Prince of Demons 3: The Order of the Black Swan by Victoria Danann

Author:Victoria Danann [Danann, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: dba 7th House Publishing, Imprint of Andromeda LLC
Published: 2015-01-19T06:00:00+00:00

When she woke the next morning, light was filtering through the trees. If she’d ever been more miserable, she had no recollection of it. Her mind couldn’t decide whether to focus on stiffness, soreness, or cold.

She shook Brave gently, enough to wake him without doing further damage.

“Brave,” she said softly. When she got no response, she repeated his name a little more forcefully. “Brave!”

“Hmmm?” His eyes opened a slit.

“I think we should try to get up. If nothing else, we need to get back to the river so I can give you water. We don’t have anything to hold it in, so we have to get close enough to use hands.”

She could tell by the way Brave couldn’t suppress his groans of pain that getting up took an effort of heroic proportions. But it seemed to be a little better once he was fully upright and leaning against her.

They managed one slow step toward the river. Then another. On the third, Brave blacked out and crumpled to the ground. Lana tried to grab for him, but had no chance of even easing his fall. She was trying to turn him over so that he wasn’t lying in a position that looked uncomfortable when she heard the distinct sound of a huff.

Something about that sound made all the hair follicles on her skin stand up. She raised her eyes to scan for what had made the noise and looked right into the beady eyes of a black tusked boar the size of a prize winning hog. While she stared at the animal, frozen either by instinct or fear, he seemed to be studying her.

Trying not to move anything but her eyes, she looked around for something she could use to defend them. Anything. She spied a branch that looked like it had been torn from a tree during a storm. It even had blackened marks like it had been struck by lightning.

It was about one inch in diameter and had a jagged edge. If it turned out to be dry wood, the boar would run through it like it was air, but if it was a green hard wood, it would be better than nothing. The burn marks indicated that it was too green to burn all the way through.

In any case, she knew she wouldn’t be the one to make the first move. Maybe the beast would get bored. He raised his snout and sniffed. Or maybe he would decide they smelled bad and just move along. That was best case scenario.

She knew that wasn’t going to happen when he lowered his snout. She would have sworn that he narrowed his little black eyes just before he lunged forward.

Lana felt like the seconds that followed were played out in slow motion. As she dove for the branch that lay nearby on the ground, she gave up praying to the god of the Episcopal Church in Dallas, and started praying to the pagan gods of the hunt.

As if she was channeling

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