I stare down at the baby. Her eyes are open now, unfocused. She blinks. Her mouth parts like she’s trying to speak. Trying to cry.
But no sound comes.
“What do we do with her?” I ask, though I already know.
He straightens slowly. Rolls his shoulders. His face hardens into stone. “We feed it to the hound.”
Something in me recoils. Not from the act. From the ease of his answer.
I have bathed in blood. Carved my name into the flesh of kings. I’ve slaughtered children who bled like lambs and didn’t blink.
But this… this is different. This baby did nothing wrong. And yet, I am her executioner.
My hand trembles as I lower her slightly, gaze locked on her soft, unaware face.
Then, my mate lifts his hand. A flick of the wrist. A breath of power.
And the shadows shift.
They thicken, liquefy, crackle with ice and rot. A growl rolls out like thunder across a battlefield. And then—it comes.
The hellhound steps into the world like it’s tearing through a veil. Charred bone. Black sinew. Smoke coils from between its ribs, frost seeping into the concrete with every footfall.
Four glowing eyes lock on the child in my arms. She whimpers.
And the hound crouches. Waiting.
A holy thing would plead. A merciful one would look away.
I do neither.
My mate speaks the final command. “Take it.”
The hound lunges.
Its jaws snap shut with a wet crunch. Flesh tears. Bone cracks. A single breathy cry escapes—then vanishes beneath blood and heat and ruin.
The scent of it fills the air. Copper. Milk. Innocence.
It clings to me. It will never come off.
“It's done,” my mate says, already gripping my wrist, pulling me from the carnage. “Let’s go.”
But we barely make it one step before the air shifts. The shadows stir. A second presence.
Not one. Many…
Then, a voice like steel dragged across bone. “Where is the child?”
We freeze.
Figures emerge from the mist like ghosts from a war long lost—armor blackened and seared, their helmets etched with sigils that pulse like dying stars. Their molten gold eyes burn into me. Into us.
The Zepharion’s hunters.
They see no child in my arms. Not yet.
But they will. And when they do…
