Hounds of Light: An Urban Fantasy Series (Cursed Night Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Hounds of Light

  Book 2 of the Cursed Night Series

  Justin Sloan

  www.JustinSloanAuthor.com

  DEDICATION

  From Justin

  To Ugulay, Verona and Brendan Sloan

  My friends who are awesome and still don’t believe I’m writing

  And to MY FANS! NEW AND OLD, YOU’RE AMAZING!

  HOUNDS OF LIGHT

  Cursed Night Team

  Beta Editor / Readers

  Robin Heath

  Sherry Foster

  Melissa Ratcliffe

  If I missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editors

  Diane Newton

  Calee Allen

  Hounds of Light (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  The Cursed Night series (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds)

  is Copyright (c) 2016 by Justin Sloan

  Complete Book is Copyright (c) 2017 by Justin Sloan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Justin Sloan

  Books by Justin Sloan

  FALLS OF REDEMPTION (Series)

  Land of Gods

  Retribution Calls

  Tears of Devotion

  Tribulations End (2017)

  RECLAIMING HONOR (A Kurtherian Gambit Series)

  Justice is Calling

  Claimed by Honor

  Judgment has Fallen

  Angel of Reckoning (2017)

  MODERN NECROMANCY (Trilogy)

  Death Marked

  Death Bound

  Death Crowned

  ALLIE STROM (Trilogy)

  Allie Strom and the Ring of Solomon

  Allie Strom and the Sword of the Spirit

  Allie Strom and the Tenth Worthy

  CURSED NIGHT

  Hounds of God

  Hounds of Light

  Hounds of Blood (2017)

  Social

  For a chance to see ALL of Justin’s different book series

  check out his website below!

  Website: JustinSloanAuthor.com

  Email List: JustinSloanAuthor.com/Newsletter

  Facebook Here: www.facebook.com/JustinSloanAuthor

  Chapter 1

  Katherine stood at the edge of the graveyard, watching the relatives she’d never known Danny had, wondering if he ever even knew about them. The setting sun cast an orange and pink hue across the cemetery, long shadows reaching across brown grass that swayed in the coastal breeze. The eerie calmness of it all sent a chill up Katherine’s spine as she imagined the dead rising from their graves to devour this world.

  As far as she knew, that wasn’t possible. But then again, most people didn’t believe in werewolves and vampires either, so she didn’t know what could be real anymore.

  The relatives had claimed Danny’s body soon after the mass murder was reported. The biggest news north of the border in many years—so many bodies found in a church. Getting him back across the border couldn’t have been easy, but here they were, in the midst of the burial ceremony.

  Of course she had come to grieve, to pay her respects… but also to see if any other werewolves would show their faces.

  Given the reach of Aldrick’s Hounds of God, they had to have known about Danny’s relatives. That was why she stayed hidden in the tree line, and it was why her eyes kept wandering over to two men that seemed out of place. They were at the edge of the crowd, glancing around occasionally, likely looking for her.

  Little did they know, she was looking for them as well.

  These two had suits that looked too expensive for the type of people gathered here. They were larger, the type military leadership would have selected to go on a mission against a known threat such as Katherine.

  That’s how Mauro said they’d refer to her, after she took out Aldrick and the others at that church. “A threat.”

  Werewolves had started up various cells and networks across the country, infiltrating positions of power and promising the gift of strength and regeneration to those that would listen.

  Why use money to bribe when you had such a gift to offer?

  Of course, it came with a price. The price of being one of those evil bastards, for one, but also the price Katherine had finally escaped, thanks to Triston and Mauro. No more blacking out on the full moon, no more waking up covered in blood and having no idea what she’d done the night before.

  At least, so Mauro said.

  One of their heads swiveled in her direction, so she froze, crouched behind a tree, eyes taking him in. Her breaths came quickly. She hoped to God she didn’t have to create a scene by killing these two right here.

  Killing was something she never wanted to do again, for that matter, but she’d seen what a lack of action can lead to… first hand when Aldrick had brought that man home for the feeding so long ago. That man would have died at their hands if not for the intervention of Matthew—the man she’d referred to as “Hunter” for so much of her life.

  Speaking of Matthew, she wasn't sure where he was.

  She pulled back farther behind the tree and turned toward the other direction, eyes roaming the street and the houses past the cemetery. The hilltop part of El Cerrito provided a beautiful view of the Bay Area and even the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. Her eyes only lingered momentarily on the view she’d dreamed of seeing so much of her life, then came to rest on the silver car parked in one of the driveways. Within the car, a man pretending to look at his phone. She could see his suit from here—Matthew’s telltale sign.

