The Breaking

CHAPTER Ten


While the Full Bloods had been talking, the Half Breeds stayed still. For creatures ruled by instinct and driven by pain, this was no small feat. The only time they remained still on their own was to prevent the sun from burning the pasty skin beneath their fur when it was retracted during sleeping hours. If they smelled blood, Half Breeds ran. If the taste of fresh meat hit their tongues, they gnawed and tore until nothing remained.

When Liam barked, every wretch in the vicinity of the overturned SUV did what they’d been born to do.

Drina screamed as the Half Breed’s teeth sank all the way into her shoulder. She pressed the muzzle of her FAMAS against its torso, but the Half Breed’s fangs had already scraped against each other within her. Even though her hold on the rifle’s grip was solid, it simply wasn’t made to be fired one-handed. After a few shots thumped into the Half Breed’s upper body, the FAMAS kicked up and sent its next several rounds into the sky.

Firepower of that caliber at that range would have been enough to put down a normal Half Breed. They were tough, but not bulletproof. The one biting Drina was hurt, but not badly enough. Whatever pain it felt was wrapped up in a bellowing howl and spat back at the Amriany as it tore her open amid a flurry of claws that quickly separated major pieces of her body from the trembling whole.

Paige tried to get around the SUV to help her. By the time she arrived, Drina’s dark blond hair was slick with blood and her eyes were devoid of life. Gripping her machete with enough force to push the thorns deeper into her palms, Paige connected with a swing that buried the blade into the side of the creature’s neck. From there she slid the machete in farther and dragged it back across to saw the Half Breed’s head from its shoulders.

“Drina!” Paige shouted. “Can you hear me?” She’d seen the other woman move, but that was only because one of the Full Bloods had shaken the vehicle by jumping onto its roof.

Minh crouched on top of the SUV, but was suddenly distracted by the chattering gunfire of Nadya’s MAC-10. When the lithe werewolf bared her teeth and lunged at her, Nadya hopped to one side without taking her finger off her trigger. As soon as her magazine was emptied, she rushed over to her fallen partner to retrieve Drina’s FAMAS. Minh’s paws hit the dirt, and Milosh was right there to drive both of his charmed blades into her side.

“What do you want here?”

At the first sound of Kawosa’s voice, Paige raised her left hand and squeezed off three shots from her Beretta. Rather than stand and absorb the rounds like his Full Blood companions, Kawosa dropped beneath one, shifted into a smaller form to clear a path for the second, and then skittered away before the third could find him. After that, he returned to a spot no more than three feet from where he’d started.

“You have to tell me what you want here!” he demanded.

For whatever reason, Paige believed him. “I want to kill you. All of you.”

Kawosa’s brows lifted as the pure truth of her words sank in. “You can’t kill me, Skinner.”

Paige’s finger had already begun to tense for another shot. Instead of pulling the trigger, she slid it out from beneath the guard and rested it along the side of her Beretta. After holstering the gun, she swung her machete in a way that would build up the greatest momentum for a downward strike when it came around.

Only a supernatural thing could have been fast enough to avoid the lightning-fast swing. Despite Kawosa’s unearthly body and reflexes, even he felt the bite of her machete as it scraped his front paw and peeled away several layers of skin along his left side.

“That won’t kill me either,” he panted.

“One way to find out.”

Kawosa’s form was leaner than the Full Bloods and longer than the Half Breeds. His tapered snout was filled with thin, crooked teeth. The expression on his face wouldn’t have fit anything of this earth, but had a vague hint of surprised pleasure. After rolling away from her next attack and then jumping away before she could follow it up, he perched on the edge of the SUV roof and let his head droop, as if he intended to whisper into her ear when he told her, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a surprise. Thank you for that.”

Paige turned on the balls of her feet, leading with her eyes and twisting around until her upper body was a coiled spring. Her right arm came around next, allowing the machete to slice through air previously occupied by the gnarled shapeshifter.

“You can’t kill me,” Kawosa insisted. “Not with any weapon.”

She believed him.

“Don’t listen to him!” Gunari said.

