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Raul woke with a start, at first uncertain what had awakened him. His preternaturally acute vision made the darkness in the bedroom of the flophouse almost insignificant; as he looked around, he saw that there was no one else in the room—just him and Keira. She stirred next to him, and Raul felt the strange, tingling sensation of thoughts that didn’t belong to him—or to the pack—swirling to life in his mind. They were little more than fleeting, sleepy impressions, nothing substantial enough to truly “read,” but he knew them immediately for Keira’s waking thoughts. Something—not him—had pulled her out of sleep as well.
At once, Raul was out of the bed, moving to the window. Keira was no more than a step behind him, and Raul forced himself to focus on the task at hand—finding out what had awakened them both—rather than the way the moonlight through the window silvered her skin, highlighting the curves of her voluptuous body. “Did you hear something?” He kept his voice to a whisper so low it was almost a breath.
“I felt something,” Keira replied, sounding almost confused. “Like some kind of twitch.” Raul nodded.
“Same for me,” he said. He looked out through the window into the darkness; the moon had already set for the night, and there wasn’t much light from the stars, or from the house, to pick out details. “Let’s get this open,” he suggested. Next to him, Keira nodded. Raul opened the window just a crack and knelt down, sniffing to try and catch any trace of scent. Rabbit, deer, beaver, opossum… wolf. Wolf? Panther. His heart started beating faster in his chest. “We’ve been found,” he said to Keira, his mind shifting into a blur of animal reaction and military training.
“No one’s attacked yet,” Keira said quietly. She shut the window quickly but quietly. As if on cue, a howl cut through the air; the next instant, Raul heard glass breaking.
“Get back!” he whispered hoarsely to Keira. Raul’s years of training slipped into place, keeping a slight rein on animal instincts that welled up. You have to protect her. Raul stepped out in front of Keira as they both left the bedroom, headed into the living room where the window had been shattered. A wolf and a panther dove through the jagged opening, both narrowly missing injury, and Raul pushed Keira behind him, ignoring her angry growl. He glanced quickly around the room and found a silver-edged knife he’d brought with him as a precaution, laying on the table. Raul grabbed the hilt as more wolves and panthers darted through the broken window; one—he recognized Mike from the Pack, injured but apparently healing quickly—transformed back into his human form and darted to the door, opening it.
As soon as the door was open, chaos descended, and Raul fell into trained instincts, keeping one eye on Keira at all times as he tried to sort through the members of his Pack and the members of the panther clan that had come to attack the house. Raul kept the knife in his hand, slashing and stabbing with it, in the defensive crouch that his training made second nature. He couldn’t tell if the panthers and wolves were working together or fighting each other—and he wasn’t sure, in the few moments that he could spare from reacting to the conflict unfolding in the living room, whether the two groups knew for sure themselves. One moment, panthers and wolves attacked each other, growling and snarling; the next, both groups pushed forward, one of each kind attacking him, trying to get past him to Keira, who had changed into her own panther form at some point in the melee.
Raul threw himself into the battle; for the moment, he ceased to see the people coming into the flophouse as friend or foe, or to even attempt to discover what the motivations of the combatants were. He tried to keep Keira in the corner of his vision as he attacked and defended at the same time, using the maneuvers drilled into him in Basic. Don’t treat the wolves any differently from the panthers. They’re both invading—they’re all enemies. The air was a dizzying combination of the sounds of growling, barking, shouts, shrieks, and groans, along with the smells of more than a dozen panthers and wolves, blood and—Raul caught the scent of smoke and decided to worry about that later.
“Get him with the silver!” Raul heard someone—he wasn’t sure who—call the command, and then searing, sizzling pain wrapped around him, touching his bare skin everywhere. He howled, the silver net around him sapping his strength in instants. Raul felt his knees go weak, felt himself tumbling forward, gloved hands grabbing at him even as he snarled and twisted, trying to get free of the net. He tried to bite—but his teeth met the silver and electric agony shot through his skull.
“Got her!” Raul flailed and fought, and barely caught sight of people swarming Keira—cornering her and throwing a net over her. He couldn’t recognize the people; Raul thought they must be panthers. He tried to squirm free of the net that seemed to tighten around him moment by moment, but no amount of kicking or thrashing broke him free of its bonds; the more he fought the more the silver seemed to affect him, weakening him, hurting more and more. He felt himself lifted off of the ground and then into the darkness he went, howling, struggling as much as his feeble strength allowed. Raul barely saw the shape of a van—he thought it belonged to Reginald—before darkness of a different kind began to swirl in his vision, pulling him under in spite of the pounding of his heart in his chest and the ache in his throat from howling for Keira. The last thing he thought was that he would have to break free in order to have any hope of finding out where the panthers had taken Keira. Have to get to the Elementals…have to tell them…have to get to Keira. Raul groaned as his body hit the hard floor of the van, sending a shockwave of pain through him; then everything went dark.