Her ears were still ringing and the fog around the edges of her vision hadn’t faded. But Diego Mendoza was about to cave in her skull with a tree branch, and she wasn’t going to make it easy.
A fist-sized rock dug into her hip as she shifted her weight. Clawing together every stubborn scrap of willpower she had left, she closed her hand around the makeshift weapon and whipped it at Diego’s head. The second it left her fingers, she twisted. To her knees and then her unsteady feet, using the momentum to fling herself toward the woods in a stumbling pace that felt more like falling forward than running.
His heavy footsteps crashed through the brush behind her, closer with every frantic breath she dragged into her lungs. He swung again, and the branch caught her across her lower back, hard enough to knock her off her feet and send her sprawling.
It hurt to move. Even dragging her knees under her spiked agony up her spine. She clawed at the ground, tried to crawl away. The coyote battered at her, desperate to spill free, and she wasted what was probably her last moment fighting the animal back. The animal would only end up tangled in her clothes, pinned and helpless.
Branches snapped in the darker part of the forest. The wind shifted, and a familiar scent tickled her nose. Hope flooded her, desperate, giddy relief. She gasped in a breath, filled her lungs with the scent of safety, and gathered her remaining strength to roll out of the way as a dark wolf lunged out of the trees.
Julio.
He tumbled to the ground with Diego, rolling through the dirt and leaves, and snapped his jaws shut on the man’s arm. Diego roared and kicked hard, aiming his shot at Julio’s ribs. Sera cried out a wordless warning, but Julio took the blow, his head wrenching to the side.
Flesh tore, and Diego dropped the branch and fumbled for another weapon with his free hand. Julio lashed out with one paw, raking his claws over the right side of his father’s face.
So much rage. It pulsed in the air, a sound, a taste. Diego stumbled back under its force, rising to his feet as his expression melted from rage to fear. “Don’t do this. Don’t kill your own father in cold blood—” Julio backed off and circled, his sides trembling, his lips drawn back from his teeth in one low, continuous growl. Then he rushed in suddenly and sank his teeth into Diego’s thigh.
A scream. Diego crashed to the forest floor and swept up the first thing he closed his hands on—a moss-covered rock. He struggled to twist, to free himself, but every jerk only deepened the wound.
Blood began to spurt, and Diego slammed the rock down on the back of Julio’s head with a yell. He staggered away, his paws slipping on the leaves. By the time he regained his footing, he snarled, ready to dig in for another charge.
Only Diego didn’t get up. He’d gone pale, his clothes wet and dark with blood already, and sweat beaded his forehead as the rock tumbled from his hand. “Your mother,” he slurred. “She always said this…” The words trailed into nothingness, and he slumped to the ground.
Dragging herself upright induced a spinning sort of vertigo, but Sera ignored the swimming world and the sharp pain in her lower back. She crawled to Julio’s side and wrapped her arms around his trembling body. His fur was slick with blood, but she ignored it and buried her face against his neck, breathing in strength along with his scent.
A shock of magic zipped through her, and Julio shifted in her arms. “Sera,” he rasped.
“Did he hurt you?” She ran her fingers into his hair, feeling for blood. “He hit you with a rock, I saw—” He shook his head and then swayed a little. “I’m okay.” Immediately, he began to trace his hands over her. “You have blood on your face.”
She didn’t know if it was hers or Josh’s. A shudder set off all the minor aches, and she pushed closer to him. “I shot Josh. With—with the exploding bullets.”
“We saw him outside the cabin.”
“Your dad—” Diego’s body sprawled a few feet away. She tucked her face into Julio’s throat so she wouldn’t have to see any more death. There was time to tell Julio everything. When they were safe and rested and the pain of having to kill his father wasn’t so raw. “It doesn’t matter.
We’re okay. You’re okay?”
“I knew he was part of this,” he murmured against her hair. “When Patrick and I got close, I knew he had to be. This is where he and my uncle used to come fishing when I was a kid.”
A family retreat, full of death. So much blood and pain, and maybe the crack across the back of the head had knocked her silly, but she couldn’t stop the tears. Not for her own fear and pain, but because her father would be back in Atlanta by dawn, ready to drown her in protective love, and Julio’s father…
She choked on the sob, furious at herself for giving in to it when he needed comfort and support. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s not fair, not for you or Carmen or Miguel, it’s not fair.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Julio pulled her into his arms. “We tried to walk away and rebuild our lives, but they didn’t let us. They were never going to. It was always headed here, like this.”
His heart beat so strong and steady she could almost feel it against her chest. She kissed his throat and his chin, bumped her nose against his cheek again and again even as her tears turned his skin salty. It was a gesture beyond words, beyond thought. A quiet affirmation of love and belonging, of submission and safety.
Julio’s arms tightened as footsteps sounded behind them, but it was Patrick who came crashing out of the woods. “I’ve got her gun and your clothes. Can you do your snuggling in the car?”
Julio stood with Sera still in his arms. “Cleanup?”
“I asked Anna to find someone. Might keep her too distracted to get on a plane and come dance on the bodies.”
“She’ll be pissed.”
“What, that she didn’t get to come play?”
“Yes,” Sera said, cutting off any truths Julio might be thinking about spilling with a jab to his side. “Anna hates missing a fight.” Particularly one Patrick was involved in. Anna might well be working herself into a protective fit at the moment, but the last person she’d want privy to that fact was Patrick himself.
Julio looked at her, his confusion fading into understanding. “Yeah. We need to get back to the house. We can call everyone on the way.”
She eased back and steadied herself with a hand on Julio’s shoulder. The ringing in her ears had quieted, but her vision still blurred when she moved too fast. “Can shapeshifters get concussions? I should probably ask your sister.”
He pulled on his jeans and grabbed his shirt. “Patrick’ll drive, and I can keep an eye on you until we get you to Carmen. It’ll be okay.”
She started to protest that he’d been hit over the head too, but the words caught in her throat. That was alpha power, the kind that made wolves three times Anna’s size cower in her presence. She could hit harder, last longer and heal faster, because she was strong.
Sera…wasn’t. Would never be. Shame usually accompanied that reminder, but not today. If Julio and Patrick weren’t here, she’d drag herself to her feet one way or another. She’d do it the way she’d accomplished everything else—by being too damn stubborn to quit. Having different resources at her disposal didn’t make her lesser. Just different.
Her resources were running low, and there was no shame in that either. She waited for Julio to lift her into his arms and tucked her face against his shoulder with a soft sigh. It was his turn to be the protector, to be the hero, and she wouldn’t begrudge him that.
More than anything else, she liked it.