  Not enough time had passed for her to come to trust him yet, not one hundred percent, anyway. But Mauro insisted he be part of the team.

  That first night, after fleeing the church and then making their way back to the safe house, they’d been in such a rush, she didn’t even have time for questions.

  “Grab everything related to our kind,” Mauro had said, pulling together the maps and folding them between pages of an old, worn leather book. “It’s not likely anyone will trace them back to here, but we have to be prepared.”

  “Aldrick knew of this place,” Triston said, still wobbly. Katherine had to help him lower himself to the couch before she and Matthew had joined Mauro in gathering everything up. He didn’t add the rest, about Danny finding them here, because he must’ve known Katherine wasn’t ready to discuss the death of her closest friend, or anything having to do with him.

  Matthew had suddenly moved to the window, his eyes flaring red, and then said, “They already know. They’re coming.”

  “How can you tell?” Katherine asked, wanting to finally get some answers.

  He had shaken his head and si
mply said, “Hurry.”

  On their way down past the border and into the States, Mauro had explained what he’d learned about Matthew. The son of Aldrick, the poor boy had found his mother’s corpse after Aldrick had killed her on a full moon, as a werewolf. Since that night, the boy had sworn to search the world for werewolves, hunting them until they were extinct, so they could never bring the kind of hurt he’d felt to this world again.

  But he had failed early on and, realizing he wasn’t strong enough, Matthew went in search of other ways to combat his enemies. He had even turned to the dark arts.

  “And the result was what… he became a vampire?” Katherine had asked.

  “Not completely,” a voice interrupted, and she had turned to see Matthew standing there in the night, Triston behind him, listening intently. “More like a half-vampire.”

  They’d continued the journey, moving across the border at an unguarded spot in the hills, and then a driver had picked them up and taken them to one of the safe houses Mauro had set up with his network. Apparently, he had his own group of followers, all committed to his cause. They’d been out searching for Katherine, just like Triston had been.

  Along the way, she’d learned that the ceremony Matthew had been part of in the hidden temples of Central Asia had required a sacrifice for completion—the feeding on an innocent. Realizing he was well on his path to becoming what he’d set out to destroy, he turned on the temple and burned it to the ground before fleeing.

  The result was this state of half-vampire, where he could walk in the day and use his senses to track werewolves, but was constantly at risk of losing himself to the darkness within.

  So yeah, it was a little hard fully trusting someone that had not only turned to the dark arts as a way of hunting down you and all of your kind, but who could at any minute snap and go full vampire on her.

  Her mind came back to the moment as Matthew glanced her way, and she gave a nod to confirm she’d spotted their targets. Even if he couldn’t fully be trusted, she had no choice but to work with him, for now.

  She saw the blue light of his phone as he dialed Mauro, who would be standing by with Triston. The plan was set.

  With a deep breath, she steeled her nerves, and then walked out into the open, as if she were moving to a grave nearby to pay her respects.

  A movement from the corner of her eye told her that the two men had noticed her movement, and were coming her way. Each step became more forced, and her hands clenched into fists.

  Don’t kill them, she told herself. That wasn’t the point of this mission. Her shadow fell long across the grass, and she wished she’d approached them from up the hill, on the east, so the setting sun would’ve given her a hint as to how close they were.

  But as it went behind the hills of the North Bay and the shining reflection from the water vanished, her sense of smell picked up and her hearing perked.

  They were nearly on her.

  Instead of waiting for them to make their move, she ran. Her goal was to get them as far away from the crowd as possible. They were already out of the general area, moving along the decline of the hill the graveyard was set on, and so when she made a sharp right and hit the fence, she felt they were safely out of view.

  A snarl sounded behind her, but instead of turning to face the men, she pulled up on the fence, placed her feet against it, and then pushed as she leaped backward.

  It was almost humorous, the look on the two men’s faces as she vaulted over them to land, claws out and sharp teeth bared in a snarl. Her eyes glowed gold, and she could feel strength coursing through her arms and legs as her werewolf energy gathered like a flood of power.

  “Got you,” one of the men said. He took off his suit jacket and tossed it aside as he began to transform—full werewolf mode.

  The other started to do the same, but Katherine simply rolled her eyes. “You’re making this too easy,” she said.

  With a look of confusion on his half-hairy face, the first paused his transformation and said, “Explain yourself.”

  She just smiled, and then took a step back so that, as Triston came leaping over the fence, there was room for him and the man to go sprawling across the grass. Not waiting a second longer, Katherine swept the second man’s feet from under him and then landed on top of him with a head-butt that cracked his nose and sent blood gushing.

  “I wish you’d keep blood to a minimum,” Matthew said, appearing at their side and gasping for breath. “It’s not necessary, but damn it’s tempting.”

