Bone crunches.
“No!” I scramble to my feet.
His eyes go golden. An apology forms on his lips, too silent to hear, before his control snaps. Muscles bulge and his body contorts against his will and fills him with agony of the change.
The moon-mad creature unlocks its jaw, releasing Grayson from the bite, taking a step in the opposite direction. Unsure what the hell is happening.
Horror slams in me through Grayson’s change.
He’s taller now, his skin stretching alarmingly. Great tears fissure across his forearms, filled with flayed skin and black fur.
No longer the boy I knew.
No longer the wolf I’d seen him shift into before.
Grayson’s moon madness has taken over completely and erases his control with this new threat, turning him into a monster.
He howls in the other creature’s face and the sound forces it to retreat.
The change set, the damage done, the two snap at each other and tear with impossibly sharp claws.
A sob works its way free and I’ve stepped toward them before familiar arms wind around my waist and pull me away.
“Mandi, no. You can’t be here. Get out.” Mom coughs, blood splattered across the left side of her face. “Right now!”
I’ll die if I stay. I’ll doom my mother along with me because my gut tells me she isn’t going anywhere if I refuse to listen. Now is not the time to make a stand.
Or is it? Can I jeopardize her too?
Can I leave Grayson?
I shake my head and tears spring free. This can’t be how our story ends.
He stepped in to protect me.
I pull myself free from Mom and face her, jaw working and mind spinning. “You go. I’m fine. I need to help him.”
She’s trembling everywhere. “We can handle ourselves, honey. What’s a few dozen moon-mad when the Ironwood pack is strong? But you, you’re human?—”
I push her away, Grayson and the other wolf crashing between us. Mom regains her balance before I do and reaches for me again but I thrust out an arm.
“Please. Go.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
I get my stubbornness from her, I swear. “Get Holly and run.”
The demand in my voice rings clear and I catch a glimpse of shock. Then Grayson regains his feet and shakes his head, shakes off the hit, the gold in his eyes erased under a wave of red.
Around us, the room is an awful symphony of agony and horror. Torn flesh makes the floor slippery, blood pooling from members of both sides who have fallen.
My gorge rises but I can’t breathe easier until Mom is out of sight.
I watch her disappear through the tide and pray it’s enough.
We might hold our own for now but Grayson won’t stop fighting until every last one of them, of us, is gone. He’s gone. I try to tell myself not to look for him in the black furred monster rising up from the floor over the body of his dead foe.
I can’t help it.