Hounded Read online

  “Then we won’t marry.” I couldn’t believe my own words. There was nothing in the world that I’d trade for Fido’s life though.

  Thomas stared at me in disbelief for a moment before speaking again. “You stupid girl. Like you really have a choice in the matter.”

  “What?” I furrowed my eyebrows. Thomas was definitely bold, but he had never spoken to me like this before.

  “Our engagement is the only thing keeping my father from foreclosing on your uncle’s farm. If you don’t marry me, your family will lose everything.”

  My mouth dropped open in shock. Why hadn’t Uncle Victor and Aunt Ophelia mentioned anything about this? I had no knowledge that they were under any kind of financial strain. Sure, the past farming season had been hard with little produce, but I didn’t know things were this bad.

  “You’re lying,” was all that I could think of to say in response.

  “Am I? Ask your uncle when you get home?”

  “Why are you being like this? You’ve known Fido since he was a puppy. He’s never done anything to you or anyone else around here, for that matter.”

  “Are you not seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked incredulously. “That is not a harmless puppy. That is a naked man with demon eyes, and his hands are all over Sara, the filthy little witch that she is. It’s only a matter of time before he tries to fornicate with both of you. He needs to be destroyed before that happens. I will not have such a beast touching my fiancé. I’ll put an end to this right now.” Thomas pulled a pocket knife from his trousers and flipped it open, brandishing it in my direction. “Move!”

  The sound of growling erupted behind me, and I barely had time to turn before Fido pushed past me in my defense, not realizing that the blade was meant for him. For a moment, I thought it was over. Completely defenseless, Fido would rush towards the blade. Thomas would use Fido’s lack of intelligence against him, jabbing the knife deep into his gut, delivering the killing blow. But then something unexpected happened. In a flash, fire consumed Fido’s body as he lengthened and stretched. His red eyes glowed with aggression that I had never seen before, and in an instant, he was no longer a man standing before me, but a snow-white hound, huge and menacing, growling at Thomas and ready to attack.

  Fear was apparent in Thomas’s eyes as he took a hesitant step back before bracing himself and lashing out with the knife.

  “No!” I screamed, watching in horror as Fido charged forward, sinking his teeth into Thomas’s arm. The knife clattered to the floor in a flurry of screams.

  “Fido, no!” Sara said in a more authoritative voice than I could muster. Fido released Thomas and backed up towards us, keeping his eyes on Thomas all the while. “You’ve got to get him out of here,” she told me, urging me to crawl onto Fido’s back. “Go!”

  My eyes were fixed on Thomas lying on the ground, clutching his arm. The bite was surprisingly superficial, but he still winced as if he had sustained a mortal blow.

  “I’ll kill that damned demon,” Thomas spat up at me. “Mark my words. He’ll be dead by the end of the night.”

  It was enough to make me lose all sympathy for him. With one last nervous look at Sara, I ordered Fido to lay down so that I could crawl up onto his back. Then we took off into the forest.

  I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I knew that I had to get Fido out of Woodsbury. There was no doubt in my mind that Thomas would rally the townspeople to go hunting for him. Although Fido was only defending me, the town would see Thomas’s bite as a sign that Fido was dangerous and needed to be destroyed.

  There was still the question of my life though. What was I supposed to do? If I ran off, Thomas’s father would foreclose on my aunt and uncle’s property. I couldn’t allow that to happen either.

  Once we were far enough in the woods that I could still walk home before nightfall, I pulled Fido to a stop and dismounted. Whether I wanted to or not, I had to go back, and Fido had to keep going.

  “Go,” I told him, throwing my hand out dismissively as I began walking towards my aunt and uncle’s house. As expected, he followed me, so I stopped and picked up a rock, threatening to throw it at him. “Go! If you stay, they’ll kill you. You have to go.”

  Fido crouched down submissively, pressing his ears against his head and letting out a pitiful whimper. My heart ached with the desire to cradle him in my arms, but I knew that I had to be strong.

