Austin lowered his chin and lunged, shifting midair.
Swanson did the same, and the two clashed, millions of years of evolution tangled in a mass of muscled bodies.
I grabbed a rifle and held it up, picking off a wolf to the right. He yelped and fell to his side. There were too many of them, and some were beginning to notice me in a not-so-nice way.
Reno clapped his hands together. “Let’s do this!” he roared.
Our pack shifted, save April. She took a combative stance—her hands extended with energy dripping from her fingertips. When a grey wolf lunged, thinking her easy prey, she grabbed his neck, and he cried out, convulsing and falling to the ground. Part of his tail landed in the fire and began to smoke.
Naya’s panther faced three wolves that were nipping at her legs—no doubt the daredevils of the group. She looked ready to maul them.
I held my breath, trying to slow my heart. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears, and I didn’t want to pass out. I aimed the gun to the left, firing at a white wolf in the back. He went down but shifted to heal. I hesitated—the human side of me saying it was wrong to kill another human. When he rose to his feet and stared me down, I narrowed my eyes and fired again. He shifted as he fell, and then his wolf sprang to his feet and rushed toward me before I could fire again.
If only I had my dagger!
My internal voice screamed as he jumped, and I only had time to use the long barrel of the gun as a barrier between his sharp jaws and my neck.
A black shadow slammed into him from the right, tearing at his throat until he stilled. I stroked my hand across Austin’s black coat and eyed Swanson’s dead wolf.
“Four down, Austin,” I said, holding up four fingers. “At least that I can see.”
His wolf bumped his nose against my belly and ran into the melee.
I shot at another wolf and missed. “Dammit!” I wondered how far the sound would travel. Would William’s group hear us?
Naya’s panther savagely ripped at a wolf’s limb, causing a stir among the others. That’s when I noticed the ones who weren’t fighting one of our wolves were surrounding Naya. She’d killed two, but they were ganging up against the bigger threat. Wheeler’s wolf valiantly took them on one at a time, but not nearly fast enough.
April flashed to a second wolf coming up behind Reno and grabbed his hindquarters, throwing a burst of energy into him. He wrenched away before getting the full brunt of the energy blast and jumped on her back, knocking her onto her stomach. She disappeared on the other side of the fire, her scream sending a wave of terror up my spine.
Wolves snarled, snapped, and growled all around me.
She leapt to her feet, waving her arms at me. “I’m okay! It’s just a scratch.”
One of the wolves had gotten ahold of Naya’s neck, and her panther was struggling. She turned away and ran into the woods, clearly injured.
I raised my gun and shot one of the wolves. When he flipped over and yelped, it caught the attention of his surrounding unit.
While they sniffed the body, I slowly moved to the right and hurried after Naya. I stumbled over the twisted limbs and bushes until I found a cleared path.
“Naya!”
Her panther cried in the distance, and it was heartrending.
The woods thinned out as I neared the creek up ahead, moonlight rippling off the waters. I glanced back to make sure no one was trailing behind me.
Naya shifted to human form, weakened from a tremendous loss of blood, which was pooling around her and soaking into the dirt. She shifted back to her panther for more healing power.
I wanted to run to her, but falling on my stomach was not an option.
One of my laces caught on something and forced me to stop. A branch had snagged the material so I couldn’t free my foot. I kicked my leg and tried to pull it back, but I couldn’t bend forward to see. I set down the gun and cursed.
“Shit. Now is not the time!” I yelled at my boot.
Something ran by me so fast that I clutched my heart. A wolf was barreling toward Naya just as she shifted to human form. She weakly turned, held up her arm to shield her face, and cried out.
Wheeler’s wolf slammed against the aggressor’s side just seconds before he reached Naya. Wheeler moved with precision, driving the wolf farther and farther away from her as they fought.
Naya collapsed, weakened from the shifting and injuries I couldn’t see from my position.
I was struggling to free my boot when a second wolf throttled past me. As soon as the dirty-brown wolf reached a shower of moonlight, I recognized that he was identical to Wheeler. That’s when it occurred to me that the wolf that had saved Naya was actually Ben.