He aimed and fired. His bullet ripped through its right front leg, shattering the joint. Squealing in pain it crashed to the ground, and tried to shift to heal the massive damage to its leg.
Mason had seen Weres change before, and it turned his stomach. All that bone snapping and changing, not to mention skin that melted and reformed to the new shape. Bile rose in his throat as he approached the creature where it writhed on the ground.
“Down boy.” He lifted the rifle and put a bullet through its reforming brain.
“Keep in. Controlled bursts, conserve your ammo,” he yelled over the sound of firing as the small group of humans clustered back to back for protection. The wolves circled them, flitting in and out of cover.
They’d already lost Julian. The wolves had gotten to him within seconds of the initial attack. He snorted. The stupid cunt had tried to play the hero, ignoring all orders in favor of doing his own thing like some kind of post-apocalyptic Rambo. These days you didn’t want to be the hero. Playing the hero just got you dead. Fast.
The kid had deserved to suffer for the stunt he’d pulled, but Mason had done the decent thing and put a bullet between his eyes when the wolves had ripped into his stomach. No one deserved to be breathing through something like that.
Julian’s body, or what was left of it, lay off to the left. His abdomen was torn open, his intestines strewn around him like the stuffing out of a battered teddy bear. Steam rose off the slimy red tubes in the cold morning air.
Sausages, Mason thought absently as he rattled off a couple more rounds at a Werewolf that dared to poke its head over the top of an old concrete pipe. He hadn’t had sausages in years. He could still remember how they tasted. Little bites of pure, fatty pleasure that burst on the tongue.
Next to him, Julia kept a sharp eye out as he reloaded. The drill was smoothly executed, and instinctive. It was his last magazine. He didn’t need to ask to know they were all running low on ammunition.
What the f**k where they going to do when the bullets ran out?
“Single shot,” he ordered. “Make them count. If you can’t get a head shot, blow a leg out. I don’t care how, but I want these f**kers on the ground. If we’re going down, we’re taking them with us.”
The bushes around them rustled as the wolves closed in. Mason knew they were closing the net. Within minutes, they’d launch their final attack and the humans were screwed six ways to Sunday.
Ahead of him, an ear poked up over one of the concrete tubes the bastards were hiding behind. Mason grinned. It was less an ear, and more a furry suggestion of an ear. Disregarding his own order Mason aimed and squeezed the trigger, and grinned at the squeal of pain and fury that emanated from behind the pipe.
“What was that?” He cupped his ear as though listening hard for something. “Sorry you flea-bitten mutt, you’ll have to come a little closer. I can’t hear you!”
The group behind him chuckled softly. Within seconds, a low rumble overwhelmed the sounds of mirth, a rumble that coalesced into vicious snarling. He centered himself. This was it. They were about to die. He knew that, the men and women with him knew that. Miracles didn’t happen. Not anymore, not for anyone. Mason rolled his shoulders, checked his safety catch was off and waited for furry vengeance.
Today was a good day to die.
“Incoming,” he yelled as the wolves swarmed out of cover. Gunshots sounded around him as battle was joined. He emptied the last of his rounds into the face of a wolf stalking towards him and dropped into a crouch to yank the big blade from the sheath on his calf.
“Come on, you bastard. Come get me.” Mason’s voice was thick with fury as he faced off against a lean, pissed-off-looking wolf with a tattered ear and murder in his amber eyes. Mason grinned, showing all his teeth. “Let’s see if I can’t make that other ear match…”
The wolf curled its lip back, and snarled a low warning of pain and terror to come. As it bunched powerful legs underneath its body, Mason prepared for his last battle. Adrenalin sang in his veins. There was nothing like the imminent threat of death to make a man feel alive. He felt no fear. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all. Except a small measure of regret about kicking Andy out of town last night without even trying for so much as a kiss.
The wolf lunged at him. Mason was quicker. He sidestepped as the creature rushed him, letting its momentum and weight carry it past him. As it did, he stepped back into its side, easily avoiding the slash of vicious teeth and landed a solid back-fist on the side of its skull. The wolf howled as Mason grimaced in pain. It was like punching bloody granite.
The creature turned, and Mason knew he was done for. The group was scattered, wolves closing in on each of them. Julie, his fire team partner screamed as a wolf tumbled her to the ground, standing over her and slowly licking her face.
“Come on then. Come and get me.” Mason’s lip curled back as he snarled. “I hope I give you the shits.”
The wolf grinned, eyeing him up as though deciding which tasty portion of Mason’s anatomy he was snacking on first. Mason’s grip tightened on the blade in his hand. No matter where the creature struck, his knife was going through its heart.
“Want a hand there, handsome?”
The seductive voice took him by surprise. Andy. He slid a glance sideways, trying to look at her and keep an eye on the wolf too.
“What the hell are you doing here, woman?”