  After a few seconds, I turned back around and continued walking. For a moment, I thought Fido had decided not to follow, but then I heard the padding of paws and felt his breath on the back of my legs.

  “Go!” I spun around, hurling the rock at him. It struck him right in the forehead, and my stomach twisted with nausea at the pained yelp he made as he jumped away from me, suddenly frightened. I had never struck him before. “Go!” I practically screamed, picking up another rock and winding my arm back to throw it at him. This time I hit him in the side. With a brokenhearted expression, Fido took a few cautious steps towards the woods. “Keep going!” I picked up a third rock, and he bounded into the forest before I could throw it, scared of any further abuse.

  As I trudged back home, I tried not to make a sound while the tears cascaded down my cheeks. It felt like life was over. In one afternoon, I had lost my pet and discovered that the man of my dreams wasn’t so dreamy after all.

  When I finally arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house, Sara’s carriage was waiting in front. She must have run home and told her mother what happened.

  I opened the door to somber faces. Only Sara rushed to greet me, more concerned about Fido than my well being. “Where is he?” she asked.

  “I sent him away,” I replied, feeling the numbness of my words.

  “You can’t send away a devil hound,” Mrs. Smith huffed.

  “What do you mean?” I glanced at her with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “I mean that he followed you back. You might not be able to see him, but he’s around here somewhere. Devil hounds are loyal to a fault. Trust me, dear, he’d rather die than be parted from you.”

  So it was all for nothing, I thought. I walked six miles just to be followed back.

  “Thomas and Mr. Uhrich have already been by here with a scouting party,” Uncle Victor said with a look of concern.

  “They came to my place too,” Mrs. Smith told me.

  “They’re out for blood.”

  “Is it true that Thomas’s father is about to foreclose on the property?” I questioned.

  Aunt Ophelia’s face sagged as she turned to Uncle Victor, and I had my answer.

  “You can discuss that later,” Mrs. Smith said firmly, drawing my attention back to the matter at hand. “It’s only a matter of time before they find Fido and kill him. And when they do, they’re going to slice him up and parade his dead corpse around town like a damned prize. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “You told them about his . . . ability?” I glanced at my aunt and uncle, wondering what their reaction had been like.

  “I did and so did Thomas.”

  “You shouldn’t have hidden that from us, Claire,” Aunt Ophelia said with all the care of a loving mother.

  “If I had told you, what would you have done?”

  “Shot him,” Uncle Victor replied without hesitation. “You can’t keep something like that around here and expect everything to be okay.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Yes you did,” Sara interjected. “I told you about it when he was a puppy, remember?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t believe you. Who would have?” There was no denying the hurt look in her eyes, but it was the truth.

  “Claire, you have two options.” Mrs. Smith sighed, tired of the disruptions.

  I knew what my options were. Either I could stay and let them kill Fido, or I’d have to leave with him. It was the only way to save him.

  “Either they kill him or you kill him,” Uncle Victor said, and my breath hitched at his unexpected response. Ther
e was no way I could kill Fido. I loved him beyond all things.

  “Trust me, child, it will be a lot better if you do it,” Mrs. Smith told me, seeing the sheer horror in my eyes at the mere suggestion. “I know it’s a hard decision to make, but if they kill him, you’ll never hear the end of it. At least if you do it, he can die by the hand of someone that loves him and we can give him a proper burial.”

  “I need to think for a while.” I suddenly felt out of breath. The stress of the situation was giving me a panic attack.

  “Go outside and get some air then, child, but you need to decide quickly. They’re out looking for him right now. A storm is rolling in, so they won’t be out for long. But in the morning, they’ll resume the search, and I doubt it will be very long before they find him. The sooner you can get it done, the better.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t really listening as I headed for the door. It was too much to take in at once, like an overwhelming rush of bad. How could they possibly expect me to say yes to killing my own pet, no matter how horrible the alternative was? Fido had been by my side since he was a puppy. He was my rock through thick and thin. Loyal and faithful and true, more so than any human ever could be. When I was happy, he was happy, and when I was sad, he was sad. He loved me unconditionally, no matter if I was sick or angry or . . . throwing rocks at him. There was no way that I could discard his life so easily.

