A giant male lion jumped over Holland’s body as I tried to break free. For a moment, I was angry at him for blocking my view, but when I saw Mariah running behind him, I was thankful. At least I think I was.
Mariah glanced down at Holland but kept running my way. I shouted at her to turn back, to help Holland now. She yelled something at me as the lion tore into a half-changed panther. He demolished the big cat in less than five seconds. I only knew one lion—Donovan—and if that was him, he needed to always remain my ally.
Mariah picked up the knife Elijah had dropped to the ground and made quick use of cutting me free. She sliced through the ties at my feet and then used one of the dead panther bodies to step up and reach my hands. I fell to the ground, unable to stand on my feet for a few moments. Pain rushed down through my toes—that sharp, stinging pain that made me want to scream. But I had to get to Holland, and no amount of agony would stop me.
“Marcus!” Kevin yelled from somewhere in the shadows and by the tone of his cry, I knew what he needed. What my whole pack needed.
Pushing out my magic, I howled into the night as I shifted and forced the change of every skin-walking coyote in my pack. A chorus of yips and yowls surrounded me, making me feel whole and strong and healed. I rushed over to Holland’s side, ignoring the battles going on in my peripheral. She was curled in a ball, hands covering her stomach and eyes squeezed shut. She kept saying “No. No. No,” over and over. I pushed my nose against her cheek and debated whether or not to lick the tears streaming down the side of her face.
She opened her eyes, and they immediately widened in fear. Then she lifted her hand and brushed her shaking fingers along the tip of my snout. “Marcus?”
I chuffed a noise that hopefully sounded like an answer.
“Marcus, he stabbed me. I think he killed our baby—” Her words were cut off with a gut-wrenching scream followed by a sharp jolt of pain to the back of my neck. “No, Elijah!” she called out, but it was too late. He’d already knocked me to the ground.
With his fangs holding onto the back of my neck, I did everything I could to get away. Kicking, snarling, snapping my jaws at any piece of his body I could, I quickly found how futile that was when a giant predator had me in his clutches. Holland continued to shout, yelling “Help!” to anyone who would listen. And sure enough, in less than a minute, my pack came through. I felt Elijah’s body tumble away from mine and heard the snarls of my fellow coyotes as they pinned him down. But Elijah wasn’t just big—he was crazy. And despite there being three coyotes on top of him, he rolled the side, hissed and swatted at them, and took off into the night.
“He’s getting away, Fiona!”
At first I didn’t recognize the voice as it had been a while since I’d heard it. But when a white tiger raced off into the darkness, with a second one right on its tail, I knew Major had come through in a big way. And if Major was here, that meant the other shifters might be nearby as well.
Mariah jogged over to my side, mouth bloodied and limping a little. She barked at me and jerked her chin toward something behind her. She wanted me to follow, but I couldn’t leave Holland. I huffed a sound back at her, and ran over to my mate. I didn’t miss the sharp pain in my shoulder where Elijah’s teeth must have sliced me open. Yet, I also didn’t have time to think too much about it.
Although, when I slid in the gravel as I reached Holland, I saw a familiar face holding a rather large gun. “Marcus?” Sutton asked.
The mate of Calvin, Sutton was an Alaska state trooper and totally capable of handling the weapon she held out in front of her right now. She was protecting Holland and as soon as she realized who I was, she pointed to Mariah and said, “Go, help her. I’ve got this covered.” And as though the universe timed it perfectly, Sutton fired a round at a panther charging right for all of us. His head jerked back with the force of the bullet in his skull, his body dead before he even fell to the ground.
I didn’t want to leave, but Mariah nipped me in the hind leg. With a sigh, I ran after her and around the bonfire that seemed to have grown during the chaos. I saw too many coyote bodies lying still on the ground, each one of them causing a pain inside my chest. But Mariah barked at me again and again until I noticed what she was looking at. Strung up on a post, similar to how Elijah had pinned me, was Kevin. But he’d shifted into his coyote before he’d been cut free—and now he hung at an odd angle with his animal feet stretched way past normal.
