So I ran while the blood dripped from my gums and my toes pushed against the confines of my runners. My skin itched all over, and I paused long enough to pull off my shoes. My claws clicked against the steel of the gun as I pulled the strap over my shoulder, letting it drop down my back. For a second, I stood, spreading my toes into the trail’s soft mud, and sniffed. I tracked Dillon to the entrance of the six-miler. Then I ran.
This time, the wulf came with me. I embraced it. My jaw ached as it lengthened, the teeth sliding into place with what seemed like relief, my tongue licking the blood from my lips. My head shifted forward from my shoulders, the muscles expanding, arching from my skull to my back. Coarse hair in all the shades of blond tossed in the wind of my passage.
I battled to stop the changes there, and won. Even long-fingered paws could not handle a gun, and I needed to be able to run. I knew nothing of running on four legs, and now was not the time to learn. But as I ran, I pushed harder, channeling the willing wulf, envisioning the muscles of my limbs growing stronger, adding length to my strides. With each fallen tree I bounded over and every branch I ducked, I seemed to navigate more smoothly, gracefully, with economy of motion. Not like a human. Like a creature of the wild.
Everywhere smelled of Dillon, as though he’d rubbed himself on every surface, taunting me. And then I caught another scent, almost smothered beneath his. Chloe. And blood.
My rage fueled me. I sprang into the air, rebounding off tree trunks and swinging from branches, not awkwardly like before, but with precision and power. Faster and faster, until I moved as a blur, my senses filled with the smell of beast and blood. My anger howled through and burst from my lips, starting high-pitched like a pup’s but deepening, until it became a hoarse roar.
Somewhere ahead, Dillon answered, his howl laced with madness.
I almost passed her by. In mid-leap, I caught her scent, strong beneath the surrounding rankness, and crashed to a halt against a trunk, my claws sunk deep. I held my breath, and my sensitive ears picked up the softest of moans.
Chloe lay curled in a fetal position, huddled in a hollow formed by the branches of a fallen tree. In human form, naked, her body showed the assault of a madman. Fang marks everywhere, including ones at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Covered not only in blood but in urine and another smell—distinctive —that pulled my lips back from my teeth.
I knew at that moment what had been done to her, and the wulf in me raised my head to the sky and howled in rage and despair. Too late to stop him from destroying her world, but not her life. I wrenched the gun strap off my shoulder, then my shirt to tuck it around her. Her eyes flickered but remain closed. I would have liked to think she’d been unconscious for it, but the blood on her claws said otherwise.
Not all of it was hers—I smelled Peter there too. Where had she been when Dillon attacked him? My hands tightened on the gun. Chloe had been a fool to believe in Dillon, but she didn’t deserve this. No one did. Dillon deserves to die.
The thought brought with it a fresh wave of rage that snapped my collarbones loose from my shoulders. I dropped the gun from nerveless fingers. I grimaced as the muscles twisted beneath my skin, accommodating the bones that shifted into new positions. My jeans ripped at the seams. With a frisson of agony that shot up my spine, my tail burst free, trapped by fabric until I finished the shredding with my claws, staggering on one leg as the tendons writhed.
Panting with pain, I dropped to four legs to see Dillon standing among the branches, watching. His breath steamed in the cool night air and his eyes danced with madness.
The wulf screamed for me to pounce, to reach for and tear out his throat. My hind legs twitched, trying to drive me forward. But although my wulf’s heart leaped with joy to find the enemy, my human brain recognized how screwed I truly was. I’d seen what he’d done to those bison—the brute strength within that massive frame. I stood no chance against him as a wobbly wulf. I pushed back at my predator and snapped on the leash.
My cell phone decided to ring from the pocket of my shredded jeans. “Clap for the Wolfman”—Chris. Josh had obviously spent time with my phone. I longed for the enforcer’s presence, but I knew he was too far away to help now.
The sound distracted Dillon. He tilted his broad skull, looking toward my discarded clothing, giving me a moment to try something desperate.
It was the human in me that made a grab for the gun. My thickened, clawed fingers scrabbled at the grip, but before they could close, Dillon’s attention snapped back, and he knocked it away. The movement threw me off balance and I went sprawling across the ground. I rolled back to my feet and faced him, snarling.
Dillon towered over me. It was the closest I’d been to his wulf since he’d bitten me, and my heart pounded. His entire frame rippled with muscle—his shoulders so broad you couldn’t see the rest of his body past them. His forearms were huge, leading to front paws with thickened fingers spread wide and ending in vicious hooked claws. He was bigger, heavier, and stronger than I was. He knew how to use his wulf body, I didn’t. But as I looked into his eyes, what I saw wasn’t
