Teeth and claws.
Blood and vengeance.
That was all she was after.
Please…
With bleary eyes, I watched as Granny fought, blow for blow, with the two fully blooded shifters. It was a sight that I wouldn’t believe if I wasn’t seeing it for myself. The woman was meeting each of their blows with her own. They were just as powerful and concise. She targeted their weak spots with ease, spilling their blood all over the wooden floor.
I shifted my position, pain rocketing through me like a tornado. The beast shifted closer to the surface, and I cried out as she dug her claws deeper into my mind. Granny’s head whipped around, distracted by my sudden outburst. Jediah took the opening, and with his hand outstretched, he buried his claws in her stomach.
“No!” I screamed, the fragile cage on my control shattering. Jonah sneered down at Granny, who’d sunk to her knees in shock. The wall of glass holding back the darkness surging through me was cracking beneath the onslaught of pain and anguish.
I wouldn’t let it out again.
Not ever.
It was too dangerous.
“Should have given us what we wanted, Lizzie.” With that, he sank his claws into her chest. Granny howled, her pain echoing through the café, breaking down the last barrier in my mind.
And then I heard her scream.
“Shift, Freya.” Granny’s command shredded the last vestiges of sanity, my mind fracturing into tiny pieces.
Without any defense left, I gave up my mind to the monster.
I succumbed to the beast.
Iron tinged the air as we roared into town, our motorcycles eating up the pavement as we pushed them to their max.Shit. If we were already smelling blood, it wasn’t going to be good. We could only hope that it was Granny who’d shed the blood.
We didn’t bother with parking spaces. We simply parked our bikes in the middle of the road and dashed toward Granny’s like the dogs of hell were nipping at our feet. The front door of the café was blown wide open, debris and glass everywhere. The bitter tinge of iron grew stronger now, along with something else…
Honeysuckle.
“Holy shit…” Gunner whispered in awe. I turned to where he was looking, wide eyed and awestruck.
“Is that a…” Wolf asked in disbelief.
“Yep.”
“Fucking shit.”
The fully shifted wolf growled, baring its teeth as we stepped toward it. Blood soaked its muzzle and paws. It stood on all fours, its incarnadine fur standing on end as it eyed us threateningly. It was larger than a normal wolf, standing near four feet tall on all four legs. I’d never seen a fully shifted wolf before. No one had, since shifters hadn’t had the ability to shift into their full form for a few hundred years. Some said it was a curse that had been placed on wolves by a great shaman. Our scientists theorized it was due to the inclusion of human DNA, stating that even a small amount of it would keep a wolf from fully shifting.
Wolf stepped forward. The shifter growled again, low and menacing. A warning.
“Watch it,” Wolf snarled. The shifted wolf paused for a moment, its head tilting to the side curiously. Was it responding to Wolf’s alpha gene? When Wolf took another step forward, it resumed its aggressive stance.
“Whose side do you think it’s on?” Gunner questioned. He moved to the right while I flanked the wolf on the left. We’d have to take it with us. No matter how integrated humans were in our community, seeing a four-foot red wolf was bound to cause issues.
“Granny’s blood is all over its fucking muzzle,” I hissed.
“Doesn’t mean it killed her,” Gunner pointed out, jabbing a thumb at the other body. Wolf cursed. “We need to leash this wolf and get Granny to a hospital. She’s still breathing.”
“How do you expect to leash that thing?” I snorted. “Got a lasso handy?”
Wolf smirked. “Actually…” He loosened the chain around his wrist, unwrapping it to its full length.