As soon as Randolph hit the pile of rocks, he slashed at the hybrid with his claws. One bony talon snagged in the Mongrel’s flesh, but the creature was so panicked that it tore itself loose without seeming to realize the damage that had been done. Since that one was temporarily out of reach, Randolph moved his hungry gaze to the female. Lyssa bared her fangs, which were even longer now than when she’d been speaking to him a minute ago. Although she’d shifted into a more bestial form, her body retained the lithe silhouette that defined her species. As blood pumped through her veins, muscles grew beneath her flesh until she was large enough to pose a challenge.
Randolph sized her up in a fraction of a second and twisted his upper body around to snap at her. Impossibly fast, and strong enough to turn one unlucky rock into powder with a wild swipe, the Full Blood would have sunk his fangs deep into her neck if not for the hole that opened up directly beneath his left forepaw.
Thick, rounded paws reached from the hole, sank curved nails into Randolph’s leg and began shredding. Instead of simply flaying skin from flesh, Max used the werewolf’s limb to pull himself up from the ground. As soon as he snagged a tendon, he hooked a claw around the sinewy fiber and pulled until the ropy strand snapped. A bellowing roar flowed from the depths of Randolph’s massive frame and filled the sky above him. Perhaps spurred by the sound of his fellow Full Blood, Liam pounced at Max. If his claws had found their mark, they would have easily torn the Mongrel into uneven chunks. Instead, they scraped along rock and even grazed Randolph himself when Max ducked back down into his hole.
When he’d dug his first tunnel through the mountain, Max was able to take his time and slither through the narrow passages he’d made. Now, the Mongrel scraped frantically beneath the surface, knocking flat sections of the basin’s floor askew as he carved his escape route.
Randolph left a trail of blood in the air as he sprang forward to get ahead of the burrowing creature. Skidding upon his wounded leg, he brought a fist down like a hammer to crush through the rocky crust. Before he could pull Max from the ground, the wolflike Mongrel circled around from another angle to dig into the Full Blood with every tooth and claw at his disposal. Reaching over his shoulder, Randolph grabbed the hybrid by the scruff of its neck and pulled him free the same way he might rip out an arrow lodged between his shoulder blades. The hybrid tore open a large flap of skin from Randolph’s back, but the Full Blood still maintained his grip and slammed him to the basin floor.
As this one went, Liam had to contend with Lyssa. He’d been blindsided by the feline Mongrel as she ran along the edge of the rock wall like a race car cruising on the steepest slope of a track. She pushed away from the wall and flew at him with the intention of sinking her claws into his side, but was stopped in midair when Liam snapped his head around to clamp his jaws around her neck.
The muscles beneath Lyssa’s skin were more solid than any other Mongrel he’d faced. They shifted around his teeth to add another layer of padding before anything vital was pierced. Liam savored the moment while curling his lips back and pressing his jaws in tighter around her. His fangs sank in another quarter of an inch before Lyssa began scraping madly at his eyes and throat.
Unlike the Skinners who needed charmed weapons and trickery to hurt a Full Blood, Mongrels had a natural weapon at their disposal. Even Nymar fangs could wound a werewolf, but the leeches simply didn’t have the raw power needed to get the job done. Normally, a single Mongrel didn’t possess that kind of strength either. Lyssa, on the other hand, was proving that her uniqueness ran deeper than Liam had previously expected.
He pondered this while she shredded half of his face and further ravaged the callused pit where his right eye had been. Considering how bad that wound had itched since he regained consciousness, the Mongrel’s claws weren’t entirely unwelcome. Once the scratching dug a little too deep, he ended it by clenching his jaws shut tight enough for the Mongrel to shift her priorities from attack to defense. He swatted away one of her paws as if disciplining a child and then absorbed a few painful gouges along his forearm before grabbing the front portion of her chest. From there, he tore her off and pinned her to the ground. “There you go, sweetness,” he growled. “Just lay down and let me take care of you.”
“You said you’d lead us somewhere safe,” Lyssa growled. “Somewhere away from the packs and Skinners.”
