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I was vastly outnumbered, but I’d also brought a sword to a wolf fight. No wonder the furry bodies parted before me like so many rabbits fleeing from a sharp-taloned hawk.
Unfortunately, I’d left my clothes up on that catwalk, and wolf teeth are quite effective against unprotected human flesh. Fangs clamped down around my ankle one instant before I whirled and sliced a gash along the biter’s hipbone. And even though he released me with a yelp, I could feel the blood puddling atop my foot as I continued on my path.
The pain was minimal, though, compared to the agony of those before me. Because I could still see Ransom and Gunner, their heads barely visible across the sea of two-legged and four-legged opponents who had them so badly outmatched. Allen and Tank must have both donned their animal shapes for protection, but their pack leaders stood tall above the others...or as tall as they could be while fighting off dozens of werewolves with what appeared to be the a pipe wrench and the leg of a wooden chair.
They weren’t just outnumbered; they were drowning. No wonder Ransom’s left arm hung limply against his side while Gunner appeared to be favoring his opposite leg. I redoubled my efforts to reach them, pushing forward one slow step at a time even as I kept my ears open for any hint that Kira wasn’t making good on her escape.
Slice and stab, duck and lunge. At first, only the closest members of Jackal’s pack had realized I existed. But now half a dozen enemies peeled away from the Atwood brothers, arrowing directly for me instead. “Spilt water will not return to the tray,” Mama noted unhelpfully, breaking into my realization that coming down here by my lonesome hadn’t been the brightest idea after all.
We were losing. Of course my sword wasn’t enough to make up for a horde of enemies. Ransom bellowed as a wolf broke through his brother’s defenses, an agonizing scream sounded far too much like it had come from Allen’s lips, and I was still too distant to make any difference in the end game that was about to go down....
But then the front doors were flung wide open and twice as many werewolves entered with Tank at the head of the charge. So the rough-featured shifter hadn’t gone lupine. He’d instead fled to rustle up far more backup than I’d thought the Atwood brothers had waiting on their beck and call.
And just like that, the tide shifted. Now it was the Atwood pack who outnumbered the enemy. Meanwhile, the newcomers were also better trained in working together, their force splitting seamlessly into two groups that looped around the perimeter of the stage area while a third arrowed directly toward their bosses in the center of the action.
“And I guess I’m not needed here anymore,” I murmured, leaping up onto a piece of stage furniture that had been left behind after the theater’s final production. I’d avoided the high ground previously because it led away from the center of action rather than toward it. But Gunner didn’t appear to need me after all....
Before relief could relax tensed muscles, though, the floor shuddered beneath my feet as something huge thundered into the outside of the building. A quieter clink of metal against tiles sent my head swiveling in yet another direction, then smoke erupted at floor level as black-clad figures raced in through every entrance point.
Wolves and two-leggers alike gagged and yelled in confusion as a gas-masked human emerged from the haze. “Call off your dogs and come out with your hands up!” the spokesman demanded, his words expanding out from a bullhorn to take over the entire space. “This is the police. You’re all under arrest.”
***
BOTH FOLLOWERS OF JACKAL and of the Atwoods fell to the ground without regard to alliances, hacking and coughing as tear gas broke through the battle fervor that had previously held them in its grip. Luckily, the air was clearer atop the scuffed table. So I held my breath, leapt, and barely managed to land on the closest ladder as police in riot gear streamed in every door.
“Stand down!” Gunner called across the roiling mass of mist and bodies beneath me, his voice breaking off into a desperate coughing fit halfway through the final word. But the simple knowledge that the alpha was well enough to give orders spurred my footsteps, and I managed to reach catwalk level before being forced to inhale a breath of my own.
Up here, the air was just barely breathable...and my sister, I noted was still very much present rather than having been rustled out the back door as I’d hoped she would have been. “They’re fine,” she told me, pointing toward the center of the battlefield where Gunner and Ransom were currently being cuffed and frog-marched out along with all the other two-legged shifters.
Unfortunately, Kira’s reassurance hadn’t reached only my own ears. “There’s the kid!” a cop yelled from beneath us. And while his words really should have been lost amid the whines of teary-eyed werewolves, several other officials peered upwards as he spoke and moved to join in the charge.
Meanwhile, next to the wide-open front door, one tall, lean figure pushed through the sea of ailing werewolves toward us. I tried to tell myself this was just another police officer heeding the call of his compatriots, but the male’s excessive height and skinny frame provoked the sinking suspicion that Kira’s social worker had caught up with us at last.
It was time to get the hell out of there. But even though I turned in a frantic circle, I found no windows through which we could escape. No doors had been left unbarricaded either. And each ladder now had multiple cops streaming up its rungs.
“The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists,” Mama murmured. Bending? She probably meant not only surrendering but also appearing human. So, sucking in my breath, I relinquished my weapon and donned clothes the magical way, transforming myself from naked warrior into no-really-I’m-just-an-average-civilian as quickly as I could.
Beside me, Crow’s eyes widened as my weapon poofed into nonexistence. Then his fists clenched as thin filaments of magic streamed across my skin before coalescing into a cream-colored garment that might have been overlooked from ten or twenty feet away.
Up close, though, the effect was in no way overlookable. Crow had been sent to watch over me and Kira, but I could tell he was now second-guessing the decision to help me back up onto the catwalk rather than pushing me off its edge earlier. What his alpha would do when Crow reported my lapses remained to be seen....
Then the police were ripping Kira away from us, were slamming me and Crow face down into the catwalk and snapping handcuffs around our wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.”
Too bad Gunner’s mild-mannered cousin wasn’t present this time to talk us out of our current predicament.