The Daughter of Zeus novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Hounds

I didn't scream.

I'd learned in the Bitterroots that screaming at a predator is the one thing that gets you killed.

I slid my hand under the pillow.

My father's knife was there, where Alekos must have left it while I was in the bath.

The hound's head tilted.

Its breath fogged the glass, and the glass cracked.

Then something heavy hit it from the terrace side, and the window exploded inward.

I rolled off the bed as the hound's body came crashing through the frame.

It was huge and black and shaped wrong, with too many teeth and a mane that smoked.

Alekos was on its back.

He had one arm locked around its neck and the iron sword in his fist.

"Stay down!" he shouted.

"No!"

I don't know why I said it.

Nobody had ever told me to stay down and been right.

Two more shadows came over the terrace wall.

They landed in the courtyard, and the olive trees bent under their weight.

Their eyes were red as hot coals.

I got up, and my knees held.

Behind me Alekos was still fighting the first hound, and he was good.

He fought like a man who had done it for a thousand years, without anger and without waste.

But he couldn't fight three.

The second hound came for my door, so I met it in the doorway.

I dropped low and cut at its front leg.

It yelped and shied, and that was enough for me to see how it moved.

It favored the left.

It always turned to its right to protect that side.

My father had a word for that kind of animal.

Predictable.

"Alekos!" I yelled.

"Left side, they're weak on the left!"

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