Page 36 of Hounded
Here, everything was already dead, so we fought for sport and show and the amusement of demons like Nero, who occupied a canopied dais at the far end of the arena. The stadium seats were empty, but the pit itself was cluttered with hellhounds engaged in one-on-one combat. The scores of hounds had been stripped of their muzzles so they could use their shadowy teeth to snap at each other and spritz the air with blood. Two brawled barehanded before me, not yet gifted with their demonic weapons. Through their flailing arms and legs, I saw Moira observing from her post against the wall of the arena.
My arrival drew her eye, and she turned with a leather riding crop gripped in both hands. I remembered the sting of that tool on my skin, delivering reprimand for every misstep. Occasionally, it found its way into the bedroom to offer another kind of correction. It was one of her gentler forms of punishment, but that didn’t mean it wasineffective.
When she smiled, the sharp tips of her teeth dented her bottom lip, and I considered fleeing again. But I managed to stand and wait while she strode along the edge of the arena toward me.
“Lorenzo,” she called ahead, melodic as a siren and twice as dangerous. “Making a habit of hasty departures lately. And arrivals.” Coming close, she hooked her hand around the back of my head and pulled me down for a lingering kiss. She tasted bitter, almost tart and, when her tongue roamed into my mouth, I fought the urge to bite it.
She pulled back and smudged her thumb across my lips, wiping away the residual red tint.
“Nevertheless, your timing is good.” She swished the crop at her side, and I watched it swing. “Whitney’s been hard at work breaking in the new hounds, and I’d like you to take a turn.” She motioned to the fighting pairs spread throughout the arena.
I spotted my counterpart engaged in combat with a petite girl with long, dark hair. Unlike the other hounds, these two had weapons. Whitney brandished his military saber, and the girl—I recognized her as the hound Karst had chosen from the kennels days ago—clutched a pair of curved daggers.
Before I could respond to Moira’s question, she looped her arm around mine and pulled me through the battleground. We dodged kicks and punches, and Moira snapped her crop at a few combatants as we passed. A pair of female hounds tangled in the dirt with their claws slashing. I sidestepped them but didn’t evade the fountainof black blood that spurted high enough to speckle my face.
Moira laughed as I used my sleeve to mop it.
We came to a stop across from Whitney and the new hound. A shrill cry pierced the air as he swept his saber across her middle, shredding the fabric of her already ruined dress. Her daggers disappeared in a puff of smoke as she hunkered over to grab her stomach. Her eyes widened with alarm.
“Straighten up, sweetheart.” Moira pulled away from me and used the end of her crop to tap the girl’s chin.
Panting and panicked, the girl obeyed. She slowly spread her arms, sticky with blood from the cut that was slowly healing. Trembling, she marveled at the wound while Whitney sheathed his saber and bowed to our mistress.
“Well done, Whitney,” Moira said with a smile.
Judging by the sweat slicking Whitney’s brow and soaking his blond locks, the sparring had been going on for some time. The female hound looked similarly spent, smeared with dirt turned to mud on her bare arms and shins. She was a delicate thing, waifish and deceptively frail considering the hellish power lurking inside her.
Moira sidled up to Whitney and patted his arm. “Take a break, won’t you? I’d like Lorenzo to have a go.”
Whitney’s green eyes flicked over me with the faintest surprise before he nodded. The sword disappeared from his hip as he strode toward the edge of the arena.
Across from me, the girl clutched at her dress where it gaped from Whitney’s attack. It hung open from her navel to the waistband of her underwear, but her attemptsto will it back together were for naught. Moira watched her struggle for a moment, then snapped the riding crop against the girl’s scrabbling hands.
“What do you value more?” the demoness asked. “Your decency or your life?”
Tears welled in the girl’s eyes.
“Defend yourself!” Moira told her, then beckoned to me.
My glaive materialized beside me, stretching from the dusty floor to my shoulder and glinting black and steel. When I grasped the weapon and spun it sideways, the other hound yelped.
Moira’s lips curved in a smirk. “Good boy. Show her a thing or two.”
The demoness took her leave, passing Whitney’s post beside the wall to ascend a set of stairs toward where the archdemon Nero observed. While I tracked her departure, the girl hound fumbled to summon her daggers.
She was breathing hard from either fear or exertion, and it gave her a wild look as she clawed at her sides, her forearms, then the empty air in search of the weapons.
“Don’t rush,” I told her. “I’m in no hurry.”
She stared at me with eyes impossibly round and bloodshot.
I remembered these early days. Every minute out of the kennels was critical. Every misstep was measured. Moira’s approval was not easily earned, and it was the key to a respite from battle or freedom from a cold, metal cage.
When the girl managed to conjure her daggers again, I nodded to her. Talking was discouraged among thehounds, but I couldn’t shake the thought of her muffled wails days earlier or the memory of all the things I’d wanted to say when I was in her position.
“I’m Loren,” I said in a voice so low the grunts and cries of those fighting around us almost overcame it.
She quivered, adjusting her grip on the leather-wrapped handles of her knives. “Abigail,” she replied.
