It was Eamon.
He hadn’t shifted. I didn’t know why, but his hands were already moving with a doctor’s speed. He pushed me aside gently, pressing a clean cloth to Seamus’s chest.
“Hold onto it, here,” Eamon ordered. “It needs pressure to stop the bleeding.”
Seamus’s eyes fluttered shut.
Eamon’s jaw tightened. “Stay with me.”
The ferals didn’t give him time. Two more surged through a gap in the line. One of my wolves snarled somewhere nearby. I stood, knife slick in my hand, heart hammering.
A feral lunged at Eamon from behind. I threw myself into it, shoulder slamming into its ribs. We hit the ground together. Its teeth snapped inches from my face, hot breath rancid and wet, and I drove my knife into its throat without hesitation.
Blood gushed over my fingers.
The feral gurgled, convulsed, went still.
I pushed it off and spun, but then I saw Clara take a hit. A feral had slipped around the flank and slammed into her, claws raking down her arm. Her rifle flew from her grip. She staggered, teeth bared in pain, and Corporal James Rowe rushed to her side, trying to drag her back.
“Go!” Clara snapped, shoving him away with her uninjured hand. “Hold the line!”
Rowe hesitated for half a second too long and the feral turned on him.
It hit him like a truck, jaws closing around his shoulder, dragging him down hard. Rowe screamed, thrashing as he tried to get his knife up.
He didn’t make it.
Griff hit the feral from the side, tearing it off Rowe with brute force, but the damage was already done. Rowe lay twisted on the ground, blood spilling fast, face pale white with shock.
“No—” Clara choked, crawling toward him.
Eamon was there in seconds, but it was too late. Rowe’s eyes found mine for a split second, glassy and stunned. His lips moved like he wanted to say something.
Then he went still.
Elias’s wolf roared, the sound cutting through the chaos. He launched forward, driving ferals back from the collapsing flank, forcing them into the open where the humans could take them out with bullet fire. He shifted back to a human for a moment to shout orders.
“Regroup!” he snapped. “Two steps back, tighten up!”
We followed his orders, shoulders brushing against one another, weapons raised, wolves and humans moving together like we’d rehearsed it a thousand times.
The ferals surged again.
More and more poured from the trees, a writhing mass of teeth and broken bodies.
“They don’t stop,” Griff snarled, shifting back to human for half a second just to shout, then shifting again.
A feral leapt at me.
I caught it midair with my forearm braced and my knife driving up into its belly. It slammed into me anyway, weight crushing, and we went down hard. My back hit the dirt. Stars burst behind my eyes, but I didn’t let that stop me.
I shoved, rolled, came up on my knees.
Bishop’s wolf streaked past, ripping into the feral that tried to follow up. Nox’s wolf appeared out of nowhere, taking down one on the edge with brutal efficiency. Elias’s dark wolf moved like a knife through butter, carving a path through the mayhem.
The yard rang with snarls and gunfire and the sound of bodies colliding. Moonlight turned blood black. Breath came in ragged bursts, lungs burning with cold air and adrenaline.
I wiped my knife quickly on my sleeve, eyes locked on the tree line.
