The Hunter twists the blade.
The wolf screams—a human sound in an animal throat.
The "calibrated" feeling in my chest shatters. The cold, efficient predator vanishes, replaced by a wave of nausea so violent it nearly doubles me over.
That isn't a monster down there. That isn't a soldier. That is a child. Probably a kid who likes bad jokes and stealing extra biscuits. And he is dying in the mud because ofme.
The reality of it hits me harder than any bullet. They aren't just fighting; they are being slaughtered. For a stranger. For a Duval.
The breath leaves my lungs in an agonizing whoosh. My knees hit the floorboards, the strength draining out of my legs as the guilt crushes the air from the room. I watch the blood pool around the boy’s flank, and I feel the phantom echo of the blade in my own gut—not magic, but empathy so sharp it feels like I’m bleeding out with him.
24
JAX
War smells like copper and diesel.
I am a blur of black fur and violence, a creature of shadow moving through the strobe-light nightmare of the floodlights. I don't feel the mud sucking at my paws. I don't feel the brambles tearing at my coat. I only feel the recoil of impact as I slam into a Hunter, my jaws snapping shut around the Kevlar of his throat guard.
He tastes of synthetic fabric and terror.
I throw him aside, ragdolling a two-hundred-pound man, and pivot.
The yard is a slaughterhouse.
My Pack is fighting, but they are losing ground. The UV lights are blinding them, searing their retinas, making them stumble. I see Vance take a round to the shoulder, spinning him around. I see another wolf—one of the elders—limping, trailing blood.
I snarl, a sound that vibrates in my chest cavity, and launch myself at the next target.
Rip. Tear. Silence.
I clear a path toward the porch. I need to get to the cabin. I need to get toher.
Then I see her.
Miranda is on her knees in the shattered doorway. She isn't looking at me. She’s looking at the ground below the porch, where the younger twin lies in a pool of his own blood. She looks small. Pale. Her hands are covered in red—Hunter blood or Pack blood, I can't tell—and her face is a mask of devastation.
She stumbles forward, her hand reaching out as if she can pull the life back into the boy.
No.
Panic spikes in my gut, hotter than the rage. She’s exposed. She’s in the open.
I scramble over the hood of a wrecked truck, claws screeching on metal, desperate to put my body between her and the firing line. I take down a Hunter who raises a rifle at her, snapping his arm like a dry twig.
I turn to run to her.
I don't see him until it’s too late.
Gregor steps out from behind the generator shed. He isn't wearing standard tactical gear. He’s wearing a heavy, rubberized coat and holding a custom rifle. It doesn't look like a weapon of war; it looks like a medical instrument.
He locks eyes with me. He smiles.
Thwip.
There is no bang. Just the hiss of compressed air.
Something hits my right flank.
