Shhh—shhh—shhh—
The brittle crunch of snow underfoot was a drumbeat of his own frailty. Anton Vasiliev, once a king whose roar shook the eastern snow plains, now moved through the pines in rage. Each lungful of frigid air was a knife, each step a monumental act of will over a body that screamed to lie down and become part of the winter.
His two shadows flanked him, Gregor, a mountain of striped muscle now hunched with concern, and Thalia, her lean form a silent blade cutting their path. Their breath plumed in the moonlight, the only sign of their panic.
But Anton himself had none. His anger was a core of black ice at the center of his being. Cold. Absolute.
Even weak, he had never been more dangerous.
They stumbled into a clearing, the moon casting the world in bone-white and ink-black. Anton paused, leaning heavily on Gregor, his frame wracked with a soundless cough. The silence of the chase was worse than any sound. Clearly the silence of a predator toying with its meal.