Paige snapped her head around to find him standing beside Minh. The Full Blood wasn’t as bulky as Liam, who’d moved back to direct the Half Breeds with short, huffing barks. Wrapped in a soft pelt of dark, reddish-orange fur and coated in spilt blood, Minh bared her fangs while grabbing the front of Gunari’s tanned leather tunic and tossing him through the air. Milosh still hung onto her like a tick, so she reached around to knock him off.

“You can tell me if you know something regarding the young one,” Kawosa insisted while taking a few cautious steps back.

Screams came from down the street as well as from the nearby airport. Cars tore past and some screeched to a halt to get a look at what was going on in the field. Paige glanced around for the closest threat and found one Half Breed circling around to get behind her. When it opened its mouth to snarl at her, she twisted around in a similar pivot she’d used to attack Kawosa. The Half Breed wasn’t as quick as the wily old deceiver, so her machete sliced horizontally through the back of its mouth. Paige angled the blade downward so it reemerged from the creature’s left shoulder. When the Half Breed dropped and skidded against the ground, it opened like an old Zippo lighter.

Liam must have gotten his paws on Milosh, because the Amriany landed on the roof of the SUV, slid across it on his back, and dropped off to land in front of Paige. Only a quick tuck of his head made the difference between impacting on Laim’s shoulders and breaking his neck.

“If you know anyone who might be more useful,” Kawosa said while Liam howled victoriously, “you should tell me.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, woman!” Milosh said. Seeing the stunned expression on Paige’s face, he reached behind his back to draw a snub-nosed revolver from a holster and fire two quick shots at Kawosa. Each round hit with a hard thump that kicked up more dirt than blood from under Kawosa’s fur. “He is Ktseena! Don’t listen to a word he says!”

Minh got to him in a series of movements that looked like a smear of dark colors against the canvas of empty space. Milosh was able to pull back before the Full Blood’s teeth clamped around his throat, but not before she caught his arm with a second snap of powerful jaws. The Amriany screamed and his eyes widened as Minh sank her fangs into his flesh. With one quick twist of her head, she pulled away his left arm and chewed it into pulp.

Heavy steps pounded against the hood of the SUV, prompting Paige to step back so she could put that area in her peripheral vision without looking away from Minh and Kawosa. Gunari bounded over the vehicle just ahead of a downward swipe of Liam’s paw that flattened a portion of the driver’s side.

“Fall back!” Gunari yelled. “Too many of them!”

Paige only concerned herself with the threats in her immediate line of sight, chief among them a Half Breed that crept over the front of the SUV. Having already been wounded, the creature now had to drag itself toward Gunari using long claws that curved from formerly human fingers, punching into the vehicle’s dented hood as it did so. Snapping her arm forward like a whip, Paige willed her machete into a shorter and thinner shape before letting it go. The weapon sliced through the air and hit the Half Breed less than an inch from its eye. Slightly off her mark, but a good enough blow to put the creature down.

“Watch it!” Gunari shouted.

Before she could heed the warning, Paige was knocked over by something that felt like a battering ram. After hitting the dirt, she looked up to see a mass of luxurious fur and the glint of claws longer than human fingers directly above her. She tried twisting away but was pinned beneath Minh’s weight. Paige reflexively raised her right arm and was just quick enough to catch the incoming slash before it removed her face from the front of her skull. Claws raked through the petrified skin of her arm but didn’t go in very far. Somehow, she lifted her Beretta and pulled the trigger. Her nose filled with the scent of burnt cordite as hot brass was ejected from the pistol. Minh winced as she licked the blood from Paige’s arm, and then used the side of her muzzle to bat the gun aside.

“Enjoy your Breaking, Skinner,” the Full Blood said. Then she reared up and shifted into another body, taller than Gunari’s but not as imposing as Liam’s. Beneath the bristling dark red coat, Paige could see a rounded female body. Minh’s thighs were strong and thick. Her arms were long and capped with hands that stretched out into impossible proportions. A tapered waist extended upward into a lean torso, complete with the subtle hint of curving breasts. The sight of her was almost captivating enough to keep Paige still as the Full Blood brought more Half Breeds to her side with a few huffing barks.

