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The sound of the gunshot was deafening to my sensitive wolf ears, and was followed by a series of pained yips and whines that told me that whoever had shot it had hit a target. Whether it was the one they intended or not, I didn’t know.

I honestly wasn’t even sure whether or not that target had been me.

I didn’t think I’d felt the impact of a bullet, but I’d never been shot before, so I couldn’t really say for sure.

“Okay, you batshit religious motherfuckers—” I didn’t need to recognize his voice to know it was Hart.

“—every single one of you furry asshats is going to shift back into your squishy little human forms and lay the fuck on the floor with your hands on your heads, or so help me God, I will put bullets into the rest of you.”

I wondered if he had enough bullets for that.

And just how lethally he was prepared to use them.

If all six of the wolves—the five new wolves plus my father—turned on him, I didn’t know if he’d be able to fend them off if he didn’t shoot to kill.

The wolves had the same idea.

He got off two shots.

I tried to drag myself across the kitchen, to help in some way, but was stopped by teeth holding my non-mangled ankle.

Teeth that didn’t bite down.

I turned, confused, to find that Elliot had my good foot in his mouth.

I didn’t understand, and let out a whine.

He let go of my foot with a grunt, then clawed his way past me, letting out a grunting growl that very clearly told me to stay where I was.

His claws left marks in the wood of the floor, and I let out a long whine, asking him do the same thing he was asking of me.

Not to get into the middle of a fight that very likely might get him killed.

Not to try to save his best friend.

He let out a grumbling sound, and I huffed out a breath, hoping he understood that I understood.

He turned back to the writhing mass of wolf and elf, slashing out with claws and distracting one of the wolves from Hart as the elf pulled off another shot, this one deadly accurate, leaving a wolf dead and bleeding from a massive wound in its skull.

I wondered who it had been. If I’d known them.

I wondered if I would care if I had.

I tried pushing myself up to my remaining three functional feet, needing to make sure that Elliot was safe. Hoping that, between us, we could help keep Hart alive long enough for?—

I didn’t know what for. Even with one of the wolves dead, there were still five able to fight, including my father. At least one more had been wounded by Hart’s first bullet, although I wasn’t sure if the next two had found targets as he’d been charged.

I was in no shape to keep fighting, but I refused to let that stop me, hobbling forward in order to rejoin the fray.

It was a terrible idea, I knew that.

I just didn’t have a better one.

I felt teeth close around one foreleg, and I forced myself to resist jerking away, knowing that the teeth would do more damage if I did than if I waited for whoever it was to open their mouth. They shook a couple times, knocking me onto my injured side, and I let out a whimper as they released me.

I was scrabbling painfully to drag myself back up when an ear-splitting roar reverberated through the room, and I looked up to see a massive tiger standing in the doorway.

Every wolf in the room froze. Elliot backed away, fur streaked with blood and belly low to the ground.

And then I heard the cocking of a shotgun, and Helen Hill stepped into the doorway behind the tiger’s orange, black, and white bulk.

“Alright you lunatic furballs, who’s up next?” she asked, shotgun shifting from one wolf to the next.

Elliot let out a distressed grunting noise and crept across the floor until he could press one flank against my side. Claiming me. Trying to tell Raj—presumably he was the tiger—and Helen that I was me.

One of the wolves suddenly exploded into motion, seemingly lunging at Elliot and I—but then rushing past us, deeper into the house. Everyone else remained still and silent, although the rest of the wolves, four living and one dead, had ears back and teeth showing.

I was too tired to do either, struggling to draw full breaths around the ache in my ribs and the searing pain in my leg.

In the direction the wolf had run, we heard the sound of furniture being knocked over, then the crash of the back door as the wolf presumably tried to escape.

I hadn’t been expecting what we heard next.

“Hello, doggy,” came Ray’s voice. “Going somewhere?”

And then a snarl unlike anything I’d ever heard in my life, followed by a shrieking yelp that I immediately knew was the last sound that the wolf would ever make. And then a decidedly wet crunching sound.

“Jesus fuck,” came Hart’s panting voice, rough, breathless, and clearly pained. “Is he fucking eating him?”

Helen stepped into the room. “Any of the rest of you want to find out the answer to that question, you just go ahead and run, y’hear?” She leveled the gun at the biggest wolf. My father. “You go on and lay down now. Nice and slow. And I won’t have to fill your sorry hide with lead. You got me?”

I saw his gaze, angry and hate-filled, switch from her to the giant tiger, then back. And then he laid down, ears still back and fangs bared.

“You put those teeth away and hold still,” Helen commanded. “And nobody else has to get hurt.”

His ears stayed back, but he lowered his lips. The other three remaining live wolves did the same, laying down as Raj padded past Helen into the kitchen, now over-crowded with bodies, blood, and the sharp tang of fear.

I tried to pull in a deep breath out of relief, and my chest constricted painfully, forcing a coughing hack out of me.

Elliot let out a soft grunt, nosing me. Trying to ask if I was okay.

I tried to make a reassuring sound, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I succeeded before I passed out.