Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(60)

Neil stood beside me, finally naked, having protected his precious PJs that I was pretty sure Chad would have bought him more of had he understood our dire circumstances. Neil’s hands were on his well-sculpted hips as the ogre looked us over. “Shouldn’t he be doing something? What is the thing in his hand?”

“I think that’s a tree,” I noted. The ogre did, indeed, appear to have hijacked a small tree to use as a blunt instrument.

As if on cue, the ogre lifted his club and roared. The dogs jumped into action. They each took a side and started working in tandem to torment the creature dead set on having them for a late-night snack. One would grab his attention with barking and growls and the other would rush in and take a quick bite out of a handy target. Before I could even think to line up a shot, Barghest and Shuck had taken several hunks out of the ogre’s feet and legs.

“Don’t think this discussion of ours is over.” Neil sent me a forbidding look just before he changed.

His muscles moved and flowed impossibly. He leaned over and with a preternatural grace shifted from human to wolf. Neil’s wolf was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. He was arctic white and he stared at me with his glacial blue eyes. He barked and even though he couldn’t speak when he was in wolf form, he had no problem making himself understood. That one bark told me to stay put and let him handle the situation. He joined the black dogs just as the ogre tried to bring his tree trunk down on Shuck’s head.

I wasn’t going to be able to follow Neil’s admonition, I realized as I watched the scene from behind the tree. The dogs just couldn’t make enough of a dent. The ogre was still interested in me. He was moving my direction, and I didn’t think that was going to stop anytime soon.

Neil barked and started in on the ogre’s backside, but the ogre swatted at the trio like they were pesky mosquitoes. If I didn’t do something soon, one of them was going to get seriously hurt.

I stepped out from behind the tree, leveled my Ruger, and took a firing position. I popped off three quick rounds to his chest and realized I’d probably made a huge mistake. If I had thought the big dude was interested in me before, now he was obsessed. My cold iron bullets were apparently much more painful than the doggy love bites, and the ogre roared.

I backed up instinctively, but hit the tree I’d been tied to previously. I tripped over Neil’s slippers and fell to the ground, landing on my butt just as the giant homicidal tree-wielding ogre took a swing at me. I heard a mighty crack as the tree above me took the full force of the club and split in the exact spot where my head would have been.

I rolled to the left, getting out of the way of his second attack.

Neil was swiping at the ogre with his claws when he was thrown off his prey’s back and landed right on his spine with a hurt bark. I winced, but he was up in no time, growling threateningly as he circled the ogre, trying to make himself into the target.

I stood still as the ogre watched the dogs and Neil. He suddenly moved his hands and swiped the ground with his club. Barghest and Shuck were struck full on by the enormous tree trunk and they landed somewhere in the forest with a thud. Neil was more agile than the black dogs and he leapt gracefully over the sweeping trunk. The ogre was plainly unhappy that his prey had avoided the trap.

He roared, his shout of rage causing the trees around me to shake their leaves. It also had the unintended effect of leaving the ogre standing still. He was a perfect target and I took advantage. I stood up and fired three more times into his huge body.

It was at this point I discovered that ogre bones are stronger than human bones. If you shoot a human straight in the sternum, said sternum will usually oblige and break under the force of the bullet. Not so with the ogre. The ogre’s sternum chose to reject the bullet and send it back to its original owner. I felt the bullet sting my right thigh before it buried itself somewhere in the forest.

I was bleeding but even without taking the time to look at it, I knew it wasn’t as bad as I’d dealt with before. I could still move the leg, so I called this round a draw.

Neil sank his teeth into the ogre’s thigh and held on for dear life. The ogre tried to shake him off, but Neil was persistent. I watched his furry body swing from side to side as the ogre slung him around. It occurred to me as his spinal column was sent shifting in new directions that his birthday was coming up and I knew just what to get him. I was going to have Dev buy him his own personal chiropractor.

Raising my gun again, I tried to take aim at the monster’s neck. Hitting him in his thick skull was an invitation to more painful ricochets, so I would go for something softer. I fired a couple of times before hitting my target. The bullet found a meaty part of the ogre’s neck and released a fountain of blood. Neil was drenched before he realized what was happening. He let go and stared at me like I had meant for the blood to hit him.

“Sorry,” I shouted across the woods.

The ogre staggered, shaking his head. He was still as strong as a bull but the black dogs were back and they were two mad pups. They leapt into the fray, not at all worried about being covered in blood. They reveled in it. As the blood coated their fur, they seemed to be drawn into the fury of the kill. They gnashed at the monster’s flesh with their sharp teeth and held on with their claws.

The ogre swatted at them, trying to get them off his body. He stumbled back, knocking the dogs against the trees around him.

Shuck and Barghest were having none of it. In fact, it seemed to make them dig in even more. As his foot hit the place where the Hunter had left his long circle of rope, I heard a small snapping sound and then the ogre was hoisted into the air by one leg. He was caught in the Hunter’s trap, his massive body dangling over the ground.