She was already injured. Blood coated one of her arms, soaking through the light material of her T-shirt. The bullet hole at the shoulder and the tattered skin beneath told him the blood was hers. “You’ll get hurt.”
Mason wasn’t quite sure how the events of the next thirty seconds unfolded. As the snarling Werewolf launched itself towards them he tried to shove her out of the way, and protect her with his own body. Only she wasn’t there anymore.
Chapter Four
Grim determination flowed through Andy’s veins as she stepped towards the Were. Her non-human instincts were in full force. Its lifeline was bright red, ready to be reaped. Trouble was, the soul was still firmly embedded in the body, and she knew from the look in its eye that it wasn’t giving it up without a fight.
She grinned. Just the way she liked them.
Time slowed to a crawl as the creature barreled towards her. She dropped to one knee, the other leg stretched out for balance, as it sailed over her. Spinning the sickle in her right hand she sliced across its belly. The contents of its abdomen evacuated the premises in a torrent of blood and heavier things.
Andy ignored it as it thudded to the ground to twitch its last. The soul and the body were separate, and that was all she cared about. Most corpses tended to twitch a little before they realized they were dead.
She turned her attention on the other wolves. Some of the humans were already dead—there was nothing she could do about that. All she could do was protect those that still lived. Muscles filled with the power of her calling, Andy swept through them like a hurricane.
Her blades sliced and diced, ripped and danced, as she caught fur and bone alike, slicing through the body to catch the soul inside.
Within seconds she stood in a pile of lupine bodies. Her eyes were flat and unemotional as she watched the remaining wolves beat a hasty retreat. She didn’t blame them. Vamps and Weres—both thought they were the top of the food chain. Did them good to come across something more powerful…something they couldn’t beat, couldn’t kill.
Slowly she became aware of her ragged breathing, and the pain streaking like wildfire down her arm. She wrinkled her nose as she looked at her shoulder. “Dammit...”
The bullet had ripped through the fabric, and from the feel of it, was still lodged in her flesh. Great, surgery before lunch. She sighed. She needed a vacation. Somewhere hot. She’d heard Hawaii was nice this time of year.
“Here, you’re bleeding. Let me.”
A voice at her side made Andy jump a little. She turned and looked up into warm eyes. A smear of blood marked his cheek, but Andy was caught instead by the small laughter lines at the corners of his eyes. He must have smiled a lot at some point. The desire to get him to smile at her was nearly overwhelming.
“This? It’s just a scratch.”
She flinched as he slapped a field dressing over her arm and applied pressure. To her, it was little more than a hole in her skin. She wouldn’t call it a wound. Such a name gave it an importance that was unwarranted. Whatever she did—dressed it or allowed it to bleed—nothing untoward would happen. No matter how much blood she lost, she wouldn’t bleed out.
“Just a scratch, huh?”
His lips quirked into a half smile. The expression transformed his harshly handsome face into something that took Andy’s breath away. Oh, for God’s sake girl, get a grip. He’s a good-looking guy and you’re an intelligent woman. No need to start thinking with your damn ovaries.
“I suppose if you lost your leg, you’d claim it was a mere flesh wound, eh?”
“Something like that.”
Her smile turned into a hiss of pain as he pressed hard onto her arm. It hurt like a bitch, but her reaper physiology only needed a little help. Already the bleeding had stopped, and she could feel the skin starting to close. She could feel something in there, which meant she was going to have to open it up later to get the damn thing out. Trust her to get hit by the only shotgun in the group, just her luck.
“How’s it feel?” His pale eyes studied her with a perception Andy found disturbing and thrilling at the same time. It was like he could see right through to her soul. If she even had one…the jury was still out on that. Still she had a feeling that, of all the people she’d come across in the last ten years, Mason was the one who would see past her human disguise to the real woman beneath.
She wiped her blades off on the nearest furry carcass with swift swipes and sheathed them with efficient movements. They slid back into place with a satisfying click. Waving his hand away, she gingerly peeled back the field dressing to look. As she’d suspected the ragged tear in her skin was closed and fresh, pink skin had taken its place. She flashed him a smile as she dropped the dressing back into place.
“Good as new, thanks.”
Mason arched an eyebrow. “What, no pain? Feeling dizzy, anything like that?”
She gave him a long look. “Not human, remember?”
“Hmm...you still bleed like the rest of us.”
His voice was low as he looked around the small group. They were scattered around the scene of their showdown with the wolves. A couple just lay on their backs, staring up at the sky as they dragged harsh breaths of air into their lungs.
“Yeah. So do wolves.”
Mason frowned, looking at the small pile of lupine bodies in front of them. “That’s odd. They normally turn human again when you kill them.”
Surprise filled Andy, but she hid it as she looked sideways at him. She’d under-estimated him. Again. After seeing the way he had the town set up, she should know better. “They do. Well spotted. I take it you’ve killed a few in your time?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Spent a couple of years on the road before settling down. Traveled with a witch for six months…seen just about everything that’s out there.”