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“Stay out of sight. I'm on my way,” he promised, already turning in the direction of Kayla's house.
“You'd better hurry, boss,” Darius said, and Lance heard the warning note in his man's voice.
“What is it?” Lance asked, his pace quickening. He was already shrugging his jacket back off.
It was then that he heard the guttural scream coming from down the other end of the phone. In an instant, he shifted and was racing at full pelt out of the park and down the street.
All he could think about was Kayla. All that mattered was her. So long as she was safe, it didn't matter what happened to him.
He charged headlong around a corner, almost knocking an unsuspecting pedestrian out of the way. They yelled after him, but he ignored it, only putting all his extra anger into his run.
Every second counted. He knew that all too well. Maybe if he had gotten there sooner all those years ago, Daisy would still be alive today. He couldn't afford to be eaten up by guilt right now and so he used it as extra fuel instead.
Soon enough, he turned onto Kayla's street and saw that the front door of her house was already hanging off its hinges.
Scent alone told him there were three individuals in the house. Kayla. Darius. Stan.
The scent of blood told him far more, and he didn't even think as he raced up the porch steps and leaped through the front door.
He was just in time to find Kayla perched at the bottom of the stairs, her arms wrapped around herself. She was shivering hard.
Down the hall, Darius's hulking black wolf form pinned a very human-looking Stan to the wall. Yet as Lance watched, the lion shifter grabbed hold of the huge wolf in his arms and practically threw him as though he weighed little more than a ragdoll. And it was just like one that Darius hit the opposite wall, hard, hard enough to knock him immediately unconscious and leave him in a crumpled heap on the floor.
Stan turned on Lance. The recognition in his gaze told Lance he knew his scent, even in wolf form, and before his eyes the human became a dark, horrendously scarred lion. If not for all the hurt Stan had caused, if not for the fact he probably deserved all those scars, Lance might have actually felt sorry for him.
Any hint of sympathy he felt was gone the second the lion lunged at him.
Howling with fury, Lance darted sideways, just out of reach. And as Stan stumbled past him, he darted in and grabbed the lion by the throat.
It was an awkward grip that didn't last long, and Lance cursed himself as Stan managed to rip free of his grip.
The lion turned on him again. In the close confines of the hallway, it was difficult to fight, even more difficult to defend oneself properly, and so Lance fought with everything he had just to get the lion out of the house.
He took several scratches to his flanks, howling with pain every time the lion's large claws sliced into him. But he gave as good as he got.
When he found himself pinned beneath the lion that was practically twice his size, he feared he had failed all over again. If Stan killed him, who was going to stop the bastard from waltzing right back inside to finish whatever he had come here to do?
It didn't bear thinking about. When he felt the lion's teeth meet in his throat, he didn't panic. He didn't fight. He knew exactly what to do.
And so, he went limp. The second he felt Stan's grip ease off, he smirked, an animalistic and satisfied smirk, as he ripped himself free of the lion and surged upwards.
Gripping hold of the lion's throat, trying hard to ignore the horrid taste of his cat fur, Lance bit down with everything that he had on the lion's windpipe.
He wasn't about to let up like Stan had. He had every intention of making this quick. Though a part of him would have liked to take his time, to make the man suffer, he was well aware of the danger of the bastard getting away again, and there was no way in hell he was going to allow that.
When he felt the strength draining from the lion's body, he yanked him sideways, rolling so that he gained the high ground. There he pinned the lion to the floor by his throat, not easing up.
“Lance! Stop! You're going to kill him!”
Kayla's scream was infuriating yet awakening. He'd had every intention of doing just that. After all, the scumbag deserved it.
But the truth was, no matter how much he wished he could, Lance was not a killer. And so, when he could feel just the slightest hint of a pulse throbbing against his tongue, Lance released the lion.
Stan's head thudded against the ground and only the slight rise and fall of the lion's ribs indicated he was still breathing.
Darius appeared in the doorway then, butt-naked and human, rubbing the back of his neck with a terrible grimace on his face.
“What happened?” Darius asked, skipping down the porch steps to stand over the lion.
