Most humans braced to fight, weapons raised or fists up. Other humans attempted to flee, running aimlessly.
Her upper lip peeling back, the bush dog ran for the nearest fleer, latching onto his ankle. He tripped with a curse and awkwardly fell forward, catching his weight on his elbows … right at the feet of a white tiger. The large cat slammed his paw onto the human’s head, smashing his skull. Dead.
With a sniff of satisfaction, the bush dog turned her attention to another fleeing human. She charged, dodging another human who was staggering backwards with a pallas cat wrapped around his face, and quickly brought her target down. A passing wolverine finished him off by brutally biting a chunk out of his neck.
The bush dog approved.
Again and again, she pursued those who would run. The humans cried out and cursed and screamed. Bullets whizzed and cracked and thudded into metal. But those sounds were barely heard beneath the growls, roars, hisses, yowls, squawks, and bloodcurdling screeches of the shifters.
In the bush dog’s opinion, it was mayhem at its finest.
An engine roared to life. She saw that someone was trying to escape in Vinnie’s car. They would fail, because snarling animals swiftly leaped into the vehicle. The human jumped out of the other side of it only to be quickly dispatched by a waiting wolverine.
Out of bullets, a human threw his gun at an injured pallas cat and sprinted off. The bush dog galloped after him as he made a beeline for the fence. He saw her coming and cursed, putting on a burst of speed, but he had no chance of outrunning her.
Latching onto his ankle, she used her weight to trip him. He fell hard and—
Fire blazed across her ear. Bullet. She released the human, darted aside, and crawled under Vinnie’s car. More shots rang out. Bullets peppered the ground near the car, kicking up dirt.
There was a loud cry. The firing stopped.
The female shuffled forward on her belly, ready to peek out from under the car, but then a human fell to the ground in front of her, taken down by a wolverine who savagely clawed at his back.
His face a mask of agony, the human spotted her. He weakly aimed his gun her way, his finger on the trigger. She let out a puppy-like whine and fell limply onto her side. He hesitated. The wolverine pounced on his head, all but bursting it.
With a yip of thanks, the bush dog edged out from under the car. Hearing a feline cry of pain, she looked to see a large male stomping on a pallas cat. The bush dog sprinted toward him and sank her teeth into the ankle of his offending foot. She bit and chomped and growled while he yelled and kicked out and tried batting her away with his hand.
A bearcat whizzed by, slashing the Achilles tendon of his other foot. The human dropped like a stone. And then the bush dog’s mate was there, attacking the man’s face and scalp with claws and teeth, while a black mamba struck and buried her fangs in the human’s leg.
Leaving the others to finish him off, the bush dog backed away and—
Running. Another human was running. Far and Fast.
She burst into motion, snarling when he cleared the fence and ran through the field. The female scooted under one of the wooden slats of the fence and pursued him, rocketing through the long grass. Little by little, she closed the distance between them.
She sprang, burying her teeth and claws into his calf and clinging tight. Her weight unbalanced him, but he didn’t fall. He spun, reaching backwards to knock her away, but the angle was too awkward for him.
She clawed at his leg, hooking and shredding skin, delighting in his screams. He shook his leg hard. Rather than dislodging her, he fell. Finally.
She shifted.
In mere milliseconds, Blair stood in the place of her female. She didn’t give the human a chance to react. She dropped to her knees onto his back, reached down, and snapped his neck.
Done. He was dead.
Breathing hard, she got to her feet. Jesus, this had been one hell of a night. Turning toward the pure chaos commencing nearby, she noticed that the number of standing humans had dropped liked flies. They’d put up one hell of a fight—she’d give them that much.
Shivering slightly at the evening chill, she pulled back and gave her female supremacy once more.
Her sides heaving as she struggled to catch her breath, the bush dog shook her body to settle properly into her fur. She sniffed haughtily at the corpse, disappointed the human had died so quickly. He hadn’t deserved such mercy.
With a snort, she turned away from him. Pain blasted down their mating bond. Shot. Her mate had been shot. The shock of it tensed her—