My heart rate doubled. Moments away. My pulse echoed in my ears, a fanfare to announce the coming attraction. We were on the brink of actual war—the first American inter-Pride brawl in decades—and I wasn’t ready.

I dumped the extra adrenaline my nerves spawned into my Shift, forcing my body through the paces faster and faster. My entire head ached with pressure so severe it felt like my skull would squeeze my brain out my ears.

Instead, my face lengthened and pain exploded along the new length of my jaw. My cheekbones stretched with an odd screeching sound heard only in my head, as my ears traveled forward and all outward sound was temporarily suspended. My nose flattened and darkened, and a long, bare muzzle now took up most of the bottom half of my field of vision.

“Is everybody ready?” This time my father’s voice was low, steady with a false calm.

I could only whine in answer, and I was acutely aware of Marc standing next to me now, fully Shifted. He stood between me and the door, obviously intent on protecting me until my Shift was over.

My entire body began to itch as fur sprouted over my skin, beginning along my spine, and flowing to cover every inch of me, except for my paw pads. My teeth grew so quickly they forced my mouth open, and I nearly bit off the end of my own tongue, as backward-facing barbs suddenly sprouted all over it.

Whiskers shot out of the sides of my muzzle, stark white against the dark blur of my own fur. They twitched as I sniffed the room. Almost there. Just waiting on… My claws.

Even as I pictured them, my finger- and toenails grew hard and sharp, lengthening to deadly points. I sheathed them, then unsheathed them again and dug into the floor, picturing them piercing vulnerable human flesh.

And just as my tail began to swish, fully formed and twitching angrily, my father gave the “get ready!” signal from the front room: he went completely still and totally silent.

Marc and I padded silently to opposite sides of the bedroom door, where we were least likely to be shot and most likely to surprise any intruders.

Soft footsteps climbed the front steps. Malone’s men were in stealth mode, too. Did they think we didn’t know they were coming?

I peeked into the living room to see my father standing to one side of the front door, his back against the wall, Lucas on his left. Jace and Vic mirrored them on the other side.

The footsteps stopped. They must have realized something was wrong. How could they not, with the lights on, but no one in sight through the windows? With no voices carrying from inside.

The first man paused in front of the door. His dark silhouette spanned the entire width of the small window cut into it. His shadow turned, and I heard the faintest of whispers as he spoke to the toms behind him. I couldn’t make out his words, but the message was clear: we were up to something. Or else we’d left. Run away.

My heart thumped in my ears, and suddenly I wondered if we should have. Were we making a fool’s mistake, taking on men with guns while we were armed with nothing but anger, shielded by nothing but courage?

Either way, it was too late for a change of plans. The silhouette canted to one side and kicked the front door open.

I knew several of the faces, but had no names to go with them, and at a glance they all seemed to be carrying guns. Brian was too late to get rid of them. Malone’s men stared into the apparently empty living room, and our men in human form held their breath. They couldn’t disguise their heartbeats, but if the intruders’ pulses were rushing as loudly as my own they’d never hear heartbeats, anyway.

“They ran.” The first tom lowered his gun. “Bunch of cowards fucking ran away.” He stepped over the threshold, and two more followed before the first one turned around.

Jace seized the nearest man’s gun arm and pulled the tom in front of him, shielding himself from gunfire. Vic did the same with the second man to turn.

My father lunged with a speed I’d seldom seen from him. He grabbed the lead man’s hand and forced the gun to one side, then pulled the tom to the left, out of sight from the doorway and out of the line of fire. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to worry, beyond the wordless adrenaline-laced terror already surging through me.

The tom tried to jerk free. My father squeezed his hand so hard I heard the bones crack from fifteen feet away. The tom howled and dropped his gun. Lucas bent to snatch it.

“Toss your guns inside and step forward with your hands on your heads.” My father’s voice carried absolute authority, a fact I’d recognized long before I took my first steps. But the three men still standing on the porch were completely unfazed.

“Not gonna happen, Councilman.”

My father was seconds from losing his temper. “Drop your guns, now!”

“She’s in here.” The first tom craned his neck in my father’s grip to glance around the cabin. “I can smell her. But the rest of them are Shifted. Call for backup.”

Footsteps pounded on the porch as the last three toms turned and ran, two of them armed.

My father roared. His face flushed with fury, and his fist smashed into the side of the tom’s head. The tom collapsed to the floor with a thud. “Get them!” my dad yelled, his throat half-Shifted, his words barely understandable.

But his meaning was clear.

I leaped into the living room and was on the porch two bounds later. I hit the grass running, frozen blades crunching beneath my paws, frigid air burning in my lungs. Marc was on my tail, and I could hear two others behind us.

My pulse raced as I ran. Each breath was a deep huffing pant, powerful in its own right, without the accompanying soft thuds of my paws on the ground.