“Krystle, answer me! Say something!” Flora screamed.
The lock turned, and the door swung open. Krystle stood there, naked. She must have just shifted back into human form. Her pupils were enormous.
“The fire,” she panted. “The power. It’s back. I think it’s because you’re here.”
“We have to get Madison,” Flora said, rushing out into the hallway. Two guards lay there, still smoking. Flora gagged on the smell.
“It’s you,” Krystle said. “That’s the secret. That’s the answer. When I was near my mother, I had the power too. I only have the power when I’m near a female relative.” Then she grinned fiercely at Flora. “We can burn them, Flora. We can burn them all.”
“Help us! Let us out!” women’s voices cried out from the cells up and down the hallway.
They began running from door to door, unlocking them.
Women came stumbling out, eyes wide and panicked. They were pale and had dark circles under their eyes. Ruben’s prisoners.
Jennifer was in one of the rooms. As the door swung open, she lunged at Flora, snarling and hissing – and then screamed, when her fur caught on fire. She hurled herself to the ground, rolling frantically to put the fire out and shrieking “My face! Not my face! You’ve ruined my face, you’ve ruined it!”
Madison came flying out of one of the rooms when they opened the door for her. “Where’s Sam? Is he here too?” she demanded, looking around wildly.
“Sam and Sarah are fine. They went to Hudson territory. Come on – we have to get out of here,” Flora said.
When Krystle opened the door at the end of the hallway, several of Ruben’s men, in bear form, rushed at them – and then burst into flames and screamed in agony. They stumbled and fell to the floor. Madison shrieked and fell back in horror, bumping into several of the other women, who were crowded together by the door.
As they stood there, they heard the sounds of shouting and snarls coming from the street. Screeching tires, honking horns, screaming. Gunshots.
“What’s happening out there?” Madison demanded frantically.
“We’re about to find out,” Krystle muttered, and they all hurried past the dead bodies of the guards and down the stairs.
“Where are the rest of Ruben’s men?” Flora wondered.
As soon as they made their way outside, they found out. All of Ruben’s men must have run outside to try to protect their stronghold. The street was full of brawling shifters, most in animal form.
There were hundreds of lions and big cats and wolves swarming over about a hundred of Ruben’s men – and they were joined by bears.
Apparently the bears had had it with Ruben’s abuse, and were joining up with the Hudsons’ men.
Ruben was trying to drive away in a Hummer. His men pointed machine guns out the windows and began spray the crowd with bullets.
Krystle swung around and glared at the car. Flora joined her, concentrated, and she could feel her rage mingling with Krystle’s and flowing from her like a physical force. The guns glowed red, and the men dropped them, screaming in agony.
The car burst into flames that leaped ten feet into the air. Ruben and his men scrambled out of the car and fell onto the pavement, roaring in fear and rage. They quickly shifted into bear form and rose to their hind legs, eight feet high, bellowing.
Finn, in lion form, came racing through the crowd, and Flora’s breath caught in her throat. He was enormous, his mane flowing in the breeze, but could he take on Ruben’s bear?
She saw Liam, also in lion form, pacing back and forth, watching the confrontation. He wouldn’t interfere; Ruben had taken Finn’s woman, and among shifters, the law called for Finn to take his revenge.
Kraken, Ruben’s right-hand thug, moved to step in front of him, roaring defiance at the oncoming lion, but Ruben turned on him with a vicious snarl and a brutal swipe of his paw. He might be a coward who bullied and abused women, but even he knew he couldn’t let the entire town of Darwin see his hired muscle fighting his battles for him. He looked half-mad with rage, with his fur still smoldering in places and his eyes a burning red from the acrid smoke. His mighty chest heaved and strings of slaver dripped from his jaws as he bellowed at his bodyguards.
Kraken and the others cowered and dropped to all fours, settling back but keeping up a low, rumbling growl that seemed like ominous thunder. The air felt stormy despite the clear skies, and Flora felt a bead of sweat trickle down her temple. She didn’t move to wipe it away, transfixed by the sight of the massive, scarred bear and the sleek, powerful lion circling each other, sizing each other up.
Ruben moved first, taking a ponderous swipe at Finn with a paw the size of a hubcap, but the blow was clumsy and driven by fury. Finn twisted out of the way with agile strength and grace. He bounded around the rearing bear and launched himself onto its back, wrapping his forelimbs around Ruben’s thick neck and trying to tear at his windpipe with his claws. But bears were frighteningly strong, and Ruben hadn’t reached the top by being a weakling among his kind. He gave a convulsive heave and sent Finn flying through the air. He hit the ground with a sickening thud and tumbled to a stop. There was a ragged gasp from the crowd, and one of the women from Ruben’s cells gave a low, hopeless cry and pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
Finn clambered painfully to his feet, blood seeping from his mouth and nose, and shook his head, sending arcs of hot crimson droplets spattering into the crowd. He seemed dazed, and Flora’s heart lurched as he moved woozily towards Ruben.
Finn slunk forward, low to the ground. Ruben took his slow, careful movements for submission. The big bear rose to his full height, his triumphant roar booming across the crowd and causing a tense, horrified hush to fall.
But Flora knew Finn better than that. Ruben, with his hair product and his flunkies and his honest-to-God golden throne, was all about showing his power. The Hudsons didn’t work that way. Finn didn’t need to strut around playing King of the Jungle. If he wanted someone dead, that person was as good as cold and buried.
No threats. No bluster. He just hurled himself at Ruben in a golden blur of motion, muscles bunching and releasing with powerful precision, and with teeth and claws he ripped open the brute’s belly. Glistening loops of silvery-gray intestine slithered to the floor, along with gouts of thick, dark blood that splattered on the ground and spread into deep pools that crept together and merged.
Ruben staggered for an endless moment, as if he could keep fighting even with his insides ripped out, fueled only by his shock and fury. Then he fell.
Finn stepped back and, with a ripple in the air around him, switched back to human form and stared down at Ruben with a solemn expression on his face.
Several of the women who’d been held in his cells pushed their way through the crowd and stalked over to the massive bear, who lay sprawled in a pool of his own blood. They spat on his twitching body, and he feebly swiped at them before his eyes went dull and he lay still.
