Chapter 33

They couldn't have been the same ones he and Ashton had fought.

The blood—the smell of it so vile that just thinking about it now was making him sick—had been everywhere. It had been a battle field. The thick fur under one of his hands and the handle of his blade in his other. The sickening sound of skin being torn through echoed in his ears. The warmth from the blood as it sprayed all over him.

The Hounds were running toward the Hunters. They looked small in the distance, but Ren knew just how big they were. The Hunters were dwarfed in comparison. The thick black hairs of the Hounds stood up. They snarled as they flew through the air.

As if in slow motion, they soared toward the Hunters. There were three of them, lined up in a pack position with one leading and two following.

Just as the Hounds passed the last line of trees that blocked them from a clear shot, the Hunters fired.

The sound of the shots blared in Ren's eardrums. He threw his hands over his ears, too shocked to think about if he'd drawn attention to him and Ashton. The sound pierced him and went through his body. His ears ached as he watched the mayhem erupt down below.

The Hunters kept shooting. The Hounds snarled as blood splattered the forest floor. They halted there, thrashing as if they were trying to fling the bullets off their large bodies.

"Fucking—" Malcolm clicked his gun, but there were no bullets left. He fell behind Kenny and Remy. "Cover me!"

He got no answer as the two continued to rain fire on the Hounds.

Ren's jaw dropped as the Hounds hadn't dropped yet though they had been shot close to a hundred times.

Kenny yipped, jumping when he ran out of bullets. "This is what I'm talking about!"

Malcolm sent him a glare as he cocked his gun and went back to shooting at the Hounds. Kenny kept on grinning as he reloaded his gun.

Remy was the only one who looked unfazed by the impressive show the Hounds were giving. She had more than one gun and was flicking between the two like she was flinging Pez candy. She reloaded them two more times and emptied the magazines before she fell back behind the other two men.

She was sweating. She wiped his forehead with the back of her hand.

"This isn't working!" She yelled at the men's backs. "It's not enough!"

The men ignored her. They kept shooting.

The Hounds were creeping closer. They were a bloody mess, but as the Hunters started to lose their rapid speed of fire, the Hounds were starting to get use to the constant pain.

The one in the front opened its large jaw and growled so loud that the ground shook. The trees shivered and Ren could feel the rumble all the way to where he was crouching.

Saliva dripped down the large canine fangs. The Hounds hunched over in a crouching position ready to strike.

The men ran out of bullets at the same time.

Remy now looked horrified.

The Hounds shook their bodies, flinging blood and mud everywhere. Bullets dropped down from their healed skin, the bullet holes in the fur closing up to look as if nothing had been wrong in the first place.

Remy took a step back and that was when the Hounds launched.

They soared through the air, lunging at each of the Hunters respectively. Remy and Kenny dodged the attacks, but Malcolm wasn't as lucky. The Hounds that had attacked him, snapped its large jaws around the arm that he was holding his gun with. He yelled out as the Hound's fangs sunk into his skin.

Ren winced as the scent of blood hit the air. The Hounds' blood was vile—the worst thing he'd ever smelled. But the smell of human blood was savory. It made his stomach growl and his fangs ache. He clenched his knees, hoping that would be enough to hold him back from launching down there to get a taste of it himself.

The dark thing wanted to see just how the Hunters tasted. It wanted to know what it was missing and watching the Hounds fight with the Hunters was setting it off more than anything else had. It was scratching at Ren's insides. The wild thrashing inside of him felt like there was actually inside of him.

Ashton crouched beside him. Ren knew Ashton knew. He could feel it once more in the air like a summer rain falling on his warm face. He ached to get closer to that warmth, to be closer to Ashton like he was starving for the sun. The thing was getting twisted inside of him. It was torn between staying by Ashton's side or jumping down into the river of blood cutting through the forest.

"I can't do this," he said, hating how small he sounded. He whispered the admission, but it felt like he was screaming it to the rest of the world.

And when Ashton just turned his head, slanting a look at them that almost screamed bedroom eyes, Ren's gut clenched so much that he thought he was having a heart attack. No. It wasn't that. He was just losing his mind that he never had in the first place.

Ashton surprised him. He didn't press his lips into a hard line. He didn't curl his lips into a cruel scowl.

He simply look at Ren with an open expression that made Ren feel like he was being cut open. His insides were bare to Ashton, so vulnerable that his body was no longer his own.

"Can you?"

Words so soft that Ren chased them in the wind. He caught them and held them. Seconds ticked by faster than time itself could comprehend. Ren's eyes flickered over Ashton's face. He was searching for the hidden lie. It had to be there. The deception had to be there because no Mantel was without a cruel reality lurking beneath the surface.

He didn't find anything. The air was clear of any malice.

His heart twisted like thorned vines. His body wilted as the sounds of screams and snarled filled the air.

His eyes fell down to Ashton's mouth.

He wanted to kiss him.

In this bloody war, he wanted to kiss Ashton Mantel before he died.

The moment split. The reality was shattered as Ren felt something more shocking went through him.

A bullet. It shot through him like an arrow hitting a bullseye. Electricity flowed through him and at that moment he thought he was dying.

