“Run!” The word broke from his lips with an inhuman snarl just as a huge, brown something leaped through the door, pistoning into Gideon’s chest and sending both of them crashing to the floor. It spun quickly, eyes glowing with madness, a hunger like none she’d ever seen … and a terrible, terrible cunning.

Eyes that were now fixed on her.

Carly fled blindly down the hallway. She heard, rather than saw, the huge black beast that Gideon had become tear into his adversary with viciously long claws, slamming the other werewolf to the floor as he took the advantage with a triumphant snarl. Carly was nearly sobbing with terror by the time she slammed the door to her bedroom, a short sprint that seemed to have taken years. The door, the only barrier now between her and the living nightmare happening in her home, now seemed all too thin and breakable in the face of that … that thing that had come in from the night. She locked it, then looked frantically around for something, anything to place in front of it. She tried to block out the sounds coming from beyond it, the crashing and cracking of her furniture, her things, shattering. The unearthly snarling and roaring of the two beasts locked in battle. The thudding of their bodies against the floors, the walls, that seemed to shake the house to its very foundations.

Carly struggled with the overstuffed rocker she kept in the corner, dragging it past the bed, cursing when it caught on the leg of her dresser. “Shit,” she panted. “Come on, damn it!” She looked quickly at her window, easy enough to climb out of if she had to. Except … what if there was another one waiting outside? Waiting for her to do just such a thing? It would tear her apart, she thought, shoving the chair as hard as she could against the door. It would … it …

Carly searched frantically for something else to put against the rocker, trying to block out the sounds of two creatures trying to tear one another apart mere feet from where she stood. Creatures. And Gideon was one of them.

The walls shook as something slammed into her china cabinet, its contents raining to her floor, shattering. There was an enraged bellow, a sharp crack as wood splintered. Her table? Oh God, her house … her life …

She put her hand against her mouth to muffle the scream that bubbled up in her throat as the thudding bodies, the chaos, moved steadily closer to where she stood. This was what she’d wanted, what she’d been all but dying inside for? This?

Carly shuddered as the vision of Gideon’s face, the lengthening snout, the knifelike teeth, the blazing eyes, swam before her. She knew she would never forget it, the barely contained violence that had radiated off of him. In that moment, he had been beautiful. And terrible. And completely inhuman.

God help her, she loved him. But the snarling, slavering creature that had torn in out of the night after him was still closer to him, in both form and understanding, than she could ever be.

The walls shook again, harder this time, close enough that she wondered wildly when the two of them would come crashing through her door. And then a snarl, though she couldn’t tell whose, rose into a deafening scream that could only mean one thing: death. It was ear-splitting, endless. Until it finally faded into nothing, leaving only oppressive silence.

Carly waited, blood pounding in her ears as she stared at the door, wondering what might come through it if she stayed. It could be Gideon. He could be hurt; he could need her. Or he could be dead already. Carly closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself. She had to get out, she knew. It might not be too late to save herself, to save them both, but she had to go, and now.

She heard it then, the soft whoosh of the window sliding up behind her. And just like that, she knew it was over. Carly barely had time to tremble. It was too late, after all.

“Evening, darling.”

A hot growl against her ear, claws sliding over her mouth to silence her scream. Teeth like razors, meeting no resistance as they slid into tender flesh. Biting me, she thought frantically even as her consciousness began to desert her. It’s biting me, oh God, no, where is Gideon, I need …

And then there was only silent, blessed darkness.

t t t

Gideon stood panting over his attacker, his naked body, human once again, now covered in blood. Most of it, thankfully, was not his own. The Wolf at his feet, blood still pooling beneath it, would never take the human form again. It had attacked him as an animal, and an animal it would stay.

Foul, unnatural beast. Gideon’s lips peeled back in a disgusted snarl as he gave the carcass one final kick, sending it skidding away from him, before turning his attention back to the door. The other, the Gray, lurked somewhere beyond it … waiting, he was sure, to strike.

He’d scented them as soon as he’d opened the door, sensed them lurking just beyond the ring of light that the illuminated house cast. And they’d wanted him to. He had known it with the full force of the heightened senses of his kind, tasted the tang of their excitement on the night breeze, felt the electric crackle of their blood lust. This Wolf, smaller and quick but no real match for him, had come first. But the other, the Gray who haunted him, had been there too.

And now it was time to finish it. The moon, so nearly full, coursed through him in all her glory. Gideon stood invigorated, ready for the kill.

