Free The Architect of Song (Haunted Hearts Legacy Book 1) by A. G. Howard

drawing.
    A circle of rats laid with their bellies in the air, legs flailing as their tails tangled between them in a macabre jungle of cartilage and flexible bones. Blood-red ink formed the image with such mastery the rodents looked ready to scuttle off the page.
    I studied the lower left corner where two English words slanted in a fevered scrawl: Rat King .
    Catching a breath, I held it up. “Hawk …”
    Turning my direction, he took three steps my way, then stalled, his head cocked. “I hear someone coming. You must leave, now .”
    The hairs along my nape stood on end. I tucked the drawing between the journal’s pages and shoved the book within my coat. As I ducked through the tent’s flap, two white-hot eyes faced me—attached to a snarling black wolf.
    Her hot breath, rank with blood, cloaked my face. A shriek scalded my throat.
    “Slowly …” Hawk’s voice remained calm. “Back away slowly.” As he spoke, he inched toward me, and I knew he thought upon Aria’s volatile reaction to his presence.
    I managed a few backward steps. It must’ve started misting outside again, judging by the scent of wet fur. As if reinforcing that observation, sunlight tipped the she-wolf’s dark scruff and lit each individual droplet to pinhead stars. She resembled a mythological beast, carrying the midnight sky upon her back.
    Streaks of white fringed her eyes, paws, and neck—a token of age. Her tail thrashed, dislodging the branch where it propped the flap and casting the background in muted yellow light.
    The limb slanted on its fall and rolled next to the beast’s feet. Her corded muscles tensed. The thunder-roll of her growl reverberated in the soles of my boots.
    Terror shivered along my spine all the way into my arms and legs, leaving them numb and unresponsive.
    “Juliet, beside the mattress. There is a heavy pot you can use for a shield.”
    I couldn’t budge another inch … frozen in the predator’s icy gaze.
    “Juliet!” Hawk yelled.
    The wolf leapt toward me, fangs snapping in a violent fury. I felt a shove atop my coat between my shoulder blades and crumpled to the ground as the beast soared over me. Rolling to my side, I watched her clamber to her feet with Hawk in her sights.
    He had been her target all along. I was the one solid barrier between them, and had he not pushed me out of the way …
    Had he not pushed me.
    Hawk narrowed his eyes, intuiting what I had just realized: he was getting stronger.
    “Aye there, lovely pup.” He clucked his tongue at the wolf, and she bared her teeth again. “Juliet.” Hawk held her attention as he backed up. “Leave, now. I’ll keep her occupied.”
    Concern for his safety slowed my response until I remembered what he was. I barely managed to duck under the tent flap again when the cold prick of a knife met the side of my neck and forced me back inside.
    The woman couldn’t have been more than four and half feet tall, with features as rough as a horse’s. She wore no coat. A green chemise with sleeves the yellow of winter squash peered out from under a fur-trimmed vest. A trio of skirts piled one atop another at her waist, each knotted so the side seams revealed an evolution of color, from pink to orange to green.
    “Nye-nye, Naldi!” The old woman’s lips formed words I could never have read had Hawk not been there to repeat them. In my peripheral view, the wolf craned its head to attention. “Naldi, caught a rhubarb. I allers did say you the jam on my rye.”
    The beast trotted over to lick the gypsy’s stockinged feet through the strands of her sandals, then nudged the fallen branch that earlier held the tent’s flap, a plea to play fetch.
    My captor jerked my elbow until the tip of my nose aligned with hers. Her breath—tart and spiced with tobacco—scorched my nostrils and her wrinkled face reminded me of a walnut’s meat. Braids, as white as untouched snow, looped beneath a broad-brimmed hat tied over her ears with a crimson sash, distracting