Free Guardian Hound by Leah Cutter Page A

soon as Lukas shrank back down to a little Scottie dog, the shadows left him alone. He shook them off and left, looking for Oma.
    But the shadows were already in the castle, in every corner of the court, hazing the tall ceilings and staining the windows. Even the garden and the woods were infected with noxious mushrooms and web-like vines. Only after Lukas had squeezed through a hole under the wall and run away did the shadows leave him alone.
    Lukas didn’t really wake up the next morning. He knew he slept, but it was a comfortable, easy sleep. He sensed Hamlin was near, standing guard over them.
    At noon, Lukas rose, seeing out of their shared eyes only for a minute or two before slipping back down into darkness.
    At midnight, Lukas rose again. Like the last time, it was only for a short while, though it was long enough for him to wonder briefly if this was what it was like for Hamlin before sleep claimed him again.
    The next day, Lukas woke at noon, then at midnight again. But this time, when Lukas rose up, Oma and a stranger sat before him. “Rudi will keep you safe,” Oma said, over and over again.
    Lukas nodded, catching a quick glance of the man. He had silver hair standing all on end, bushy eyebrows over dark eyes, a solid chin with a cleft in it, and a ready smile.
    â€œI’ll guard you with my life, Prince,” Rudi said quickly.
    Lukas nodded again before he went back down.
    He woke next in a tight, closed-in space. A gate was immediately in front of his nose.
    A crate.
    But he smelled Rudi nearby. Peering through the slats in the side, he found Rudi sitting beside him.
    Hamlin showed Lukas the crowds and the long passage they’d come through, how Rudi had more than seat, so Lukas was here and not on the floor.
    Lukas knew from movies he’d seen that they were flying somewhere, far from the court.
    Safe.
    Before Lukas could be sad that he wasn’t really awake for his first plane ride, he fell back asleep.
    Lukas kept track of the days and the times he was awake better than Hamlin. His hound soul knew seasons; dividing them up into more pieces was a human thing. So Lukas knew that it was about two weeks before the potion started to wear off and he began to be awake longer than just a few minutes. It took almost two months before Lukas felt more like himself and could be awake for most of the day.
    Rudi lived in a rambling house, all one story, with a large grassy yard that sloped up a small hill. The fence was high enough that even Hamlin would have problems jumping it. But there were many trees, squirrels, and birds. Lukas spent as much time outside as he could outside, reveling in every scent the wind brought him.
    Rudi did some kind of work on the computer, and sat in an office overlooking the backyard all day. But he stopped frequently to play with Lukas, throwing a ball or going for long rambling walks, often driving out of the city to reach the nearby woods. Lukas had his own soft bed and all the chew toys he could want.
    It was the perfect life for a dog, but Lukas wasn’t really a dog.
    At night, Lukas took to prowling the house, guarding his territory, memorizing every scent so well he could run at full speed with his eyes closed from one room to the next—racing from the faint overlay of smoke from the fireplace in the living room, to the new-glue scent still attached to the dining room chairs, past the heady spices and rich coffee smells of the kitchen, into the metallic tang of Rudi’s office, then back again.
    One night, Lukas noticed that Rudi had left a magazine open on the coffee table. Lukas jumped up and realized that even in this form, he could read. It hurt his eyes a little, focusing on the small print, and he had to back up to see more clearly. But now he could keep track of what was going on in Germany beyond what he could catch on the radio and TV. Plus, it would pass the time on the long nights, when he missed his family and his home.
    He didn’t