Page 95 of His Claim

Elsie was everywhere at once, ducking behind cover, firing until her rifle clicked empty, then switching to a pistol drawn from her hip. She fought like she was born for it, efficient and merciless.

“Come on!” she shouted over the chaos, smoke curling around her like the wings of an avenging angel. “That all you’ve got?”

But they weren’t stopping. She kept dropping them and more kept coming.

A blast rocked the lab as an oxygen tank ruptured, fire racing up the walls. Heat rolled off it in waves, licking at my face.

“We’re cornered!” she yelled.

I spun toward her, blood dripping from my muzzle, smoke stinging my eyes. Her face was streaked with soot and sweat, eyes wild and alive. She fired into the horde until her last clip clicked empty.

Then her eyes turned, and she spotted the glass room behind us, sealed off from the main lab. I glanced at what was behind it along with her.

Racks of vials glowed with faint blue light. A stenciled word glared from the signs on the racks:RAGE-II.

Elsie’s eyes widened. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

I growled low in my throat.

There was no time to think or do anything about it though. At least not yet.

Another wave of wolves crashed against us. One clawed my flank; I turned and tore out its throat, but another was right behind it. Blood sprayed across the white tile.

Elsie ducked under a swinging arm, grabbed a broken table leg, and jammed it through a wolf’s eye. “There’s too many of them!” she shouted.

She looked at me then, and for a heartbeat, everything slowed. The chaos faded to a hum. The firelight danced in her eyes, and I saw the moment she decided, hard and fast as a bullet.

“No,”I thought, shaking my head back and forth.“Don’t you dare.”

She gave me that crooked grin of hers. “Sweetheart,” she said, “you know I don’t do quiet exits.”

Before I could stop her, she sprinted toward the glass room, slammed her shoulder into the emergency latch, and the door hissed open. The blue light washed over her face, turning her pale.

She grabbed a vial from the rack.

“Elsie!” I tried to say her name, but it came out as a tortured bark through my smoke-ravaged throat.

Her smile was wild, desperate even. “Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s the only shot we’ve got.”

Before I could do anything to stop her, she jammed the syringe into her own neck.

The change was instant.

She arched, her scream echoing through the lab as the serum hit her bloodstream. Her eyes flared silver, then black. Her veins darkened, crawling up her neck like spreading ink. She dropped to her knees, gasping, her fingers digging into the floor.

The wolves froze, uncertain. The lights flickered, and every hair on my body stood on end.

Elsie lifted her head, and for a moment, she was still her. Her mouth twisted into a terrifying smile that was more teeth than warmth.

“Guess it works,” she rasped.

Then she moved.

She was faster than any wolf I’d ever seen. She flew back into the room with me and hit the first guard like lightning, her fingers sinking into his chest. Bone snapped, blood sprayed, and she threw his body into the others. The sound of it—a wet crack—made my stomach twist.

The wolves tried to fight back, but she tore through them like they were made of wet paper. Her movements weren’t human anymore. She was all muscle and rage and terrible grace, every motion efficient and horrible.

She grabbed one by the jaw and ripped it clean off. Another she slammed into the wall hard enough to crater the steel. Blood pooled under her boots, splattering across her face, but she didn’t even pause.