Keith wipes blood from his mouth, his expression turning deadly.
“You’ve just signed your death warrant,” he says, and then he’s shifting, his body contorting as fur erupts across his skin, his face elongating into a muzzle filled with razor-sharp teeth.
I’m already shifting too, my bones breaking and reforming, muscles stretching and compressing as I drop to all fours. Beside me, Alaric is transforming as well, his golden fur gleaming in the sunlight as he takes his place at my side.
Across from us, Keith’s packmates are shifting. Carl, a massive gray wolf with a scar across his muzzle, and Bruce, smaller but quicker, his coat a mottled brown. Five wolves, circling each other in the suddenly too-small living room, teeth bared, hackles raised.
I’ve got Carl and Bruce, Alaric’s voice comes through our pack link, the mental communication clear despite the chaos of our shifting.You focus on Keith. He’s the real threat.
Keith lunges first, his massive jaws snapping at my throat.
I dart sideways, his teeth grazing my shoulder. The sting of it only fuels my rage, and I counter with a slash of my own claws, raking them across his flank. He howls and whirls to face me again.
Around us, the fight has devolved into chaos. Alaric has Bruce pinned against the far wall, his powerful jaws locked around the smaller wolf’s throat. Carl is circling, looking for an opening to help his packmate, but Alaric is too quick, too focused. Blood spatters across the white walls, the expensive furniture, the polished floor.
Keith feints left, then darts right, his teeth closing around my hind leg. Pain lances up my spine, but I use the momentum to flip him, bringing my full weight down on his exposed belly. My claws dig deep, and he yelps, thrashingbeneath me. I release his leg to go for his throat, but he twists away at the last second, my teeth closing on empty air.
We break apart, circling again, both of us bleeding from multiple wounds. Keith is favoring his right foreleg, a deep gash running from shoulder to paw. I’ve got a tear in my ear and what feels like a cracked rib from when he managed to slam me into the coffee table. But I’m just getting started.
He charges again, but this time I’m ready. I drop low, letting him sail over me, then launch myself at his exposed back. My weight drives him to the floor, my jaws closing around the back of his neck. He thrashes wildly, claws raking my belly, but I hold firm, my teeth sinking deeper with each movement.
This close, I can smell his fear—acrid and sharp beneath the copper tang of blood. He knows he’s losing. Knows that this time, he’s picked a fight he can’t win. His struggles grow more desperate, more frantic, but it’s too late. I’ve got him exactly where I want him.
With one powerful wrench, I break his neck.
His body goes limp beneath me, the fight draining out of him in an instant. I release him, stepping back, panting heavily. Around me, the fight is winding down. Alaric has Bruce pinned, the smaller wolf’s struggles growing weaker as blood pools beneath him. Carl is backed into a corner, his eyes darting between Alaric and me, looking for an escape that doesn’t exist.
Together?Alaric asks through our pack link.
I nod, and we move as one, a pincer movement that leaves Carl nowhere to run. He makes one last, desperate lunge for the door, but Alaric is faster, his jaws closing around Carl’s hindquarters. I hit him from the other side, my teeth finding his throat. Between us, we bring him down, his struggles growing weaker until finally, he goes still.
For a long moment, we lookat the three dead wolves. Blood is everywhere—splattered across the walls, pooling on the floor, dripping from our fur. My side throbs where Keith’s claws caught me, and my leg aches where his teeth sank in, but the pain is distant, secondary to the burning need to get back to Anya.
We need to shift back, Alaric says, already beginning the transformation.Rex should have Anya’s mother by now. We need to get out of here before anyone else shows up.
I nod, forcing my body back to human form. The shift is harder this time, my injuries making the transformation clumsy and painful. By the time it’s done, I’m swaying on my feet, blood running from a dozen different cuts and bites.
But we’re alive. And Keith is dead.
“Fuck,” Alaric mutters, looking down at the carnage. “This is going to be messy.”
Thirty-One
ANYA
Two weeks later, the sun beats down on my shoulders as I sit across from my mother at the little outdoor café, a gentle ocean breeze ruffling my hair.
“I still can’t believe it,” I say, my voice catching as I place my hand over hers. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this will all be a dream.”
She turns her hand over, squeezing my fingers. “Not a dream,” she says, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m really here, and your wonderful pack saved my life. I had no idea how long I was going to last and how long I had left to live.”
It’s been two weeks since I watched my mother walk through our front door, alive and whole and free. I’d thrown myself into her arms, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe, my face pressed against her shoulder as I inhaled her familiar scent, which is slightly faded but still unmistakably hers. She’d held me just as tightly, her body shaking with silent tears, her fingers digging into my back like she was afraid I might disappear if she let go.
Now, sitting here in the sunshine, watching her blowgently on her steaming cappuccino, it’s hard to believe we ever spent a day apart.
“How did you meet Dad if you were an omega?” I ask, the question on my mind for days now.
She smiles, a soft, private expression that makes my heart ache.
