He gave himself a mental smack upside the head. He would not go down. He would not let this bastard put him down. He was better than that. Stronger than that.

He was Arawn.

Or at least he could fake it long enough to smack himself back into shape.

“You find this funny, boy?”

Ricky realized he was laughing. Doubled over, barely able to breathe, but wasting what little breath he did have laughing at himself. Because sometimes, that’s all you could do. You make a fucking stupid mistake, and you could only call yourself an idiot and then snap back before you screwed up again.

He heard Liv in the forest, trying to sneak toward them, and when he looked, the rogue Huntsman’s shadow had taken shape. Still black as night, no features to be seen, but the form of a cloaked man turning in Liv’s direction.

Ricky ran at the figure. He jumped at its back and hit solid flesh and thought Yes! and then his hands started to pass through it, to pass into absolute cold, that ice running up his arms, pitch black enveloping his arms—

Running.

He was running so fast every breath was a dagger through his lungs, but the terror—that crushing terror—kept his legs moving as pain ripped through them, ripped through his entire body.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …

Prayers raced through his head, the words expelled on each exhalation, words Ricky didn’t know, prayers he didn’t know. Another man’s prayers, coming in desperation, a ward against a fear for which there was no ward, a hope against a fate for which there was no hope.

A vision? A memory? Someone’s memory. Not the Huntsman’s, but from him, a straight shot of terror, sending Ricky tumbling into some stranger’s body, in some long-ago place. He tried to hold on to that, tell himself this wasn’t real, but all he could think, all he could feel, was whatever this poor man was thinking, feeling …

The hounds, dear Lord, the hounds, he could hear their baying growing ever more distant, and in the beginning that had given him hope, until he’d discovered that the farther away they sounded, the closer they actually were, and when he glanced over his shoulder—

Do not look! Do not look!

He looked anyway, and he saw fire. The fires of hell on his tail, giant hounds whose eyes blazed, giant black steeds who breathed flames, whose fetlocks and manes burned with it. And the riders. He could see the riders now. Faceless cloaked men with red eyes. Eyes that burned hellfire and promised damnation.

No more than I deserve.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

No grace, no blessing, no escape, no mercy for him, because he’d shown none. Shown none to those women he’d taken and toyed with, and this was the price, yes, this was the price.

No one told me it was the price!

The world had lied. It told him that if he was caught, the most he’d suffer was a lifetime in prison, and with it would come fame, glorious fame, his face in every newspaper.

But there was no fame. No face on a newspaper. No name in a headline. He would die, his deeds unnoticed, his body torn apart in the forest, corpse left to rot and feed wild creatures and hungry earth, because this is what she’d promised him. The last woman. The one whose skin had shimmered when he’d sliced her open. The one who’d spouted madness when he captured her, who’d promised him this ignoble end.

The hounds will come. The Huntsmen will come. You will burn.

No more than he deserved, and he knew it now, as he ran.

Is that not enough? That I know it? I confess. I confess!

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

Isn’t that how it worked? Confess and ye shall be saved. Repent and ye shall be forgiven.

He heard the woman’s tinkling laughter as he ran. She’d laughed as he’d sliced into her, promised that no matter what he did to her, his death would be a thousand times worse.

He stumbled then. Felt his foot slide out. Felt his brain scream, No! Heard it rip from his lungs. No! I repent! I repent! and the woman’s laughter rang out like a trumpet at his ear.

The trumpet of the archangel, on the Day of Judgment, calling him home to heaven.

“Oh, no,” her voice whispered in his ear. “This is Judgment Day, but heaven is not where you’re going, Michael O’Grady.” He felt the body strike his. A massive furred body, knocking him off his feet, onto his back, and then he saw it, the hound, the giant hound, its eyes blazing fire, jaws opening, fangs slashing down—

Ricky Gallagher. I’m Ricky Gallagher!

Through the wild and swirling vision, Ricky found himself and shouted the words in his head, and he snapped back so fast he felt himself hit the ground, flat on his back, the oomph of the blow exhaled on a single breath.

He blinked hard, pulling back the scattered piece of his psyche, forcing the last remnants of the vision away and—

He felt something moving over him. Something on his chest. He tried to jerk upright, but it shoved him back down and all he could see above him was darkness and then …

Eyes. Blazing red eyes. A massive paw on his chest. A huge shadowy head taking form above his. The head of a hound.

No, damn it. I’m Ricky Gallagher. I’m—

“I don’t know if you can understand me, hound,” a voice said. “But if you lower those teeth another inch, I’m putting a bullet through your skull.”

“Liv,” he said, her name coming out as a croak, his throat as tight and dry as if he had been the one shouting prayers and protests.