Author: Kalayna Price

I closed the space between us in a single heartbeat. He tried to back peddle, but I grabbed him.

My fangs betrayed me, remaining hidden. I didn't need the blood. Didn't want it. But, I did need him unconscious. Bryant recovered from his surprise, and dug his claws deep into my arm. Flesh and muscle ripped to the bone.

I swallowed my scream. My fangs burst through at the first searing pain, and I plunged them into Bryant's neck.

His memories flooded over me. His beast, a hyena, had manifested itself the first time when Bryant was at a party, in a makeout room.

The pain. What is happening? The girl. She keeps screaming, trying to leave. They always leave me. I reach for her. Make her stay. But her flesh rips under my hands. Claws? Why do I have claws?

The girl is really screaming now. I have to shut her up. My claws sink into her neck. Her eyes bulge, begin to fade, but she is oh so quiet. She can't leave now.

Someone is coming. The freak who sliced up the crowd last month. He smiles as he sees the girl.

He's like me. A monster.

I reeled back, letting Bryant fall. His memories still danced behind my eyes. Tyler had found him, filled his head with nonsense about monsters and power, and encouraged the madness tagged shifters fight. Bryant and his beast had become twisted, depraved.

Bryant was why the murders were in Haven now. Tyler had found him here, and rape and torture was more fun with a friend.

I took a step back and forced my eyes to focus through the assault of memories which still clawed at my mind. Bryant sprawled against the wall. He was only dazed. He wouldn't be down long.

Footsteps thudded near the door. I spun around. A figure stooped in the doorway and my heart missed a beat. Tyler's piercing gaze fixed on me. His hand dropped from his throat, blood dripping from his finger tips.

Crap.

The energy in the room built to an unbearable tension. Tyler doubled forward, his skin splitting down his back.

Double crap.

I glanced at Bryant. He was already recovering. He rolled away, pushing himself up on his elbows. I hadn't taken near enough to weaken him.

Great, so I was going to have to fight both of them somehow. The only good thing was, their blood had made me stronger and more alert, while weakening them. If there was an advantage to being a human-shaped tick, that was it. I glanced from one to the other, Tyler's skin was slipping off, but the change wasn't progressing very quickly. Evan's memory reminded me that tagged shifters could take minutes to initiate a full change.

Okay, so I had a little extra time; I needed to use it to incapacitate Bryant before Tyler finished his change. But how? I cursed and kicked Bryant hard. He gave a grunt, but it only broke his daze faster.

My foot shot out for a second kick, but the blow went wild as pain twisted deep in my stomach. I doubled over, my fists bunching in my middle. I expected blood, expected something had ripped into my abdomen, but my skin was whole, unbroken. What the hell?

The pain crawled outward, spreading through my body like fire through my veins. It traveled down my arm, and the skin on my hand burst open. Then blood flew across the room to join the lurching mass of Tyler's changing form. I blinked, shock buffering the pain for a single heartbeat. Shifters heal. Even severed limbs would rejoin the body. And apparently, stolen blood.

I needed to get away. Far enough that the blood couldn't be called back to Tyler as he healed. There wasn't time. I had only enough time to realize how screwed I was. Then veins all over my body split open. I screamed as the blood ripped forcefully out of me.

I should have known better.

I collapsed, not even wasting energy on breathing. My own blood, the little blood I had left that hadn't mixed with Tyler's, dripped from my ruined veins, spilling my strength onto the carpet.

I was going to die. Two deranged tagged shifters were going to kill me. My eyes drifted closed, but on the back of my lids a terrible scene of demons closing in on Bobby and Nathanial played, and I opened them again. Not just me. If these rogues killed me, we were all doomed.

I wasn't dead yet. If my body wasn't smart enough to shut up and die, then my mind wasn't going to give up first.

A body can only take so much pain. I'd apparently hit that threshold because the pain faded to numbness. I pushed off the floor.

Bryant's eyes flew wide as I climbed to my feet, his gaze pure fear and frantic. I lunged at him, my fangs already bared.

He was ready for me. He grimaced, but caught my throat in one large hand, and his thumb claw slipped through my ruined flesh and into my air pipe.

Damn!

I tried to jerk away, but he gripped my throat tighter. Unable to pull back, I pressed forward, driving his thumb deeper into my flesh. His elbow bent, but I was still too far away to use my fangs or score a decent punch. My scream of rage and frustration gurgled in my throat. I'm a cat, dammit!

My hand shot out, pure instinct, and claws burst from my fingertips. Bryant had been prepared for my teeth—not my claws. With one great slash, the skin in his stomach parted. He released me, falling to his knees as he tried to hold his entrails inside.

