I started inching backward when he hissed, “You move, Ishoot.”
His hound snarled, and then it didn’t. Bones snapped. And thensilence.
I strained to look behind me, but my vision was hazy withfear.
“They just killed my dog,” Aidan whispered, a manic inflection to histone.
Who’d justkilled—
He shoved the barrel of his rifle into my chest, jerking my attention back to him. “They leave me no choice but to killtheirs.”
Theirs?Was he referring to me? Adrenaline spiked through me, clearing the haze. I gripped the barrel and shoved it upward. A shot detonated. I jammed the butt of the rifle hard into his shoulder blade. His grip faltered, but he didn’t drop theweapon.
Growls resonated behind me, and Aidan’s eyes turned wild with bloodlust. He cocked the rifle. I tried to ram it into his shoulder again, but sweat had slickened my palms, and my hands slipped. Aidan ripped the rifle from my fingers and pointed it at the wolves behindme.
The wolves who’d just come to help. Who didn’t deserve to getshot.
“Go!” I yelled as I stepped in front of the still-warmmuzzle.
My heart spun like a flicked top. I shrieked the word again, but neither wolf moved. I could smell them mere feet away from me, like I could smell the sharp stench ofgunpowder.
Aidan’s knuckleflexed.
My body reacted. My fingernails lengthened into claws. I punched the rifle away again. The shot flew wide. As he actioned the bolt, I swiped my claws over his sideburns, ripping hair and skin. Blood dribbled down histhroat.
“You little cunt,” hegrowled.
I bounced away from him as he stared at his bloodied fingers, momentarily forgetting about the weapon in his hands. Why had I stepped back? I shouldn’t have stepped back… I needed to take the rifle fromhim.
I lunged for him again, and he swung the rifle into my cheek. My neck cracked, but I didn’t fall. The hot metal barrel scorched my skin, and the blow had my earsringing.
“Crazy bitch!” He shouldered his rifleagain.
“Better not shoot me in human form,” I said. “You wouldn’t be able to pass it off as a…huntingaccident.”
He angled the gun’s muzzle on my thigh. My ears rang louder. If he spoke, if the wolves behind me howled, the sounds were lost tome.
Aidan smiled, and his knuckle whitened on thetrigger.
The stink of gunfire tore through the air at the same time my body rocketed sideways. My head glanced against the flagstones so hard pale stars exploded in the corner of my vision. I blinked sluggishly. The world came back into focus, but all I could see wasdarkness.
Dense, softblackness.
I reached out, and my fingertips metfur.
Even though moving made my skull scream in pain, I shifted to see past thefur.
A black wolf lay on top ofme.
He’d knocked me out of the bullet’s path, but now he was crushing my lungs. I shifted again, this time extricating my body from underneath thebeast.
A volley of snarls and screams echoed next to me. Gritting my teeth, I twisted toward the cacophony. A gray wolf was on top of Aidan, fangs bared at the psycho’s ashen, pulpy face. Aidan’s lips moved. The bastard was still alive. How I wished he weredead.
He spit at the wolf. It struck the man’s face with its giant paw. Aidan’s cheek slammed hard against the sticky, wet stones. His purple-veined lids slid shut, lashes fluttering against sallowskin.
I pressed my shaky palm against the ground and heaved myself into a sittingposition.
The gray wolf magicked away his fur and claws and fangs.Lucas. He whipped his head toward me. The area around his mouth was tinged crimson, and his black hair was as wild as his bluegaze.
