Page 38 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Theron’s growl deepened.

The pale smile lingered.

“You always hated when people forgot who I was.”

He looked directly at Matt.

“I was the King’s First Hand.”

Silence settled over the chamber.

“I stayed beside him long after everyone else understood what he was becoming.”

Matt kept the pistol aimed at the platform. “That is somehow worse.”

“No,” the Hand murmured. “But it will be.”

Theron stepped in front of him.

The automatic motion was worse than any dramatic display, protective and possessive enough that Matt noticed the instinct behind it.

So did the King's Hand on the platform. Its silver eyes shifted from Theron to Matt, and the smile sharpened. “Oh,” it whispered. “That explains the noise.”

Matt steadied the pistol. “I’m going to need everyone in this room to stop saying ominous things without context.”

The Hand's gaze stayed on him. “You hear him.”

Matt went still.

Theron's shoulders tightened. “Do not speak to him.”

“Too late,” he said softly. “He came listening.”

The words settled under Matt’s skin with uncomfortable precision. He had been listening since the briefing room, since the thermal image, since the first distorted audio recording had dragged something awake beneath his ribs. The pull had not started in the tunnel. It had been waiting for him long before he reached this chamber.

A distant crash rolled through the tunnels behind them before Matt could respond. Stone cracked somewhere beyond the chamber entrance, followed by several shrill clicking cries that echoed through the passage with frantic, hungry excitement.

Theron turned toward the sound at once.

The King's Hand closed its eyes briefly, almost as if savoring the noise. “They found the lower passage.”

Matt looked toward the entrance. “The hungry ones?”

“Not all of them,” Theron said.

“That is an answer I violently dislike.”

The first shape appeared at the edge of the corridor. It clung to the wall just outside the chamber entrance, thin limbs bent at impossible angles while pale eyes reflected the flashlight beam. Its skin looked stretched too tightly over bone, mottled with dark veins and old wounds that had healed wrong. Its mouth opened, and the clicking sound that came from its throat set Matt’s teeth on edge.

Then another shape appeared above it. And another behind that. Theron moved before Matt could fire.

He crossed the chamber in a blur of black fur and violent control, hitting the first creature hard enough to tear it from the wall and slam it into the stone floor. The impact cracked across the room while the other creatures shrieked and surged forward.

Matt fired twice.

The shots echoed brutally inside the circular chamber. One creature jerked backward as the bullets struck its shoulder and throat, but it did not fall. It only twisted toward him with sudden, awful interest. “Fantastic,” Matt muttered. “Bullets are suggestions now.”

The wounded creature launched itself from the wall. Theron intercepted it midair.