Jessica’s face blanched a little as we skirted the bodies on the landing of the floor below us.

“Don’t look at them,” Murdoch said. “Don’t look at them, okay, babe?”

“Okay, okay,” she replied, her voice husky and breathless. “I won’t look, okay?”

With Murdoch and I on point and Vanessa bringing up the rear with her own sidearm, we kept moving. Only a little bit longer. Just another floor, and then a hallway, and then out through the banquet hall.

We followed the turn of the stairs, our feet shuffling, our rifles leveled and ready.

We got to the ground floor and cleared the hallway. Looking each direction, there was no sign of anyone. I glanced over at my watch, still snugly in place on the bottom side of my wrist. Just a couple more minutes before Jones and Wayne were going to close up shop and melt back into the woods. That didn’t leave us much time, but what little it did leave would have to do.

“Ready?” Murdoch asked as we crouched in front of the doors leading to the banquet hall. We were both breathing heavily from the rush of adrenaline, and my heart felt like it was about to leap out and dance a jig in front of me.

I couldn’t believe we’d actually pulled this off.

I couldn’t believe I’d actually gotten Vanessa back, even if she was a few pints of blood short of a full tank.

I glanced back at Vanessa and Jessica. “Ready?” I asked.

They both nodded.

“Let’s go.”

Murdoch and I hit the door, throwing it open. With him crouched to the side, taking the right side of the room, I swept my gun over the left. At first glance, I saw nothing. Just the outside world on the other side of the giant dining table.

I should have looked twice.

“Move,” I said, rushing into the room.

But then, as we entered into the room, I realized there was something wrong. Something was off. It just didn’t feel right, didn’t smell right.

Rifle raised, I spun left.

Something blocked my vision, rushing toward me with an ear-splitting roar that seemed to rattle my teeth and bones like a tremor from the earth itself.

The giant! I dropped my rifle from my cheek and began to discharge my rifle.

Gunfire competed with his guttural, animalistic roar as I continued to fire, backing up into Richard.

The giant came at me, the bullets doing nothing to slow him down. He just roared louder, his fat lips twisting like worms as they pulled back from his enormous, white teeth. He reached down, batted my gun away with one hand, and slammed a meaty fist the size of a Christmas ham into my face.

Pain erupted inside my head as I felt my cheekbone and nose snap, sending thick, hot blood pouring down my face as I went flying back through the air. I hit the ground, the back of my head smacking into the tile flagstone tile as I slid a dozen feet backwards.

The ground shook and, faster than any man should have any right to move, the giant flung Richard across the room and onto the dining table. With Murdoch out of the way, he came right at me.

I scrambled to my feet as the women screamed in horror.

There was more gunfire as Vanessa began to shoot into his back, her own voice rising to compete with all the noise.

The giant ignored the bullets like they were gnats, and cleared the distance between us in two giant loping steps that seemed to shake the castle at its very foundations.

Three more shots, then nothing. The gun was dry.

Hands up in a defensive posture, I backed away, trying to get myself off the wall. I needed room to move. “Run!” I shouted to Vanessa and Jessica. “I’ll hold him off!”

“No!” Vanessa screamed.

God, he was fast, though. He veered right at me as I double-timed it away, and feinted with his left fist.

I didn’t fall for it and tried to go low instead. I struck hard in his belly and drove an elbow into the top of his other arm, trying to snap it. It was like punching a brick wall that had been constructed of living flesh somehow. No give. No budge. Nothing at all.

He didn’t flinch. Instead, he slammed his knee into my stomach, knocking the wind from my lungs.

Gasping for breath, I reeled back and struggled to stay upright. His first fist must have split open my brow, allowing some blood to trickle down into my eyes. I blinked it away, trying to give myself a chance to fight.

Another fist came at me.

I ducked under and back, and tried to counter.

His other hand came down in a stiff-handed chop and crushed my shoulder.

I felt my collarbone crack and snap, the sound like a tree branch in my ears, and my right arm went limp as that whole side of my body erupted in fire and agony.

Another knee crushed into me, sending me up into the air.

Two, no three, ribs broke like twigs in my chest, and I fell to my knees, my one good arm clutched around my torso in protection.

I needed to change to heal this damage. But, even in my wolf form, what good would it do against something like this? I looked up, the blood already drying on my face, my nose already correcting and healing itself. I looked past the mammoth, the walking pile of flesh and bone and muscle standing in front of me, right at Vanessa and Jessica.

“Go!” I shouted. “Run!”

The giant just laughed. He leaned forward, grabbed a hold of my short hair, and slammed another gargantuan fist into my face. I rocketed back into the wall behind me, and I felt my back snap. Soon after, I felt nothing else.

“Don’t run,” the giant roared in a thick German accent. “”No, no! This is fun! Look, you already heal from my love taps, Herr Frost. We can do this all night, ja?”

I twisted my head to the side, the only part of my body I could move, and spat blood onto the floor.

“Ja, ja. All night long, after you’re better.”

My body slid down the wall and slumped to the floor. I tried desperately to get up, but all I could move were my eyes. I tracked up to the colossal monster above me and watched as he raised the biggest boot I’d ever seen in my life over my face.

“Say gute nacht, shifter.”