“Rabbit,” one of the men grunted. “Fresh blood.”
The other set his beer on the ground and scratched his gut hanging over his belt buckle. “I’m fucking starved.”
“Don’t.”
The second reached to unlock the gate anyway, still scratching. “I can taste the blood from here—don’t get your panties in a goddamn twist. Musta escaped a fox or somethin’.” He slipped through the gate, leaving it slightly open, and the first guard stepped back deeper into the compound, flicking his cigarette into the road, tossing his empty beer away after it.
The can landed with a clatter on the pebbled drive, and I moved closer, into the open, edging between the men on silent footfalls, the second guard’s wary gaze flitting around the area, his nose lifting once more. “Hey, Shank,” he whisper-hollered at the man ripping into the rabbit carcass, “something ain’t right—”
I pounced through the ajar gate, my teeth sinking into his throat before he could utter another word. We thumped to the ground, my cat growling—begging to be let free of my human conscience. A grunt sounded behind me, and I fought to stay in place rather than sprint toward the hovel a few hundred yards ahead.
The men who had raped my mate awaited their fate. Didn’t even know their minutes on the earth were numbered.
Now.
My muscles trembled with need, and I clenched my eyes shut, listening as my brothers made their way through the open gate behind me.
A brush along my flank and Wraith’s familiar scent hit my nose.
I opened my eyes, the human in me knowing he knew what I struggled to withstand inside my mind. He put his paw atop mine on the Lycaon’s unmoving chest beneath me.
My cat growled but listened to the alpha. He moved forward, and I fell in on his left, Slash as his enforcer on his right.
Rooster and Shadow crept off toward our right, other brothers darting silently out on either side, disappearing into the darkness until their swishing tails disappeared. The heavy-footed human-form shifters stayed at our six, pausing when Wraith did.
I fought to count slowly to keep my brain in check—until the scent of wet dog—fucking Cueball, the cock-sucking fuck—hit my nose like a slap to the face.
Iubita. Mate.
My focus, my control, snapped as memories of his cum between Ashlyn’s thighs ripped through me.
I lost myself to the animal. The monster within shot forward with laser focus.
Kill.
183
Ashlyn
We approached the gaping gate at the same time the four vans did—and hollered curses rent the air from within the compound. Angel, Shyla, and Molly had already stripped and shifted, and although I’d tried, prayed to any god who might hear me for me to do the same, I remained in my too-big, too-human form.
I growled anyway, running with all I had even as that sense of wrongness attacked my brain, barely able to keep up with the three female cats leading me up the compound’s driveway.
Shouts sounded behind us as the four drivers hopped from their vans and slammed doors, but I ignored them, sprinting forward and breathing heavy as hell within a matter of seconds. My throat ached, the sense of an elephant stepping on my chest catching my breath short. Anxiety at the worst time.
We rounded the Lycaon’s building, and I pulled up short, stumbling.
Fur rushed by—bodies flashed in the bonfire’s light. Men screamed, blood sprayed, and large cats shrieked as dogs growled.
Angel nuzzled my hand, and I jerked my focus downward to find her body shivering, probably with need to protect her mate.
“Go on,” I told her, although the hairs on my neck stood on end. My attention flitted forward once more as she took off and I searched for the black leopard who owned me body and soul.
Wraith ripped out a mangy wolf’s throat.
Slash tackled a half-shifted wolf to the ground.
Rooster and Shadow both battled with fully shifted beasts.
Dozens of others growled, yipped, and cursed, fists flying as fast as paw swipes. Muffled gun shots sounded. A handful of bodies—human and beast—littered the ground.
Mate.
My entire body shivered, and I blinked as my head turned—Bryce stood at the light’s edge to my right, facing off with two men, both of their faces ingrained in my head. “Bryce...”
I took off like an Olympic runner, the instinct to protect him, stand by his side giving me more speed than I’d ever thought possible.
Bryce’s cat leapt forward at the one man as he started to shift into a wolf, and the second sprang forward, shifting mid-air to slam into Bryce. They tumbled to the ground, jaws snapping.
My focus honed in on the two that had beaten, and raped me. I had tunnel vision. All sound escaped my ears as the instinctive voice inside me urged me to hurry, the knowledge of heartache if I failed pushing me onward.
The second man shifted fully and pounced on the two downed beasts. Fur flew. Claws raked.
“Bryce!” I shrieked, and he jumped out of the fray, facing me, the two wolves stalking toward him.
His black eyes focused on me for a single heartbeat—and he rushed forward, jaws closing on one’s neck.
“Bryce!” I screamed again as the other wolf landed on his back, his own jaw wide open and descending.
Mate. Protect.
Agony tore through me, and I sobbed, dropping to my knees in a rush of adrenaline—and need. Bones popped. Muscles tore, and I cried out, my voice morphing into a mewling cat as claws shot out and fangs descended.
As though the lights had flicked on, the scene around me lightened to that of day. My first inhale filled my lungs with the lush scent of my mate, of wilderness—and blood. My ears once more took in the sounds of the battle raging around us and that of the wolf latched onto my mate’s neck.
I shot like lightening across the expanse separating us, growling and leaping—sailing through the air, my claws reaching. Digging deep into wolf flesh.
Bite.
I did.