  The door opened, and I turned to see Sara coming to sit beside me. “I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called him Fido at the school yard, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  It would have been easy enough to point the finger at her, to yell at her and say it was her fault that everything had gone so wrong, but she had been much braver than I in that moment, rushing down to Fido’s rescue while I just stood on the stairs and watched.

  “It was going to go wrong sooner or later,” I mumbled into my arms.

  “You could always run away with him, you know?” she whispered.

  “If I run away, Thomas’s father will foreclose on the property.”

  “I hate to say it, but people can always start over. You can’t get a life back.”

  Mrs. Smith came through the door with my aunt and uncle on her heels.

  Sara looked down at me as she stood to leave. “Think about it, will you?”

  I knew that I would. There would be a lot of thinking that night. Thinking and debating and sorting out my feelings.

  I watched as Sara and her mom rode away in their carriage, wondering if I’d ever see them again.

  “What did you decide?” Uncle Victor asked when they were out of sight.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come here.” Aunt Ophelia motioned, and I stood and walked into her embrace, erupting into heavy sobs against her chest. It felt like the tears would never end, a torrent of overwhelming pain and emotion.

  That night, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling as I thought about what to do. If Fido and I ran away, where would we go? There wasn’t a town that existed that would take to a devil hound. They would all come out with pitchforks and torches blazing, hungry to end his life. Maybe we could go join a circus. It was about the only place I could think of that we’d fit into the world now. Then again, maybe even circus folks were afraid of devil hounds. I had no idea.

  The first drops of rain hit the roof, and thunder shook the ground. Poor Fido, I thought, turning towards my window. He must be horrified. It was pitch black outside, a dark starless night. The only light came from the lightning, which occasionally illuminated the room for a fraction of a second.

  I sighed as I watched the rain come down, allowing it to lull me to sleep. Then my body jolted back awake as I noticed a figure shaped shadow at my window during one of the lightening bolts. Fido.

  I jumped to my feet and tip toed as fast as I could to the front door. Hoping and praying that my aunt and uncle wouldn’t wake from the sound of the rain, I opened the door just long enough to slip outside.

  Despite the mud, I crept around the side of the house until his body came into view, still staring intently inside my bedroom window.

  “Fido,” I whispered, and he quickly bounded to me, practically knocking me over as he hooked his hands over my shoulders to nuzzle me. He was soaking wet, a pitiful sight. “Come on,” I told him, motioning to the barn.

  It was damp and cold inside the barn, as usual, but at least we were out of the rain. I would have brought him back inside the house, but I couldn’t risk waking me aunt and uncle up.

  Fido was more than happy to see me, and I realized that it was the first time we’d really been alone together since his first shift. I squinted at him in the dark, waiting for my eyes to adjust. He huffed before shaking himself dry, spraying me with water. How Fido could still do that in human form was beyond me, but it was every bit as effective as when he was a hound.

  “What am I going to do with you?” I tried to sound happy as he came to lick my face, trembling with excitement at the fact that I wasn’t mad at him anymore. “Fido’s a good boy,” my voice crack with thoughts of having to kill him.

  I found my way towards the back of the barn and settled against a bale of hay. Fido curled up next to me, resting his head on my shoulder, and I gently ran my fingers through his hair.

  “I love you,” I said into the darkness.

  Not surprisingly, he didn’t respond, but I knew that he loved me too. Who else would stand outside my window in the pouring rain than someone who loved me dearly?

  After about an hour, I spread some hay around the floor to make a bed. Once I was done, I laid down, trying to situate myself so that I was comfortable. To my surprise, Fido didn’t curl up by my feet like he normally did when he was a hound. Instead, he laid with his naked body pressed against my side, his head right next to mine.