“I don’t see neither of them around here, luv.”
“You changed us. Made us better. There’s no reason for this.”
Leaning in so he could be heard over the commotion of the other Full Blood’s struggle with Max and the hybrid, Liam said, “Randolph ain’t the sort who plays well with others. Never was.”
Since she was no match for the werewolf in a one-on-one fight, and her pleading was falling upon deaf ears, Lyssa only had one remaining option. She clenched her eyes shut, relaxed in Liam’s grip, and bared her neck to him.
Recognizing the gesture that would bring an end to a great number of disputes between wolves, Liam seethed with an anger that showed even within the ravaged pit of his right eye socket. “What are you doing?” he snarled as he tightened his grip on her. “You wanted to be one of us? A Full Blood defers to no one. Not ever! You make me sick, you pathetic little bitch. Killing you is too damn easy.”
“Liam.”
If the ebon werewolf heard his name, he didn’t acknowledge it. He was taking too much pleasure in slowly grinding his claws within Lyssa’s flesh. “You know how long I made humans suffer when I led the charge against their city? I had to keep them alive so they’d survive long enough to turn into a Half Breed. But you, luv,” he said in a voice that was less intense but twice as chilling. “You can take so much more punishment than one of them.”
“You’ll be taking some punishment yourself if you don’t back up.”
Blinking as if he’d been awoken from a dream, Liam turned toward the source of the voice. Randolph stood behind him in his human form. His fur had receded all the way under his skin, leaving him naked but still less vulnerable than any of the other Mongrels in the vicinity. Liam sought them out next. He spotted the hybrid curled against the far side of the basin licking one of several wounds. Max emerged from another hole and stretched his neck out toward Liam’s belly. All of the Mongrel’s teeth were bared and poised to eviscerate the Full Blood. Even if Max couldn’t get the job done, he was bound to make a hell of a mess.
“You really think you can put me down before I get to you?” Liam growled.
“That doesn’t matter,” Randolph said. “I wanted to find out what these Mongrels were made of, and they’ve shown me plenty.”
“We’re not Mongrels anymore,” Lyssa said. “Kayla was very specific about that.”
“Well you’re sure as hell not Full Bloods,” Liam pointed out. “And if this little bugger doesn’t crawl back into his hole pretty damn quickly, he won’t even be a resident of this plane of existence.”
Reluctantly, Max eased back into his tunnel. As he retraced the path he’d dug beneath the surface, dislodged earthen plates rattled over his squirming back. The motion stopped and one of the plates was shoved aside so he could poke his head up several paces away from either of the werewolves. “He’s right,” Max said to the other Mongrels. “We shouldn’t follow someone like Kayla if she’s not willing to accept us. But we won’t follow the likes of you, Liam. Not anymore.”
“I’ve never seen anything like you,” Randolph admitted. “Our two kinds have fought many times, but there have never been survivors to go through this sort of change.”
“That’s not true,” Max said. “The survivors of those battles were always killed after the fight was over. Put down for their own good, we were told.”
“It’s in our history,” Lyssa told him. “Most of it’s known only to the pack leaders, but it’s there. I saw it for myself in Kansas City. Some of the Mongrels that were wounded while fighting you were killed by Kayla herself. I was tending to my husband after he was wounded by Liam when she came and told me to rest. She thought I was gone, but I watched from a distance and saw her slash his throat. After it was done, she told me he’d died and that we should burn his body immediately.”
Randolph’s brow lifted slightly above his crystalline eyes. “So she knows about the change?”
“She knows the rumor,” Max said. “I spoke to her when the humans in KC were still cleaning up the mess Liam made. She knew something would happen, but not what. I think she was hoping to find some missing element that would make a difference between us changing into whatever she feared and changing into a Full Blood.” Looking to Randolph, he asked, “Is there?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Most of the times I’ve encountered Mongrels, I’ve been forced to fight back a swarm of them intent on killing me.” Holding up a thick hand before the inevitable argument came, he added, “Whatever the reason for our past conflict, it’s behind us for now.” The wounds on that hand were closing like clay being reshaped
