Declan's grey wolf explodes through the southern window. He lands among the enhanced shifters with jaws snapping, ripping through tactical gear and flesh with decades of combat experience driving each strike.
Rafe flows through the shattered doorway, panther form darker than the shadows he moves through. He takes down an operative before the man can raise his weapon, moving with the silence that makes panthers apex predators.
The eastern wall cracks. Grayson doesn't bother with subtlety. The great bear hits stone hard enough to create his own entrance, sending chunks of thick wall scattering across the floor. He catches an operative in his jaws and shakes once before dropping the corpse.
And Finn.
The cottage shakes. The heat floods through the broken windows as dragon-fire turns the clearing into an inferno. I can't see him from inside, but I feel the temperature spike, smell burning flesh and melting tactical gear. Operatives scream. The smell of charred meat fills the air.
We move like we've fought together for years. Declan herds attackers toward Grayson's devastating strikes. Rafe eliminates threats from unexpected angles. I use speed and precision to target weak points, to disable and destroy with the surgical focus that comes from years of survival as an exile.
Blood soaks the floor. Bodies pile in corners.
An operative raises a rifle toward Catriona's position. I'm moving before conscious thought, launching myself across the cottage in a single bound. The rifle cracks. Pain explodes through my chest as the bullet punches through fur and muscle, burying itself near vital organs.
I ignore it. I have to ignore it. The operative dies with my jaws around his throat before he can fire again.
I land hard, favoring my injured side. The world tilts. The bullet burns with a heat that tells me it's silver or something worse. My body tries to expel the foreign object, but it's wedged too deep, resisting immediate rejection.
"Kian!" Catriona's voice cuts through the battle noise.
I shift back to human form. The transformation pulls another wave of agony through my chest. The bullet wound bleeds freely now. Catriona is beside me in seconds, her hands pressing against the injury.
"You stupid, reckless bastard." Her voice shakes despite the steady pressure she maintains. "That was meant for me."
"I know." Speaking hurts. Breathing hurts. Everything hurts with a bullet lodged near my heart. "You're welcome."
The battle continues around us. Declan's wolf tears through operatives. Grayson smashes through the last of the syndicate's bear shifters. Rafe appears and disappears like smoke moving between shadows. Finn's flames consume everything the syndicate sent against us.
Then I hear it. A sound that pulls my tiger forward despite the injury. A whimper. Young and scared, wrong in ways that have nothing to do with combat.
A wolf emerges from behind the overturned couch. Female. Young, barely past adolescence in shifter years. Her fur shows the same unnatural enhancements as the other syndicate shifters, but something in her eyes is different. Recognition instead of the cold calculation I've seen in trained killers.
She's staring at Catriona.
The young wolf shifts. Silvery mist swirls around her despite the chaos, and a girl appears where the wolf once stood. She's naked and shaking, enhanced muscles evident beneath skin that shows old scars and fresh burns. She's been tortured and experimented on. Turned into a weapon she never chose to become.
"You're the one who saved them." Her voice cracks. Russian accent thick. "The selkies. You got them out."
Catriona lowers her weapon slightly, though she doesn't drop it. "Yes."
"My sister." The girl's eyes fill with tears that spill down her cheeks. Her hands shake violently. "They took her. Turned her. Enhanced her. She screamed for days during the process. I could hear her through the walls. They made me listen."
Grayson appears in the doorway in human form, covered in gore from the battle. He reads the situation instantly, moving toward the girl with surprising gentleness for a bear shifter who just tore through enemy forces.
"We're not your enemies. The syndicate is. Zharkov is. We know what they're doing to you."
"I know." The girl's voice drops to a whisper. "I know what they do. But if we resist, they kill our families. If we run, they hunt us down and make examples. There's no escape from what they've made us."
"There is now." Grayson extends his hand. "You come with us. Tell us everything you know about their operations. Help us shut them down. We'll protect you."
The girl stares at his offered hand for a long moment. Then she takes it.
Outside, the battle has ended. Bodies litter the clearing, smoke rising where Finn's flames consumed tactical gear and flesh. The cottage stands half-destroyed, walls cracked and windows shattered, furniture destroyed by supernatural violence.
But we're alive. All of us. And we have a prisoner who might provide the intelligence we need to take down Zharkov's operation.
I lean against Catriona, the bullet wound in my chest burning with every breath. My tiger retreats slowly, allowing human awareness to process what just happened. The syndicate sent an entire squad of enhanced shifters to kill us. Military-grade weapons. Coordinated attack. Professional execution.
