I'm having trouble with the publisher on Wattpad guys, so I apologize if something is messed up or there are extra typos! It's not saving or formatting correctly for me.

ATTENTION: Within the next two weeks I'm going to flip the switch and mark this story as 'mature' for several reasons, including my own peace of mind in not having to worry about how close I am to crossing that line.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU: I'm not interested in that, "I'm putting all the sex and gore into a separate story marked private/mature" crap. I like to read stories in one place. I like to write them that way, too. In the interest of providing you with the simplest experience, marking Hounded 'mature' is the best (and most honest) course of action.

DOES THIS MEAN THE STORY WILL BE GRAPHIC? Yes and no. I haven't decided how much and to what extent I'll detail certain scenes for the Wattpad version of this book. They might end up alright by the end of the book and I remove the rating after an evaluation. I suspect they'll be r-rated. I just want to protect myself and you guys in the process. The content guideline criteria is a steep cliff, so in case I decide to jump off it, you'll be protected.

This is your heads-up, so if for some reason your access to the story changes, this is why.

Thank you!

Please, for the story's sake, remember to vote, comment, and share the stories with friends. Life can be a lot harder for mature stories on this site, so I'm counting on you now more than ever!

In the hovel of a shop that was the seamstress's tent, I stood perfectly still, surrounded by dresses, garments, and fabrics influenced by centuries of style. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, trying on heavy gowns with people I hardly knew, making small talk about the monster I was about to marry. There'd been no engagement. No ring. No ecstatic phone call to my mother.

I wasn't supposed to be doing this. At least not for a few years. I wanted to live in New York and work at my job in creature concept design. Finally, I was going to fit in, be around people who shared the same passions and interests. I was going to make new friends and go out drinking and have my own place to rest my head. I wanted to have crushes and hookups and breakups and makeups. I wanted to see what was out there. I wanted a man I could love, one who'd love me back. I wanted to go on dates and watch bad movies and squabble about stupid stuff like the thread count of our sheets. I wanted to have—

The seamstress's gnarled fingers pulled the tape taught across my bust. From beneath a wrinkled brow, her doleful blue eyes stared into mine. The stump of her tongue moved.

Val snatched a handkerchief off the a shelf and held it out to me. "You okay?" she asked.

A fat tear rolled off my cheek, dripped onto the seamstress's wrist. "Oh, shit," I sniffled, suddenly in a hurry to forget, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "Yeah, it's fine. I'm fine. Weddings turn me into mush."

I wasn't fine. I'd wanted that life more than anything. And that life, which had been so real, so concrete not too long ago, was forever out of reach. You don't know that, said the optimistic part of me. But I knew. That Tay Wilson had died in the snow on All Hallows' Eve. My new future waited in a dark tower.

Yarah, just seventeen, a slim girl with dark hair and thin, expressive eyebrows, sat up beside Val, her long hair pulled in wavy curls to one side. "If we were knowing how," she said softly, in the best English she could, "we would."

"It's temporary," I replied. The seamstress stretched out my arms. "I can handle him."

"You shouldn't have to," Val said, and there was anger in the way she tossed the unused handkerchief back on its shelf. "It's not right."

"It's the hand we've been dealt, but the game isn't over, not yet."

"Speaking of this," Yarah said, running a hand over the ivory fabric that was to form my dress. It wouldn't stay white, the seamstress's assistant had informed us before she'd limped away to help someone else.  Demons were into that whole virginal look; they loved the way blood spoiled it. "Many of us have talk. We are wanting very much to protect ourselves. The big man" —"Walrus," said Val—"offers to help with his men. Is he safe?"

"He isn't any worse," I said, wiping at my eyes again. "But I can't say the same about the others."

*

Word of the Marrow Witch's blessing had swept through the kingdom's inhabitants like wildfire. There were visitors, there were guests, there were all manner of men and monsters and creatures descending upon the palace. The air was wild, electric, and somber for only the women of the Hunt. Underneath everything, however, there passed a quiet hum of tension, a rushing buzz that made you feel as if you were running errands with a tornado on the horizon. Sure, the ceremony had been approved now, but would it be in another day? A week?

And the King, as if sensing my dismay, had settled on his own personal guards for me at every turn. Sullen little children in the shadows, goliath gargoyles in the gardens and beyond. A soldier or two outside my door.

It was a soldier that I heard fall in the night, a sharp clatter of metal while I was sitting up with my tea carefully balanced in my lap, trying to turn it into ice.

Chiro strolled in, hand red, swinging a key to my room. He dropped it on a desk with a nonchalant whistle. "He's made more copies," he said, opening a dresser drawer to find a linen shirt to wipe his paws on. "Gave them out to his flock to check on you in the night lest you attempt something unladylike."

"Is he dead?"