Paige dropped to the ground and rolled until she bumped against the SUV’s front tire.

Boots thumped against the packed dirt to her right.

Gunshots blasted through the air.

Another Half Breed dropped dead, several close-range gunshot wounds still smoking in its fur.

Gunari rushed to Paige’s side, reloaded the .44, and then offered a hand to her. “Back to the plane,” he said. “There’s no more we can do right now.”

She accepted his help but wasn’t happy about it. “What the hell does that mean? We didn’t come all this way just to turn around and go home!”

“Quiet and do as I say,” he scolded before firing another couple of rounds into Minh’s chest. The bullets thumped against the Full Blood, causing the fur to rustle as each bullet snagged within her coat. “Do you see Ktseena?”

Paige circled around Gunari so she could retrieve her weapon and then bury its blade into the shoulder of another Half Breed. After the wretch dropped, she finished it off. Kawosa was nearby, shifting into his gangly human form. “I see him. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“He’s right there!” she said while pointing to him.

The shapeshifter was dressed in filthy rags that barely covered his human form, his face almost completely hidden by long stringy hair. Tilting his head, Kawosa showed her a sympathetic expression while gently shaking his head.

“He told me I couldn’t see him, and I cannot,” Gunari explained.

Since Milosh was still crawling toward her and Nadya was backing away from the SUV amid a steady spray of automatic fire, Paige didn’t waste any more time before grabbing Gunari’s arm and pointing his .44 at Kawosa. “Just fire, goddammit!”

He did as he was told and they both sent their last few rounds through the air toward Kawosa. The shapeshifter dropped straight down, shifting into a nightmarish equivalent of a coyote before scampering away on all fours.

“Back to the plane!” Gunari shouted.

Nadya nodded and quickened her steps through the field toward the airstrip.

“We’re just gonna run for it?” Paige asked while fending off a Half Breed with her machete.

“We can make it,” he replied.

“If you believe that, then you’re screwed up too much to be of any use to anyone. We’re only alive because that bastard’s toying with us.”

Gunari’s eyes drifted to Liam. The Full Blood squatted on his haunches with his elbows perched upon his knees, grinning wider than a jack-o’-lantern at the Amriany.

“I’ll give a five second head start,” Liam snarled. “That’s only sportin’, eh?”

Of the Half Breeds that Paige had spotted when she first climbed out of the SUV, only one was still standing. Another was doing its best to crawl despite having caught a significant amount of gunfire. Liam’s coat was slick with blood that may or may not have been his own, and Minh had already shaken off wounds given to her by Amriany steel as well as Nadya’s MAC-10. In addition to that, Half Breeds crept in from farther down the street and from the far end of the field. As they drew closer, the sound of panting breaths and anxious yelps drifted upon the stagnant air.

“One . . .” Liam said.

“Head for the street,” Paige snapped as she began jogging in that direction.

“Two . . .”

A few choppy commands in a foreign tongue were enough to steer Nadya toward the street. Gunari scooped up Milosh and looped the smaller man’s one remaining arm across the back of his shoulders so he could be dragged away from the SUV.

“Three . . .”

As all the shapeshifters waited impatiently, Paige and the Amriany made it to the street. Paige rushed over to a car that sat just off the shoulder of the road. She circled around, pulled the driver’s door open and checked inside. Judging by the shredded interior, dented door panels, and shattered glass, the driver had probably been twisted into one of the Half Breeds attacking them. She had never seen werewolves created that quickly, but now wasn’t the time to think that over.

Liam’s voice grew into a thundering roar that exploded from a body swollen into a mass of muscle nearly twice as large as it had been a moment ago. “Four . . .”

“Come on!” Paige shouted. “The keys are in the ignition. Let’s go!” She didn’t waste any more time or breath on the others. If Gunari or Nadya weren’t going to get in the car she’d found, they deserved whatever they got. The Amriany piled into the Mazda by the time Paige had settled in to the driver’s seat.

“Five!”

Paige started the car, slammed her foot down on the gas pedal and cranked the steering wheel to get the car pointed in the opposite direction. Packs of Half Breeds emerged from behind the few buildings along the side of the road and were quickly joined by more werewolves that tore through the little town in her rearview mirror.

