Hunter (The Hero Rebellion 0.5) by Belinda Crawford (important books to read .TXT) 📕

her brain. It split, lightning under her skull, wrapping around her brain with electric fingers, digging into the grey matter like it was searching for something.

What? She wanted to ask. What do you want?

She'd have given anything for it to stop, just for a second, a heartbeat. Half a heartbeat.

Distantly, she was aware of Yaara's handler crashing to the ground, of Erebos taking flight, talons leaving rents in her jacket.

She couldn't think. There was only feeling left, only the pain, that excruciating lance digging and scraping and searching some more.

Her sight was fading, the stables blurring at the edges, going white as her entire being narrowed down to the sound, to the pain. There was nothing else, no room for anything else. The sound was in every bit of her, under her skin, in her blood, bound to the pain, twisting and turning until she couldn't tell where one began and the other ended.

It was in her DNA; her genetics changing, the molecules splitting and reforming, making new patterns, and she knew that for the rest of her life, however long that was, the screech would equal pain.

There was no stable anymore, no grass or steelcrete, no handler passed out by her side or honey-coloured sternard in her face. Just the inside of her eyelids. It took several moments for it to sink into her pores, for her to recognise it. She heard nothing, not the beat of her heart, the harsh draw of her breath. Nothing.

It was... beautiful. Heavenly.

In the pit of her being, something clicked.

After the silence, the sound rang through her skull. Loud. Sharp. The vibration shook her bones, shivering her skin. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Other sounds came with it. The thump thump thump of her pulse, the drag of air through her nose and into her lungs. The ear-shredding screech.

Except it didn't shred her ears anymore, didn't bring pain. It just...screeched. A low-pitched siren on the edge of her hearing, the distant sound of nails on chalkboard, twitching her skin.

It was nothing.

And yet...there was something under her skin, a vibration to counter the noise. It shivered and danced, mixing with the screech, reaching for it and becoming something else, something powerful.

Subria blinked, vision clearing, walls and floors coming into focus, sensations pinging on her consciousness. The hard floor under her knees, leeching warmth from her bones, the trickle of sweat down the side of her face. Her hands, palms pressed to the floor. The taste of copper on her lips, the sticky, cooling puddle in the spread of her fingers, bright red and shiny. A matching drop formed on the tip of her nose, the liquid she'd thought was sweat rolling into a thick, heavy ball before falling in slow motion.

Subria breathed, a great shuddering gasp, and now the sweet, salty taste on her lips made sense.

She shot to her feet. Stumbled as she backpedalled.

Blood, a swath of it spilled across the white floor.

How—? 'Oh, God.'

The prayer rang in her head as her every neurone froze at the sight of Yaara's handler.

The woman sprawled at Subria's feet, eyes and mouth open, her throat ripped out, a bloody mess of red meat and the silky, translucent gleam of tendon.

Vomit burned Subria's throat, exploded out of her mouth, landing in a doubly sickening plop in the blood, drawing another heave out of her stomach.

Bent at the waist, she heaved a third time. Tears pooled in her eyes. She waited for a fourth, and when nothing came, she wiped her mouth, trying to ignore the sticky strings of congealing blood mixing with the stomach acid and spit on her sleeve. Wanting to ignore it, but still, some part of her needed to know.

She dragged a hand across her cheek, through the warmth she'd though was sweat. Her hand came away bloody.

Another wave of nausea rose from her gut, but Subria swallowed it.

Slowly, careful not to slip in blood, she turned.

Bodies littered the stables, human and companion alike. She thought most of them moved, small muscles twitching in their faces, limbs jerking, chests rising and falling, and no more pools of blood.

Pressure lifted from Subria's heart, made it easier to breathe, even if that breath wanted to shudder and jerk, to tear out of her body on a sob. She fought it, wrapped her arms around her middle and squeezed tight.

Take a beat, little tiger. The memory of her dad's voice, clear and warm despite her visor's echoing comms, steadied her.

'Take a beat,' she whispered to herself. 'And think.'

Something had knocked all the humans out, but… there weren't enough companions lying on the floor.

The pea-dragon was there, half-covering Tyvian with its wings, the spideruck next to it, and there, the black and tan of the dober-shepherds, and next to them the great shaggy hides of four sternards… But no ruc-pard.

She turned around all the way, trying not to look at the woman and her pool of blood.

And no Yaara, neither hide nor hair, only bloody paw prints the size of her head, leading away.

Panic bubbled along with the acid in her gut, while nightmares played at the edges of her memory. She said another prayer under her breath.

She needed a rifle. The thought was still ringing in her head when a shadow moved in the corner of her vision.

She spun, nightmares momentarily transforming the stable into a long-abandoned park, populating it with the slim trunks of trees, branches denuded of leaves, covering the floor with a layer of grass and dead foliage that crackled under her feet.

The shadow stepped out of the hallucination, and for a moment the sharp muzzle and bloodied fangs filled her vision.

Subria scrambled backwards.

Her sight cleared, the old park giving way to the clean, bright lines of The Farm's stables, the bloody muzzle emerging out of the darkness becoming Yaara's broad, blunt head, lips pulled back from her teeth, her eyes liquid pools of madness.

Red soaked Yaara's chin, ran down her throat and coated the thick plates of her chest. Head dipping low as she crouched,