Half Wylde | Book 1

Thirty Four: Winter Lands

Asher was huge. Maybe even taller than Thain. His black hair was cropped close to his head and his pale grey complexion looked haunting with his black eyes. And he was fast. He sprang into action almost immediately after he told me I was coming with him. Three flesh hounds had crept near, snarling and ready to attack.

But the fae that Asher commanded were ready. They sprouted fang and claw, ready to pounce if any of the creatures got too close.

I was terrified. They were huge, and I got a gruesome picture up close that I didn't get when we left Thain fighting one in the trees.

Here in the open I could discern exactly what pieces of torn flesh the hounds adorned themselves with. One had a strip of neck and ear over it's back and what must have been a length of scalp. I distinctly saw fingers on another. And old dried blood striped their grotesque hides. It stung to look at them. To smell them was worse.

They did not have the natural regeneration of wounds like most things in the Wyldes. Instead of healing over, damaged skin seemed to remain open. It festered, dripping puss and infection down the skin. What scars I could see told me the wounds would heal eventually, but what marred and open flesh I could see told me it wasn't a quick or pleasant experience.

One of the hounds closest to me had a mangled jaw with maggots crawling on it. It did nothing to ease my nausea.

It was awful. The smells, the sounds. My newly heightened senses were making me sick, and I kept my eyes shut tightly. Asher assigned one of the males to bind my hands and hold me in place while they fought the hounds. He did so, none to gently. I couldn't have run if I wanted to though. I was absolutely drained of energy, I couldn't even light a candle right now with my powers and I certainly wasn't going to try to run anywhere.

I strained hard, trying to hear or see what might have happened to Schula but I couldn't tell where she was or even if she was alive.

She had to be alive, right? Asher ordered his soldiers to bring her with us.

But he didn't say alive.

But she had to be.

The fighting continued and more fearsome fae joined the fight. Where they came from I couldn't tell, but they all answered to Asher.

I screamed once, when a flesh hound broke the line of defense and came bounding toward me. Asher himself caught the thing by the throat, and ripped it out with his claws. Its blood dripped down his arm, and he looked me straight in the eye as he smiled and licked some of it off his bicep, still holding bits of its flesh in his hand as the body twitched on the ground at his feet. He chuckled at my reaction.

I shivered and clamped my eyes shut for the remainder of the fighting.

Even though I could feel warm blood splatter my face.

Even though I could hear when the flesh hounds got close to me.

Even though I could smell the pungent air of punctured intestines, signaling a gruesome death nearby.

Still, I kept my eyes shut.

It felt like ages before it all died down. I finally pried my eyelids open when I was hauled to my feet.

Bodies littered the ground around us, there were probably two hundred dead flesh hounds and by now two dozen fae all answering to Asher. Three of his fae had fallen and were being carried off.

"Come on, you." Calloused hands yanked me forward and my feet left the ground as my assigned guard grabbed me.

I was lifted and thrown over his shoulder, now fully realizing I had discarded my tunic and was left in only my breast band and pants. Filth from his skin and blood splatter from the fighting coated my exposed stomach.