think his friends are—” A slice of sound caught his attention, and he jerked at his seatbelt as he tried to pinpoint its source.
Snarls. Whines. The snap of jaws and teeth.
“Stay here,” he told Eden. Too clipped, brusque, but he needed for her to understand. “Get down and stay here, no matter what happens. Say it.”
Her eyes blazed with irritation, as if she wasn’t used to orders, but she wasn’t stupid, either. She unfastened her belt and hunched low in the seat. “I’ll stay here.”
Did she know? Her warnings had been vague but desperate, as if she suspected the truth and wanted to tell him but didn’t know how. “If things go south, get your ass over here behind the wheel and get back to town.” But Jay trembled, his hand on the door. He couldn’t leave her alone and unarmed, so he unsnapped his holster and held out his pistol. “If you have to, if anything comes after you—”
Her fingers brushed his, but she didn’t take the gun. “You hear something.”
She knew, all right. “Anything, Eden. Point and shoot, then get the hell out of here.”
His need to protect her still at odds with his duty, Jay took off around the side of the house. The sounds of fighting grew louder as he approached the woods behind the barn, and he stopped and stripped off his clothes as quickly as possible.
As soon as he knelt and coaxed the slow burn of magic inside him into the conflagration that would bring his change, Jay caught sight of a man dragging a woman out of the trees. Her pink hair stood out in the moonlight, a bright spot of color against the dark forest.
Her attacker jerked to a halt, his head whipping toward Jay. His mouth curved into a feral smile, undoubtedly at catching Jay in the vulnerable moments just before a shift. But as the stranger took a step forward, the girl twisted, raking her nails across his cheek in a desperate attempt to escape.
He slapped her hard enough to drive her to her knees, and Jay took advantage of the man’s distraction to finish his transformation. Wild, instinctive satisfaction filled him. If the stranger thought him weak, that it would take him long minutes to struggle through the change from man to wolf, he’d be fatally disappointed.
Jay sprang forward with a growl.
The man spun, wrenching his body out of the path of Jay’s charge with an angry roar. The girl scrambled to her feet with the speed of a werewolf and bolted.
“Mae!” The shouted name rode an angry command, sizzling dominant power that ghosted past Jay and slammed into the girl’s back like a physical blow. She hit the ground on her knees, shaking. “Don’t run, darling. You and I are going to have a talk about all this disobedience.” The man whipped a knife out of his boot as he turned on Jay. “Just as soon as I teach this packless mutt a lesson.”
The knife looked normal, but it felt like magic. Jay circled, his teeth bared in a snarl as the man watched him, no hint of fear in his cruel eyes. When he moved, it was blindingly fast, the blade slashing toward Jay’s side.
The wicked edge found its mark, slicing a burning but shallow line across Jay’s ribs. Definitely magic, because a heaviness accompanied the pain, a stagnant weight instead of the delicate tickle of near-instantaneous healing. Jay twisted and snapped at the man’s arm, grazing skin with teeth just as sharp as the knife.
His opponent jerked back with a laugh. “Yeah, you feel it, don’t you? You can bite me and I’ll heal. You’ll just keep bleed—” Twigs snapped to their left, and the man lunged fast enough to get a handful of the girl’s pink hair and jerk her off her feet as she tried to run. “You treacherous bitch!”
The lunge stretched out the line of his body, leaving him low and open to attack. Jay dug his back legs into the soft earth and launched himself at the man’s throat. He closed his teeth on the vulnerable spot and felt flesh give and blood run hot as his momentum carried them both to the ground.
Another wolf snarled at the edge of the trees. Beneath Jay, his enemy struggled weakly. The girl kicked the knife away from his outstretched hand and grabbed it as she rolled to her feet. She held the blade awkwardly, as if she didn’t know how to use it, and