  “What the hell?” the man with the broken nose shouted, half trying to fight back, half trying to hold his nose to stop the bleeding.

  Triston had his legs wrapped around the other man, who twisted to reach behind and sink his claws into Triston’s shoulder.

  A loud grunt of pain escaped Triston as he too began to transform.

  “No need for that,” Matthew said.

  The two men, one now nearly fully transformed in Triston’s grip, suddenly stopped resisting.

  Matthew had his silver pistol in one hand, a silver blade in the other. “Yeah, I thought that’d get your attention.”

  “Who are you, anyway?” the one with the broken nose demanded. “We came for the girl. The rest of you—”

  “The rest of us,” Matthew said, “are with the girl. So you have a problem with her, you have a problem with all of us.”

  Triston released his hold on the other man and stood, one hand on his fresh wound. He swore and then kicked the man in the face, sending blood and spittle across the grass.

  “Do you have any idea who we are?” the man said, as he returned to his full human form. “What kind of trouble you’re getting yourselves into?”

  “Why do you think we’ve just captured you?” Mauro said, and they all turned to see him standing on the other side of the fence, hands folded behind his back. He wore a suit as well, but with a priest’s collar. “So that we can find out all about the sort of trouble we’re getting ourselves into. After all, we can’t put a stop to it if we don’t fully understand it.”

  “You know we’ll never talk,” the bloodied one said, but the blank stare in his eyes showed he was already defeated.

  “Oh, I think our friend here might have something to say about that,” Mauro said with a nod to Matthew. “Perhaps you’ve heard of the one they call ‘Hunter’?”

  That sent a shiver through the two men, and Katherine couldn’t suppress her smile. She might not fully trust this man, Matthew, but she was glad he was on her side.

  Chapter 2

  Katherine sat at the table, chewing on cauliflower baked in curry powder, doing her best to ignore the grunts and smothered shouting of the two men downstairs. They’d questioned them and found that word of the events surrounding Aldrick’s death had spread, and there was a hunt for Katherine. That wasn’t anything new as far as she was concerned.

  “We can’t let them live!” Matthew said, pacing across the living room of the house Mauro’s contact had set them up with in North Berkeley. “Isn’t our point here to see justice delivered, to stop the evil of….” He stopped, looking at each of them, and then bit his lip.

  “Evil of our kind, is that it?” Mauro said, hands behind his back. He stood tall, the ever regal man and werewolf. His eyes glowed yellow for a moment, and then he smiled. “While I appreciate the fervor with which you hunt, I must remind you that Katherine is right. We must offer help to those who will accept it.”

  Matthew turned to her, nostrils flaring and eyes wide. “They were sent to kill you. You do realize this, right?”

  “I see the value in keeping them alive,” she said, swapping her cauliflower for a sip of white wine. It was a tad drier than she’d prefer, but it complemented the snack nicely.

  “You see the value,” he laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m still not following the reasoning for us all listening to everything you say.”

  “She was foretold,” Mauro said, looking at her like a proud father. She liked those l
ooks, and the feeling of having a family again, but all this talk of being destined for greatness and whatnot sometimes felt like a bit much.

  “Yeah, I’m still not following that myself, really,” she said.

  “The stars—”

  “We’ve heard all that brouhaha about the alignment of the stars,” Matthew said. He looked to Triston for help, but he just shrugged. “What makes you think that means anything?”

  Mauro shook his head, smiling contentedly. “Ye of little faith. I studied the stars on the date I was bitten, and the date she was bitten—”

  “But… didn’t you bite her?” Triston asked, now leaning forward.

  “Yes, but only because I knew it was her... I sensed the aura about her.”

  After a moment of silence, Matthew said, “You sir, are a nutjob.”

  “Hey,” Katherine said, pointing at Matthew. “You’re one to talk. Did you help us kill Aldrick? Yes. Does that mean I trust you completely? Hell no. Does it mean I like you? Even less than I trust you.”

  Matthew glared. “In the past… it’s true that I may have killed a werewolf or two who didn’t deserve it.”

  Katherine stood, slamming her hands on the table. “You killed Babur. You nearly killed almost everyone in this room, at one point or another!”

  “And he has apologized,” Mauro said, holding up his hands for peace. “His sins might not be forgotten, but we can do our best to forgive.”

  “Can we not talk about sins?” Katherine said, lowering herself to the chair again. Her mind flashed to images of Aldrick pacing before her and the other kids of her youth, talking about how they were chosen by God to bring a stop to sinners of the world. Only problem with that was that Aldrick was the one to decide who the sinners were. “It brings back unwanted memories.”