Seeing their weakness, I leaped into the fray, howling at my pack to carry on. I knew it was madness, knew it could mean death for many, but Sabina was right. We had to defend our land, come what may. I couldn’t say that becoming a father had made me a coward. But cautious? Fuck, yeah. Now wasn’t the time for caution though. Now was the time for action.

A wind whipped up between us, slicing through the wolves who surged forward into battle and somehow gusting back on us as Sabina carried on screaming.

It felt as if my ear drums were going to burst, as if my whole brain was about to explode, but it was our enemies who were driven insane by the sound. Using their distraction to our advantage, we dove into the mass of blood and tissue that littered the clearing and attacked.

A quick glance told me there were over a hundred male hyenas, a good forty females, and a further twenty who were still in human form, armed with guns. Sporadic bullet spray ripped among us, but they were shooting far less than before, which told me Sabina’s effect on them wasn’t as strong as it was on the shifters.

Did they think the naturals were us? Had they mistaken the natural pack for mine?

I knew hyenas’ senses weren’t the strongest. In a pecking order of sagest animals to dumbest, they were definitely closer to the bottom of the pile, but were they that fucking dumb?

The wind stirred even more, turning into a shocking gust that stung my eyes as I tore out the throat of a hyena I attacked, and Sabina’s scream turned higher in pitch, until even the humans were clutching at their ears. I had no idea how she was doing it, but damn, I needed her to keep it going until this disaster was over.

The taste of iron collided with my tongue, permeating my mouth, making everything taste stark and metallic, but I gloried in it as I tore and shredded, my paws and claws slicing into hyena hides as I bit chunks out of those who attacked me.

When a chorus of howls sounded from nearby, I recognized them, and I realized what I’d been hearing before, what Sabina had translated for me—they’d been far away. But Berry had been warning us of their imminent arrival. In her own way, she’d been telling us not to lose hope.

In the adrenaline buzz of the battle, of the war, as I killed and attacked the endless swathes of hyenas, who felt as if they were a wave of ants cresting a hill as we shredded them into dust, I felt the totem’s power once the supernaturals appeared.

Amid the chaos of downed bodies, blood, and viscera on the ground, some of which I knew I was coated in, I tried to find the clan leader.

I knew she had to be here.

She just had to be.

Peering into the crowds for the distinctive markings that decorated the females—dots on their heads and scruffs, dashes for the males—I tried to find one who was being shielded, and I saw her.

She wasn’t a hyena however.

It was a human female.

My head tipped to the side at the sight of her, especially as I saw her irritation at how my wolves and Berry’s were decimating her troops. But as I looked at her, wondering why she appeared familiar, two males attacked me.

One dove onto my back, digging in with claws and teeth, while the other snapped for my throat. I leaped at him, shaking off the pesky bastard who thought he could take me down by tearing into my hide, and when another two did the same thing, I snarled, tossing them off of me as rage turned me feral, as I allowed the wolf I’d contained all my life to take total control of me.

I jerked forward, then swiftly reared back, which loosened the hold two had on me, but then Sabina screamed yet again, and this time, it was more powerful than before. A hundred times stronger. It felt like it was going to shatter my ear drums, make my skull cave in, but the female whose face I recognized released a shriek so piercing, it was almost as powerful as Sabina’s.

I twisted around, needing to keep an eye on the enemy, when I saw Berry rounding up to her. My eyes flared wide, but everything inside me froze as her howl intertwined with Sabina’s scream, as jaws snapped and guns cocked as they aimed at the creature that was somehow my mother, when she sprang off the ground and threw herself into the fray.

Fourteen

Lara

As he veered onto the road and we left the diner behind, the question at the forefront of my mind was why I saw a fox spirit inside him and not a wolf.

So, it didn’t make him a mind reader when the second we were on the highway, Todd, realizing I was about to burst with curiosity, said, “I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but first, I need to ask you a few things.”

I scowled at him. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

He smiled at me, irritating me further, because I could tell he thought I was cute.

I wasn’t fucking cute. I was a freak! I was insane. A whole slew of words, and none of them had a similar definition as ‘cute.’ Sure, I’d been fighting those labels all my life, but I was going to fight ‘cute’ too. Until the day I goddamn died.

“I can only explain things once I have an understanding of how much you’re aware of,” was his explanation.

While I wanted to disagree, because I wanted answers more than I wanted to be bombarded with questions, I couldn’t argue with his logic, so I shrugged. “I know nothing.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“No. It’s true. I have very little idea of why I can do what I can do, and most of the time, I don’t even know how. I just dive in headfirst and figure things out from there.”

He twisted his head, shifting his attention off the road for a second to look at me. I didn’t look back. Just carried on staring at the central white lines as they flashed in his headlights.

We were in his truck, which was a surprisingly nice ride. A total gas guzzler, which had my inner eco-warrior pouting, but damn, it was cool to be this high up and with the space of a whole seat between me and him. Instead of my beat-up old junker where a passenger would have practically been sitting on my lap. If I’d ever driven anyone in it, of course…

As fancy as all the room was, something in me wanted no space between us. And when I said no space, I meant even clothes were too much. Which was something I’d never felt before.

For most of my adult life, I’d been able to live in a cabin in the middle of a forest like Little Red Riding Hood, doing my level best to stay away from humankind before they drove me crazy with all the feeling they did, or before they sent me to a psychiatric hospital when they figured out the weird shit I could do. So, to enjoy his company, to want more of it, was infinitely surprising.

“Is that what happened when you came to me the other night? As a she-wolf? You were trying something out?”

Preferring the topic of conversation to my train of thought, I shrugged. “Pretty much. I knew Sabina was scared for Daniel, and I figured that if I was the same as her, that would be two people to protect him, to defend him. No one fought for us,” I said, my tone sadder than I’d have liked. “I’ll always fight for people who need it.”

A shaky breath escaped him. “If I could kiss you now, I would.”

Startled, I whipped around to look at him. “What?”

“You embody everything that means anything to me.” He shook his head, another shaken exhalation rushing from his lips. “But I didn’t mean to frighten you.”