“How come your Dick Jango didn’t see any of this?” Paige asked while steering toward the building with the big garage door they’d passed on their way from the airport.

“It’s Dikh Chakano. And . . . now you want to criticize?” Gunari roared in an accent that thickened with every agitated syllable.

She jerked the wheel to the left and sped toward a group of Half Breeds that had raced around the garage. “Where is everyone? Where’s the panic? Where’s the chaos?” she asked while ramming the two lead werewolves with the Mazda’s front bumper “Where’s the freaking cops?”

“No time to worry about that,” Gunari said. “Just get us to the plane. What about your arm?”

Milosh forced a breath through gritted teeth. “My arm is all right. We can save it.” His shirt was soaked through with blood. Nadya had pulled the belt from around his waist and used it to tie a tourniquet around the short stump of his left arm. There was barely enough left to fill the sleeve of a T-shirt.

“I’m talking about your arm, Paige,” Gunari said. “You were attacked by the female Weshruuv.”

“The Full Blood?”

“Yes. She cut you with claws that had to have gone down to the bone and then licked the wound. She wanted to turn you.”

“Speaking of turning . . .” It was a clumsy transition, but served its purpose when accompanied by a hard swerve to the right so she could drive off-road and avoid a blockade of encroaching Half Breeds. Liam’s massive ebon frame approached from behind and to the right, forcing her to turn sharply again.

The Full Blood trotted to the street and then alongside the Mazda.

He actually trotted.

In her years of being a Skinner, Paige had never thought she’d see something like that.

“Are you listening to me?” Gunari asked.

After faking Liam out with a quick swerve to the left, she steered in the other direction and hit the gas to speed around the back side of the airport. “No!” she snapped.

“I asked you if the Weshruuv bit through to the bone. Tell me if she did or didn’t.”

“Save it for the plane.”

“No,” Gunari snapped as he lifted his .44 to point it at Paige’s temple. “Tell me right now. If you’ve been turned, it’s better for everyone if you die now.”

“While I’m driving?”

“Yes.”

When Paige blinked, her vision was obscured for a fraction of a second. That was enough time for her to catch a remembered glimpse of Minh’s narrow snout as it formed the words, Enjoy your Breaking, Skinner.

“Tell me,” Gunari insisted.

“She didn’t get through to bone,” Paige said while holding her arm out to him. “See for yourself. She did want to turn me, just like it seemed they turned the rest of this town. The only one we need to worry about now is Milosh.”

She gunned the engine to power through a turn that brought the Mazda’s front end all the way around to face the fenced-in corner of the little airport. The closest pack of Half Breeds made it to the car, only to be forced back by Nadya’s MAC-10. Bullets thumped against their bodies while some of the rounds sparked against the pavement and ricocheted into another werewolf’s face. Some of the creatures stumbled and a few of them yelped, but the pack collected itself and kept moving.

“Last reload,” Nadya said as she slapped a fresh magazine into her weapon.

“We just need to make it to the plane,” Gunari insisted. “There’s medicine, ammunition, and bigger guns there.”

“Maybe you should have brought that stuff along in the first place,” Paige chided. “Could have come in handy right about now.”

Firing out his window, he replied, “Now I see why your partner was so quick to hand himself over to the police. Talking to them must be much more pleasant.”

The airport was close enough for them to smell the engine fumes. Behind them, Half Breeds swarmed through Atoka. The scars on Paige’s palms were alive with fiery pain that she had to ignore. She’d been there when Liam laid siege to Kansas City and this was already so much worse. No matter how badly she wanted to charge into the thick of it, she knew that would only add more bodies to the pile.

As she got close enough to spot the Gulfstream, werewolves darted in from the far side of the airstrip, leapt over the chain-link fence surrounding the airport, and even stampeded through the little hangar and offices. Paige gripped the wheel and lowered her head as if she meant to butt it against the wall of thick fur and solid muscle closing ranks in front of her.

“Can you get reinforcements from the Skinners?” Gunari asked.

