Carrie fired, a perfect shot, and dropped the lead man in his tracks. The rest scattered, hugging the barrels, and opened up with suppressed submachine guns. The air filled with splinters, glass, and ricochets. One slug pinged off the still right above Bennet’s head, showering him with metal shavings.
“Fuck!” I roared, and the shift finally took me.
It wasn’t pretty. It never was. The bones crack first—shoulders, jaw, then spine—followed by the ripping, tearing, wet sound of muscle rearranging. The world flipped inside out, and fur erupted through my skin, shredding my shirt and jacket. My hands warped, fingers fusing into claws, and the next time Ilooked up, I saw through the eyes of a predator so old it didn’t even remember how to be afraid.
I howled. The sound bounced off the walls, and for a second, everyone froze. That’s all I needed.
I launched myself at the nearest man, jaws open, and closed them on his forearm. The bone snapped like a dry stick, and his gun clattered to the floor. I dropped him and turned on the next, claws raking down his back. He screamed, but it cut off as my teeth tore through the artery in his neck.
Blood everywhere. The air tasted of iron and gun oil, and I wanted more.
Another man tried to run, but I was on him before he cleared the corridor. I yanked him off his feet, slammed him into the wall, and left him there, twitching.
I lost count of the bodies after that. Every time a gun flashed, I moved. Every time a voice shouted, it was silenced. The part of me that cared about anything but the kill was gone, replaced by the pure, mindless joy of doing what I was built for.
But I never lost sight of Carrie.
Even as the world burned, I kept her at the center of my vision. She darted from cover to cover, always staying low, always dragging Bennet with her even as he tried to protest.
At one point, she stopped to reload, ducking behind a stack of barrels. That’s when I saw him—a man in a dark suit, standing just outside the chaos, hands folded, face lit only by the muzzle flashes. Marcus Ellery. The architect of all this.
He didn’t flinch as the bullets flew. He just watched, cold and calculating, and when Carrie finally looked up, their eyes locked for a single, silent second.
Then he was gone.
The fire started with a hiss—a single bullet, wild and dumb, had punctured a steam line near the main tank. The next shotstruck the copper, and the whole thing let go with a roar, spraying vapor and boiling water everywhere.
The scalding heat hit me first. I reeled, shaking it off, then turned to see a wave of fire roll across the floor, hungry for anything that would burn.
Bourbon. The whole place was soaked in it. In ten seconds, the production room turned into a furnace.
Carrie grabbed Bennet, hauling him to his feet. “Move!” she screamed, and he did, hobbling along as best he could.
I cut through the flames, ignoring the pain. The wolf in me didn’t care about scars, didn’t care about fire, just wanted out. I leapt over burning crates, dodged falling glass, and got to them just as a wall of heat blew out the side windows.
The alarms kicked in, shrieking over the chaos. Fire suppression started, but the system was old—more for show than anything. Water drizzled from the ceiling, evaporating before it hit the flames.
Bennet coughed, face streaked with blood and soot. “The valves!” he shouted. “If the fire hits the rickhouse—”
Carrie’s eyes went wide. “We lose it all.”
She looked at me, the bond a raw nerve between us. She didn’t have to say it.
Save the barrels. Save the legacy.
I nodded, then barreled through the door to the back hall, knocking aside the half-melted handle with a swipe of my paw. The smoke was worse here, black and thick, clawing at my lungs. But I could see the control room at the end of the corridor, half a football field away, orange light flickering under the door.
I ran for it.
Behind me, gunshots still popped, but fewer now. Most of the mercs were dead or dying. A couple had gotten out, but they were nothing compared to the fire.
I crashed through the control room door, splinters flying. Inside, the heat was so bad the paint was peeling from the walls. I scanned the panels, looking for the emergency cut-off. There: a big red lever, right at eye level.
I jumped, grabbed it with my jaw, and yanked. The whole building shuddered as the valves snapped shut, choking off the fuel to the fire. The pressure in the lines bled off with a banshee howl, then silence, except for the crackle of flames and the slow drip of water.
I staggered, suddenly weak. The shift was burning out—my muscles trembled, vision doubled. I stumbled out of the room, barely making it back to the main floor before the wolf melted away, leaving me naked, blood-slick, and raw.
Carrie and Bennet were waiting, pressed against the exit. She caught me as I fell, arms strong around my shoulders, and for a second, everything was still.