"Jax!" I yell, my voice carrying over the roar of the fire.
He is twenty yards away, surrounded by five men with silver-loaded assault rifles. They are pouring fire into him.
I watch the bullets hit his flank.
Normally, silver burns. It poisons. It kills the healing factor.
But Jax doesn't slow down.
The bullets hit his thick fur and flatten, or they penetrate and are immediately pushed out. His body rejects the poison. The bond—the magic we forged on that table—is burning through his veins, hotter than the silver. He is immune. He is Silver’s heir by proxy.
He roars, a sound of pure, terrifying joy.
He tears through the squad. He doesn't just bite; he creates chaos. He swipes a man’s legs out from under him, crushing his chest on the landing. He catches a rifle barrel in his teeth and rips it from the Hunter’s hands, swinging it like a club to crack a skull.
He looks at me across the carnage.
His muzzle is stained red. His gold eyes are burning.
He looks at me, naked and blood-streaked, standing amidst the bodies of men who thought they were the predators.
Hegrins. It’s a wolfish, toothy expression of pride.
My mate,the connection hums in my head.My Queen.
"Finish it," I call out to him.
He howls, and I run to meet him.
We move as a synchronized unit. He goes low, taking out legs; I go high, taking out throats. We are a machine built for war. I vault off his back to reach a sniper in a tree stand, dragging him down to the earth. He circles a heavy gunner, distracting him so I can flank and sever the fuel line of the generator powering the floodlights.
Snap.
The cable parts in my hands.
The floodlights die.
Darkness reclaims the swamp.
For the Hunters, this is the end. They are blind, terrified men in a bog filled with monsters.
For us, the fun is just starting.
I see heat signatures. I hear heartbeats drumming like panicked rabbits.
Some of the hunters break rank. They drop their weapons. They turn and run, scrambling over each other in the mud, screaming for mercy that isn't coming.
I step onto a fallen log, looking down at the fleeing mass. I am covered in blood that isn't mine. I am naked, armed with claws and a stolen knife, and I have never felt more alive.
I tilt my head back. The sound builds in my chest—not a scream, but a declaration.
I howl.
It is the sound of the hybrid. It carries the terror of the vampire and the fury of the wolf. It echoes through the trees, freezing the blood of every human within five miles.
Below me, the Hunters stop running. They look up, paralyzed by a primal, lizard-brain terror.
They realize, too late, that they didn't invade a swamp. They walked into a grinder.