“I . . . don’t know,” Paige told him through gritted teeth. “Just get to the weapons in that plane and clear a path to get the hell out of here. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

Lunging from the backseat, Nadya said, “How could you not know? We can’t let Drina die for nothing!”

“We don’t even know if we will escape,” Gunari cut in. He nodded toward the Gulfstream and said, “Get us as close as you can. Do you think you can fend them off long enough for at least one of us to get inside?”

A row of seven Half Breeds fanned out to block the Mazda’s path. They were the newer brand of terror, displaying longer claws and tusks that curved out to frame their faces in sharpened bone.

“Sure,” Paige said.

One of the bigger werewolves howled and the others sang along even as the Mazda plowed straight through them.

Paige and the Amriany were knocked against the car’s interior and bounced against the roof as windows shattered and steel bent around them. The car was damaged even further when the stubborn Half Breeds hung on after being hit and shredded the Mazda as if it had been constructed from wet toilet paper. After skidding to a stop within ten yards of the private jet, Paige said, “This is as close as I can get.”

“Good enough,” Gunari replied. “Let’s go.”

“Leave me here,” Milosh said.

Both passenger side doors were open. Gunari stood with his feet planted and his arms raised in a two-handed firing stance. The .44 sent a pair of blazing rounds into an approaching Half Breed before he shifted his aim and fired again.

“We’re not leaving you,” Nadya said. “You’re wounded.”

“I know. That’s why I should stay to make sure the plane gets away.”

“We’re all getting out of here,” Paige said. “But only if we stop dicking around in the car. Get to some bigger guns and get that f*cking plane ready!”

Just as Milosh seemed ready to take Gunari’s hand and allow himself to be pulled from the car, Nadya pointed the MAC-10 out her window at a mass of dark red fur that had leapt over the small airport building. Minh landed less than twenty yards away, bullets pounding against her coat like rain on a heavy tarp. She opened her mouth to roar angrily and then surged forward. Bullets struck her face, but none of them so much as chipped a fang. Then, less than a second before she could close the distance between herself and the Amriany, Minh was struck in the side of the neck by a blade thrown by Milosh. Charmed steel dug through the protective layers of fur and lodged into her flesh. She twisted away to bark at the closest Half Breeds, and like dutiful soldiers the smaller werewolves broke formation to circle around the Mazda from two different directions.

Knowing that the Half Breeds would take her down the moment she left the car, Paige threw the Mazda into reverse and backed away from the jet.

Gunari ran up the stairs leading to the Gulfstream’s side door, opened it and stepped inside. He emerged a second later with an assault rifle braced against his shoulder and unleashed a torrent of three-round bursts at the Half Breeds. In between chattering onslaughts, he motioned for his partners to come to him.

The Mazda was still running, but plowing into so many bodies wasn’t doing it any favors. The only thing that allowed the car to keep rolling at all was the fact that the multijointed Half Breeds could bend on impact instead of taking the hit like dead weight. Smoke drifted from under the hood and the engine made a disturbing grinding sound as she circled around to the other side of the aircraft. “You guys get out and I’ll draw them away.”

“You are coming with us,” Milosh snarled fiercely.

“None of us will go anywhere unless I lead some of these things away from here,” she insisted.

“She’s right,” Nadya said while kicking open the door. She helped Milosh out as Gunari continued to fire at the werewolves. He even tossed an explosive at them that thumped loudly and sent several of the creatures scattering. The two Amriany moved away from the Gulfstream to circle around it from a clearer side.

Paige backed away and then pointed the front end of the car at Minh. “All right,” she said under her breath. “Blaze of glory time.”

She stomped the gas pedal. The Mazda lurched, coughed, and ground noisily, but jumped forward. As the tires peeled across the pavement, gunfire popped nearby and supernatural voices rose to a singular howl.

Minh had just found Nadya and Milosh, but she stopped and glanced casually over her shoulder at the approaching car. Considering her angle and speed, Paige thought she had a real good chance of using a few tons of rolling steel to ruin the Full Blood’s day until another mass of fur dropped from above to land squarely on the hood of the car. Paige’s head knocked against the steering wheel, but the dizzying effects were quickly wiped away by the healing serum produced in her blood.

But she couldn’t see anything.

