If he’d not already been close to the wall they would have knocked him to the ground, negating any kind of advantage on his part.
Kicking out, Giles connected his right boot with the eye socket of the black wolf. It whimpered, sneezing and using its paw to swipe at its face. But the gray and red wolves were still on him and they were shredding into his thigh.
Roaring out in fury and pain, he hammer-fisted the gray’s head just enough to knock it back a few steps, and it shook its head as if to regain equilibrium.
The red wolf had his other fist in its mouth and was gnawing down. Giles smelled his blood, felt the shredding of his skin beneath its mandible.
He could become shadow and easily take one down, but then that would leave two others easy access to the entry, and there was no way he’d do that. No matter what she’d said, the shack was coming apart at the seams—one mighty blow or three desperate wolves would bring it down and put her directly at their mercy. He wouldn’t take that chance.
“You don’t want to do this!” he barked, knowing the wolves were leaving him no choice.
But the other two wolves were back and they latched on to the toes of his boots. Breathing heavy, Giles twisted his body in such a way as to use the red wolf’s momentum against itself and tossed it to the ground.
The moment he did the other two wolves immediately backed off. Kneeling on the red’s soft belly, he shoved his uninjured palm into the red’s throat. “Leave now, or I’ll kill him.”
Giles swallowed the bile on the back of his tongue. His injuries were beginning to throb mercilessly, his head was dizzy, and his body trembling from adrenaline and shock. Deep down he understood the wolves were slave to her siren’s call as she was to the moon. He didn’t want to kill them. But he would if it came down to it.
The other two wolves looked at their leader.
Giles rammed his hand in harder. “I will do it.”
Lilith was clawing and howling desperately.
Red growled and Giles understood immediately what the wolf had done. He’d ordered them to attack.
No time for finesse, Giles willed his flame to burn. Turning his body into a fiery pillar. Anything Giles touched would burn.
His knee sank into the wolf’s middle, singeing and melting it like it was nothing more than cold butter.
The sizzling stink of flesh permeated the air. The red wolf cried out in pain, wiggling desperately out from under him. The other two wolves let out a terrified yip in tandem and bolted back toward the safety of the trees.
Giles let the red wolf limp its way off. Turning off his heat, he squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his good hand around his damaged one, leaning heavily against the tree as his head swam dizzily.
Lilith was whimpering, no longer clawing desperately at the wall, but he could hear her pacing right behind him. She was sniffing the air loudly, she’d let out a whimper, and then pace, and whimper again. Over and over.
She was probably upset that he’d chased the wolves off, but he had to try and make her understand.
“I’m sorry, Lilith,” he panted, “they can’t have you this way. You choose. Your choice. Not like this, Lilith, I’m sorry.”
She continued to pace and whine for several long minutes and then there was an eerie silence.
Adrenaline completely worn off, Giles looked at his wrist. When he’d turned to flame he’d cauterized the wound. It would no longer get infected, but it would hurt like hell until it healed.
Licking his lips, realizing he couldn’t go another round with any more shifters, he decided to do something risky. It would mean he couldn’t fall asleep for even a minute, he’d need to be vigilant, but he was one man against many. It was the only way.
Hissing, when he called down his flame—because unlike last time, there’d been no sting of fire on damaged flesh—he walked a large perimeter around the shack, setting the entire thing ablaze. He hand no sand to trap the fire inside of it, but there were plenty of large stones everywhere. It was backbreaking work to find rocks big enough to place in perfect circumference around the entirety of the ramshackle structure.
It took hours, and he was exhausted by the time he stepped back inside the circle, into the safety of its burning ward and rested his weary body against the door.
Immediately he sensed Lilith’s presence right behind it.
Giles couldn’t rest long—the flame on the outside of the circle was contained, but inside it could still crawl toward the hut. He’d have to keep an eye on it to ensure that it stayed where it should.
Just a breather, and then he’d get up.
But as he rested his head against the door, he felt the ache of his body. The burn of his injured wrist and the throbbing of his feet where the wolves had managed to puncture through the boots.
“Giles.”
He jerked at the sound of Lilith’s voice. Staring at the door, he wondered how she’d managed it. The sun was nowhere near to rising.
“Lilith?”