Kenzie tensed. Good to know.
Ryan’s got an interesting idea, but your gun might still go off. I can’t see the wiring.
Kenzie had no idea what that meant, but she dragged in a breath, ready for whatever he was going to do.
Bowman, she said silently, sending every bit of caring and love she could through whatever link they were sharing.
Bowman’s hard gray eyes softened for a brief moment. Yeah, I know, his whisper came back. Love you too.
He stood absolutely still for a few seconds longer. Turner waited, his fingers poised over the keyboard.
Then Bowman leapt forward and smashed the rebar through the wooden bottom half of Ryan’s door. A moment later, Bowman dove for the hole he’d made and let his Collar go off.
Electricity sparked and exploded. Bowman’s body jerked with it, a howl of pain escaping his throat. The door broke, but the frame remained connected to the wall, the latch in place, and Kenzie’s shotgun stayed silent.
For now. With something as strong as Bowman smashing through it, the door could fall out of its frame any minute. Kenzie understood that Bowman had tried to short-circuit the wiring with his Collar, to disrupt electricity going to the switch Turner had put into the door, but a stray spark might set it off anyway.
Turner, red with anger, brought his hands down on the computer keyboard.
But he wasn’t as fast as a Shifter. Bowman leapt through the wreckage of the door, shifting in midair, to catch Ryan and his chair and slam both out of the way as the shotgun in Ryan’s room boomed.
At the same time, Kenzie shifted, letting herself linger in her between-beast state—a formidable cross between wolf and human, with the advantages of both. The form was difficult for most Shifters to maintain for long, but it got the job done in the meantime.
The shotgun in her room went off, pellets scattering everywhere. Kenzie ducked the worst of it as her chains broke, though shot grazed her, embedding in her fur and skin.
She didn’t care. She only saw Bowman’s wolf form light up with electricity as he landed with Ryan, the arcs from his Collar and the wall’s wiring zapping him over and over again.
Kenzie burst the partition in two, becoming wolf all the way as she dove through. She dragged Bowman by the scruff away from the spaghetti-like live wires flailing on the floor and landed on top of him, using her weight to smother the sparks in his fur.
Ryan’s face was wet with blood and tears, but he didn’t break down as he struggled with his chains. “Dad, you are awesome! Mom, I can’t get out of these, and Turner’s coming!”
Kenzie changed to her half-beast again, her brute strength breaking the links of Ryan’s chains. He shifted to wolf at the same time she did, the cub climbing onto his mother’s back for protection.
“So,” Turner said. He had come through a back door in the booth Kenzie had sat in, which must lead to his main control room, his face scarlet with rage but his voice still too calm. “The instinct of Canis lupus shifterensius is to preserve the entire pack. That gives me much to write about. This symposium will be interesting.”
He brought up a semiautomatic, aimed it at Kenzie and family, and shot.
* * *
Bowman heard Kenzie’s shriek inside his head as a bullet caught her. She had turned and slammed herself backward, protecting Ryan, which had exposed her belly and throat. Blood blossomed on her soft fur, paler on her stomach than her back.
Bowman’s reason left him. He felt the bond between himself and Kenzie lessen, and the pain of that was unbearable.
I love you, Kenz was Bowman’s last coherent thought. Then the world became a blur.
Bullets whizzed past him. Some of them struck him, but Bowman didn’t notice. He ran at Turner, his claws ripping into the man’s skin. He bit down and tasted blood.
Pain burned his side, and Bowman’s own blood flowed. His Collar shocked him, agony streaming through every nerve, but Bowman ignored it. He bit, tore, and shook, and blood sprayed.
Turner’s gun slipped out of his hands to clatter to the floor, but the man kept fighting. He was strong, and Bowman was losing blood. Turner managed to slide away from Bowman and try to run back the way he’d come, through Kenzie’s booth. But Kenzie was there, ready to kill.
Turner had just enough time to turn and race down the hall to the steel door Bowman had entered through. He pounded four numbers into the keypad next to it and yanked it open.
He found two Shifters, one with a sword, one with massive fists, waiting on the other side. Behind them stood a tall dokk alfar with fire in his eyes.
Graham grabbed Turner, but the man had a few more dirty tricks in store. He Tased Graham, ducked under Pierce’s reach, whipped his Fae dirk across Reid’s face, and sprinted through the lab and down the main hall.