“Stay,” I said, and he did, slumping to the floor with a whimper.
I found Bennet in the office, bound to a chair with zip ties, a cut leaking blood down the side of his head. He glared at me like I was the real threat.
“Nice of you to show up, Shivs,” he growled. “You bring the circus with you?”
I cut the zip ties and helped him up. “You alright?”
“I was better before these morons wrecked my aging room.” He staggered, but caught himself. “Is Carrie safe?”
“She’s here,” I said. “And she’s pissed.”
He smiled, a wet line of red in his teeth. “Good. I was starting to worry.”
We moved out, Carrie taking point, Bennet and I behind. The main hall was clear, but the air smelled like trouble—gunpowder, ozone, the bitter bite of adrenaline.
Outside, headlights swept the yard. Two vans, both with plates caked in mud. The doors slid open, and another wave of black-clad men poured out, maybe six or seven. I felt the change building in me, the teeth wanting out, the bones itching to crack and reshape. The wolf inside howled for blood, but I kept it in check, just barely.
“Back inside,” I said. “Up to the roof.”
Carrie nodded, and we hauled Bennet up the metal stairs, every footstep a gunshot in my ears. On the roof, the night was cold and open, the world below a chessboard of lights and shadows.
Carrie scanned the horizon. “Where’s your backup?”
“Any minute now,” I said, but I could see the worry eating at the edge of her control.
She caught my eye, and I saw the plan form in her head: “You’re going to distract them, aren’t you?”
I smiled, showing too much tooth. “It’s what I do best.”
She grabbed my arm, fingers digging deep. “Don’t die,” she said, voice thick.
I covered her hand with mine, holding it for one extra second. “Not tonight,” I promised.
And then I jumped.
Three stories down, I hit the awning, rolled, and hit the ground running. The wolf was almost out, muscles stretching, nails splitting into claws. I didn’t wait to see if they followed—I could smell their fear, the sharp ammonia stench of men who’d thought this would be easy.
I barreled into the first two, took one down by the knees, and broke the other’s arm with an elbow to the joint. The gunshots started, wild and desperate, but I moved too fast, too low. A bullet grazed my shoulder, hot and angry, but the pain was nothing compared to the high of the hunt.
They scattered, tried to regroup, but I herded them, forced them into the loading bay. That’s where the backup finally arrived—a wall of RBMC bikers, cuts on, bats and chains in hand, screaming bloody murder. The mercs didn’t stand a chance. They went down in a mess of blood and broken bone, screams swallowed by the roar of V-twins and the crash of fists on flesh.
I stood there, chest heaving, the wolf barely caged under my skin. Blood dripped down my arm, but I felt nothing but the electric buzz of victory. I caught Carrie and then Bennet when they jumped down, the real fight still waiting.
The moment we burst through the boiler room door, I smelled more than bourbon—blood, cordite, and the reek of men who knew they were about to die. The corridor echoed with gunshots, some muffled, some sharp as a switchblade. I took point, left shoulder bleeding, the world narrowing to the next ten feet and nothing else. Carrie and Bennet ducked behind me, moving as one, even though the old man was unsteady from the earlier blow to the head.
A hail of bullets tore chunks from the plaster as we cleared the first corner. One punched through my sleeve, hot and bright, but I kept moving, teeth gritted. The next two men were waiting at the bottling line, using the steel machinery as cover. They thought they had the drop—nobody expects a wolf to come for them in the middle of a bourbon distillery.
They shot anyway.
The world slowed, like it always did right before the shift. My vision tunneled, then widened, the colors blurring at the edgesuntil all that was left was red and white and the frantic thud of my heart.
I dropped the first man with a two-tap, the second with a shot to the throat. His body jackknifed over the conveyor, spraying blood on a thousand waiting bottles of Stillwater Black Label. I barely noticed. The next thing I saw was Carrie, crouched low, moving with a grace I didn’t know she had. She yanked Bennet out of the line of fire, dragging him behind a copper still so old it probably predated Prohibition.
“Miss Stillwater, get down!” Bennet screamed, but she was already yanking him lower, pressing herself flat against the tile and scanning for threats.
My pulse spiked, the bond between us thrumming like a downed powerline. I could feel her fear, but more than that, her resolve. She’d decided: nobody dies tonight, not even if it means burning down the last good thing in Kentucky.
Another wave of mercenaries came in from the warehouse, heavier this time—ex-mil, clean cuts, moving in formation. They swept the floor, aiming for the sound of our breathing. I let them come. My skin itched, the urge to shift so strong it nearly made me retch.