But it wasn't a pain that he'd ever felt before. A split second later, he realized that this wasn't his own pain that he was feeling.

He whipped his head and stared down in shock at the fight that was still going on. The Hunters were actively fighting two of the Hounds. They had ditched their guns and had instead gone for knives. They each had two of them, wielding them like they'd been doing this all their lives. Ren didn't doubt that. He'd heard the rumors that Hunters were raised from babies to be vampire killing machines.

But that wasn't what had caught his attention.

The third Hound that had shown up wasn't fighting. It was hunched over on the forest floor. It was snarling, revealing its gums. Drool dropped in buckets, slimy to the point of looking artificial.

Ren couldn't look away. The blood that poured from the open wounds was like a mirror showing him everything that he'd gotten wrong about the world. He was forced to realize that this was a living creature. It didn't matter if it was an animal meant to hurt him or was sent to kill as many people as it could. The one fact that rang above anything else was that this creature was in pain.

The pain was shooting through him as if it was his own pain. He tried to shake it off, but it kept coming back, clawing at every fiber of his being.

The emotions were flying through the air. They were targeted at him as if the Hound knew that he could feel it all.

But the Hound hadn't even looked at him yet.

It was panting, clamoring at the ground as it tried to pull itself up, but even using all its strength, it wasn't strong enough to fight against the dragging weight of its wounds. It barred its teeth, warning the invisible threat, and snarled as savagely as it could.

Slowly, it turned its head. The way it did so looked like it already knew what it was going to see. When it looked in Ren's direction, he knew then that the Hound had sensed him just as much as he had sensed it.

There was no greater reaction that soared through his veins or any strike of lightning through his nerves. When the large beast locked eyes with him, there was nothing outside the two of them. The snarl dropped from the Hound's face as it stared back at him. Its pure black eyes captured his full attention. His thoughts melted away as he was forced to feel all the emotions that were being sent out by the Hound.

And then, the Hound snapped out of the calm storm. It crouched and snarled the loudest it could, no longer weighed down by the immense pain that it must have been going through.

Ren's eyes widened. He scrambled back, reaching out for Ashton, as the Hound charged up the hill toward them.

His hand wrapped around Ashton's arm and he didn't think as he yanked him back. They stumbled in together, but it didn't matter.

"Go!"

He shoved Ashton forward. And when he turned his back to the Hound, he knew that they weren't going to escape without getting into another fight.

The ground felt like a conveyer going in the opposite direction than his feet. It was pulling him back, taking him right to the Hound so that it could tear him from limb to limb. He lost his grip on Ashton's arm. They diverged, but they were still going in the same direction.

His heart lodged in his throat. He struggled to get his feet to move faster. He was running and running as fast as he could, but it wasn't fast enough.

The panic settled deep inside of him, wringing his stomach of everything he'd eaten the hours before. He was glad he'd lost his appetite from all the stress.

The forest went on forever and there was no end in sight. He panted and heaved as he rushed past it all, not at all thinking about where he was going just as long as he was moving away from the Hound. The thoughts were following him, whispering in his ear. They were muffled feelings that mixed with his own. The thing buzzed with agitation. It wanted to be part of this. It wanted to break free from the cage and soaked its hands in the blood of the Hound.

Ren clenched his teeth. He fought as much as he could to stop the thing from rising to the surface. He could feel it slowly pluck his nerves, taking them as its own so that it could control his body. He was the trapped within the cage now.

The thing was in control.

He stopped. His feet were heavy cement. He couldn't move them.

"Ren!"

Ren ignored Ashton's loud yell. He turned around. He stared into the dark forest. The shadows enveloped the trees and the underbrush into dark film. Everything was coated with the darkness, but Ren didn't need to see to know the Hound was close by.

He could hear it and he could feel it. The emotions felt like they were being hurled at him as if the Hound knew he could communicate with it.

Blood rushed in his ears. One second the Hound was at the ledge of the hill and then the next second it was right in front of him.

"Fuck!" Ashton stepped right between the Hound and Ren.

The Hound leaped through the air. Its large body crashed on the ground right into front of Ren. Ashton shouted once more, but the Hound's ear piercing howl shattered the words from his mouth. Ren stood tall as the Hound lowered its snout and gazed directly into his eyes. That split second sent shock waves through his body.

But those red eyes that were far darker than Ashton's glowing ones, held so much evil that it matched the thing inside of him. The cocky grin stretched across his face was still though it was hollow. The thing was twisted around in Ren's body, the cage it was locked inside, and growled back at the Hound.

Suddenly, Ren was knocked to the side. Just as he was tackled to the ground, the Hound snapped its jaws where he'd been standing.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Ren gaped up at Ashton.

He was seething. His narrowed red eyes were burning with rage and frustration. His dark blond hair had fallen down, draping around his pretty face like a halo. Ren gasped for breath. The wind had been knocked out of him and his back was screaming in pain.

And then, before he could react, Ashton yanked him off the ground.

But they weren't fast enough.

The Hound knocked Ashton to the side.

Then, it finally clamped its teeth onto Ren.