“Cut that shit out, too.” Callum threads his fingers roughly into my hair, yanking my head upright. “You don’t get to feel like shit over how hard you fight to protect.”
His black eyes sear mine. Combined with the tension on my scalp—I can’t fucking take the intensity anymore. It feels too much like my earlier rage.
“You telling me how to feel now, too? Bossy.” I joke to lighten the mood.
He immediately rolls his eyes, releasing my hair and cranking the engine. With one last look at the bar, he throws the SUV into gear and backs out.
“Put your fucking seatbelt on.”
I grin at his tone, clipping the buckle and looking up just in time to see a muscle tick in his jaw. The tiny movement reminds me just how angry he is about this too. My emotions may burn hotter than his, but I know better than to think he doesn’t have them.
As far as demons go, Cal is pretty laid back, but shit like this... It gets to him.
We live in a brutal world of power, greed, and blood. If you don’t have a supernatural leg up, you better be close to someone who does. It’s why I can’t truly blame the bartender for her cowardice. She’s just trying to survive.
Our enclave’s territory stretches from Colorado to Idaho, each foot carved out over decades of fighting. If we don’t defend these communities, we lose them. It’s that simple. These fuckers need to know they can't take our people and get away with it.
We stopabout a mile from the coordinates the bartender overheard, grab our weapons, and share our location with the enclave just in case. We decide to go the rest of the way on foot and rely on our senses to warn us if anyone is nearby.
The field is covered with the type of grass that rustles noisily in the wind and hides a fuck ton of holes in the ground. We have to focus on our feet to avoid twisting an ankle. Still, we’re pretty quiet. The only sounds that break the silence are swishing grass and the occasional hoot of an owl.
After what feels like a lifetime of walking, a big barn appears in the darkness. There’s a soft glow emanating from the rough cracks in the walls, and the thing looks like it’s one strong kick away from returning to a pile of wood on the ground.
Callum’s night vision isn’t quite as good as mine. When he sends a questioning look at me, I shake my head. Even with my supernatural eyesight, I can't make out much more from here. I focus instead on what I can hear and smell, closing my eyes to remove distractions. With one sense removed, the others heighten.
A gust of wind blows our way, bringing with it the unmistakable stench of piss, shit, and unwashed bodies. Iwrinkle my nose, separating the scents and trying not to gag. There are several types of shifter—all lower tiers. Now that I’ve isolated my targets, I can make out the rumble of multiple male voices. Two... no, three men, unless I missed someone, and the faint sound of a woman crying. My nostrils flair as a tremor rocks my body. This is definitely the place.
Time to crack some heads.
Opening my eyes, I hand Callum my pistol and strip off my sweats and t-shirt, stuffing them inside his backpack. When he claps his hand on my arm, my vision tunnels. By the time I get my rage under control, he’s leveling me with a concerned look.
He wants reassurance that I’m not going to do anything reckless.
I nod shortly, not sure I actually mean it, then funnel all my angry energy into shifting into a rat. While I'm not usually a fan of transforming into prey animals, my omni nature really comes in handy sometimes, especially in moments where I need to be stealthy.
Everyone would notice a lion. But a sniveling rodent? No one blinks twice. The only thing I have to worry about now is getting spotted by one of those owls we heard on the way in.
Wasting no time, I scurry towards the barn, feeling dirt beneath my paws and blades of grass brushing against my flanks. It takes all of thirty seconds to cross the field and find a crack in the wall to peek through.
Three men sit huddled around a bottle of whiskey and a dog-eared set of playing cards. There are several cheap skull masks lying on the ground near their feet. Bingo. My nose twitches. In this form, the stench is impossible to miss, but two of them smell like wolves to me. The third may be some kind of bird shifter, but the B.O. makes it hard to know for sure.
Their backs are turned to three captive women stuffed naked in a single dog kennel. Thankfully, they all appear to be alive.
Two seem like prey shifters, maybe rabbits or squirrels. Both are common enough in this area but often lack protection. They must be the missing bar employees. The third woman is slightly bigger than the other two, and she’s not acting scared. She’s angry.
The alpha wolf’s niece.
I'm about to go report my findings to Callum when one of the smaller shifters slumps against the side of the cage. Her scream rips through the night, loud, agonized, and raspy. With the way the others don’t even flinch, this isn’t the first time.
These assholes have electrified the cage.
The captives can't even rest without fear of immediate—totally fucking unnecessary—pain. The smallest woman curls herself in a tight ball, her muscles trembling as tears roll down her face. Laughter from the three shits playing cards drowns out her whimpers. I grind my teeth. They’ve sealed their fate.
Without another thought, I rush around the corner at a dead sprint, transforming from rat to lion mid-stride. My organs grow, my bones elongate, and the sharp pain that rips into me as I’m remade only fuels my rage.
As I crash through the barn door, I rip the heads from the shoulders of the first two vermin in my path with no resistance. My teeth and claws tear through their skin like butter.
Most colors are absent from my vision in this form, but every line is crisp as I sentence them to death for their crimes. I watch the life fade from their eyes with satisfaction, tasting iron from their blood on my tongue. When I turn to the sole survivor, urine runs down his leg.
