Everything exploded at once.
The humans from the Watch behind us fired. A feral yelped as a bullet clipped its shoulder and it spun sideways,crashing into another, and suddenly the line of ferals wasn’t a neat charge anymore, it was a messy, panicked pileup.
Griff shifted mid-stride.
One blink he was human and the next his body rippled and expanded into a massive brindled wolf, dark fur streaked with storm gray and iron. He launched forward like a cannon shot, slamming into the lead feral and driving it down into the gravel with a snarl that shook the air.
Bishop shifted into a sleek black wolf with a sharp white blaze across his chest and throat, eyes bright with intelligence. He darted in low, biting a feral with one quick snap of his muzzle and then springing back before teeth could find him.
Nox shifted when it served him.
Half the time he stayed human, darting between bodies with a blade in each hand, slipping under snapping jaws and raking claws with movements so fluid they barely registered as human at all. He used the ferals’ momentum against them. He sidestepped charges, hooked an elbow around a neck, and drove steel home before they could recover.
When he did shift, it was sudden and devastating.
One heartbeat human, the next a lean, dark-coated wolf flowing through the chaos like a living shadow. His coat was a deep charcoal, nearly black, swallowing moonlight rather than reflecting it. He hit the ferals from the sides and rear, never head-on, ripping at hamstrings and throats, and vanishing again before teeth could close on him.
I saw him save three people in under a minute.
Elias shifted too. His wolf was midnight dark, almost blue-black under the moonlight, broad-chested and powerful with eyes that caught the light like cold fire.
“Keep the line!” Clara shouted behind us, her rifle steady against her shoulder. “Don’t let them break through!”
A second wave of feral wolves surged forward. One barreled straight at me, saliva flying, yellow eyes locked on my throat like it had been promised me as its next meal.
I met it head-on.
I stepped into the charge at the last second, turned my shoulder, and drove my knife up under its ribs. The blade sank in with a wet, sickening give. The feral screamed in agony and I twisted hard, ripping the blade free. Blood sprayed across my hands and the front of my shirt.
The feral collapsed at my feet, twitching.
There was no time to think because another lunged at me a second later.
I ducked, rolled, and came up with my knife already in motion. I slashed across its muzzle, saw it recoil, and then Griff was there, his teeth burrowing into its shoulder and hurling it sideways like it weighed nothing.
A feral crashed into one of the humans dressed in an oil-stained jacket with his hands wrapped around a crowbar; Seamus, I think his name was. The feral’s claws raked across his chest, tearing fabric and flesh, and he screamed as he went down.
“Seamus!” Clara shouted.
He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. Blood spread dark beneath him.
The feral raised its head to finish him.
I moved without thought.
I sprinted, boots slipping on gravel slick with blood, and leapt onto the feral’s back. My knife went down into the base of its skull with everything I had. The blade jolted in my hand as it hit bone. The feral convulsed, bucked, then went limp.
I rolled off and hit the ground hard, lungs burning.
Seamus stared up at me, eyes wide, face pale. “Tamsin?—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, dropping to my knees beside him. My hands pressed to his wound automatically, trying to slow the bleeding. “Don’t talk.”
His lips trembled. “They’re… everywhere.”
“I know.”
A shadow fell over us, and I flicked a quick glance over my shoulder.
