Page 19 of Silver in the Bone

I’m going to die. The thought seared my mind, agonizing. He’s going to kill me.

Unless I killed him first.

The hound lunged again, but so did I, grasping for the letter opener just beside the mountain of research books on my desk. I spun around, slashing wildly through the air to ward it off. Instead of backing away, the hound let itself be cut as it came for me. My body was gripped with a single, desperate drive for survival.

I can’t.

The letter opener fell from my hand, spinning against the floor. I took a step away, then another, as the hound briefly turned its attention to licking a deep cut on one of its legs.

I can’t.

He was still Cabell. Inside, somewhere, this hound was my brother.

And he was going to kill me.

The dog prowled forward between our two desks. My back bumped into the bookshelf near the window, and just like that, I had nowhere left to go.

I reached back, throwing book after book at the hound, unleashing all of the anger and desperation throbbing inside me. The hound snapped at them, yelping and whimpering when a few managed to hit it.

I sucked in a ragged breath as it backed away, turning its snout up toward the ceiling. Its howl reverberated through our small apartment as if trying to summon others to the hunt.

The hunt.

The idea pierced the fog of pain in my mind. I risked a glance to my left, toward our pack, the one we only used when we needed to camp out before entering a vault. It leaned against the buckling leg of Cabell’s desk, just out of reach.

“Listen to me, Cabell,” I said, moving slowly toward it. The hound turned back, flattening its ears against its skull as it growled.

I kicked the bag over, letting its contents clatter out onto the floor. The silver box of tranquilizer darts, the ones meant for bears and other predators, magic or mundane, slid out among the mess of notebooks and tools.

There would only be a second ...

Less.

The hound leapt. So did I.

My body slammed against the floor with the full weight of the snarling creature on my back. My hair caught between the hound’s teeth and was ripped out of my scalp. I threw one elbow back, unable to get the silver box open with my shaking hands, slick with blood. I bashed it against the floor and it sprang open just as the hound plunged its teeth into my shoulder.

I twisted around with a feral sound of my own and jammed the dart into the bulging muscle of its neck.

The dog yelped, bucking against me. I held its face away with one hand, keeping my grip on the dart until the animal shuddered and, finally, lay still.

“It’s all right,” I told it, wrapping an arm around its back. “It’s okay now.”

It collapsed on top of me with one last snort and a low, mournful whine.

My neighbor pounded on the wall between us. “Everything okay?”

“We’re fine!” I called back, hearing the tremor in my voice. “Sorry!”

We were on the ground floor. It was amazing no one had seen what had happened through the window.

I held the hound tighter, until the fur fell away. I held him until his bones began to break and reshape as he moaned in pain, deliriously clawing at the floor. My breath ached in my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to release the burn of tears.

Because every curse could be broken.

Even his.

I was being watched.

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