4
She’d heard stories, of course. Tales that were intended to frighten and thrill. Charlie used to tell them to her when they were children, motivated by mischief to scare his little sister. She never cried, but she would lie in bed afterwards, too terrified to sleep.
Werewolf. Loup-garou. Madadh-allaidh.
But they were fables. Nothing to be believed.
Except the three men…werewolves…before her were as genuine as her own breath. They were human no longer, creatures both man and wolf, their bodies that of men, albeit covered in fur, hands and feet somewhere between human and animal, their heads lupine. They were also impossibly big.
The carriage appeared on the road. Ezra, Tej, and Rhys began to move toward it. Their gait was an alchemy of wolf and human, a rolling, loping run far faster than any person.
She tried to speak. No words came from her. She hadn’t any idea what she might say.
The elegant carriage ahead showed no signs of stopping. It boasted a crest on the lacquered door and gilt adornments around its frame. Two men sat atop in the driver’s seat, one with hands on the reins, the other keeping sentry. Their horses snorted and whinnied in alarm as the werewolves and the carriage drew closer to each other.
“Stand and deliver!” It was and wasn’t Ezra’s voice growling the command, the words deep and animal, but the intent very human.
A shot rang out—and went wide. The sentry atop the carriage lowered his smoking pistol and pulled another one.
Jessica kicked her mount into a run. She didn’t know exactly what she intended, but she couldn’t stay back and do nothing.
At the same time, Ezra, Rhys, and Tej came up alongside the vehicle. With his great height, Ezra easily pulled the sentry from the driver’s seat and threw the man to the ground.
Rhys’s golden fur gleamed as he ran to the horses. Instead of ripping the terrified animals’ throats out with his claws, he snapped the horses’ harnesses tethering them to the carriage.
The four animals needed no urging to run. They galloped off into the night, leaving the carriage stranded in the middle of the road.
Tej came around the carriage to face the coachman. The driver drew a short sword, and it glinted with the unmistakable sheen of silver. Tej avoided the coachman’s strikes, his claws slashing out to deflect the blade.
Ezra came closer to the carriage, approaching the door with his claws out. The situation was desperate and dangerous. Someone would surely be hurt, badly.
Jessica rode up, positioning herself between him and the vehicle.
“Stop this!” She didn’t know who she shouted at, the werewolves or the men battling them, but their fight had to cease.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Ezra growled. “It’s not safe!”
As the words left him, the carriage doors opened. A man, dressed in leather breeches, leather waistcoat, and leather coat, leapt out with a pistol in his hand. His eyes were hard and full of venom as he glared at Ezra.
Jessica pointed her gun at him and they faced each other in a stand-off.
A second man appeared in the doorway of the carriage. He was finely dressed in embroidered silk, his fashionable wig powdered, and his face enraged as he took in the scene in front of him.
Sir Harold Mowbray—her employer.
“Shoot him!” he barked at the guard dressed in leather, pointing at Ezra.
“The woman’s in the way,” the man answered.
Mowbray’s gaze went straight to Jessica. They stared at each other. Beneath the full moon, her face was clearly visible to him. They’d met a week before in his London mansion, when she’d accepted the assignment.
“Then shoot her and then shoot him,” Mowbray snapped.
Fear and anger froze Jessica in place. Yet when she saw the fallen coach sentry aim his second firearm at Ezra, she pointed and shouted, “Behind you!”
With a snarl, claws extended and teeth gleaming, Ezra whirled and pounced on the man.
Jessica averted her gaze, but she heard the crunch of snapping bone.