Even the sounds were muffled.

All she could feel was the rattle of the car’s struggling engine and the brush of something coarse against her cheek. When she tried to look out her window, she realized that her senses weren’t as dulled as she thought. There was just an air bag pressed against her face. As suddenly as the air bag had deployed, it was broken down by a set of claws that came in through the front window to swipe at her.

“Can’t get away yet,” Liam said while reaching into the car as if fishing for the prize inside a box of cereal. “Killin’ you won’t be any help unless we can do it out in the open where all your friends on the computer can see it replayed again an’ again!”

Having gotten close enough to Liam’s paw to taste his fur, Paige jumped across to the passenger side, shoved the door open and rolled out. Her knees and hands hit the rough cement as a load of bile gurgled up from her stomach. Forcing down the rancid liquids along with the distinct coppery taste of blood, she scrambled away from the Mazda on all fours until she gained enough momentum to get her legs beneath the rest of her body. By then Liam had all but turned the driver’s side of the car inside out. Saliva ran from both corners of his mouth in an uneven stream as he looked down at Paige. “Been thinkin’ about this ever since Kansas City.”

Spitting out a wad of blood, she replied, “Yeah. And you still need an army to take me on.”

His massive head swayed back and forth. Fur hung down from his jawline and a crystalline eye glittered menacingly from beneath the shelf of a ridged brow. His mouth opened with the start of a word but snapped shut at the sound of whining jet engines mingling with the deep thump of heavy machine-gun fire.

“I’ve already taken care of her,” Minh said from somewhere outside of Paige’s field of vision.

Liam crawled down from the roof of the car, looked at the deep bloody grooves in Paige’s right arm and sniffed. When he raised his head again, he was smiling. “Right you are, luv.”

Paige couldn’t tell what sort of gun was being fired, but it was raising hell among the Half Breeds. Before she could become too happy about that, the sound was wiped away by snarling howls and ripping metal. More gunfire preceded the flaring of the engines.

Hunkering down as if in prayer, Liam shifted into a vaguely human form that was covered in thickly matted fur. “They’re leeeavin’ on a jet plane,” he sang cheerfully. “Don’t know when they’ll be back again.”

There was no more pain from getting hit in the face by the air bag. Paige felt no more panic from the ambush or the notion of being abandoned in a town that appeared to be overrun by werewolves. She simply reached for her shoulder holster, drew her Beretta, and fired two shots into the mess of scar tissue filling Liam’s right eye socket.

The Full Blood recoiled and made a sound close to a shriek Paige thought she would never hear from one of his kind. She propped herself up, steadied her aim, and continued to fire. Just as she was starting to get into it, she was knocked down by something that felt like a piece of the car that had come alive to make her pay for all the reckless driving that brought her to the airport. Now that she’d stopped shooting, she could hear the other snarling voices, as well as the wet ripping of flesh being torn asunder.

The Gulfstream was moving away from the hangar and taxiing toward the runway. Half Breeds scrambled across its fuselage, some of them gnawing at the landing gear while scraping madly at the ground, others tussling with lean figures that could have been one or more of the Amriany. Gunari leaned out the side door, firing his assault rifle until it was time to pull his head inside and shut the door behind him.

Liam rolled away from the dented remains of the Mazda and pulled something off his back. It was another shapeshifter, but not a werewolf. Paige had seen enough of the feline creatures to recognize them as Mongrels. Minh was preoccupied with a cluster of blurred figures that could only be seen as a disturbance in the air surrounding her. A familiar scent caught Paige’s attention then. To confirm her suspicion, she pulled in a deep breath that was thick with traces of oil secreted by certain Mongrels, which allowed them to bend light around them until they were all but invisible. Now that she knew what to look for, she spotted at least three blurred figures attacking Minh and the Half Breeds. She didn’t know who they were or where they’d come from, but if Mongrels wanted to take the Full Bloods off her hands, they were more than welcome.

Paige struggled to stay on her feet as she ran from the swarm of flailing claws and teeth behind her. She kept her eyes fixed upon the Gulfstream, hoping one of the Amriany would look back and find her. If the engines let up for only a moment, she knew she’d be able to catch up. Then, like a true miracle, the engine noise died down.

