Guardian Hound Read Online Free PDF

painted so they’d eaten all their meals here for the last two days.
    â€œShadows?” Da asked, folding down the top of the report he was reading to look directly at Lukas. He had his silver reading glasses on and was already dressed for the court in a dark suit and light blue tie. Greta and Mama stayed absorbed in the papers they read.
    â€œYour grandmother always used to talk about the shadows,” Da added, turning his piercing blue gaze to Oma.
    Did Lukas look like that sometimes? Was his stare so direct? Everyone always said he had the same eyes as his da.
    â€œNo such thing,” Oma said with a decisive sniff, not turning her attention away from her porridge.
    â€œBut—” Lukas started.
    â€œYou ever seen the shadows?” Oma shot back at Da.
    â€œNo,” Da replied, shaking his head. “I haven’t.”
    Lukas sat back in his chair and looked at the adults. Greta still hadn’t looked up, but he could tell she was listening.
    Da was the best sight hound of all the clan—it was why he was king, or at least that’s what he’d told Lukas. Sometimes the title was inherited from father to son, but the court ministers didn’t always choose an heir from the same family. There was no guarantee that the Metzler family would continue on as kings.
    If Da couldn’t see the shadows, maybe they didn’t exist. Maybe they were only in Lukas’ dreams.
    But Oma had said they came from the dark side of hound magic. That made them sound real, and not just nightmares.
    Lukas opened his mouth to ask again, then shut it when Oma glared at him.
    She’d told him not to say anything. Told him that only a big boy would be able to keep the secret. That it was as big a secret as being in the hound clan.
    Lukas wanted to be a big boy. He looked from Da, to Mama, to Greta, and then out beyond, to the far hall where he heard servants talking.
    They couldn’t help him with the shadows. Just like in his dreams, he was all alone.
    Then Lukas picked up his spoon again, the silver cold and heavy in his hand, determined to eat and act like everything was normal, like he didn’t have the hugest secret in the whole world weighing his chest down.  
    # # #
    Lukas tried to sit still in the quiet classroom. Greta had gone to study history with her tutor while Lukas struggled with his letters. Normally, they weren’t so difficult, but his fingers ached from holding his pencil, and his hand couldn’t hold it steady, so instead of his words marching straight up and down, they fell down again and again.
    Outside, it was high summer. The sun called to Lukas, as did the all the scents of the woods, the small chipmunks and the brave foxes, the steady trees and the cool streams.
    The classroom smelled stale, too small and boxed in. The chalk and slate smells irritated him, as did the pulpy paper in his hand.
    As another letter skittered away, Lukas swept his book, paper, and pencil box to the floor in frustration. “I can’t stay here!” he said, standing.
    Then he slapped both his hands over his mouth. What was wrong with him? He’d never said anything out loud like that before.
    But he couldn’t, he just couldn’t sit in here anymore. Normally, he loved this classroom: it was full of books about soldiers and brave hounds, and his desk has always been a haven from the shadows who’d haunted him since that spring.
    However, Felix, his tutor, didn’t punish Lukas. Instead, he said, “I think we’ve done enough for today.”
    Lukas immediately jerked his gaze to the window. He was going out to the garden, then into the woods, and run and run and run .
    â€œCan you stay here for just one more minute, while I get Tilgard?” Felix asked.
    Lukas forced himself back into the classroom. The hound master? Why did he need to wait for him , when he could run…
    Oh.  
    â€œThe change?” Lukas breathed out. Was it that time?