Page 25

25

I tossed the sausage log into the driveway between the wolf and me, then ran back to the van, shoes slipping in the snow. Snarling and driven by coercion magic, the kid ran past my offering and came right after me.

Heat flushed my body, and magic made my skin tingle with the promise of a change. At least Austin wouldn’t see if I did it in the street.

I jumped into the van to block the wolf from reaching me but also so I could buy myself a moment. I yanked my jacket off, leaving my phone on the seat, and reached for my shoes.

A thump on the hood startled me—the wolf.

Claws scraped on metal, gouging the paint. Jaws snapped as he tried to bite the glass windshield. That wouldn’t work, but he was smart enough to figure out another way in.

I tore off the rest of my clothing as another wave of magic swept through my veins. Before I morphed completely and lost the ability to grab things, I flung the van’s side door open. When I leaped out, I landed on four legs—four paws .

The wolf jumped down from the hood but faltered when he saw me in my lupine form.

The change stole my human thoughts and my memories, and all awareness that this was Duncan’s clone fell from my mind. His aura and scent were somewhat familiar, but I saw only an enemy and snarled at him, crouching and ready to spring.

He’d come after me when I’d been in human form, but he hesitated to face me as a wolf. He backed a few steps and glanced toward a log of meat lying in the snow. He half turned away, but more magic whispered through the air, seeming to come from around a bend in the road behind me. The power brushed me, making my hackles rise, but it flowed into the wolf.

Snarling, he spun back toward me and crouched to spring.

I charged before he could, rushing at him. With my powerful legs, I reached him in an instant, jaws snapping through his fur and flesh. I tasted blood.

When our bodies crashed together, my greater size let me bowl him over. He rolled into the snow and down a slope at the side of the road. I leaped after him, biting and taking a chunk out of his flank. He yelped, a pitiful cry that floated through the trees and out over the lake.

In this form, it wasn’t in my nature to show mercy, but I paused anyway. This was a young wolf, one who wasn’t truly a great threat. If he didn’t attack again, I could let him go.

Leaving blood in the snow, he rose, but only halfway. He kept his head low and backed away from me in a sign of submission.

The creak of a door opening reached my ears. It came from the human den, a place that was of interest to me because enemies lurked within. No, I remembered. More than that gave it significance. The humans within had taken one of my offspring prisoner.

Growling, I stalked through the trees toward the structure, barely registering that the young wolf had slunk away. He paused only to pick up the meat log in the street, taking it in his jaws and padding into the trees on the other side of the road.

Light spilled from the doorway of the human den. A man with a rifle stood framed by it, the weapon pointed toward the tree-filled yard. He peered into the woods. Looking for me?

A crash-thump came from inside the den behind him. My offspring trying to escape? Or being beaten?

I stalked toward the structure, intending to spring upon the man, to slay him for presuming to harm my offspring. His rifle emanated slight magic, and I knew the projectiles loaded within it could badly hurt me. It didn’t matter. I had to eliminate the threat to my family.

A deep howl came from the south, from behind more human dens and more trees. It was familiar. The howl of the one I’d wished to make my mate.

A higher pitched howl came from across the road. The youth.

Alarm made my paws freeze as a realization struck me. Those howls had different pitches, but their owners were of the same blood. In my core, I knew this to be true. That was the offspring or… a younger sibling of my ally’s. And I’d attacked him, left his blood in the snow. Would my ally be angered?

The man on the porch fired his rifle toward the sky, the crack deafening to my keen ears. Snow fell from branches to plop onto the ground. The man pointed his firearm into the woods again, not toward the front yard but to the side, in the direction from which my ally’s howl had come.

Did he think that had been me howling? Perhaps, for he squinted in that direction.

Making my paws as silent as I could, I circled the front yard to come at the man from the other side. Believing the threat came from the south, he didn’t look toward the north, and I approached from that direction .

His finger tightened on the trigger. Did he see something? Was my mate coming?

Taking advantage of the man’s distraction, I ran the last few steps and sprang. As I soared over the railing of the porch, he must have heard or sensed me. He whirled, pointing the rifle at my chest.

Midair, I couldn’t do anything to dodge. Someone—my human offspring—lunged out of the doorway and hit my enemy using a pole with a pointy end. It struck the man’s padded jacket enough to shift the aim of the rifle.

The firearm boomed, the bullet blazing silver through the sky as it passed my ear. An instant later, I slammed into the man’s chest.

My offspring jumped back into the den but not before I glimpsed blood dried on his chin and a blackened eye. Fury blasted through me, and I snapped savagely at the rifleman. Emotion surged through my veins, the magic making me wild. This time, I didn’t try to restrain those savage instincts. The man fell to his knees underneath me, and I bit and tore, ripping into clothing and flesh and muscle. He screamed, trying to get his arms up, but I knocked the rifle aside, and he lacked the strength to push me away.

Crashes and cries came from within the cabin. Fear for my offspring drove me to finish off my enemy quickly. After I ripped his arm away from his neck and ended his life, I leaped into the warmth and light of the human den.

Another wolf was inside. Duncan?

No, it was my female relative. She fought a bearded man, her jaws wrapped around his rifle as she tried to tear it away. My offspring and three other young men were in the space, ducking or attacking more big thugs with handguns and rifles. One weapon went off, and a lamp shattered and fell to the floor, dimming the room .

Beside a fireplace, a back door stood open, and a familiar redheaded man crouched there. His pockets clinked, magic emanating from items inside, and he threw a sphere to the floor, at the feet of a man aiming a handgun at my niece. It kept our enemy from firing as he glanced down. His foot stuck, and he shouted in anger and aimed the handgun at my ally in the door.

My niece released the rifle of the man she’d been wrestling with and whirled, biting the other gunman in the leg. I rushed toward the thug she’d turned away from. He bled from several bite wounds, but that didn’t keep him from aiming his rifle at my niece. I sprang and crashed into his back at the same moment as my offspring stepped in with the pole again, cracking our foe in the head. The man went down, the rifle skidding across the floor, as I tore chunks out of his hip and legs.

“Where did all these dogs come from?” one of the young men yelled.

“They’re wolves.” That was my offspring. “Don’t you know anything?”

“Imagine my embarrassment at not being able to tell what exactly is going on. This is chaos!”

“I told you it was suspicious that you won a contest you never entered,” someone else said. “This was a set-up from the beginning.”

“As long as the wolves don’t bite us,” someone said weakly from a corner, another young man who grimaced as he gripped a broken arm. His face was as bruised as that of my offspring. A victim.

I bit my enemy again, hard. He cried out, trying to escape, but couldn’t with my weight on him.

“I… don’t think they will,” my offspring said, confusion in his voice. He jogged past, glancing at me, then sprang upon the fallen rifle and picked it up .

One of the thugs who’d been down rose up and struck the boy who’d called us dogs. The conversation halted.

I started to rush over to help , but an engine roared in the front yard. Outside, a gun fired, and I spun in that direction. Headlights flared through the windows, and shouts sounded as car doors slammed. Reinforcements had arrived.