He was lucky. The whole Clan wasn’t there. With a full Clan, he’d have been dead. But there were still twelve left. The five he’d already killed were lying in the building. Another three were lying on the ground at his feet. He could only hope that Miki grabbed the SUV keys out of his discarded jeans and made it to the parking lot where he’d left it. He could only hope she would be safe. That was all he cared about now.

Another set of jaws locked onto the back of his neck. Billy Dunwich tackled the hyena and ripped its leg off as he hit the ground. Conall faced another one and that’s when he smelled her. With her going into heat, it came to him a lot sooner.

“Hi. Am I interrupting anything important?”

They all turned to look at her. Conall gave a warning bark. She needed to move her ass. The hyenas wouldn’t be distracted for long. She just surprised them with her sudden appearance.

But it was the look in her eye that caught his attention. And the fact she had her hands behind her back. Plus she was standing just a little too cutesy for the Miki Kendrick he knew. With one leg cocked slightly in toward her other leg, her head tilted. Like a little girl.

Then it hit him. She was trying to look nonthreatening. But why? He decided not to wait to find out. He looked at the other wolves and, as one, they turned and ran.

Miki had their attention and it was damn scary. Those cold animal eyes staring at her. Sizing her up. Wondering what bits to eat first. But she needed Conall and the Pack to move. Now. But if she warned them then the hyenas would know, too. She knew from Sara that shifters could understand everything. They thought, heard, and saw as if they were still human.

Then, suddenly, Conall and the Pack hightailed it out of there. She didn’t know what clued him in, but she wasn’t going to worry about it. A few of the hyenas watched the Pack run. They weren’t a stupid breed. In fact, they were the exact opposite. They would know something was up, so she had to move now or lose her opportunity.

She raised her two guns. The hyenas stared at her for a moment and then began…laughing? It took every ounce of inner strength she had not to curl up into the fetal position and start crying for her grandmother. But, her grandmother had been a strong, mean woman and she would have told Miki to get her shit together anyway.

But Miki knew what they were laughing at. She didn’t have enough bullets in those two guns to take out all the Clan members in front of her. She may kill a few, but the rest would tear her apart.

She already knew that.

“Now!” The female wolf that Leucrotta had been sniffing stepped out of the shadows and tossed a mason jar, filled with the clear liquid Miki had created so many years ago, into the air. Miki raised one of the guns and fired. The jar exploded over the hyenas and, within seconds, flames covered their bodies.

A chemical flame that assoon as it touched the fur on the first hyena spread over the entire body within seconds. As the hyena tried to shake it off, it got too close to another clan member and the flame spread. That was the beauty of her concoction, and one of the reasons her government had tried to get her to produce it for them. It wasn’t like regular fire. It almost took on a life of its own, jumping from victim to victim as long as they were in a ten-foot range. It only went after flesh, fur, or skin, too. The buildings, trees, even the grass would be largely unaffected except for a few burn marks she never could figure out how to get rid of before she stopped working on the experiments all together.

The hyenas began to go up in flames as the wolf female tossed the other bottle on the opposite side and Miki shot that one as well. Then the female lobbed one to the right and left of the hyenas. Miki shot all of them without any problems. It was like skeet shooting. She only needed four bullets for that.

A ring of fire surrounded the hyenas. A fire that wouldn’t spread out but in. Once again, a little extra “thing” about her concoction. By the time the fire department showed up, they’d find a pile of hyena ash and a fire that would go out in about five more minutes without water or a fire extinguisher.

“Go!” The female took off running. Two hyenas, untouched by the flame, charged Miki. She fired both guns. One crumpled on impact. The other flipped head over tail.

Miki ran. Two hyenas still on her ass. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been close enough to the fire to get hurt. If she stopped to shoot, they’d take her down. She saw Conridge pull up in a minivan. A typical mom car. Thankfully it had automated doors that slid open at her approach. Miki dove for it but hyena teeth grabbed onto her calf.

She had on jeans but those strong jaws went right through to the flesh beneath. “Motherfucker!” Miki kicked with her free foot, but the hyena wouldn’t let go. It yanked and dragged her out of the van, flipping her to her back. That’s when she fired. She couldn’t get a clean head shot without shooting herself in the foot, so she shot it in the ass. It yelped and danced away. The second one came for her. She aimed the gun, her finger about to pull the trigger. Then suddenly the female who had been helping her shifted back to wolf in mid-flight and took the hyena down. She twisted its neck and snapped it.

Miki struggled to stand, but strong hands grabbed her from behind and lifted her to her feet. She looked over her shoulder and frowned. She’d assumed it was Conall but it was another Pack member.

“Where’s Conall?” He didn’t answer her, but lifted her and threw her into the van. The rest of the Pack, some human and some still wolf, followed in behind her. He slammed the door and Conridge moved. The woman drove like she taught. Dangerously.