Soul was pretty, tiny, and delicate. But as I watched, she proved that she was definitely not human. Her jaw opened way wider than a human’s can. She was showing me her teeth the way Beast would show another predator her teeth in threat. I had a feeling that I was missing something crucial to this situation. “Soul. It’s me. Jane.” I rolled away from her, one hand behind my back gripping the nine-millimeter that was still in my waistband. The teeth looked like a warning, a predator response, not just to see me squirm, but to make sure I knew I was about to be eaten. My hand sweaty on the gun grip, I froze into stillness. “Soul? What is this?”
Magic tingled and sizzled along my skin. A wind sprang up, cold and hot at once, burning with both ice and steam. Soul’s mouth elongated again. And again. Alligator long. Crocodile long. Full of teeth like needles and knives. And wrong, wrong, wrong. Soul was not the same person in this form, as if . . . she lost her humanity when she shed her skin. “Soul, you just saved my butt. What did I do wrong that—”
Soul hissed and spat, narrowly missing me as I flinched away. The spittle hit the metal building behind me with a whistling splat. I heard sizzling and smelled hot metal and acid.
“Holy crap!” I pulled the gun in my waistband and fired. Three fast shots. And nothing happened, not to Soul. The rounds seemed to leave no mark at all. Or in my panic, I missed.
Beast shoved-rammed-punched her way into the forefront of my brain. Change, she screamed, clawing at my mind. Pain ricocheted through me. I inhaled and thought of Beast. Rolled over into the shadows. Until the cool metal of the warehouse at my back stopped me. Acid ran down from where she had spat at me, burning a patch of bare skin in my shoulder.
Soul lunged.
Light and shadow wrenched and twisted. The earth rearranged itself beneath me. I aimed, blew out my breath, and fired. Once, twice, three more times. Nothing hit her. The rounds passed clean through her. Through the light that was Soul. Her teeth came at me, big as a T. rex. They caught my arm and snapped down, just as she solidified and dropped onto my belly. My breath, my one precious breath, was shoved out in a strangled half scream. The smell of my blood was hot on the air. There was no pain yet. Just the sound and vibration of teeth on my bones. My stomach turned over and tried to defeat gravity. She shook me like a dog with a rabbit in its jaws. Slung me up and to the side. She let go and I landed in a spinning roll. Realized I was still in the gray place of the change. With Soul. In her natural form. Or one of them.
She leaped at me, her mouth open again. I focused on it. More cat than gator now. Striped black and yellow. Tiger, Beast thought. I/we snarled. Soul snarled back. With much bigger teeth.
Pelt sprouted along my arms, healing flesh and tendons on the one she had mauled. But I was twisted in my clothes. I wrenched my hips and legs, trying to get them free of the jeans and boots.
Soul pounced again and bit down onto my healing arm and shook me—clearly her method of choice for killing small prey. Like me. This time I heard the snap-snap of breaking bones. The pain that had been hiding exploded inside me. I heard a roaring in my ears. Which felt like a really bad thing. Beast? I’m in trouble here. More pain raced along my jaws and through my gut. The roaring grew louder. My body went limp.
? ? ?
Face wrenched in agony. Changing. Shifting. Beast screamed. Buried fangs in tiger’s throat, latching down. Fur and blood and meat and . . . rich, tasty blood. Beast shook tiger. Swallowed good blood. Tiger growled and gurgled. Tiger could not breathe.
Beast played dead. Then attacked. Beast is best hunter.
Tiger whined. Blew bubbles of blood. Tiger lay still. Beast let her go and leaped to three legs, whirled and reached for tiger. Tiger was gone. Sniffed, searching for tiger. Saw light and movement among trees beside cracked, broken concrete. Light like gray place, but brighter. With wings and scales. Growling and snarling. Roaring and chuffing. Singing like birds. Soul cried, “Where is the hatchling?”
And she was gone.
Pain raced up broken leg. Beating like blood and heart. I/we gathered up Jane boots and clothes. Carried them to ess-u-vee. Leaped to front, to top of chest, above beating heart, warm from life of ess-u-vee, alive but not alive. Curled into ball on top of Jane clothes. Put jaw on boots. Closed eyes and thought of Jane.
? ? ?
I woke up on the warm hood of the SUV, disoriented and nauseated. Hair unbraided and draped all over me. And naked. I groaned and rolled over. Sat up. Making sure that Soul and Satan’s Three were gone. No growling, no light show. No vehicle behind mine. Nothing but the smell of crushed plants, Soul blood, gunfire, and vamp on the air, mixed with something vaguely familiar that skittered around in my brain like a rat in a box before disappearing like a magic trick before I could identify it.
I rolled off the hood and dressed quickly in my blood-damp, shredded clothes, except for the panties and bra that were a total ruin. This was why I didn’t invest in expensive undies.