been attacked by a lion. To add to the mystery, no one ever claimed the horse, and its rider was never found.”

The earl looked gravely at Ciaran. “That was a long time ago, my friend, and any number of things could have caused that gash and traumatized the horse. It’s not likely that the beast was responsible after all this time.”

A memory tore its way into Ian’s mind and took him back to the night Theo had arrived with a strange man on horseback. Like Ciaran mentioned, there had been a terrific storm that evening, and Ian distinctly remembered the howl that both he and Madam Scargill had heard out in the hills beyond the keep.

Ian’s heart began to race with the idea that maybe this man’s horse was the one discovered by old widow Thompson and perhaps its rider had fallen victim to the beast when he’d left the safety of the keep. An intense fear gripped his heart as he also considered that Theo might be right after all. Maybe the beast had been after her, not only the night before, but eight years earlier too. “I remember that evening,” he said quietly.

“Eh?” said Ciaran, cupping his ear. “What did you say, lad?”

“Eight years ago, the night Theo arrived at the orphanage, sir. I was up because of the storm, you see, and I remember hearing an awful howl in the hills. The man who brought Theo to the keep, he left on horseback and we never saw him again.”

Ciaran looked at the earl as if to say “Aha!” but the earl clearly wanted to move away from long-ago memories and get to the business of the present—hunting down the beast.

“Enough chatter,” he said, waving his hand impatiently. “We’ll need every bit of daylight left if we’re going to locate the hellhound and her pups. I suggest we spread out in twos and threes to search the caves along this side of the cliffs. Hopefully she hasn’t moved too far away and we can find her new lair without much trouble. Perry, Ian, you’re with me on this central cliffside. Ciaran, Alfred, you take the southwestern slope. Thatcher and Henry, take the southeastern slope, and if anyone sees the other men up top, please advise them of all that we’ve found, and have them explore the northwestern side of the cliffs.”

The men set off with renewed vigor, determined to end the threat to their homeland. As the morning hours passed, however, Ian’s hopes were beginning to wane, and as morning turned to afternoon with no additional sign of the beast or her litter, he truly felt disheartened.

It was starting to look like the she-beast might have escaped them. As even more time passed, Ian began to shiver with cold from climbing up the face of the cliffs and searching the many caves while the frigid wind from the strait beat against him, leaving his face chapped and raw. Compared to the rest of the hunting party, he was miserably underdressed, with only his thin blazer to protect him from the chilly wind.

Eventually, Ian was shivering so intensely that his schoolmaster took pity on him. “My lord,” Perry said to the earl, “I think I should take the boy to our cottage and give him some tea. He’s not dressed as warmly as the rest of us, after all, and perhaps there’s a coat in one of our trunks he can wear.”

The earl, who had been acutely focused on the ground and finding any trace of the beast, seemed to notice Ian’s misery for the first time. “Yes, of course, Perry. Take the boy. I’ll join Ciaran’s group.”

The schoolmaster stepped over to Ian and took the silver box from his shivering fingers. Ian was so cold that he gave up the box gladly. He could barely feel his hands and he’d been worried about his little treasure slipping from his grasp and down the side of the cliffs.

“Come, lad,” Perry said, putting the box into his coat pocket. “Our cottage is not far from here. I’ll return this once you’ve warmed yourself up.”

Ian walked dumbly behind Perry as they traveled up one of the paths leading from the caves to higher ground. He was so miserably cold that he felt foggy and out of sorts. They reached the main road that led to the village at the bottom of a set of hills that looked up to Castle Dover. It was a bit less chilly here away from the