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It hurts.

Fuck, it hurts.

But underneath all of it comes something I haven’t felt since Malgrave wrapped his hand around my throat.

Whole.

Not completely.

My roar is still gone.

Pieces of my power are still being dragged somewhere they don’t fucking belong.

But this?

The claws digging into the earth, the fire rolling between my teeth, the hellhound stretching inside a body finally big enough to hold him… this is still mine.

I lift my head.

The cavern sits ahead of us. Malgrave is somewhere inside, and my claws tear deep grooves through the dirt.

I’m coming for you, motherfucker.

Raze’s arm drops—that’s all I need.

I tear forward, dirt explodes beneath my paws as I launch up the hillside, my claws ripping through roots and rock, hellfire streaming from my flanks with every pounding stride. The hellhound stretches into the run, finally given room to do what the fuck he was built to do.

Hunt.

Behind me, the Kings let loose.

Raze’s dragon answers first, a roar splitting through the trees as ice blasts across the ground and races past me in jagged white veins. Sentinel takes to the air, wings punching wide in a burst of gold while Scar disappears into shadow and reappears farther up the hill. The rest of my brothers come hard behind them, boots, claws, and supernatural power tearing through whatever silence this place had left.

The entrance is getting closer, hellfire burning between my teeth as my paws tear through the dirt, when something shifts beneath me, and my next stride lands differently.

There’s movement under my paws.

Not the rolling shake of an earthquake or the crack of roots giving way beneath my weight. This is smaller. A slow scrape that drags beneath the surface and follows me for several feet before another answers from somewhere to my left.

My hellhound feels it too. His entire body tenses inside mine, his ears flattening as my pace finally breaks.

What the fuck?

Another scrape comes from below, then another.

All across the hillside, the sound spreads beneath us until it feels like the ground is full of things moving around in the dark, dragging themselves through packed earth while we run over the top of them.

A dull red glow catches ahead. One of the symbols carved above the entrance has lit up. The next one burns to life farther down the stone, followed by another half hidden beneath a thick twist of roots. More appear through the moss and dirt until I realize the markings don’t stop at the entrance.

They cover the entire fucking hillside.

Red light bleeds through cracks in the earth, tracing lines beneath my paws and winding between the trees as something deep underground lets out a sound that crawls straight up my spine.

At first, I think it’s a groan.

Then it gets louder as more voices join it. Dozens of them, maybe more, all trying to drag air through throats that sound wet, broken, and clogged with dirt.

Fucking hell.