Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,20
been running, our father had pretty much been institutionalized. Early onset Alzheimer’s had taken him hard, and as cruel as it was, as evil…I was glad.
He wasn’t a good man. He was cruel and wicked, and capable of… I blew out a breath. Funny how thinking of him when I hadn’t thought of him since the funeral, when closure had enabled me to move on, and hearing Sabina’s voice was enough to calm me down, to stop me from hyperventilating.
Just the reminder he was dead and couldn’t hurt me, and knowing that Sabina was alive, were better than any meds I could get from the doctor.
I grabbed my phone, which I’d dropped when the beast had started slamming into my door, and then I whispered, “I-I think the animal stopped.”
“It did?” I could hear Sabina’s relief, and I hummed under my breath before I did what I hadn’t dared do before—unbarricade myself from the living room where I’d holed up.
I pushed aside the dresser I’d hauled in, and then moved a lounger chair that I’d used as well to cushion the blow if the hyena got inside.
I wasn’t sure why the animal hadn’t just shifted back to human form, why they’d insisted on attacking me in that skin—surely it was easier to break into someone’s home when you had opposable thumbs?—but I wasn’t going to complain that the person attacking me was a dumbass.
When I peered out into the small hall that lined the center of the cabin, which led to a kitchen, living room, and bathroom on one side, then on the other, two small bedrooms, I saw nothing and no one aside from a buckled door.
Kali Sara, the force behind that movement was phenomenal. Absolutely incredible.
I gaped at the sight of the thick logs that had warped with the crushing force of the hyena hurling himself into it, and I sucked in a breath, prayed that this wasn’t a trap, but I just, well, my gut told me it wasn’t.
My gut told me I was safe.
Which, in all honesty, wasn’t great. For years, that same gut had been trying to convince me that I was nuts, but I figured in for a penny in for a pound.
When I opened the door, which walked out onto a tiny kind of covered porch, I saw it.
I knew it was a he from when he’d shifted the first time in front of me, but the sight of him, so massive, so…
“Shit, I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered to Sabina, who made cooing noises, like she was trying to calm me down.
What bewildered me was that it worked.
The sound stopped me from wanting to puke, and when I registered the noises she was making, I almost shook my head in despair because it was a lullaby our momma had sung to us once upon a time.
Dropping to my knees, I stared at the corpse, wondering what on Earth had happened. For a second, my gaze was glued to it, to its wounds, then I looked around, trying to see if I was still in danger, because someone had to have fired the arrow that had pierced the creature’s chest.
The shot was so beyond a bullseye that I’d never seen anything like it, and my dad had always loved darts, even though they were boring. He’d watched it on the TV, had watched it at bars, and had played with his friends all the time.
I’d seen some fantastic bullseyes in my time, but nothing beat this. Nothing even compared.
When I saw no one in the woods, no one walking out, waving a bow and arrow and saying, “I managed to kill that huge hyena who is totally not native to Montana for you, do you think you could see it in your heart to make me a coffee for the road?” I shook my head.
But I peered at the corpse, grossed out as I saw there was also some kind of bite mark on it. A few, even.
Something or someone had mauled the animal.
All while it was ripping into my door.
“Sabina?” I rasped.
“Yes, sweetness,” she replied, just like she always did. I was the baby of the family, and she’d always coddled me.
“I-I think I’m going to pass out.”
“No!” Her harsh bark had me jerking, but it was enough to wake me up, to stop the need to pass out from overtaking me. If I was unconscious, then it didn’t matter if none of this made sense, did it? It