“But we ain’t Full Bloods,” the bobcat said.
“Who are you?” Randolph asked.
Deferring to him out of instinct, the Mongrel removed the edgy tone from her voice and said, “Lyssa,” in a way that made it sound close to listen.
“Liam passed the gift to you,” Randolph said. “I’ve heard others of your kind weren’t strong enough to endure as much.”
Lyssa glanced down at one forepaw that looked as if it had been nearly halved by an axe. “We’re different, but not like you. We think Liam was lying just to save his own skin.”
“Lying?” Liam asked as he reared up and showed the full glory of his one multifaceted eye. Subsiding like a tide after laying waste to a beachside community, he growled, “Maybe a little.”
“Kayla warned us of that,” Max explained, curling his lips and tongue around every word, as if still getting used to his new mouth. “But I knew there was a chance of something happening. At the very least, his meat would have been shared by our entire pack instead of handed over to those Skinner ghouls.”
“Shared,” Liam beamed, “and most definitely enjoyed. Just ask some of my old lady friends from London.”
After silencing Liam with a growl, Randolph shifted his focus to the burrower wolf. “Your name?”
As the Mongrel bared his teeth, its eyes showed equal parts fear and longing.
“He don’t speak,” Liam explained. “Either that or the poor fella’s shy.”
“What about the rest of your pack?” Randolph asked. “Have they been changed?”
Even on a face as twisted as Max’s, the contempt was clear to see. His eyes narrowed into yellow lines as he replied, “Kayla wouldn’t allow it. She and Ben are content to grow fat in Kansas City, scrounging for whatever human scraps they can find. When she saw what we became, she wanted to be rid of Liam forever.”
“Some of us volunteered for the change anyway,” Lyssa said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s more than we were before.”
“You think so?” Randolph growled. Even after he stood up straight, his body continued to rise. His ankles stretched into reversed knees as his legs stretched to new lengths. Claws snaked out of his toes and fingers. When his snout emerged from his face amid a series of loud, wet cracks, the true Full Blood stood before them.
Liam looked on with an eye that darted back and forth between the Mongrels. “Oh, see I was afraid of this. Randolph don’t exactly like to share his territory with anyone.”
“You brought us here to be slaughtered?” Max asked. Re-flexively changing into his squat burrower form, he sprouted claws that curved around like scythes to dig trenches into the rock. Whiskers sprouted from a nose that extended from his face to make way for the uniformly rounded teeth in his mouth. “You said we’d look for others like you,” he snarled.
“And it looks like we found one. Sorry, Max. Nothin’ I could do, you see.”
There was no more talking after that. When Randolph sprang forward, he reached out with both hands. A bellowing breath came from his mouth, and if not for the deadly arsenal of fangs and claws, he might have been just another rush of wind.
Lyssa and the digger-wolf hybrid scattered in opposite directions. Their speed was impressive, in that it was enough to get them out of the way before Randolph tore them into bloody ribbons. Max, on the other hand, dove straight into the hole from which he’d appeared.
As soon as Randolph hit the pile of rocks, he slashed at the hybrid with his claws. One bony talon snagged in the Mongrel’s flesh, but the creature was so panicked that it tore itself loose without seeming to realize the damage that had been done. Since that one was temporarily out of reach, Randolph moved his hungry gaze to the female. Lyssa bared her fangs, which were even longer now than when she’d been speaking to him a minute ago. Although she’d shifted into a more bestial form, her body retained the lithe silhouette that defined her species. As blood pumped through her veins, muscles grew beneath her flesh until she was large enough to pose a challenge.
Randolph sized her up in a fraction of a second and twisted his upper body around to snap at her. Impossibly fast, and strong enough to turn one unlucky rock into powder with a wild swipe, the Full Blood would have sunk his fangs deep into her neck if not for the hole that opened up directly beneath his left forepaw.
Thick, rounded paws reached from the hole, sank curved nails into Randolph’s leg and began shredding. Instead of simply flaying skin from flesh, Max used the werewolf’s limb to pull himself up from the ground. As soon as he snagged a tendon, he hooked a claw around the sinewy fiber and pulled until the ropy strand snapped. A bellowing roar flowed from the depths of Randolph’s massive frame and filled the sky above him. Perhaps spurred by the sound of his fellow Full Blood, Liam pounced at Max. If his claws had found their mark, they would have easily torn the Mongrel into uneven chunks. Instead, they scraped along rock and even grazed Randolph himself when Max ducked back down into his hole.
When he’d dug his first tunnel through the mountain, Max was able to take his time and slither through the narrow passages he’d made. Now, the Mongrel scraped frantically beneath the surface, knocking flat sections of the basin’s floor askew as he carved his escape route.
Randolph left a trail of blood in the air as he sprang forward to get ahead of the burrowing creature. Skidding upon his wounded leg, he brought a fist down like a hammer to crush through the rocky crust. Before he could pull Max from the ground, the wolflike Mongrel circled around from another angle to dig into the Full Blood with every tooth and claw at his disposal. Reaching over his shoulder, Randolph grabbed the hybrid by the scruff of its neck and pulled him free the same way he might rip out an arrow lodged between his shoulder blades. The hybrid tore open a large flap of skin from Randolph’s back, but the Full Blood still maintained his grip and slammed him to the basin floor.
As this one went, Liam had to contend with Lyssa. He’d been blindsided by the feline Mongrel as she ran along the edge of the rock wall like a race car cruising on the steepest slope of a track. She pushed away from the wall and flew at him with the intention of sinking her claws into his side, but was stopped in midair when Liam snapped his head around to clamp his jaws around her neck.
The muscles beneath Lyssa’s skin were more solid than any other Mongrel he’d faced. They shifted around his teeth to add another layer of padding before anything vital was pierced. Liam savored the moment while curling his lips back and pressing his jaws in tighter around her. His fangs sank in another quarter of an inch before Lyssa began scraping madly at his eyes and throat.
Unlike the Skinners who needed charmed weapons and trickery to hurt a Full Blood, Mongrels had a natural weapon at their disposal. Even Nymar fangs could wound a werewolf, but the leeches simply didn’t have the raw power needed to get the job done. Normally, a single Mongrel didn’t possess that kind of strength either. Lyssa, on the other hand, was proving that her uniqueness ran deeper than Liam had previously expected.
He pondered this while she shredded half of his face and further ravaged the callused pit where his right eye had been. Considering how bad that wound had itched since he regained consciousness, the Mongrel’s claws weren’t entirely unwelcome. Once the scratching dug a little too deep, he ended it by clenching his jaws shut tight enough for the Mongrel to shift her priorities from attack to defense. He swatted away one of her paws as if disciplining a child and then absorbed a few painful gouges along his forearm before grabbing the front portion of her chest. From there, he tore her off and pinned her to the ground. “There you go, sweetness,” he growled. “Just lay down and let me take care of you.”