Page 102 of Lady Knight and the Thief

Cypress took a hesitant step toward the beast. Only a flick of the feathered tail indicated the Hound noticed her approach. Then, she took another and another until she stood just before the great Winged Hound.

“Cypress! What are you doing?” Torren hissed while he tied the two horses together.

“Making friends,” Cypress said and tilted her head to examine the beast more thoroughly.

“I don’t think the beastie wants to be friends, Lass,” Torren cautioned. “I’ve got the horses, just be ready to hop on.”

Cypress shook her head. “No, I’m not running. If it found us in the circle, who’s to say it won’t hunt us down outside of it?”

Torren made a sound of annoyance, but didn’t say anything else.

“And anyway, you’re just a curious thing, aren’t you?” Cypress said, now speaking to the Hound.

Sharp amber eyes framed in the darkest black fur Cypress had ever laid eyes on stared down at her, head cocked to the side.

Cypress took another step forward. “What are you doing in here, pup, hmm?”

The Hound was as large as some of the cottages she’d seen during her travels, likely large enough that the beast would be able to see clear over the roof without leaving the ground.

It was no pup, but Cypress didn’t know what else to call the beastie.

The inky feathered tail swished once, then again, hesitantly.

If experience had taught her anything, the beast’s body language did not speak of aggression or fear. She’d always wanted to keep one of the many strays of the Keep as her own, but life as Cade’s guard did not afford the kind of free time she felt it required to care for an animal companion. So, she’d made friends with the strays. Fed them scraps whenever she could.

Cypress knew that a dog that was afraid of you would not sit calmly in front of you and do nothing at your approach. The Winged Hounds of the Hunt were just hounds, really. Hounds cursed to herald the Hunt forever.

So, she now thought it was unlikely that the beast was going to kill her. It was just… cautiously curious. About Cypress specifically.

She took another step forward, hand outstretched.

The Hound lifted its lip for only a second, but Cypress’s heart leaped into her throat, and her breath seized in her lungs when it moved toward her.

Cypress squeezed her eyes shut and expected to be dead any moment now.

Only, her death never came. Instead, the Hound’s warm, soft head pressed against her fingers.

When she opened her eyes, the beast pressed itself firmer into Cypress’s hands and nuzzled its head into her entire body.

Cypress went down with a laugh.

Then, the Hound laid down, each of its front legs on either side of her body, while the feathered tail wagged happily in the air behind it. The hound’s head was bigger than Cypress, snout long enough that it could probably swallow her whole, the longest of its teeth as long as her forearm.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Torren muttered from somewhere behind her.

“So…what do I do now?” Cypress asked Torren, laughing as the Hound nudged her with its nose, which she assumed was an effort to get her to look at it again.

Torren blinked at her. “You think I know what to do with,” he waved his hand in their direction, a horrified, yet bemused expression on his face. “All of this? No one will fucking know what to do about this.”

“We’re not dead, though,” Cypress remarked, and scrubbed the Hound’s forehead. Her entire hand disappeared in the depths of the beast’s thick fur, surrounded by warmth.

“Not yet anyway,” he retorted. Torren stood before them and rubbed the back of his neck.

Cypress turned to the hound once more. “You won’t kill us, will you, puppy?” She asked, her voice lowered into a tone similar to one she’d use with a small child. “You’re a good puppy, aren’t you?”

“Lass, that isnota puppy.”

“It was once. And it still is, aren’t you puppy?” Cypress asked and spread her arms wide to grip both of the hound’s cheeks, then kissed between its eyes.