The jet pivoted around at the end of the runway to line up with the strip of pavement. A surge of energy flowed through Paige’s body, carrying her forward until the wind whipped through her hair. Suddenly, her body was dragged to the ground as Kawosa’s lean four-legged form passed directly above her. His claws had been stretched out to sink into her back, but they only caught empty space before he touched down again. Like any shapeshifter, he was more than fast enough to adjust his body for a smooth landing. The moment his paws gripped the concrete, he turned and snarled at his fallen prey.

“Stay down and she’ll get to you,” someone said to Paige.

The voice wasn’t familiar, but she recognized the lithe feline shape as one of the Mongrels that had attacked Liam. It stalked forward, twitching a short tail and letting out a steady flow of snarling obscenities that seemed distinctly suited to its jagged, misshapen mouth. It didn’t take long for Kawosa to set his sights on the Mongrel, and when he did, he was blindsided by another one that was cloaked in the oily sheen of near-invisibility. The blurred shape came at Kawosa from the right, taking him down just long enough for the Mongrel that had tackled Paige to find an opening and join the fray. Within seconds the cloaked Mongrel’s fur was stained by enough blood to give it form and shape.

Paige forced herself to put the fight behind her and run. It was the only option left, apart from tackling the shapeshifters without anything more than her wooden weapon and the few more rounds of ammunition at her disposal. She wasn’t against the idea of going down fighting, but suicide wasn’t her style. If she could just make it to the jet, she could regroup, come up with a better plan, and fight again. If the Mongrels were so ready to help, they might even retake the town.

The Gulfstream’s engines whined loudly, and the ten-seat jet began to roll.

“Hey!” Paige shouted. “I’m here!” She waved her arms frantically and staggered toward the runway. “Right here! God damn it! Look over here!”

Somehow, she still hoped she could catch up to the jet or even make herself seen by someone inside. When she got to the side of the runway, it rolled past her while gaining speed.

Paige stood there, slack-jawed, watching as her best chance at living longer for more than two minutes raced toward the end of the cement strip and left the ground. The entire world became quiet, as though everything connected to her was on that plane and out of reach. Even worse, according to the bone-deep agony slicing through her bleeding arm, it might not be long before she became one of the Half Breeds roaming the streets of Atoka.

“You’d better find Cole,” she said to herself as she checked to make sure there was at least one last round in her Beretta. “Or I’ll haunt you so bad that you’ll wish you died here too.”

A gust of wind moved the cropped ends of Paige’s bobbed hair. It brushed against her face, reminding her of the gentle touch she’d sampled all too briefly before being separated from the man who’d given it to her. The source of that breeze ran on paws that slapped against the ground like slabs of meat, driven by a body encased in wiry black fur with one Mongrel still clinging to it.

Paige could only stand and watch as Liam bounded across the airstrip, effortlessly catching up to the Gulfstream that waggled slightly while gaining altitude. The jet was less than twenty or thirty feet off the ground when he sprung off both legs to meet it. He extended his arms while shifting his body into its upright form. Even from where Paige stood, she could hear the scrape of claws against metal as the Full Blood dug into the left wing. The jet listed dangerously to one side, skewing in the air to correct for the newly added weight. Its engines roared and so did Liam as he tore into the wing, using claws and teeth to rip it away from the rest of the plane.

“Holy shit,” Paige whispered.

As soon as the wing was gone, the Gulfstream launched into a barrel roll that sent it screaming into the ground. Before it hit, Liam jumped onto its tail section and let out a bellowing howl that could be heard even over the sickening crunch of metal meeting earth. She couldn’t tell if it was the fuel tanks or a supply of weapons that exploded next, but it didn’t matter. Anyone on board the jet who hadn’t been killed in the crash now had to contend with a fire that lit up the Oklahoma sky.

When she dropped down, Paige assumed she’d lost the strength to stand.

When she felt strong hands clamp around her ankles and the pressure of dirt closing around the lower portion of her legs, she allowed herself to be dragged underground. Too tired to fight, she figured she might as well see where this next batch of insanity would take her.