Page 30 of Raven in Midwinter

“I meant to bite him,” he said, tipping his head toward the other Giles, “but you got in the way. And then”—he had to stop talking as a shiver tore through him—“I was terrified I’d killed you. Without you, I have no chance of breaking this curse.”

“I’m the one cursed,” the first Giles shouted. “This is what happens when you visit dark places and walk hidden paths, Xander. You get a murderous shadow that can follow you to every realm, always trying to kill you, never letting you eat or sleep until you’re nearly mad. I’m blamed for all manner of horrors now, no longer the hedge-rider who cares only for himself, but now one who leaves blood across realms that this wraith alone should be blamed for.”

There was no way for me to know who was telling the truth.

“Corvus will discern what is real,” he assured me. “Wake the land. It will know.”

But I’d already tried, and maybe he knew that.

“Wake the dogs,” he advised next. “Wake the Cŵn Annwn who now sleep under the snow deep in the woods. They will discern the veracity of my claim.”

“No,” Wolf Giles rasped. “If you wake them now, they will make sport of the animals left in the forest. You will taint the land with the spilling of unnatural blood. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

The thing was, they were both right. Because yes, absolutely, Arawn’s companions, who stayed with me until spring, would kill whatever or whoever didn’t belong on the land. A shifter of any kind would be eviscerated. A wraith, as well, could be destroyed by the magical hounds. But also, once woken, they would run across Corvus and kill whatever crossed their path. It was why I made sure they slept until nature woke as well. In the spring, they waited for Arawn to collect them, and they were gentle, curious, and guarded Corvus from anything that would harm any living thing on the land. Much like my land, neither wanted to be awake in the winter. The primal rhythm of the natural world was to rest.

“Here,” Lorne called, bringing me from my thoughts, carrying Argos in his arms like a baby. Argos, who also slept away the winter. Unlike the land and the dogs, though, he got up to eat, look out the window—not too long, as he wasn’t a fan of the cold glass—and even occasionally walked out into the snow. He enjoyed sleeping in front of the fire most of all.

“What do you expect a cat to do?” Wolf Giles asked snidely. And yes, he was freezing, I was sure, only his magic keeping him from death, and he was clearly at the absolute end of his patience, so I understood why he was mean.

The first Giles chided him. “A witch’s familiar is always welcome.”

Lorne put our black cat down, and Argos did that thing that all cats do where they take a step, then shake their foot, then another, and the pattern repeats. It would take him hours to get where I needed him to be.

Quickly, using my power, I brushed all the snow aside between him and the two men, and Argos walked slowly over to the Gileses. Wolf Giles recoiled, then ordered him to get away. When Argos hissed, Wolf Giles froze, eyes wide. He didn’t make a sound as Argos smelled his face.

After another moment, Argos walked over to the first Giles, who’d accused Wolf Giles of being a wraith. But about a foot away, he stopped moving.

“What is this?” Wolf Giles snarled at me.

“This is a daemon,” I told him as, in an instant, Argos was as big as a male grizzly bear, now in possession of blazing red eyes and wickedly sharp teeth and claws that were far bigger than those of the werewolf.

“No!” Fake Giles roared, and suddenly there were dogs, enormous black ones that looked more like shadows than anything real. There were ten of them with orange eyes like burning pieces of coal in their heads.

“Don’t you touch my cat,” Lorne howled, rushing forward before I could get a hand on him.

Argos turned to Lorne, which stopped him so fast, he nearly fell over, before he tipped his head, gave a soft meow incongruous with such an enormous animal, and then began slaughtering the dogs.

When I first met Lorne, I had been attacked by vargrs, or faewolves, and I’d been worried at that time that Argos could have been hurt as he’d come to my defense. When the Cŵn Annwn had showed up to save me, Argos had retreated, as he wasn’t crazy about them. I suspected that was because they could kill him, but that could be a mistake on my part. I had no information to support that hypothesis. Even after searching in my family archives, there was only the mention of when Argos had first appeared. What was known was that he was a daemon, and a powerful one, and had chosen to protect my family. I had no idea what kind of dogs Fake Giles commanded, but they definitely were not the companions of a god, as evidenced by the way Argos cut through them.

“Holy shit,” Lorne murmured, walking backward until he reached me, watching as our cat dismembered several before the others retreated to the shadows and were gone. Argos was never one to go out of his way to chase anything; he preferred not to run. “I didn’t… I’ve never seen him…like that.”

“If you can, don’t treat him any different,” I cautioned Lorne. “He’ll feel it if you fear him. Just let him continue to sleep on the bed and sit in your lap when you’re watching football.”

He gestured toward the cat, who was stalking toward Fake Giles now. “Are you kidding? Why would I ever be afraid of him? I’ve always liked him, and now I know for sure he likes me back.”

It was true. But still, we both had to turn away when Argos reached Fake Giles, leaned slowly forward, staring at him intently, his wailing and the curses he was trying to summon having no effect.

“Oh,” Lorne yelled, startled when Argos suddenly clamped his jaws down over the man’s head and ripped it easily and cleanly from his shoulders.

What was horrifying for me was that there was screaming and then nothing. No gurgling, no final gasp, simply alive one second, and dead the next.

Lorne said, “You were right. Argos could tell.”

“Which is good, but before you’re scarred for life, we need to get Giles out of the ground and bring him into the house.”

“What do you mean scarred for⁠—”

I tipped my head toward the corpse. Argos was now pulling on the body, loosening it from the ground.