I arched an eyebrow in the guards’ direction and his lips pulled back in a murderous snarl.
All it took was a nod.
With a roar, he launched forward—a blur of black muscle and death.
With a single lope, he flung himself onto the three huddling guards as if they were made of kindling. Two went down. One staggered into a run. And James—the guy who used to help the nurses strap me to the chair and forcibly take my blood when I was younger—met my eyes for a single, terrified heartbeat before Whisper left the guards he’d bowled over and pounced like a sinuous shadow.
James went to scream but gurgled instead as sharp fangs punctured his throat.
Whisper growled with his mouth full, letting every savage instinct come out to play.
It wasn’t a clean kill.
James scrambled and clawed at the beast, falling onto his back as Whisper pinned him to the wet grass. He kicked and thrashed. He squirmed and punched...but it was no use.
Cartilage gave way with a wet crack. Blood spurted as sharp teeth found an artery.
With a vicious shake of his head, Whisper tore through tendons and windpipe all at once.
James’s arms fell to the side as he died, wide and upturned, rain puddling in his slack palms. Blood poured out in thick choking spurts as Whisper spat out a mouthful of gore then sprinted after the other guards.
They didn’t get far.
It looked as if the panther grew wings as he pounced onto an older guard, all four paws shredding his back as he drove him face-first into the ground. Claws pinned him down, teeth sinking into the back of his neck as Whisper dispatched him as easily as murdering an unlucky antelope.
The other two men screamed and ran as fast as they could.
A streak of bloody midnight galloped after them.
Leaving Whisper to have fun, I headed to James’s corpse.
Dropping to my haunches, ignoring the quick blackout of my vision, I blinked away the spots and popped the clasp on his holster.
I palmed his gun.
The weight of it took me by surprise. The deadly feel of a machine designed to deliver death. I’d never held one, but I’d read enough novels to know the one thing that got everyone into trouble was not removing the safety.
Scowling, I inspected the weapon.
Safety.
Where exactly was—
“Ah.” My thumb found a small switch. I flicked it. And just to be sure, I aimed into the sky and squeezed the trigger.
TheBANGalmost blew out my eardrums. The kickback sent my arm jerking.
The two sprinting men looked over their shoulders, running wild and messy with Whisper taking his sweet time hunting them.
I’d never shot a target, let alone a moving one, but...there was a first time for everything.
Whisper went to leap onto the back of the slowest guard, but I whistled, stopping him mid-leap. “Come here.”
Instantly, the panther swivelled in the air and raced back toward me. Out of range. Away from my likely terrible shot. Only once he was safely by my side did I open fire.
Bang, bang, bang,bang.
I emptied the magazine.