Mariah howled at Kevin, but Kevin didn’t move. I knew what I needed to do, but I had to make sure I’d be protected. Barking at Mariah, she seemed to understand and sent another piercing howl into the night sky. Out of the darkness, I heard the grizzlies barreling toward us. Two grizzlies, one lion, and one black panther who didn’t appear to be from Elijah’s pride. Mariah ran straight for the lion and stopped just inches from his face. She nuzzled against him and then looked over her shoulder at me. The lion gave me one slow nod, as did the grizzlies. Okay, they would watch my back.
I closed my eyes and let the human take over. In just a few seconds, I was standing on two legs, naked and throbbing with the pain from my neck and shoulder, but finally able to help Kevin. I searched on the ground for something sharp, but found nothing. So, I ran over to my friend and starting using my teeth to break through the cable-ties. I could see that he was barely breathing, and while I’d thought his injuries had come from the position he was in, once I got closer, I saw the wounds. Those fucking panthers had practically gutted him. From his throat to his lower abdomen, they had sliced him with their claws. I was so angry, that I ignored the pain in my jaw and ripped the bottom set of ties off his ankles. Now he hung solely by the weight of his coyote wrists, yet I had a hard time reaching them.
One of the grizzlies, I think it was Julia, jogged over to me and lay on the ground on the back side of the post. Understanding what she was offering, I stood on her back and held onto the piece of wood as she rose to all fours. Her added height allowed me to reach the ties and I started to use my teeth on them again. I could taste the blood in my mouth, but I knew I needed to cut him free. Not only because he was my best friend, but because I needed to get back to Holland.
I shouted in the air when the ties finally snapped and the lion helped break Kevin’s fall. Mariah and Donovan started licking Kevin’s wounds as I hung onto the post. From this height, I could see the mayhem. Several panthers lay dead in the street, along with too many of my coyotes. The fighting had subsided a little, but there were still several heated battles taking place. In the distance near the entrance to our town, I spotted two white tigers rushing toward everyone as though they were either being chased or had spotted their prey.
And no sooner had that thought crossed my mind, then a large body slammed into my side and knocked me off the post. But I didn’t hit the ground. Instead, Elijah’s panther dug his teeth into the back of my neck and dragged me through the air. When he landed on all fours, my body bounced along the gravel beside him and I feared that he was about to break my neck.
The shifters who’d been watching my back now ran after us, and from the scenery that floated by, I knew which direction Elijah was taking me. Back to Holland. Back to where he would kill me if I didn’t do something fast.
Shifting into my coyote seemed like the obvious choice, but with the way his teeth had my neck, one small shift in movement could have him slicing my jugular. I needed my own fangs and claws right now, but I had to be smart about this. I could fight him as a human. And when I saw the gun Sutton pointed at Elijah and me, I knew that might be my only choice.
“No! Don’t!” Holland shouted at Sutton. “You’ll hit Marcus.”
Sutton didn’t drop the gun and from the way she narrowed her eyes, I had a feeling she thought she could hit Elijah and not me. But Elijah kept swinging me back and forth as he growled at every shifter surrounding us. I hung in his jowls like a rag doll, thinking that staying limp could be my best defense until I came up with another solution. His spit dripped down my back, the blood from my neck coated my human shoulders.
At one point, I made eye contact with Holland. In that stare, I hoped she understood that I needed her to stay back. But when she pushed herself up to her knees, I worried she was going to do something stupid.
Derrick, in his grizzly form, roared at Elijah—a warning that he wasn’t going to leave here alive. I didn’t think Elijah would even care about that, but I was pretty damn sure that he didn’t plan on letting me survive the night either.
“Elijah!” Holland shouted.
The panther whipped around so fast, he tripped on my legs that spun around a second later. Growling at Holland, he clamped his jaws down even more. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t scream.
“You don’t have to do this, Elijah,” Holland sobbed. “Put him down and you can walk away.”
Elijah’s body shook with another growl. But to my surprise, he let go of my neck. I immediately shifted into my coyote, rolled to the side so I could get up to my feet, and lowered my head in preparation for an attack. Just as I dug my claws into the ground and prepared to pounce, Elijah shot forward—straight at Holland.
