Gouging my claws into the wet earth, I hauled my dangling hindquarters up and flopped over in the grass, panting. “There’s nothing normal about those wolves.”
A wail from Jesmyn lifted my heavy head, and I found myself blinking all over again, as stunned to see her human body lying in the mud, writhing with pain, as I’d been to see her attacker go poof. There were only two reasons shifters reverted to their human form before they were ready—a mortal wound or the unbearable agony of something healing too slowly. It sucked to be praying for the latter.
“Jesmyn.” I padded over to her, nudging her with my muzzle. “Can you walk?”
She shook her head, and I wanted to shift so I could use my hands peel away the dark hair plastered to her waxy face, but I knew I couldn’t risk it. I sniffed at the wound on her thigh, oozing blood through her torn shiftskin. It didn’t look any worse than a normal shifter bite, but judging by the way her clenched jaw seemed intent on turning her human teeth to dust, I knew something was very wrong with the One-Eyed Man’s wolves. A puncture like that should already be a puckered scar.
“Elyse?” Evan nosed my shoulder. “I think we have another problem.”
I followed his gaze. New shrieks rose from every direction as the remaining humans noticed the dead bodies were not just coming back to life—they were also growing claws, fangs, and fur.
I crouched beside Jesmyn. “Climb on. Grab my fur and don’t let go.”
The shuddering girl worked her way onto my back, grabbing fistfuls of my mane and pushing with her one good leg. A shiver of pain rippled through her when she landed on my spine, but she maintained her grip as I rose, feeling like the shaggy white luck dragon in Sebastian’s favorite movie. If only I could fly…
“Do you know where your father is?”I asked, fearing the worst. Blaze would never retreat without his daughter.
“He’s not dead,” Jesmyn said firmly. “I lost him before the monsters showed up.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Evan deadpanned.
The screaming intensified as the rain lightened and the resurrection of the dead became more obvious. All around us, newborn shifters were shambling to their feet… paws… feet. My own legs threatened to buckle.
Oh, Gods. What have I done?
“Is that going to happen to me?” Jesmyn asked faintly. “Since that thing bit me?”
“No!” I craned my neck around to look into her frightened eyes. “That’s not… what bit them. You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”
“That’s right.” Evan came alongside us, meeting my eyes. “And so are they.”
“Not if we don’t get them out of here…” I glanced at the police lights swirling on the side of the castle. “But I don’t even know how many there are.”
Evan shook his mane, spraying water in every direction as he gathered himself. After a second, he said, “I think you should howl.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I think if you howled, I’d follow you into Hell.”
I had to look away from the intensity of his gaze—and found myself watching the nearest bitten female’s muzzle elongate from her skull. I shuddered and looked away again, toward a pile of human pulp no bite could’ve brought back to life.
“I think you already have.”
“Howl.” Evan tilted his own muzzle to the clouds as if showing me how. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m serious. I get this pull to you whenever shit hits the fan, and I think they will too. You made us.”
My eyes scrunched shit. Just what I needed. To go from being Evan’s single mom to the matriarch of a whole damned brood.But it didn’t matter what I needed. It never had, and it never would. Pack came first, and I was out of ideas and out of time, so I took a deep breath and threw my head back.
The sound I sent up to the sky was unlike anything I’d ever produced, and the lights that flickered in my vision before I used my gift flickered again, like fireworks celebrating a victory that had yet to be won. Evan joined in, harmonizing as he always had when our little human pack sang some movie’s theme song on our way out of the Last Century Cinema. When the last note faded and we lowered our heads, all the werewolves were staring.
Evan nudged my shoulder hard, and I raced away from the field with Jesmyn clinging to my back, releasing the howl anew each time my breath ran out. Whether it would be the way to safety remained to be seen, but I had to get them away from the cops and the carnage. They were my responsibility. Evan ran in a wide arc on my flank, helping to encourage his bite-siblings to follow me.
And they did.
Some lopped on two front paws and human back legs, some shuffled on human bodies with wolf heads, and some were already full wolves, running and flopping on wobbly paws like newly shifted pups at puberty. I zigzagged across the body-strewn battlefield, hoping most of the dead wolves were Damian’s but knowing some were not, knowing wolves I’d grown up with were on their way to a government freezer.
Praying Sebastian wasn’t one of them.
And wondering why no one was shooting at us.