Rainbow Snippets: Retaliation? Or something more?

_{^{Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.}}

This month, we’re continuing the snippets from Tracking Trouble. It’s a prequel to In Pain and Blood starring Tracker, a King’s Hound from Demarn, who is also the elf responsible for the massive rewriting haul that has become the Spellster and the Hound series. Unlike a lot of my other stories, this isn’t a romance.

This week’s snippet continues from last week’s with the spellster asking “So what if a few guards disappear? Happens all the time.”

Tracker frowned. It was possible the man had merely retaliated when it came to the missing guards, but they hadn’t found any of their bodies to be certain. That in itself was suspicious.
And it still didn’t explain the civilians who, after vanishing for days, turned up dead with their spines and limbs twisted in ways no body should go. The man must’ve known he had already sealed his fate.
A change in the air at Tracker’s back tingled along the tips of his ears. Was there a fifth would-be assailant? Keeping the spellster and the thugs in his periphery, Tracker glanced over his shoulder to catch the muted shine of a blade bearing down on him.

Tracker will be back next week, and sticking around for a while after. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.