But my mate didn’t scream. She didn’t yell, shout, or cry. And if I wasn’t mistaken, I saw a slightly feral grin crossing her beautiful face a second before the black panther’s body obstructed my view of her.
I rushed forward just as Sutton was knocked to the side. The gun went off, firing into the air. But it was Elijah’s piercing howl that had me sliding to a stop. His scream had been abruptly cut off and he now lay limp on top of Holland. Just seconds later, I heard Holland coughing underneath the lump of fur, so I immediately shifted back into human. That shift, that change that happened in desperation, had all the coyotes around me changing back into their human forms. I recognized that I’d forced their change only briefly since I was more concerned with Holland.
Rushing to her side, I helped her push Elijah’s dead panther body off her. I grabbed his hips and didn’t noticed the knife sticking out of the bottom of his chin until Holland lifted him up. Her hands trembled as she continued to hold the knife that had gone straight into his brain. And when he was totally off her, she continued to look down at him in rage like she would kill him all over again if she could.
Sutton scrambled back toward us and when she saw the knife, she reached for her right boot. “How did you…?” Her words faded when she realized Holland must have grabbed her knife. She studied my mate for a few moments before giving her a curt nod of approval and pushing to her feet.
Around us, I felt the rest of the non-coyote shifters changing back. They were checking on the damage, leaving me and Holland a moment to gather ourselves. “Are you okay?” I asked her.
She sobbed against me, looking down at her stomach and the blood that still seeped from her wound. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Mariah stumbled over to us, towing Doc Schultz by the arm. “Doc, please help her. Make sure the baby is okay.”
I looked up at my daughter and couldn’t stop the tears in my eyes. She reached forward and hugged me when I opened my arms, and holding her close allowed me to give Doc the chance he needed to check on my mate.
“Thank you,” I whispered to Mariah. She simply hugged me closer in response and sat next to me as we waited for Doc’s evaluation.
“I don’t think he hit anything critical,” the Doc said after a very long five minutes. “Your bleeding has almost stopped and you’ll need stiches, but you still smell like you’re carrying a shifter.”
Holland’s brown eyes met mine over top of the Doc. Mariah left my side so I could scramble closer to Holland. She held me close as she sobbed against my chest, but I could smell her happiness and relief all rolled up into one very emotional night.
“Whose panthers are these?” Major asked, his voice still angry and curt.
I spun around so I could see the group of massive humans looking down at us. With the bonfire still in the background, their silhouettes would have been intimidating to almost anyone. “They’re from Wyoming.”
At the end of the row, a large man with tan skin and a permanent scowl on his face huffed a laugh. “Not anymore.”
I looked up at him. “You’re from Eagle Creek?”
He nodded, confirming to me that he must be an acquaintance of Donovan’s. There was a group of rogue shifters living a few hours from here, and tonight I was grateful to each and every one of them.
Kevin limped forward with the help of Daniel and knelt on the ground in front of me. I slapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you alive.”
He glanced down at his chest, the large wound still bright red and slightly bloody. “Panthers can’t kill me,” he teased.
“We’ll help you clean up,” Derrick said, arm around Julia’s shoulders and standing there totally naked like it was no big deal.
“Wait,” I said. “How did you all get here so fast?” Homer was several hours away, and even as animals, they wouldn’t have been able to arrive when we needed them.
Calvin stepped forward and kissed Sutton on the cheek. “She had a vision, and we always listen to her visions.”
“Thank you,” Holland whispered to her. “And thank you for protecting me.”
“Of course,” Sutton replied with a smile before adding, “and welcome to our little family.”
As the shifters started to fetch the wounded and get rid of the dead, Holland nestled in under my chin. “The family,” she whispered, rubbing her belly and trembling beneath my arm.
“Hey, everything is going to be all right,” I whispered. Kissing the top of her head, I watched as my pack and my friends started to put our home back together. They doused water on the bonfire, carried the wounded into Doc’s house, and started to board up the broken windows and damaged doors.
I smiled as I thought about how great of a home this was. And now that I had Holland and a baby on the way, I couldn’t imagine my life being any better. I rubbed my cheek against Holland and repeated, “You just wait and see. Everything will be okay.”