Impulse

firing it must have been strong. Sera scrambled through the door and skidded down the hallway, barely seeing the walls on either side of her. She got the fleeting impression of roughly hewn wood, an impression confirmed when she bolted into the front room of a rustic cabin.

The front door was locked, but one jerk of even her limited shapeshifter strength snapped it from the doorframe. She flung the door wide as the first footsteps staggered into the hallway behind her.

Fight or flight. She had a heartbeat to decide, and instinct drove her out the door. The woods surrounded the cabin on three sides, with the fourth side facing a placid little lake. An idyllic location, and a remote one. She could scream herself hoarse without scaring anything more than the wildlife.

Cars or woods. An SUV sat on the gravel drive, but the chances its keys were waiting conveniently in the ignition seemed tiny. Another split-second decision, and she bolted toward the trees. If she had to she could toss the gun and her clothes and shift. Try to lose herself in the woods, or find a place to hide…

The door crashed open, and the wind carried Josh’s scent to her. He was too close. Too close to run, too close to hide.

Whirling, she lifted the gun and pointed it at his chest. “Don’t. I swear to God, I’ll shoot you.”

Josh held up both hands, but his words were a denial, pure and simple. “You can’t.”

“You’re wrong.” She eased toward the car, keeping the gun steady with both hands. “Get me keys and let me drive away. If you make a run for it, maybe you can get far enough away to survive. That’s what you care about, isn’t it? Surviving?”

“I care about you!” he roared. “Us, our life together. I want it back.”

“We didn’t have a life together. We had your life and your dreams.” Her hip bumped against the front bumper of the SUV, and she braced her weight on both feet. “I was sixteen when you found me. You didn’t give me a chance to grow up and decide what I wanted to be.”

“So come home,” he whispered. “You’ll figure it out, and we’ll be happy again.”

Dominant power settled around her like a blanket, and her finger tightened reflexively on the trigger. He was going to make her do it. Make her shoot him, force her to splatter the brains of the man she’d once loved across the dirt driveway. And if it had only been her, she might not have had the strength to stand up to him.

But it wasn’t only her. It was her father, who left the light on because he wanted her to come home. And Anna, who was more fragile right now than anyone but Sera knew. And for Julio-He’d blame himself. All that responsibility on his shoulders, the need to keep her safe. His so-called failure with Kat. Losing her now would break him. He’d give up, and the dominoes would fall. Carmen and Miguel. Alec. Patrick. So many bad things had happened already. One more would be too much.

Sera swallowed hard as sick dread twisted in her gut. “Please, Josh. Let me go. Don’t make me do this. Just give me the keys—” He lunged, and she fired.

The first shot hit him in the shoulder and exploded. Her ears rang at the sound, but it was nothing compared to the sight. His arm was gone, blown off at the shoulder. But he was a shapeshifter, and feral rage clouded his vision as he snarled and staggered toward her.

The second shot tore his chest in half and shredded his still-beating heart.

She stared—shocked, horrified—and she was still staring when pain detonated in her skull.

The blow caught her off guard, knocked her to the ground as her gun skittered off across the fallen leaves into the darkness.

Diego stood over her, the heavy branch he’d used as a club still clutched in his hand. “Got him pretty damn dead, huh? That’s natural selection for you.”

“Fuck you.” She scrambled back, her head throbbing. Her vision was throbbing too, tingeing the world with darkness every time her heart beat. “Don’t do this. Whatever you’re trying to prove to Julio, this isn’t going to help.”

His face screwed up in confusion. “What?”

“Josh was supposed to kill him, wasn’t that the plan? What are you going to get out of killing me now?”

“Oh, that.” He shook his head. “You’re a loose end, girl. You could clear up a lot of things by being gone.”

Sera inched back, trying to remember which direction the gun had gone in. To the left, toward the trees. “And then you’re going to kill your own son?”

“Don’t make it sound so cold.” He gripped the club and advanced on her. “It’s how things are done.”

Her ears were still ringing and the fog around the edges of her vision hadn’t faded. But Diego Mendoza was about to cave in her skull with a tree branch, and she wasn’t going to make it easy.

A fist-sized rock dug into her hip as she shifted her weight. Clawing together every stubborn scrap of willpower she had left, she closed her hand around the makeshift weapon and whipped it at Diego’s head. The second it left her fingers, she twisted. To her knees and then her unsteady feet, using the momentum to fling herself toward the woods in a stumbling pace that felt more like falling forward than running.

His heavy footsteps crashed through the brush behind her, closer with every frantic breath she dragged into her lungs. He swung again, and the branch caught her across her lower back, hard enough to knock her off her feet and send her sprawling.

It hurt to move. Even dragging her knees under her spiked agony up her spine. She clawed at the ground, tried to crawl away. The coyote battered at her, desperate to spill free, and she wasted what was probably her last moment fighting the animal back. The animal would only end up tangled in her clothes, pinned and helpless.

Branches snapped in the darker part of the forest. The wind shifted, and a familiar scent tickled her nose. Hope flooded her, desperate, giddy relief. She gasped in a breath, filled her lungs with the scent of safety, and gathered her remaining strength to roll out of the way as a dark wolf lunged out of the trees.

Julio.

He tumbled to the ground with Diego, rolling through the dirt and leaves, and snapped his jaws shut on the man’s arm. Diego roared and kicked hard, aiming his shot at Julio’s ribs. Sera cried out a wordless warning, but Julio took the blow, his head wrenching to the side.

Flesh tore, and Diego dropped the branch and fumbled for another weapon with his free hand. Julio lashed out with one paw, raking his claws over the right side of his father’s face.

So much rage. It pulsed in the air, a sound, a taste. Diego stumbled back under its force, rising to his feet as his expression melted from rage to fear. “Don’t do this. Don’t kill your own father in cold blood—” Julio backed off and circled, his sides trembling, his lips drawn back from his teeth in one low, continuous growl. Then he rushed in suddenly and sank his teeth into Diego’s thigh.

A scream. Diego crashed to the forest floor and swept up the first thing he closed his hands on—a moss- covered rock. He struggled to twist, to free himself, but every jerk only deepened the wound.

Blood began to spurt, and Diego slammed the rock down on the back of Julio’s head with a yell. He staggered away, his paws slipping on the leaves. By the time he regained his footing, he snarled, ready to dig in for another charge.

Only Diego didn’t get up. He’d gone pale, his clothes wet and dark with blood already, and sweat beaded his forehead as the rock tumbled from his hand. “Your mother,” he slurred. “She always said this…” The words trailed into nothingness, and he slumped to the ground.

Dragging herself upright induced a spinning sort of vertigo, but Sera ignored the swimming world and the sharp pain in her lower back. She crawled to Julio’s side and wrapped her arms around his trembling body. His fur was slick with blood, but she ignored it and buried her face against his neck, breathing in strength along with his scent.

A shock of magic zipped through her, and Julio shifted in her arms. “Sera,” he rasped.

“Did he hurt you?” She ran her fingers into his hair, feeling for blood. “He hit you with a rock, I saw—” He shook his head and then swayed a little. “I’m okay.” Immediately, he began to trace his hands over her. “You have blood on your face.”

She didn’t know if it was hers or Josh’s. A shudder set off all the minor aches, and she pushed closer to him. “I shot Josh. With—with the exploding bullets.”