Dani’s fire.
Hybrids churned through the hollow, some twisted and hulking, some almost human with gold-bright eyes and too-long limbs. In front of the mine entrance, a cluster of witches was corralled into a rough line, burnt and bloody, but on their feet. Dani stood at the front, shoulders squared, hair a wild tangle, heat shimmering faintly around her hands, Edith braced at her side.
Fenred paced before them, human-shaped, eyes molten, barking orders at the hybrids that pushed the witches toward the mine.
Arthur’s teeth bared.
“We go now,” he said.
Dominic’s nod was sharp. Rory rolled his shoulders. Leonid was already smiling like this was his favorite game. Wolves shifted around him in a ripple of fur and bone.
Arthur let his wolf rise.
Bones broke and re-knit, muscles twisting, skin splitting to fur. Then he was on four paws, claws biting into snow. He threw his head back and howled.
Volkhov answered in a dark, iron roar. Severney’s pale voices bellowed from the flanks. Volnoye screamed like something feral let off the leash.
They poured down into the bowl like an avalanche.
Hybrids shrieked and surged to meet them.
The first hit Arthur full in the chest, claws raking his side. He caught its throat and ripped, hot foul blood flooding his mouth. He spat it out and hurled himself at the next.
Around him, chaos exploded.
Dominic, a huge dark wolf, slammed two hybrids aside in one charge. Leonid, golden-bright, carved a path with his claws. Severney flickered at the edges, hamstringing anything that turned.
Arthur kept one focus. the witches.
Dani.
At the first clash, she tore her bound hands apart. The rope charred and snapped. A wave of fire flared low and fast, catching three hybrids mid-lunge and sending them screaming back.
Pride and fear hit him in the same beat.
One hybrid broke past Volkhov’s line, arrowing straight for the witches. Arthur swerved, slammed into it side-on, anddrove it into a half-burned stump. Bone crunched; viscera spilled hot across his paws.
“Left!” Chase yelled.
Arthur spun—
Too slow.
A larger hybrid hit him from the side, shoulders as broad as Dominic’s, eyes an ugly gold. They went down in a tangle, teeth and claws, snow stained red beneath them. It smelled horribly familiar, sweat and gun oil and Nordan barracks, twisted into something wrong.
Rage gave him strength. The hybrid’s jaws locked on his shoulder; pain flashed white. The bond flared, Dani’s alarm knifing through him.
He roared, heaved with his hind legs, and kicked the hybrid off. It crashed into two of its own.
More poured from the mine. For every monster they dropped, more scrambled over the bodies. Wolves started to flag. Witches stumbled, spells fraying.
It wouldn’t be enough.
Lunarion, he thought, not so much a prayer as a snarl.If you’re going to help, now would be excellent.
Something answered.
Cold surged through him like a river of ice, starting deep in his chest and racing along every nerve. His muscles locked. His vision blurred.