"Wouldn't let me in," the Prince continued.

"Was he...Can he transform, too?"

"Not every man can. Not every soul is blessed by the Witch. But the ones in the palace are. Thing is-" He slide a freshly-cleaned dagger back into its hilt and laid it flat on the desk. "-If you can transform into a tremendous demon and you're only a guard, you've got to be pretty stupid. We don't follow blood. We follow power and intelligence. Ideally, both, but in a pinch one or the other will do."

I set my tea down on a nightstand and rose to greet him. "Why'd you come tonight?"

He perched on the corner of the desk. "What the hell are you doing with the witch's abomination?"

"Nothing, yet."

His annoyance reached all the way to his eyes. "And if it enters into your service?"

"I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place here. Something's got to give before I get squished. I have to talk to the King, but I need to talk to the Witch. I presume the creature won't truly work for me, so I'll make it work for me, if you get my drift."

Chiro was silent for a few long moments. He crossed his arms. I offered him tea. He turned it down with a lift of his hand. "You can't kill the King," he said.

"What do you mean?" Cold fear worked its way into my belly. "He's rotting away. There's gotta be a way to push that along."

"When I challenged him for the throne, the coward left me to fight some of his more loyal council. He fled to the Witch, made a deal with It. I don't know what that deal was, but I do know the worm cannot die. He doesn't tire. He doesn't eat or sleep unless he wants to."

"But he can still...get it up?"

Chiro made the disgusted face I felt. "Can't say I personally know the answer to that, but given that he's after you, I'm inclined to say yes. I also know he broken whatever bargain he'd made, but the Witch can't touch him as long as he stays within the protections of the palace."

I started to pull out a chair, but he stopped me, guided me back to the bed. "What am I supposed to do?" I asked, sinking down beside him.

"Endure," he said softly. "We'll think of something, but for now-"

Haunting. He wanted me to try haunting. I scooted back on the bed, eying him warily. "No shenanigans this time."

"None," he agreed, and pointed out that his shirt was very much on. "That was a mistake. You don't have time for mistakes."

I chewed my lip. "What kind of mistake is this, anyway?"

"Meaningless," he said, rolling his shoulders back. "It's been a while. You're wanting. I'm opportunistic."

"I'm not wanting," I huffed, and I had to work hard to stamp out the challenge in my voice. "I used to be an artist, you know. I was appreciating a fine male figure, that's all."

"Well." And he said more in the extended, thoughtful pause that followed than he ever did out loud. "If you're inability to appreciate is going to distract you from the task at hand, perhaps we should take care of that matter."

"You just said-"

He smiled. "Good student, were you?"

"Passable," I admitted. "But I don't think you understand how a test works."

"I don't play by your rules."

"You're impossible," I told him, and hit him with the pillow. It bounced off his shoulder harmlessly. He leaned forward and gripped my shoulders tight.

"Tay," he said, and the hot edge to his tone made it clear he was one playful swat away from teaching me a different kind of lesson. And that was the end of that, at least for now. He released me, sitting back as I made myself comfortable.

"It's about getting into the right state," Chiro said after several long minutes of silence. "Getting ready to empty yourself out of this body, shutting down your senses to focus on a different one. It's a thin veil separating one world from the next. You've only got to brush it aside. Think about what's on the other side, and it'll be."

"I can't." I pulled away. "There's too much pressure, too much going on."

"Can you imagine a time in the near future when there won't be?"

I shut my eyes shut. Chiro moved me to laying flat and comfortable, counted down, walked me through a relaxation session. And this time, maybe because it was late, maybe because my mind was desperate to go somewhere else, maybe because it had taken so long and Chiro's voice was so calm.

There was a soft pull, a feeling of floating, detachment. And I could see it, blurry, at first, and then the resolution sharpened.

I could see it.

My home. My bedroom.

But not as I left it.

Snow had blown across the desk, swept in a wide white swath across my sketchpads. Posters and artwork had been torn from the walls and smashed. Sculptures and easels and brushes knocked to the floor. The sculpture I'd finished before leaving, my last one, a werewolf, had ice tangled in its fur beside the heater, giving the eyes a cold glint, its grey fur a malevolent sparkle in the ghostly drift.

And there was something scratched into the wall over my headboard, etched into the wood by a chisel that lay in shavings on my bed. I walked closer, head tilted, trying to read the shaky lettering.

There a knock at the door. My head turned.

I was slumped on the side of the mattress, slightly drooling, my cheek smooshed against warm silk. Dizzy, confused, seeing two rooms blend into one, I sat up. Chiro was opening the door, stepping back with a disgruntled sound. Val barreled into him. "Dot's missing," she gasped, bent double over my desk chair, standing in snow she didn't see or feel. "We've looked everywhere. She's gone."