“I’ll get him.” Brooke came out of the house, waved at him, and trotted toward the tree. “Idjit! You stop that now, you hear? You’re giving Fiona the headache.”

Suddenly Breanna went rigid in his arms. “Keely, no,” she whispered.

Liam tried to shove aside the worry that flooded through him. They didn’t look anything alike, but Brooke and Keely had been about the same age mentally. That’s why she was confusing the two. She was still stunned by what she’d witnessed. That was all.

“Keely, no!”

Breanna rammed her elbow into him, breaking his hold so that she half fell, half slid off the horse. The momentum took her forward a couple of steps before she fell to her hands and knees.

He flung himself off the horse, giving it a slap to send it to the stables. He tried to lift Breanna, but she clung to the ground, making horrible, mindless noises while she stared at the tree. He glanced at the tree. Idjit’s barking had become frenzied, and Brooke had slowed down, her attention also caught by something in the tree.

Wind riffled the leaves, just enough for him to catch a glimpse of a dark shape hiding in the branches. Something too big to be a squirrel.

“Mother’s tits!” Fiona burst out of the kitchen, a poker in her hand. “Can’t I have a minute to tend the fire without having to deal with some kind of ruckus?”

He closed the distance between them without realizing he’d started to move, grabbed the poker out of Fiona’s hand, and ran just as the nighthunter jumped out of the tree, its flaps of skin turning the jump into a gliding fall. Heading straight at Brooke.

Heat pulsed under his skin, but he couldn’t unleash the fire because Brooke was standing between him and the creature. He couldn’t burn one without burning the other.

He ran as if his world depended on it—and knew he wouldn’t reach her in time.

The nighthunter landed, but before it could leap on the girl, Idjit attacked, sinking his teeth in the flap of skin and bracing his legs to play a deadly game of tug.

Shrieking, the creature turned on the dog, ripping and tearing.

Liam reached Brooke. Grabbing the back of her dress, he flung her behind him, then braced for the attack.

The nighthunter, crouched over the still dog, lifted its face. Blood spilled over its chin. As it gathered itself to leap at him, Liam stepped forward and swung the poker at its head with all his strength. He heard the sharp crack of bone. Felt the poker sink into something softer. Watched the poker slide out of the smashed skull as the body slumped over the dog’s haunches.