  I tried to peer at Fido through the darkness and was met by the wetness of his tongue. There was something different in the way he was looking at me, with hooded eyes. Even the way Fido licked me had changed from his normal overzealous manner. This time, he lapped at me slowly, deliberately. Then I became aware of something else, and it made my heart freeze in my chest. Something very firm was pressing against my thigh, and it could only be one thing.

  I laid paralyzed as I felt Fido rise up onto his shoulder, looking down on me. Everything in me prayed that he was just readjusting, but my heart knew that it was more than that, and I couldn’t force myself to stop him.

  A hand touched my thigh, pulling up my night gown. It seemed so surreal, how human Fido was in those moments, as if everything beastly had left him, and for once he was all man.

  Fido hooked a clawed finger around the waistband of my underwear and pulled them down. I could hear him shifting, sitting up, and all that I could do was breath as he removed my underwear completely.

  My lips mouthed ‘no’, but no sound came out. Deep down inside, I didn’t want to deny him. Who better to give myself to then the man who had been by my side night and day since we had both been orphaned—the man who loved me unconditionally.

  Fido slipped between my legs, more gently than I could have ever imagined, as if he understood the delicateness of the situation. He pulled my nightgown up to my waist, exposing me to the cool night air. The only thing that was keeping me warm was the heat from his body.

  My breath hitched as I felt the tip of Fido’s sex pressing against my opening. With a quick buck of his hips, he was inside, igniting my body with a mixture of pain and pleasure. A soft whimper escaped my lips, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling him against me as he began thrusting.

  Fido moved soundlessly between my legs, making love to me in a way that I never thought he could. There was no carnal desire behind it, only love. I allowed myself to moan as I felt him slipping in and out of me, filling us both with pleasure beyond my wildest dreams.

  In a matter of minutes, his body tensed up, and he made a soft grunting sound as he released inside of me. I knew I sh
ould be concerned, that I should be rushing to clean myself, but in that moment, I didn’t care. All that mattered to me was being with him and letting him have his way.

  I kissed Fido’s neck as he laid on top of me, completely spent. He gave my face a few more affectionate licks before rolling off onto the hay, and I immediately cuddled up against him, grabbing his arm and pulling it around my shoulder before settling down with my head on his chest. His heart was quickly slowing to a normal rhythm, and within half a minute, I could hear him snoring.

  A devious grin crossed my face at the thoughts of what we had just done. Even if I was forced to submit to being Thomas’s wife, this was one part of me that he couldn’t have. I had given it to someone far more deserving.

  I sighed, kissing Fido gently on the chest before trying to sleep. It would be a long day tomorrow, and we would have to start early if we wanted to beat Thomas and the townspeople. My decision had been made, and it in no way involved Fido’s death.

  Sleep didn’t come easy. Between being cold, damp, feeling the unpleasantness of Fido’s seed between my legs, and being stressed about the general situation, I was lucky if I got an hour in. Judging time was hard inside the barn, so after what I assumed was only a few hours, I jostled Fido awake, and we slipped out into the darkness.

  Before leaving, I sneaked back inside to change my clothes and put on a pair of shoes. While I wanted to take some food, I couldn’t bring myself to steal from my aunt and uncle. They were having a hard time making ends meet as it was. Surely, we’d come upon some berries along the way. I should be able to survive off of those well enough for a while, and Fido could kill game if he got hungry. We’d survive, somehow.

  “I really wish I would have been able to teach you how to shift before all of this happened,” I grumbled, stumbling over what felt like the millionth tree branch that I had tripped over in the darkness in less than a mile.

  Fido didn’t respond; he simply followed behind me, silent as a ghost.

  It sprinkled well into the morning, keeping me nice and soaked. Before long, I was shivering and thinking about turning back, but I knew that we had to press on for Fido’s sake. He seemed unaffected by the elements, despite his nakedness.