Page 92 of Shadow Caster
Shouts and bellows drifted down the tunnel toward us.
To demonstrate how fine I was, I broke into a run, taking Hyde with me. It was only when we skidded around the corner and came face to face with a bunch of cadets fending off three hounds that I realized we were still holding hands. I released him abruptly.
He drew a dagger from his belt and handed it to me. “I know we haven’t trained much with daggers but—”
“I can handle it.”
We jumped into the fray.
Harmon and Thomas were back to back, hunting daggers and swords flashing as they fended off the beasts. One cadet was on the ground, slumped against the wall, clutching his abdomen, while another applied pressure to a bubbling wound. Mal … Mal was down, face pale, eyes too dark in his head. His body shook as it went into shock.
Helping him would have to wait till we’d dealt with the hounds. Not real hounds but just as dangerous. Their eyes were bright red, and feral rage motivated their every move. Harmon caught sight of me, and almost got snared by the snap of powerful jaws.
“Justice!” he cried out. “Get back.”
Yeah, not happening. I stabbed the hound in the neck, slicing into its vertebrae. It went down, oozing yellow gunk.
“What the hell?” Thomas cried out.
I shook off the gunk on my hand. “They’re not hounds, they’re morphs. I’ll explain later. We need to get out of here.”
Behind us, Hyde had already dispatched the other two hounds.
He stood, magnificent, chest heaving as he scanned the room. “We’re missing three cadets?”
“They ran that way when the hounds attacked.” Thomas’s lips curled in disgust. “Cowards.”
“He’s lost too much blood,” the cadet administering to Mal said.
It was Gimble, the sandy-haired dude with the large Adam’s apple.
Mal looked up at us, his breath coming in shallow pants. “Don’t … don’t want to die.”
Fuck.
“He needs blood.” Harmon rolled up his sleeve, but Gimble beat him to it, shoving his arm into Mal’s mouth.
“Fey blood is more potent,” he said by way of explanation. “I don’t know what … I didn’t think … I should have …”
“Logic can fly out of your mind in the heat of combat,” Hyde said kindly.
“See that, Mal?” Thomas sneered. “A bastardized fey is fucking saving your ass.”
But Mal was too busy slurping, and Gimble’s eyes began to flutter closed. The fucker was draining him.
“Enough!” I kicked Mal in the head, hard enough to dislodge his fangs from Gimble’s arm.
The feyblood fell back with a moan.
“Shit.” Harmon swept him up and over his shoulder.
Mal shuddered as he healed, wounds knitting, and the scent of Gimble’s blood had saliva pooling in my mouth. I swallowed and stepped away from the semi-conscious feyblood.
Mal used the wall to stand, his dark, angry eyes confused and clouded for once. He’d almost died, and that shit could change a person. Let’s hope it gave him a personality overhaul.
“We need to move,” Hyde said. “Come on.” He led the way away from the dead hounds bleeding yellow gunk, and down the corridor the other cadets had taken. “They can’t have gone far. From what I recall, the hounds like to make their dens this way. Plenty of nooks to curl up in. Let’s hope they haven’t gone too deep.” A scream echoed off the walls. “Stay here,” Hyde ordered, and then he ran toward the screams.
Like hell was I letting him get his arse killed. He was our only way out of here. “Stay here,” I said to Harmon, mimicking Hyde’s tone. “Trust me. We’re here to get you all out. This place is rigged and about to blow.”
