They were wrong.
Massive, twisted blends of animal traits—too many limbs, distorted muscle, eyes glowing with something feral and unfinished.Nothing about them moved cleanly.They charged with brute force and wild hunger, tearing into security lines with claws and teeth.
The fight was brutal.
E.S.E.met them head-on, disciplined fury against uncontrolled violence.Lions hit in coordinated packs, roaring as they drove hybrids back with crushing force, claws and teeth ending the fight fast.Bears took the brunt of the impact, massive bodies slamming together hard enough to crack concrete, absorbing blows that would have torn anything else apart.Wolves moved fast and lethal, darting in and out of reach, hamstringing, ripping throats, never stopping.Razorbacks crashed through the flanks like living battering rams, breaking lines, leaving nothing standing behind them.
Riley dropped to her knees beside the first fallen guard, the world narrowing to blood and breath.Her hands were already slick as she assessed the damage—deep claw marks torn across his chest, muscle visible, blood pumping with every frantic heartbeat.
“Stay with me,” she said calmly, voice steady even as chaos roared around them.She pressed hard, sealing one wound, then another.“Look at me.You’re not dying today.”
A roar shook the air close enough that dust fell from the building.Something huge slammed into a Bear only meters away, both of them crashing to the ground in a tangle of claws and teeth.
The guard gasped.“There’s ...another one...”
“I know,” Riley said, already shifting her weight as she tied him off, securing pressure and buying time.“I’ve got you.Help is coming.”
She was on her feet and moving to the second downed guard when the man behind her screamed.
Riley turned just in time to see his eyes go wide—not at her, but past her.
Then something hit her from behind.
Pain detonated at the back of her skull, bright and absolute.The world shattered into white noise and spinning light.
And then everything went dark.
****
Dorian felt it theinstant it happened.
Not sight.Not sound.
A violent, tearing absence ripped through the bond—like something vital had been cut clean away—and his wolf reared back inside his skin with a snarl that tore from his throat before he could stop it.The world tilted, sharpened, every sense screaming danger.
Riley.
He spun, heart hammering, just in time to see her—limp, bloodied—being hauled toward a waiting car by something that moved wrong even before it shifted.Its proportions were off, shoulders too broad, gait uneven, like a body fighting against its own design.Her head lolled against its shoulder, dark hair swinging loose, one arm dangling bonelessly at her side.
“No—!”
Rafe was already moving, the same raw sound tearing out of him as they both lunged forward on instinct alone, every cell in Dorian’s body screaming to tear the distance apart.
They didn’t make it.
A hybrid slammed into Dorian from the side with bone-shattering force.Claws raked across his ribs as they hit the ground hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.Pain flared sharp and hot, but it barely registered.Nothing mattered except the sight of their mate being taken.
The car screeched away in a spray of gravel and blood, engine screaming as it fishtailed and vanished down the access road.
Gone.
There had been eight hybrids when the fight began.Dorian counted automatically, a habit drilled into him by years of violence and survival.
Now there were five.
Still too many.
Still fucking hard to kill.
