Free Red and Her Wolf by Marie Hall

side. She was covered in blood, a beacon to this monster.
     
    While he studied her, he did not notice the amorphous black fog coiling around his ankles until it yanked him off his feet, the ground tore into his nude flesh, scraping him raw. Grunting, he was able to still cling to Violet’s body.
     
    “ Sssoo much blood ,” the sibilant voice rang with greed and perverted joy.
     
    Then a hot tongue, tough as a cat’s, licked the soles of his feet. Ewan kicked at the oily claw wrapped around his ankles, but it was useless. He thrashed even as a demonic mask coalesced within the inky vapor.
     
    “ It’s been sssoo long. Sssoo hungry .”
     
    Blood pounding, Ewan twisted away from the fanged teeth. Horns sprouted from the face and jaw, a curved bony protuberance latched onto Violet. Scrabbling for purchase, his hold on her precarious, Ewan grasped a crooked gravestone and grit his teeth against the sensation of his legs moments away from being torn off him.
     
    “Miriam sent us,” he shouted not caring if Malvena’s guards heard. Avoiding imminent death at the hands of a blood thirsty ghoul of far greater importance at the moment.
     
    Instantly the hands dissolved. “ The Ssshunned ?”
     
    “Aye, ye bloody fool,” Ewan snapped, anger throbbing through his skull as he spat blood and grit from his mouth.
     
    Violet moaned.
     
    Ewan sat up, every muscle in his body ached as he hugged her tight to his side, dizzy and breathless with the reality of how close he’d come to losing her again.
     
    The deformed creature slithered up to them, red eyes glowing like embers as it stared first at him, then her.
     
    “Get away from her,” Ewan growled, he had little strength in him at the moment and he knew the demon ghoul knew it, but he’d die protecting what was his.
     
    The red eyes stared at him briefly before turning to her, ignoring Ewan’s warning, the ghoul sniffed.
     
    The face looked to be chiseled from stone, cracked and splitting from age. The gray pallor of the ghoul’s body nearly indistinguishable from the tombstone’s all around. Kingdom granted immortality, of a sort. One could not die of old age or disease, but death by battle or monster had taken many lives.
     
    “ She smells of deathhhh , violence, chaosss ,” the ghoul intoned in the deep heavy inflections that made Ewan’s skin crawl and ice heat his veins. Then the eyes returned to him and a long black tongue licked cracked and bleeding lips. “ A tassste ?”
     
    Growling, Ewan scooted back on his heels, the stench of the creature nauseated him. “She is mine, ghoul. Safe passage, that was the bargain struck with The Shunned, was it no?”
     
    The ghoul snarled, curling his lips. “ Yesss ,” he spat it like an insult.
     
    Calling his wolf, Ewan let the animal spill in his eyes and growled low, “Then leave off.”
     
    With a bird like hiss, the ghoul backed away.
     
    Heaving a sigh of relief, trembling with a rush of adrenaline, Ewan closed his eyes. The villagers surely knew of the ghoul within the grave, the guards must know it too, meaning none would dare investigate here. But that didn’t make it safe.
     
    The beast was hungry. Soulless, and with a desperate taste for flesh, its appetite was bottomless and unceasing. To be here for any amount of time, vow of safe passage or not, was lunacy.
     
    The creature knew one thing. Hunger. The graves’ held nothing but bones, which meant he and Red were the only meat around. He needed to find the ghoul feed, and there was only one place to do it. Despising the choice, Ewan closed his eyes and whispered, “Many have died this night within the village…”
     
    The words had barely left his mouth before the ghoul cackled with glee and became mist once more, a haunting laugh fluttered behind him.
     
    Shuddering, Ewan kissed Violet’s cheek. Tonight she was safe, and the ghoul would gorge, hopefully for a few hours at least. His stomach roared, twisting and churning in his