“Okay boy, we need the stun gun,” Kiera told him. She turned and ran for the home-dome.
Inside, she went straight to the emergency cabinet near the entryway and pulled out the heavy—duty stun rifle she kept for absolute worst—case scenarios. It was built to drop a charging predator with one direct hit—assuming your hands were steady enough to aim, and the weapon was properly calibrated.
Her hands were not steady.
Still, she gripped it tightly and forced herself back outside. She couldn’t leave the Vorn on the loose–it was an apex predator–leaving it loose was dangerous and irresponsible.
Buck stayed glued to her leg as they began searching but the sanctuary suddenly felt very different now.
No longer was it her beautiful, carefully tended refuge. Now every stand of chiming trees and every fold in the rolling red hills looked like a place something could be hiding. Every rustle in the meadow grass made her jump. The wind moving through the cinnamon trunks sounded too much like stealthy breathing.
Kiera followed the signs as best she could—broken brush…churned earth…the occasional smear of blood.
At one point she found one of the Vorn’s tentacular jaw—fronds snagged on a low branch and her stomach turned over.
The huge beast was close–too close.
The trail led toward a dense little copse of the chiming trees where the ground dipped into a shallow hollow full of reddish scrub and long silver grass.
Kiera slowed, her eyes scanning the landscape for the slightest hint of motion.
“Buck,” she whispered. “Stay close.”
The big wolf was already doing that–every muscle in his huge body was tight as wire. Kiera was glad all over that he was with her.
She took one careful step forward…then another. The chiming leaves whispered overhead, eerie and delicate. The morning seemed to hold its breath.
And then the Vorn charged.
It exploded out of the trees in a blur of dark muscle and red—smeared jaws, its massive body moving with horrifying speed for something so big. Its tentacles flared on either side of its mouth and its three concentric rows of teeth flashed wet and bright as it came straight for her.
Kiera screamed and fired.
The stun gun gave a sick metallic click. No blast. No charge. No nothing.
It was jammed.
“Oh God!” she gasped, throwing herself sideways as the Vorn barreled past, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of her. The stun gun flew from her hands and landed several feet away in the scrub.
The Vorn skidded, turned, and came at her again with a low snarling hum that made her blood freeze. Kiera scrambled backward on her hands and knees, panic hitting her in one huge suffocating wave. Oh God–was this how she died? Mauled to death on her own sanctuary?
The Vorn advanced again. It was blood—gorged and furious now–its bright red gullet gleaming behind those awful teeth. One of its jaw—tentacles twitched, tasting the air, and fixed on her.
But before it could charge again, Buck launched himself between them.
He stood braced and snarling, hackles high, lips peeled back from his fangs.
For one terrible instant, Kiera felt pure despair–not even her wonderful wolf was a match for an enraged Vorn, and she didn’t want to watch him die.
“Buck—no!” she cried…and then something happened.
His skin rippled.
There was no other way to describe it–it seemed to shiver and roll over his huge body like water disturbed by a sudden wind. His spine arched and then his limbs lengthened and twisted. Fur drew back even as muscle surged and reshaped beneath it.
The whole thing happened faster than she could truly follow—as though the world had blurred for half a second and then snapped back into focus.
Where Buck had stood, there was now a huge humanoid male.
