Chapters (42)
- Title Page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
- Cover
At his last words, my attention slammed to the ceiling. Fear plinked through me, stealing my breath as the memory of Trent’s hounds tracking me hit a deep chord and resonated. Dogs. There were dogs in the woods. The same ones who had tasted my scent. The same who had run me through Trent’s beautiful, silent, and deadly woods.
In a heartbeat, the memory hit me of being unable to breathe because my lungs hurt so badly, my legs leaden and scratched, the water I’d splashed through making me slow, and the mud mixing with my tears as my breath rasped. I had never been hunted like that, chased by an animal who single-mindedly thirsted for my death, eager to tear my flesh and take joy in burying its nose in my warm insides. And now I was in a hole in the ground, helpless.
My God. I had to get out of here!
“Rachel, you’re all right,” Pierce whispered, inching awkwardly across the dirt floor to me, his heels in the air and toes shuffling. “Please, you’re safe. Be still. There’s a hole for air, and enough to breathe. The walls are firm.”
Images of being pulled from the ground and ripped apart mixed with the reality of having been chased before. “I have to go.” I lifted a hand and felt the ceiling, bits of it falling on me. I had to run!
“Rachel, be still!”
Frantic, I stood, crouching, putting my back and shoulders against the ceiling to push. I had run before. I had run and survived. I had to run now!
Pierce shifted forward, and I grunted, head thunking the wall when he was suddenly on top of me. “Let me go!” I shouted in panic. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know! I tried to shove him away, but he caught my hand. His grip was tight, and I went to kick him.
Wise to it, he dodged, pinning me to the wall with his weight. My air huffed out, and I wiggled, trapped. “Let me go!” I said, and he covered my mouth with a hand smelling of dirt.
“Shut pan,” he hissed, his body covering mine. “I know you’re scared, but you’re safe from all creation. They’ll be gone like greased lightning if you would just be still! Couldn’t you have stayed asleep but a hooter more?”
A horn sounded, faint. Panic jerked my eyes to the ceiling. They were above us? Right now? Again the horn came. And dogs. Baying for my blood.