Yet though the door hung open and he waited, there was no movement, no sound from the darkness beyond. The Gray hadn’t run this time, Gideon was sure of it. This was the endgame for the two of them, time to kill or be killed. But as the minutes stretched out in the stillness, Gideon was filled with a creeping dread that he’d missed something, that some fatal mistake had been made.

I will drink her blood, Guardian.

“Carly,” he whispered hoarsely, a split-second before he flew in lightning-quick strides to her door. She’d tried to block it. That registered as he flung it open, sending her chair flying into the wall as though it were nothing more than a pillow. Carly had tried to block herself in; she’d done as he’d told her. And the window that might have been her escape had let a nightmare in to her instead.

It was the Gray. Except, Gideon thought with dawning horror as he stopped short just inside the room, this creature who held Carly in its arms, cradling her limp form close to its chest as though she were a sleeping child, was no longer Wolf … nor was it even remotely human. It was both, and neither. And it stared back at Gideon with eyes red and full of hellish joy.

“I told you I would drink her blood, Guardian,” he crooned almost lovingly as he stroked one long, dagger-sharp claw down Carly’s pale cheek, those hideous red eyes never leaving Gideon’s. He stood like a man, but slightly hunched, as though uncomfortable in this skin, caught as he seemed somewhere between human and beast. His body was covered in fine silver fur, though the wiry contours of his sinewy musculature were clearly evident just beneath. Sharply pointed ears swept back away from his face, which, while somewhat like a man’s, held the slight protrusion of a snout, and a grinning maw of knifelike teeth. Long, deadly claws curved from the tips of his fingertips, from the toes on his oddly lengthened feet, warning Gideon off of moving too fast, too soon.

And that strange amulet, glinting dully in the light, still hung from the creature’s neck. The sight of it filled Gideon with a dread that seemed bone-deep, though he couldn’t say why.

What in the name of God are you? he wanted to ask. But he held his tongue, waiting for any chance he might have to snatch Carly away, for any opening there might be to send this thing back to whatever hell it had come from. Gideon chanced a quick glance at Carly’s chest, feeling a faint kindling of hope when he saw its shallow rise and fall.

His interest in her condition did not escape her captor.

“Oh, your pretty is still with us, Guardian. Never fear. I’ve only had a small taste, you see?” The creature shifted slightly, allowing Carly’s weight to drop just enough to the side so that the tender flesh between her neck and shoulder was exposed.

Gideon sucked in a sharp breath, unable to conceal his horror at the sight of the red, oozing slashes where she had obviously been bitten.

“Yessssss,” the Gray hissed, running his tongue over his dagger-like teeth in hungry pleasure. “Just a small taste. But I assure you … she’s quite delicious. Perhaps you’d like me to share?” His smile was mocking, and Gideon got the unnerving impression that the Gray was feeding off of Gideon’s own barely contained rage.

“Put her down,” Gideon growled roughly, determined not to give away any more of the pain he had felt, was still in. Carly’s fate, no matter what might come, was now sealed. “You’ve come for me, haven’t you? And here I am. Let her go.”

“Mmm. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Not that you can save her.” He stroked Carly’s cheek again, the tone of his voice lilting, gentle … and utterly mad. Whatever this beast was, Gideon knew with certainty, his mind was broken beyond any hope of redemption. He wondered if even his murderous cousin knew exactly what he’d unleashed … if he was naive enough to think that anything so malevolent as this could ever be completely controlled. Gideon watched the creature caress her as an unspeakable despair welled up within him. Carly, the only mate he would ever want and the one he had fully intended to deny himself. So many mistakes, he thought. Foolish decisions, wasted time. And he vowed that if he got her back, he would make sure, with every ounce of his strength, that she knew what was in his heart. He

would give her that.

It was all he had left to give.

For the moon rose full two nights hence, and then, Gideon was all but certain, the power of the Wolf would not only claim Carly’s body for its own, it would devour her whole.

If this horror had his way, though, the two of them might never make it that far.

“What I would like,” Gideon replied softly, “is for you to stop hiding behind cowards and cheap tricks and face me like a man. Or a Wolf.”

“Oh, but I am neither, Guardian. Or hadn’t you noticed?” The Gray curled his mouth into some hideous imitation of a smile, drawing Carly more tightly to him again. “I am what your people might have been, had you the strength to wield such power. I am your past, and your future. Your future master, that is. Does your blood not recognize mine? I am Drakkyn.”