Two more take its place immediately.
Eli fights on my left, alternating between human and bear with practiced ease. He shifts mid-strike, human hands grabbing a creature's core before his bear form tears it apart. Beau guards the eastern flank, his massive grizzly form a wall of fur and muscle. Sawyer blocks the path to the cottages, roaring challenges that shake the trees.
The women—Cilla, Anabeth, Quinn—fight with coordinated precision. Cilla's bear form is smaller but faster, darting in to strike at weak points. Anabeth and Quinn work in tandem, one distracting while the other attacks from behind.
But there are so many of them.
And my bear is failing.
The transformation flickers. For a heartbeat I'm caught between forms—half human, half bear, muscles tearing and reforming wrong. Agony rips through my spine. I force myself back to bear, snarling through the pain that feels like being turned inside out. The corruption spreads like poison through my veins, making every shift unstable.
A creature rakes claws across my shoulder. The wound burns—not just pain but wrongness, like acid eating into flesh. Blood streams down my foreleg, hot and slick. The corruption in the wound matches the corruption in my veins, spreading, consuming.
I'm running out of time.
Three shadow creatures coordinate an attack. One from the front, two flanking. I swing at the frontal assault, claws passing through its form but the impact still solid enough to send it flying. The ones on my flanks strike simultaneously—claws digging into my sides, teeth seeking my throat.
Eli appears on my right, human form grabbing one creature and hurling it away. "Watch your flank!"
I pivot, catching the other creature before it can strike again. My jaws close on its center mass and I shake hard, the way a dog kills a rat. The creature comes apart in wisps of shadow.
But more keep coming.
The battle splits into pockets of chaos. Beau and Sawyer hold the northern line where the creatures push hardest. Eli fights beside me, covering my weak moments when the shift threatensto fail. The women protect the compound itself, ensuring nothing gets past our defensive line.
A larger creature breaks through—easily twice the size of the others, eyes glowing violet-bright with malevolent intelligence. It moves differently. Faster. More purposeful.
It comes straight for me.
I meet its charge head-on. We collide with bone-jarring force. Its claws rake down my chest, my shoulder wound tears wider, but I get my jaws around what passes for its throat and bite down hard. The creature thrashes, incredibly strong, trying to tear free.
Then I feel it.
The connection between us.
Golden and warm and solid, threading through my chest like a lifeline. Maren. She's somewhere behind me, safe with the others, but her presence anchors me. Steadies the bear. Gives me something to hold onto besides rage and desperation.
I lean into it. Use it. Force myself fully into bear form and keep fighting.
The larger creature finally comes apart in my jaws, dissipating like smoke. I look around. Fewer shadow creatures now. The coordinated assault is breaking. They're retreating.
Not destroyed. Just withdrawing. Regrouping for another attack.
We've won this round.
But barely.
I transform back to human, lungs heaving. Blood runs down my shoulder from the shadow-creature's strike. The wound aches with corruption that matches the poison already in my veins. My brothers gather around me, all of them battered but standing.
"They're getting smarter," Eli says, wiping blood from his mouth. "That was coordinated."
"They're trying to overwhelm us," Beau adds. "Wear us down."
"They're trying to reach the convergence point." I glance north where forest shadows seem deeper, darker. "If they open that tear wider?—"
"They won't." Calder appears from the stone circle, energy still crackling around his hands. "But we need to seal it. Soon."
Everyone looks at me. At the blood on my shoulder. At the way I'm still breathing too hard, still fighting to keep control.
