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Ren made a rough sound. “This isn’t just some demon, it’s an evil-as-fuck spirit inhabiting a hellhound. They’re twenty times stronger and more viscous. Get back into your circle, Willow.”

“I’ve got this,” I said and braced when the giant hound exploded through the tree line and ran at me full speed.

Edric was a massive hound, and the spirit occupying his body was taking full advantage of all that speed and strength. He was coming in fast, but I needed to time it just right, too far back and he could dodge the blade when I threw it, not something that ever happened at a closer range. The adrenaline spike hit, letting me know it was time, and I let my dagger fly. I watched it arrow through the air, glinting off the moonlight.

Edric jerked right, and it glanced his massive, shaggy shoulder, then spun off into the long grass.

Fuck. I backed up and aimed my hands at the ground. It shook, the earth splitting beneath him. He bounded out of the way and kept coming.

I tried to call my blade to me as I backed up to my salt circle, but pain sliced down my leg and I stumbled before I could reach it. What the hell? It was followed by a repeated stabbing sensation that knocked my legs right out from under me. I cried out as my legs lost all strength.

“Willow!” Ren started toward me.

Fuck.

“Get back!” I screamed at him and threw out a hand again. My blade flew toward me, and finally, the hilt hit my palm. I tried to scramble back, but my legs were useless. I quickly drew back my arm to throw the blade again, but Edric was too close. I cried out as he ran over me like a freaking truck. Agony slammed through my body.

The hound spun as Ren ran for me.

“No!”

Edric snarled and smashed into us both, knocking Ren several feet away, then he prowled toward Ren, sniffing the air. I called my blade and threw it again, visualizing where I wanted it to land, and it sunk into Edric’s tree-trunk-sized thigh.

He roared and turned back to me.

“Get in the circle, Ren, now!” I held out my hand for my blade once more. It flew back, but Ren wasn’t moving. Edric turned to me, stalking closer, limping now. He was foaming at the mouth, eyes blazing red, and I held out my blade. “Come closer and I slit the hound’s throat and I won’t stop slicing until I’ve taken his head. You won’t easily find another vessel as strong as this one,” I said to the spirit living inside Edric.

He stopped in his tracks, and I’d never seen a hellhound in its beast’s form smile before, but I was positive that’s what I was looking at now. He had no intention of backing down. He dipped his head, preparing to charge. I jerked my hands up, reaching for the trees, the forest floor, with my magic, and a hail of dead branches, debris, and several rocks flew at him on a flurry of violent wind, smashing into him with force.

Edric jerked back as the wind whipped around us, his body taking hit after hit. He roared, then turned, and with a powerful move, exploded across the clearing and vanished back into the woods.

I released the wind and scrambled to Ren, who still wasn’t moving. “Ren…Renny, talk to me?” He was shaking, his entire body quivering.

A muffled sound reached me.

I frowned. “Ren?”

And then the sound became clearer.

Giggling.

A deranged, twisted sound that had my heart thumping against the back of my ribs. He spun suddenly and grabbed me by the throat. His eyes were black, no trace of the soft gold or his gentle heart that could be seen whenever you looked into them.

Instead, pure evil stared back.

He was possessed.

I gripped his wrist, trying to wrench it away, but he was too strong.

“Get out,” I rasped past the tight grip he had on my throat. “Get out of him. Right the fuck now!”

“Or what?” A voice that wasn’t Ren’s answered, “What will you do?”

This wasn’t the spirit who Edric was housing, this was someone else. How many had been piggybacking in the hellhound? No other creature was strong enough to hold several spirits at once. No wonder they’d been drawn to the clubhouse.

Grabbing the onyx around my throat, I shoved it against Ren’s face and tried to choke out the spell to exorcise the spirit from him. But the words were indecipherable. He squeezed tighter and tears slid down my face as I gripped my blade tighter. I didn’t want to hurt him.

But he grabbed my wrist before I could aim for his arm or leg, somewhere that wouldn’t kill him, like he’d read my intentions. Twisting it behind me and up, his legs wrapping around mine and squeezing impossibly tight. Using all the new impressive fighting skills the hounds had taught Ren, locking me in a hold I couldn’t get out of.