In the aftermath, Jackson had broken it to her that there was something fishy about the guy. Bad news, the wizard had called him, but Kat hadn’t cared. She’d had Miguel by then, and the newness of their relationship, and little thought to spare for the sort of guy who’d run out on his date while she was being mugged.
Run out—or teleported away.
It took two seconds for the thought to form, and two seconds was already too long in a fight with shapeshifters.
“Kat, down!” Julio surged past her, swinging the shovel, but the man vanished.
Andrew had the other one on the ground, landing blow after blow, but a second later Gilbert reappeared, his boot already en route to Andrew’s face. It connected, and Andrew howled as his head snapped back.
They were moving so fast, almost too fast to see. Magic snapped through the air, and at least a half dozen emotional flares burst into existence, staggered in a semicircle in the direction Anna had run. She caught her breath and shouted a warning as she raised her gun again. “More coming in from the road!”
Vicious snarls rose in the night, the snaps and growls of more than one fight. Julio had managed to divest himself of half his clothes, and Andrew recovered enough to punch Gilbert in the side of the knee.
The blow connected before he could dematerialize, and his grunt of pain hung in the air after he’d vanished.
The shifter Gilbert had dropped on top of them rolled to his side, then reached for the box. Her gun was a weapon of last resort, but she had a more powerful one at her command. Eerie calm had settled over her, a tribute to Callum’s training, she supposed—or Zola’s. It seemed easy to touch the shifter’s aura, and it didn’t take much. A push. A whisper of danger, of the right flavor of fear, and instinct had the man scrambling blindly to his feet, poised to face a threat that wasn’t there.
Which made him an easy target for Patrick, who proved his guns were silent by slamming a bullet between the man’s eyes.
The fights in the forest drew closer—Anna and Miguel, undoubtedly pushing the interlopers closer to them. Closing the fight to a workable distance.
Kat sensed Miguel before he tumbled out of the trees in a tangle of fur and limbs. He landed hard, rolled again and sank his teeth savagely into the other wolf’s throat. His opponent thrashed and fell still as Miguel reared back with a snarl.
Another flash of emotion coalesced before her, and Gilbert reached for her only to be knocked aside by a flying form. Anna, who must have startled him, because she bore him to the ground and snapped her teeth shut on his arm before he disappeared.
Julio hit the ground on four paws as Andrew rose, cold rage spilling from him. He barely moved, just stood, his hands clenched into fists and his head cocked as if listening for something.
Kat concentrated on the people around them. Pain flickered from the dead and dying, but none of the gravely injured were their own. The interlopers were mostly fear and nerves now, with one pulsing light of rage barreling toward them from the direction of the road.
“One coming in behind you,” she told Andrew, surprised at how steady her voice sounded. How cold.
“And he’s mad.”
“Good,” he growled. “So am I.”
The man broke free of the trees, and Kat got the second shock of the evening. If she hadn’t seen Gilbert, the features would have been naggingly familiar, the sort of echo that might keep her up at night wondering where she’d met him before. But there was no mistaking him here, now, as the anger inside him twisted up his face when he caught sight of her.
He’d attacked her before, smashed her head into a car before she’d rammed her stun gun into his side and left him unconscious on the side of the road with a self-reliance that had given her back a bit of her own pride.
Clearly he hadn’t forgotten. Neither had Andrew, who scooped up the shovel and launched himself past the fray with a roar.
The man dodged his first swing and grabbed the shovel, snapping off the business end with a vicious jerk. Undaunted, Andrew swung the handle up and slammed the shifter across the side of the head.
A soft pop and a laugh had Kat spinning again, her gun swinging up. Gilbert grinned at her. “Try to pull the trigger before I disappear again. How many shots will you get out here before someone calls the cops?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Patrick spin and lift his arm. His weapons were silent, but the movement of her eyes must have been enough warning. Gilbert disappeared again, and the bullet dug into a tree a few feet past where he’d been standing.
Another growl jerked her attention back to Andrew, who dropped his opponent with one last blow. The remains of the shovel handle disintegrated in his grip, and he tossed the shards aside and bent low. “Get up. No cage to save your ass now, so you get up and fight me.”
A snarl. The shifter twisted his head, gaze sliding over the small clearing. All of his allies were down.
Anna, Miguel and Julio stood as wolves, tensed and ready. Patrick had his feet braced on either side of the unearthed box and both guns up.
No rescue, not unless Gilbert popped in and out again. Sudden desperation spiked through Kat hard enough to force a gasp from her lips, leaving her breathless. “Andrew, look—” The shifter lunged upwards. Not at Andrew.
At her.
He didn’t make it off the grass. Andrew hit him, over and over, until Julio—who had regained his human form and gotten half-dressed at some point—stilled his arm.
Before Kat could draw another breath, magic popped and an arm materialized around her throat.
Everyone froze.
Gilbert’s hoarse command stirred her hair. Stirred her rage. “Nice and easy, guys. Hand it over, no tricks, or I’ll disappear with her.”
He’d disappear with her either way. She’d seen her own face in those files, had read every nauseating word over Patrick’s protests. They’d slap the collar around her throat and aim her at the nearest opposition. She could start riots, burn out minds, force pain and rage and fear on anyone they needed subdued.
She could kill, which was what Gilbert never should have forgotten. Everyone else was dead, everyone who wasn’t one of hers. And she knew what she was doing this time, thanks to Carmen’s careful explanation. She brought them all into her shields effortlessly, too easily, so easily it was dangerous, and she didn’t care. She gathered them to her like picking up stones from the beach, even Miguel, who could have fought but didn’t.
She clutched them to her. Anna, who was so tough but so brittle, like she might shatter if you hit her in the wrong spot. Patrick, whose confidence defied arrogance—he had nothing to prove, except he wanted to prove everything when he looked at Anna. Julio and his sturdy strength, like a deeply rooted tree, unshakable, and Miguel who trembled with the need to fight-kill-rip-tear.
Andrew. She pulled him the closest, cradled him against her and ached at his weariness, at his fear, and yet even tired and scared, Andrew was the one who burned the brightest, with a rage that could break open and devour the man who held her.
They were all imperfect, and beautiful and, for one shining moment, Kat loved them all.
Then she let go, crashing into Gilbert’s mind with all the rage inside her, fed by the helpless fury of the minds wrapped safely within her own.
He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t release her either, not quite, just shook, a fine tremor that bloomed into violent trembling as he dragged in one shaky breath after another. His pain echoed through her, terror so blinding she felt like the cruelest kind of sadist when satisfaction twisted in her gut.