Or worse.

That also went unsaid.

Ash’s lips brushed my cheek. “She speaks the truth.”

Attes’s smile was small and heartfelt, but there, as he released my hand. “He already thanked me once. No need to do it again.”

Raising a brow, I looked over my shoulder at Ash. “You actually thanked him?”

“Yes.” He kissed my temple. “I told you. We worked things out.”

“With your fists,” I muttered.

“He actually thanked me before he hit me,” Attes said. “Or was it between the first and second punch?”

“It was between them,” Ash said.

I shook my head. “I do not understand either of you.”

“We understand each other,” Attes interjected.

I supposed that was all that mattered.

I started to turn back to Ash when a shiver of unease coursed through me, each hair on my body standing on end. Instinct kicked in—the kind that had nothing to do with the vadentia and everything to do with the primitive part of my consciousness that sensed…

That death was in the air.

My eyes flew to Ash’s.

He stilled, eather flaring brightly in his silver eyes as he picked up on my emotions.

Nektas rose, his chin lifting as he inhaled deeply.

Eather flooded my veins as I spun, scanning the thick, sweeping pines crowding the foothills of the snowcapped mountains. My heart began to pound.

“If you’re feeling something, I’m not,” Attes said as I walked forward.

“Neither am I,” Nektas said. “But I do smell something.”

Attes’s booted feet hitting the stone as he walked echoed across the veranda as I eyed the dark shadows between the tightly packed trees.

I squinted, straining to see as far as I could into the vast forest. There was something about the darker splotches farther back. They didn’t seem right. They were too thick and suddenly seemed closer. The barking from Essaly—in the opposite direction of the forest—picked up in a nervous, almost frantic chorus.

“What do you smell?” Ash asked.

I stopped at the edge of the veranda. What I saw weren’t shadows. They were solid and prowled between the trees. I tensed as I suddenly saw a pair of amber orbs reflecting back at me. Dozens of them. But they weren’t orbs.

They were eyes.

“I smell wet dog,” Nektas answered as the luminous, predatory glow blinked out of existence.

“Son of a bitch,” Attes growled as branches low to the ground rattled.

The barking ceased.

My lips parted as a…dog trotted out from the forest, its fur shining a deep reddish brown in the sunlight—if dogs could grow to be a size somewhere between a kiyou wolf and a dakkai, that was. And if they looked like they had been bred with a barrat.

The creature was ugly, and not in a it’s-so-cute-it’s-ugly kind of way. Fur rose in spikes all along its back—not because it was matted into that form but because it just naturally grew that way—or so it appeared. There was no fur on the pointy, twitching ears or on most of its tail, except for a frizzy ball at the end. And its face? Well, that was where the barrat part came in. It had the face of an overgrown rodent, whiskers and all.

“Kynakos,” I murmured, eyes widening. “Dogs of War.”

The creature started prowling toward us, sniffing the air.

Attes was suddenly standing between us and the creature. “Stasi dato,” he ordered.

The dog’s upper lip curled as it growled, baring teeth that would make a dakkai nervous.

Ash was beside me at once. “I don’t think it’s standing down.”

“Stasi dato nori,” Attes shouted.

The creature’s yellow eyes flickered over Attes to where Ash and I stood. Its powerful muscles rolled along its sides and back a heartbeat before it leapt into the sky. I jerked forward.

Ash caught my arm, and Attes cursed, moving blindingly fast. He caught the dog around the neck.

My eyes slammed shut, and I winced at the yelp and the sharp, sudden crack of bone I heard. “Poor puppy,” I murmured.

“That’s not a puppy, liessa,” Ash said, his hand sliding from my arm to my waist. “They’re venomous beasts.”

But it still looked and sounded like a dog. Kind of.

I cracked open one eye just in time to see Attes laying the hound down. He did so almost reverently.

“I assume that’s not one of yours,” Nektas said.

“No.” Attes rose, his back still to us. “I stopped breeding them ages ago. They have the temperament of a starving dakkai, and you almost always have to put them down to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”

My hands closed at my sides. “Kyn.”

Attes nodded. “He never stopped breeding them. But they’ve always listened to me. They’re bred only to obey a Primal of Vathi.”

The eather hummed violently as I lifted my gaze to the forest. It had gone eerily quiet. Had I overreacted by coming here? “Did my presence draw it here?”

“No,” Attes answered. “The kynakos are fast, but it would take an hour or so for any of them to make their way here from Vangar, where Kyn resides. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Ash’s arm tightened around me.

“The forests here are thick enough that damn near anything could be inside them and it wouldn’t be seen from the sky,” he said, looking down at the kynakos. “He hasn’t tried it before.”

“But things are different now,” I said. “He knows who you’ve allied with, and he was in Dalos yesterday. He could’ve sent one of them to keep an eye on you.”

“And with you spending your free time shit-faced,” Lailah said, her chest rising with a sharp inhale as Attes’s head jerked up, “you wouldn’t be paying close enough attention to know if one of them was near your home.”

I half-expected him to give her some playful or witty retort, but he didn’t. A muscle flexed in his jaw.

“Let’s hope it was just one of them.” Lailah had drawn closer as she rubbed the heel of her palm against her chest. “No one wants to face a pack of war dogs on the hunt.”

On the hunt…

If they hadn’t been lurking nearby, and it would take them an hour or so to get there…?

My hand went to Ash’s arm. Energy throbbed as I lifted my gaze to the pines once more. It was still so quiet. The prickly sensation remained, telling me I hadn’t overreacted. Attes started to turn, the breeze ruffling his hair, and I remembered. I had been urged to come here for a reason. That…

The pine branches began to rattle again.

“There’s not only one.” My fingers dug into Ash’s arm.

Attes swore, whipping his attention back to the pines. “Get inside the palace. Now.”

It happened so fast that it left no time for escape. The Dogs of War exploded out of the forest—dozens of them. They raced across the field, jaws snapping and tails thumping.

“Motherfucker,” Lailah muttered, withdrawing her sword.

As Ash pulled his shadowstone blade from its baldric, my right hand flew to my thigh but came up empty. “Shit,” I muttered.

“Stay back,” Ash said, flipping the dagger. “You have no weapon, and their bite is nasty as fuck, even to a Primal.”

“You have two daggers,” I pointed out. “And I have the eather.”

“You just used a whole lot of it to restore the Shadowlands,” he reminded me. “And you’re still a—”

“Baby Primal,” Attes threw out as he whirled.

“Exactly,” Ash said as my eyes narrowed. His gaze met mine. “We’ve got this.”

My hands curled into fists. “Have I mentioned how much I miss my dagger?”

Attes dipped, catching one of the beasts around the shoulders as another rushed him.

“Attes!” Lailah shouted, darting forward. “Behind you!”

He cranked his head around as a kynakos leapt over the Primal as if he were just an obstacle in its way.

Clumps of grass kicked up as the Dog of War landed near the steps, its yellow eyes fixed on—

Bone cracked as Ash stepped forward and launched a shadowstone dagger at the kynakos, striking it square between the eyes. It fell back, dead before it hit the ground. “Do I have two daggers?” he responded.