Grabbing a handful of his hair, I wrench his head to the side. My claws arched towards his throat. Before the blow landed, weight crashed into me.

I slammed against the closet door. The world flashed red.

I flipped around in time for the thing to crash into me again. A monstrous, brown-furred form charged, and I backpedaled, my claws flashing. Tyler had completed his change.

Wolf!

I pressed my back hard against the closet.

Wolf.

No tagged shifter should have transformed so far. I still bore the scars from the only other one I knew who had. Tyler had retained just enough of his human self to be lankier and larger than a true wolf. His brown eyes had remained the same, and he looked from Bryant's panicked form back to me. It was only a moment's distraction but I used it.

Now!

My brain and body didn't agree, and I caught tuffs of fur at his throat, nothing else.

Don't get cornered. I pushed away from the closet door.

Tyler threw his superior weight into me again and I fell off balance. I landed on my back, and he was on top of me in a moment. Teeth gnashed in my face, and he let out a deep rumbling growl. Fear seized me. I couldn't think. Couldn't plan.

Wolf, run!

No. Fight it!

I thrashed underneath him. His teeth ripped into my shoulder, pinning me to the ground. My knee slammed between his legs. Yelping, he jumped back, releasing me.

Up, get up!

I was on my feet and running without realizing it. I wasn't looking where I was going, all I could think about were those growling teeth over me.

Tyler crashed into my back, and the world broke around me.

No, not the world. A window.

I fell with the snow at a dizzying speed toward the ground below. Tyler howled, his teeth gnashing for me even as we fell. I lashed out with my claws, catching him on the muzzle. The blood shot straight up, our heavier masses falling faster than liquid.

Tyler yelped, his eyes rolling wide as he looked down. He whipped his spine around, trying to get his feet under him. Landing on his feet wouldn't help. We had fallen out of a fourteenth story window. Neither of us would survive.

Far below, rushing closer every moment, I could see the judge. Bobby and Nathanial were also there, not yet demon food.

Had I pulled it off?

Well, I'd be making it back within my time limit. Granted, not exactly the way I'd imagined, but I was bringing the rogue with me. They would live.

I did it.

The cement jumped closer and closer.

I cringed, closing my eyes. I could only hope it would be fast and painless.

Chapter 23

It was fast. A sudden jarring stop, quite painful, but the fact that I felt the pain meant I wasn't dead.

I chanced opening my eyes and found myself wrapped in Nathanial's arms, still several stories up. We hung in mid-air. Ever so slowly, we drifted down.

My heart was trying to race, trying to process the emotion of being alive, but there was no blood left for it to pump. I hurt everywhere. If I could have gotten sick, I would have. Falling to my death would have been preferable. I caught sight of the dirty-looking smear on the pavement below us and changed my mind.

"Drink from me, Kitten, you are dying,” Nathanial whispered.

I shook my head and tried to speak, but only a gurgling sound issued from my throat.

"Please. You survived the fight, you cannot die like this now.” He was trying to touch me so carefully and yet hold me tight at the same time.

Maybe it was the plea in his voice that got through to me, though I would like to blame it on vampiric instinct and not emotional attachment. He exposed his throat and I sank my fangs in. I expected an assault of memories, but as his mind opened to me it was different, controlled. Nathanial's memories did flood over me, but he was holding them back. I saw myself through his eyes, and was terrified by the fact that not a visible inch of smooth skin was left on my body. In fact, I appeared to be nothing more than so much raw meat with teeth and claws. I understood then the look of horror in Bryant's eyes.

I was a thing of nightmares.

But, horror wasn't what Nathanial's mind conveyed to me. His dread was in the idea that this might be too much damage for my body to heal.

I suddenly felt ashamed, like a Peeping Tom. These were the emotions Nathanial hid behind his mask, and I was snooping through them like I belonged. I drew back, closing the wound carefully.

"You need more."

I tried to answer, but my words rasped out in gurgles again. Nathanial's frown deepened. He shifted me slightly and lifted his hand to my throat. His fingers explored the damage until he found where Bryant's claw had poked through my windpipe. Nathanial's thumb slid over the hole. That hurt, but my whimper actually had a sound aside from gurgling.

"Try to speak,” he said.

"My body is wasting the blood,” I gasped out. I had to breathe to speak, and the most terrible whistling and sucking sounds escaped around his thumb when I tried. I pulled away so he could see what I could already feel. All down the front of my body, fresh blood—Nathanial's blood—dripped. Now that I had more, apparently I was trying to send it around, and the tracks weren't there.