Page 58 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

The high-pitched shriek cut through the night again, and suddenly we weren’t alone in the sky.

I peered over Cammon’s shoulder and wished I hadn’t. The creature homing in on us was more horrifying than the wolf or the bear. Human eyes glared at us over the top of a lethal beak, with a human mouth beneath it emitting those menacing cries. Hawk wings replaced human arms, but the body was a contorted combination of the two ending in a hawk’s tail feathers.

I had no idea how it stayed airborne. It should have been impossible.

“Watch out!” I cried as the hawk pulled its wings back, targeting us with single-minded intent.

Cammon veered to the left, but the hawk pivoted without trouble, and before Cammon had time to correct and veer again, the bird was on him, stabbing its beak into the back of his neck, between his wings, then darting away. Cammon hissed as his blood sprayed through the air, and when a single drop landed on my lip, my tongue darted out to grab it.

My eyes rolled back in bliss, the reaction so immediate, so intense, that I nearly unravelled despite the danger we were in.

I forced my attention back to the fight and rearranged myself in Cammon’s arms. Reeling from the hawk’s attack, he’d dropped his legs, setting us on more of a vertical angle. A mad idea played through my head, and when the hawk prepared to come at us again, I put it into action. Using Cammon’s shoulders to brace myself, I climbed until my hips pressed against his chest.

“What in the hells are you doing?” he demanded, but he wrapped his arms around my legs to hold me steady. I felt the waver in our flight and knew he was in no state to go after the hawk on his own. Blood dripped down his spine from the gouge in his back, and the muscles beneath the damaged flesh twitched with every beat.

I climbed higher, setting one foot on Cammon’s shoulder while he clung to my calf.

“Glory,” he warned, but he still didn’t try to stop me, too focused on keeping us in the air.

The mutt swooped towards us again, and I let go of all thought and released my instinct to survive. I bared my teeth and readied my claws, and when the hawk came within range, I leapt from Cammon onto the bird.

Cammon’s shout rose above the thunder as he whipped around and tried to grab me, but my fangs were already deep in the mutt’s neck. It screeched and tried to throw me off. Its size, that bizarre middle ground between hawk and human, meant my added weight made it impossible for its too-small wings to keep it aloft, and we began our plummet to the ground. Just like the bear’s, the hawk’s blood was rancid, and I retched as we tumbled through the sky. The hawk didn’t try to slow its descent, too dead to care about the landing.

Unfortunately, my head was clearing, and my predicament sank in with barely enough time to scream.

Strong arms snatched me out of my fall and clutched me to a warm, muscular chest before I could make impact.

“Can’t get out of this mission that easily, Buttons,” Cammon rumbled in my ear.

I grinned up at him, but my relief was short-lived when I caught sight of the swarm charging beneath us. “Can you go higher?”

His grimace told me enough. He was struggling to keep us aloft at all.

Even as I realized it, his wings faltered and we slammed into the ground, barely a metre away from a sharp slope. The crash rattled my teeth, but Cammon had wrenched us around to take the brunt. His face contorted with pain, and I was about to ask if he was all right when I noticed shadows moving in our direction.

“They’re almost on us.” I knew my warning wasn’t helpful, but my mind was too panicked to do anything but point out the obvious.

“Stay down, be ready to move.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small vial filled with explosive liquid—the object Cammon must have grabbed from his bag before leaving the tent. He flung it towards the speeding mass of enemies, and as soon as it was airborne, he threw his arms around me and rolled us over the edge of the escarpment. Tree roots caught my knees and shoulder blades, and twigs grabbed my shirt. With every bump and skid, my body protested, but there was no slowing us down. Nor did I want to as an explosion shook the earth and sent more dirt, trees, and corpses down after us. Light flashed and a cloud of smoke and flame rose into the sky, quickly doused thanks to the earlier storm.

The night seemed all the darker by the time we landed at the bottom of the incline. All the quieter. Charred bodies steamed across the ground, and none of the other mutts had pursued us. Either the explosion had wiped them out—along with our belongings—or the survivors were smart enough to escape while they could.

Which left Cammon and I alone once again.

And in the darker, quieter night, I was all too aware that our tumble down the escarpment had resulted in my landing on top of him.

Straddling his hips.

Staring down into his void-like eyes while my hands pressed against his chest to hold myself steady.

Despite the post-rain chill in the air, my skin heated, and my racing heartbeat echoed in the aching throb between my thighs. Unable to help myself, desperate for some small relief, I rubbed myself against Cammon, and a low whimper escaped me as his stiff length responded. He curled his fingers into my hips to hold me in place, his tail coiled around my leg, and when he rolled his pelvis to meet mine, I couldn’t hold back a moan.

So many days of fear and risk and near death. So many days of being in such close proximity to this demon prince who was as clever as he was sexy. I’d done so well at keeping my distance. At controlling myself. Now all that control was slipping away.

I had to stop. We hadn’t finished what we’d set out to do, and nothing good would come of giving in. The bond, what we both wanted from the future, everything we needed to focus on to get those futures—so much stood between us.

I knew it, yet I didn’t retreat when one of his hands cupped my face and drew me down. I didn’t roll off him and put space between us. Instead I ground against him again, and wetness slicked my thigh when he reacted with a low growl and a returned thrust.