it anymore. No warning rumble climbing my throat. Just the beast moving beneath my skin while I stand there in fucking silence.

My hand goes to my throat before I can stop it.

Coil keeps her moving across the gravel. She’s fighting him without actually fighting, boots digging in every few steps, body twisting like she’s waiting for the second his grip loosens enough to bolt.

He doesn’t give her one.

I know Coil, and if he thought she was here to kill us, she wouldn’t be walking through those gates.

So, what the fuck did he find?

Then she looks up.

Her eyes hit mine, and my hellhound goes completely fucking still.

The reaction catches me more off guard than if the beast had lunged.

He’s been restless since Malgrave ripped our voice away, pacing beneath my skin, snapping at every supernatural presence that gets too close, pissed at the entire-fucking-world because he can’t warn any of it back. But the second those pale green eyes find me across the yard, everything inside me stops.

Fuck.

She’s beautiful.

Not the polished kind. There’s dirt streaked along one cheek, and her clothes look like they have seen better-fucking-days. A few strands of silver hair are stuck to her mouth from fighting Coil across the gravel, while the rest hangs almost to her waist in a tangled sheet that catches what’s left of the light every time she moves. Freckles dust the bridge of her nose beneath eyes that should look soft with a face like hers but sure as fuck don’t. They’re sharp, wary, already taking me apart from twenty feet away.

Her mouth is full, pressed into an irritated line as she jerks against Coil’s grip again, and there’s a small scar cutting through one eyebrow that has my attention snagging on it longer than it should.

Pretty isn’t the right fucking word for her.

She’s too clean.

She looks like something that’s spent a long time surviving.

My kind of beautiful.

Except none of that explains the hellhound.

The beast stays completely still beneath my skin, attention locked on her with an intensity that has every muscle across my shoulders tightening. No pacing or push for control. He watches through my eyes as she watches me right back.

Then something brushes through me, so faint I almost miss it.

A vibration moves beneath my ribs, soft enough that I feel it more than anything else, slipping through the heat in my chest and touching some place inside me that has been fucking raw since Malgrave put his hand around my throat.