Page 82 of Fastlander Phoenix

Timber gritted her teeth against the pain as she pulled herself toward the voice.

Kendra, or whatever her real name was, had collected the hearts of some of the monsters of Damon’s Mountains. She’d stolen Riyah and Timber.

When Timber reached her, Riyah’s hand gripped hers hard, and she dragged her closer. In the dark, Timber felt along her face, her shoulders. Riyah guided her hand to her stomach.

It was warm and wet. Too warm, and too wet.

“I fought. She cut me.”

Shhhhit.

Timber peeled her shirt from her body, then pressed it against Riyah’s stomach. The agony in her head was easier to ignore when she had someone to take care of.

“My boot,” Riyah whispered. “The second she gets that King to lift the order he’s put on her, she’s going to kill us. There is a knife in my boot.”

“A knife is not enough.”

“You have to try,” Riyah said under her breath. “We don’t quit.”

“No, I mean, one blade isn’t enough against her. She’s a lioness. She has teeth and claws.” God, she was so scared. She couldn’t stop shaking.

Riyah was holding onto her wrist so hard, and she was so still. “What can I do?” Riyah asked.

Her mind racing, Timber blurted out, “Turn me. Maybe I can keep us safe if you Turn me.”

The words that had left her mouth were shocking. She should be ashamed of them, right? Asking a stranger-shifter to Turn her? But Riyah was bad off, and Timber knew her limits as a human. That lioness in the other room would have them dead in minutes, and what could she really do with a knife? Not as much damage as she could do with teeth and claws.

“Give me your arm,” Riyah whispered brokenly. “I need your wrist. The veins there will make it faster.”

Shaking like a leaf, Timber gave her wrist to the woman in the dark. The woman she’d never seen. The woman she might not ever see if she didn’t keep them safe from whatever was happening.

“Tell Wreck I’m sorry,” Riyah choked out, and then pain seared through Timber’s arm as her skin was ripped into.

A burning sensation boiled through her blood from her wrist upward, and Timber gritted her teeth against the searing agony of her body ripping in two.

The door behind them opened, and a stream of light illuminated the room.

Timber’s vision shook, and blurred, as the silhouette of Kendra was stark against the blinding light behind her. She still wore the high heels she’d worn to the counseling session earlier.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked, approaching. She had a gun in her hand. A gun? She was a lioness. The gun seemed cowardly.

It made Timber angry.

She had all these weapons, but she wanted to kill Timber and Riyah with a gun? From a distance? After she’d hurt them and stolen them?

A long, low rumbling sound emanated from Timber’s chest. Something big and dark was growing within her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe!

“What did you do?” Kendra asked, lifting the gun to Riyah’s face.

Timber looked behind her, and saw Riyah for the first time. There was too much blood, but she was smiling as her nostrils flared with her labored breath. “I avenged us,” Riyah gritted out as a tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and down her temple.

She didn’t like that gun aimed at Riyah, and a long warning snarl filled the room.

…and as the gunshot went off, Timber let the animal eat her alive.

Chapter Sixteen

“Can you still feel her?” Wreck ground out.

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