Page 43 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Stepping under the trailer’s awning, I climbed the steps to the front door and pulled out my keys. I unlocked the door and opened it for Loren to go ahead with the groceries. I followed him inside to find the place uninhabited.

Whitney must have been out, which gave me time to assemble my surprise snack smorgasbord.

We had a wooden charcuterie board in the cabinet above the stove, and I relished the thought of how Loren would cringe watching me lay out Doritos, fruit Gushers, and sour cream dip in artful patterns.

I rifled the bags as quickly as Loren could offload them and realized I had forgotten drinks. Except milk.

“Wine,” I declared. “We should’ve gotten wine. I can ask Sully to bring a few bottles. It would give her an excuse to snoop. Maybe askyousome questions for a change.”

Loren dug through the bags, taking items out and lining them on the counter in neat rows. Suddenly, he stopped and straightened, tilting his head so he could sniff at the air. Stepping aside, he glanced out the window above the kitchen sink and scanned the trailer park outside.

I was about to ask him what was wrong when the front doorknob rattled.

Bad timing for Whitney to return. I wasn’t even close to ready. I scrambled to spread my arms and put my back to the display to obscure it from view, but when a stranger entered the trailer, snack-cuterie was the last thing on my mind.

A tall, broad man with gym bro written all over him stepped through the entry. His hair was buzzed, and muscles bulged under his thin white tank top. He would put the bouncers at the club to shame, and then in a headlock for fun.

He put one foot on our floor, half-in, half-out of the Airstream before a flurry of movement changed the entire scene. Air gusted past me as Loren bolted forward with an animalistic snarl that made my hair stand on end.

The growl was met with a yelp as the two men collided, tumbling out of the trailer and onto the patio outside. I chased them, my heart pounding and my skin chilling with panic.

Under the awning, the intruder was pinned to the ground with Loren’s massive glaive speared through his chest. Loren was on top of him, making noises like I’d never heard. The other man thrashed and struggled, kicking his legs while black blood seeped into the ground beneath him.

I thought to shout, but words hung in my throat as another person rushed to the scene. A young woman dove into the mix, her fists clenched around what appeared to be a pair of brassknuckles that she swung in a jarring connection with Loren’s face.

Blood spritzed the air as his head whipped aside, cheek torn and leaking.

The woman—another hellhound, I could tell—snapped her teeth and lunged for Loren’s throat. I tried to yell again, but only shrieked, feeling more banshee than phoenix as Whitney sprinted into sight. A curved sword appeared in a sheath on his hip, and he drew it. The blade flashed in the sunlight moments before he ducked into the shade of the awning and joined the fray.

“Stop!”

I thought it was me commanding them all. Three hellhounds tangled on the patio, a blur of teeth and claws and so much movement I couldn’t keep track.

But it wasn’t me; I hung in the doorframe, frozen and silent when the voice bellowed again.

“Knock it off!”

I tried to pick Loren out of the mess and found him grappling with the girl hound who reared back to deliver another bone-cracking punch to his jaw. The yelp this time was his, and it filled me with such fury I jumped off the steps on a beeline for the attacking hound, ready to grab her by the ponytail and bash her face against the pavers.

But Loren threw her off and rolled until he was on top of her, pinning her arms with his hands and howling—damn near roaring—inches from her face.

Whitney maneuvered through the rabble, swinging around behind Loren and grabbing a handful of his hair. Jerking Loren’s head back, Whitney leveled the sword at his throat and hissed in a quiet voice that managed to be incredibly loud.

“Lorenzo!”

Everything went still with only the sounds of heavy breathing and the buff guy groaning while he tugged on the shaft of the polearm buried in his chest.

Loren stiffened in Whitney’s grip, but he didn’t release his hold on the girl hound. Black trickled down his jaw and dripped off his chin, splotching the front of his button-down.

Bending in close to Loren’s ear, Whitney growled, “Let her go and get up. You’re causing a scene.”

A vein pulsed in the side of Loren’s neck, so near Whitney’s sword blade it made me tense.

“Who is she?” Loren asked. “Who are they?”

He talked.

It took a moment to register on the heels of the chaos, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed his voice. He talked, and I was relieved, then immediately confused. How long, and why, had he been keeping that from me?

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