Black Dog, Tome 1 : Dog with a bone

Burnt ozone tingled in my nose. I inhaled deeply, but all I scented was the coming storm. Thunder boomed overhead, rumbling through the ground under my feet. I was still hunched behind a twisted metal sculpture of a giant rooster when the first lukewarm raindrops splattered on my cheeks.

Movement on my right slammed the brakes on my heart. I squinted where I thought I glimpsed a pale blur, but the sun was too far gone and the scrapyard too dark for me to tell what it had been.

My left palm tingled with suppressed energy. My kind of magic wasn’t allowed at the marshal academy.

I had to go. Every second I stood here exposed on three sides was an opportunity to get caught. I filled my lungs until they burned then exhaled slowly, hoping for a clue. Nothing.

It’s now or never.

Shoving off the rooster’s metallic wing, I ran as fast as I could toward the tower at the center of the rusting maze. Even this far away I spotted the white flag plastered against its pole. If I could just reach it, all this ended. Done. Over. If I had that flag, I could go home. If I got there first.

That was a whole lot of ifs.

“Cadet Thackeray,” a low voice rumbled.

My pulse leapt. New plan. Forget the tower. If Shaw had my taste in his mouth, he would not let me reach it. I needed a new hiding spot now before he got close enough to use his lure on me. Once I drew in the hot scent of his skin, it was over. I was lost. His heat would snare me, and I would be his.

As if I wasn’t already.