Page 164 of Born of Blood and Ash

Ash caught my arm, and Attescursed, moving blindingly fast. He caught the dog around the neck.

My eyes slammed shut, and I winced at the yelp and thesharp, sudden crack of bone I heard. “Poor puppy,” I murmured.

“That’s not a puppy, liessa,”Ash said, his hand sliding from my arm to my waist. “They’re venomous beasts.”

But it still looked and sounded like a dog. Kind of.

I cracked open one eye just in time to see Attes laying the hound down. He did so almost reverently.

“I assume that’s not one of yours,” Nektassaid.

“No.” Attes rose, his back stillto us. “I stopped breeding them ages ago. They have the temperament of astarving dakkai, and you almost always have to putthem down to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”

My hands closed at my sides. “Kyn.”

Attes nodded. “He never stoppedbreeding them. But they’ve always listened to me. They’re bred only to obey aPrimal of Vathi.”

The eather hummed violently as Ilifted my gaze to the forest. It had gone eerily quiet. Had I overreacted bycoming here? “Did my presence draw it here?”

“No,” Attes answered. “The kynakos are fast, but it would take anhour or so for any of them to make their way here from Vangar,where Kyn resides. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Ash’s arm tightened around me.

“The forests here are thick enough that damn near anythingcould be inside them and it wouldn’t be seen from the sky,” he said, lookingdown at the kynakos. “He hasn’ttried it before.”

“But things are different now,” I said. “He knows who you’veallied with, and he was in Dalos yesterday. Hecould’ve sent one of them to keep an eye on you.”

“And with you spending your free time shit-faced,” Lailahsaid, her chest rising with a sharp inhale as Attes’shead jerked up, “you wouldn’t be paying close enough attention to know if oneof them was near your home.”

I half-expected him to give her some playful or wittyretort, but he didn’t. A muscle flexed in his jaw.

“Let’s hope it was just one of them.” Lailah had drawncloser as she rubbed the heel of her palm against her chest. “No one wants toface a pack of war dogs on the hunt.”

On the hunt…

If they hadn’t been lurking nearby, and it would take theman hour or so to get there…?

My hand went to Ash’s arm. Energy throbbed as I lifted mygaze to the pines once more. It was still so quiet. The prickly sensationremained, telling me I hadn’t overreacted. Attesstarted to turn, the breeze ruffling his hair, and I remembered. I had beenurged to come here for a reason. That…

The pine branches began to rattle again.

“There’s not only one.” My fingers dug into Ash’s arm.

Attes swore, whipping hisattention back to the pines. “Get inside the palace. Now.”

It happened so fast that it left no time for escape. TheDogs of War exploded out of the forest—dozens of them. They raced across thefield, jaws snapping and tails thumping.

“Motherfucker,” Lailah muttered, withdrawing her sword.

As Ash pulled his shadowstoneblade from its baldric, my right hand flew to my thigh but came up empty.“Shit,” I muttered.

“Stay back,” Ash said, flipping the dagger. “You have noweapon, and their bite is nasty as fuck, even to a Primal.”

“You have two daggers,” I pointed out. “And I have the eather.”

“You just used a whole lot of it to restore theShadowlands,” he reminded me. “And you’re still a—”

“Baby Primal,” Attes threw out ashe whirled.

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