I leaned my forehead against the plank as I pulled back the wulf. The world spun around me.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Just dizzy. Haven’t eaten enough today.” I straightened, and we wandered over to the others.
Sherman watched, keeping as much real estate between him and us as possible. But soon his ears and head began to droop. We waited as he fought the sedative every step of the way. Darlene ended up giving him a top-up dose, with Sam and me on positioning duty once more. Finally, the mighty animal crumpled to his knees and collapsed. When a tentative test poke with the cattle prod elicited no response, we moved in.
Burt staggered through the muck with a bucket of hot water, and we got to work on the mess that was Sherman’s face. Close examination of the eye revealed it to be intact, but the lid had sustained a wicked laceration that took careful stitching. The wound extended from just beneath his ear, sliced his eyelid, and ran as deep as the bone across his nose. Another nasty slice ran along the thick muscles of his neck to one shoulder. The other cuts appeared minor, and I busied myself with cleaning them as Darlene did the major stitch work on his neck and face. Sherman flinched as she completed the last few stitches.
Darlene shook her head. “Damn. He’s had enough to drop a rhino, but I think he’s already coming out of it.”
I was sure my proximity had something to do with that. He could no doubt smell the wulf. “I’ll do the antibios,” I offered. I dug into her kit. “Where are your big syringes?”
“Dammit. We’re low on them.” She slathered antibiotic ointment onto the shallow gashes across Sherman’s nose. “Someone’s been rummaging through my kit. None in there?”
“It’s okay. I’ll use these.” I selected four smaller syringes and filled them.
The big body reacted when I pushed the first dose through the thick skin. “I think everyone better clear out,” I said, prepping the second. “He’s running light.”
Burt grabbed his bucket and Sam turned to pick her way to the fence. Darlene started cleaning up, gathering bits and pieces and dropping them into her kit.
I hit him with the second and saw the tremor pass through his hindquarters.
“Hurry up, Darlene.”
“No way he’s ready to get up.”
“He’s reactionary. And his adrenaline’s pumping. Leave the wrappers and get out of here.”
I injected the third dose and his hind legs moved. Darlene left the wrappers, snapping her kit closed. Lifting it, she slogged through the mud.
The snort when I jabbed him with the fourth needle cracked like a pistol shot across the paddock. A ton and a half of pure muscle lurched to its feet, broad head swinging to focus on Darlene’s retreating form.
“Run Darlene!”
The panic in my voice made her swing around, her eyes widening as Sherman bore down on her, slipping and sliding on unsteady legs but head down, intent on stomping her to a pulp.
One moment I stood with a syringe dangling from my hand—the next, adrenaline flooded me, and on its heels came the wulf. Fear morphed to anger, and my body responded, following the pattern I’d set with Buster earlier that day. Soft tissues writhed beneath my skin as I launched myself after the bull, strengthening from fingertips to toes. My leap carried me to the bull’s head, and I wrapped my arms around his massive neck. The bunched muscles of my core snapped my legs ahead of his charging form to piston into the stinking mud.
Almost three thousand pounds of charging bull ran straight into my braced legs. The strain of stopping the juggernaut threatened to snap my bones, his sheer weight drove my feet forward through the muck. We were nearly on top of Darlene.
Suddenly Sam was there, standing between Darlene and the combined heaving mass of Sherman and me. I glimpsed the fierce silver glare of her wulf, startling in her human face, and her lips pulled back from long fangs as she roared at the bull.
Sherman shuddered and stiffened his legs. I gritted my teeth and twisted through my core, my arms locked around his head as I brought it up and to the side. The hooves slid in the slick mud. Time slowed as his momentum carried his enormous body forward past his head, his feet sliding out from beneath him. The giant body seemed momentarily suspended in midair before it crashed back into the mud.
A wall of muck engulfed us. Choking on filth, I released Sherman and scrambled backward, struggling to reverse my changes before anyone witnessed what I’d become. Sam dragged me to the fence and through it. As I lay in the bull-free zone, I saw that Darlene and Burt were across the paddock, also safe. Sherman flailed in the mud, getting himself onto his feet to shake his craggy head.
“Liam!” Darlene called out to me, hurrying toward us.
“Liam, change back.” Sam’s face was white as a sheet, and her gray eyes, human once more, were dark with raw emotion.
I curled so that my head rested on my knees, my arms tucked against me, fighting to revert the bones, muscles, and tendons to human. Blood dripped from my mouth—at some point, the big teeth had emerged from my gums.
The wulf did not want to go, and for the first time, I almost couldn’t force it to my will. My entire body shook and blackness fogged my vision. Dammit, can’t black out. I’m half wulf. I smelled him, seeping through my pores, the hairs thickening along my spine, the muscles rippling beneath my abdomen.
“Liam! Are you okay?”
I’d never heard such concern in Darlene’s voice and it almost made me look up, but she’d see the wulf in my eyes, and God—my jaw had started to lengthen.
“It’s okay.” Sam sounded calm—the enforcer in control. “He just had the wind knocked out of him. He’ll be fine in a minute.”
“Did you see what he did?
