Somewhere behind her, almost drowned out by the snarling, hissing, and growling from farther down the path, a twig snapped.
Leaves rustled, and a pebble rolled down the path.
Jorie's head jerked up.
Half a dozen wild-eyed men and women were running toward her. One of them gave an angry shout that sounded already more like a bark than a human sound.
Jennings's pack!
Jorie's hands dug through leaves, earth, and pieces of fabric. Her fingers touched cold metal just as the first Wrasa was almost upon her. She swiveled around and swung the weapon up.
No time to aim.
Killing wasn't her intention anyway. It would make the rest of the pack even angrier. She jerked the barrel up, aiming into the air.
Her finger tightened around the trigger.
Nothing.
The loud echo of the shot that Jorie had hoped for didn't happen.
The silencer!
Jorie had forgotten that it was still attached to the gun.
"Stop!" she shouted and swung the weapon down.
The first Wrasa skidded to a stop as he found the gun aimed at him, but the others raced on.
A big body hit Jorie at full speed.
She went down with a groan but didn't lose her grip on the weapon.
The weight that hit her pressed the air from her lungs. Panic threatened at the thought of being buried under a pile of wolfish Wrasa who would rip and tear at her with sharp teeth and dangerous claws.
The angry face of the Wrasa who almost crushed her under his body appeared above her. Heated breath washed over Jorie's face.
At this close range, Jorie witnessed the first signs of the change. The Wrasa's beard stubbles grew into reddish fur, and long canines slowly lowered toward Jorie's neck.
She struggled to free herself and tried to get her hand with the gun out from under the Wrasa, but his weight shackled her arm to the ground.
Jorie screamed in desperation and anger.
Sharp teeth taking hold of her neck silenced her.
* * *
A puddle of blood made her paws slip out from under her. Pain raged through her injured shoulder when she landed on it. She let out an angry roar and jumped up again.
Her enemy, the big white wolf, slowly circled her, trying to find a weakness in her stance and make it past her. While she was bigger and heavier, he was unexpectedly fast and tenacious. Rage fueled his attacks.
With her upper lip curled back, she snarled a warning. Her powerful shoulder muscles bulged as she took a protective stance. No one would make it past her. Not while she had to defend her clawless pride mate.
She waited patiently while he circled and circled, enjoying the wild pulsing of power that rushed through her blood.
Wait, wait, wait.
Now!
When the wolf came too close, she lashed out with one powerful paw.
The wolf leaped back, barely avoiding her claws. His white fur was spotted with blood, but he kept attacking.
A loud, desperate scream could be heard over sounds of their growling and snarling.
She froze. That voice! She knew it, knew the screaming woman. The white wolf was instantly dismissed and forgotten.
"Rrrawr!" Her booming roar warned everyone within miles to stay away from what was hers. Powerful muscles flexed with the urge to race toward the woman and protect her, kill whoever threatened her.
The wolf used her distraction to leap again. His fangs aimed for her unprotected flank while he tried to bring her down under his weight and the speed of his attack.
She went with the momentum of his leap and turned while she fell, landing on her back. It freed up all four of her paws, and the wolf was faced with sixteen very sharp claws.
Even his thick white pelt was no protection.
Skin tore.
A satisfied growl escaped her as she felt four of her claws sink deeply into the wolf's side.
With a howl of pain, he went for her throat.
* * *
Jorie screamed.
Sharp teeth pierced the skin of her throat. Her hands flailed as much as they could, buried under the Wrasa's body. She thrust with her knee, desperate to get him to let go.
The grip on her neck lessened as the Wrasa growled.
Jorie got her hand with the gun free. Without aiming, she shoved it into the Wrasa's side. Her index finger found the trigger.
"No!" a voice shouted.
Suddenly, the weight on Jorie and the large canines at her throat were gone. Someone hauled the Wrasa off her.
Jorie lay there, dazed. Air rasped through her burning throat. Flames of pain licked across the pierced skin. She scrambled up, resting on her knees, and lifted her hands to defend herself, but it wasn't necessary. The wolf-shifters were no longer surrounding her.
Next to her, a large, dark-maned lion was fighting with the wolf that had attacked her.
Nella, still in her human form, was shouting at the Wrasa who hadn't shifted yet, trying to get them to back off. She was flanked by Max, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast, and two blond men Jorie didn't know, but who were probably members of Brian's pride.
For a moment, Jorie thought they were talking and shouting at each other in another language, but then she realized that it was just the hammering of her own heartbeat in her ears that garbled their words.
Gripping her bleeding neck with one hand, Jorie got to her knees and stared in shock. Her other hand still helplessly clutched the gun.
A hiss of pain came from farther down the path.
Griffin!
It sounded as if she was in acute distress. Had Jennings gained the upper hand?
The thought made Jorie stumble to her feet. "Griffin!" As fast as her shaking legs carried her, she ran toward the source of the snarls and growls.
"Stop!" Nella shouted after her. "Jorie! Stay here!"
Jorie didn't. Another roar of pain propelled her forward.
She half jumped, half fell over a fallen tree, not taking the time to circle it. Rough bark rasped along her thigh as she barely cleared the tree. A burning pain pulsed in tandem with the pounding in her neck.
Jorie ignored it. Crashing through a shrub, she finally reached the source of the vicious growls.
Griffin and Cedric Jennings were rolling around the forest floor in a blur of fur and flashing canines. They careened down a hill, moving too fast for Jorie to aim the gun and be sure she wouldn't hit Griffin. She watched helplessly as Griffin's heavier weight carried her right into a tree and left her dazed for a moment.
The wolf lunged forward, aiming for Griffin's throat.
His furry back appeared in Jorie's line of fire.
It was the opening she'd been waiting for. Her only chance.
Jorie squeezed the trigger.
A strong hand came out of nowhere. It wrapped around her wrist and forced the gun's barrel away from the wolf despite Jorie's desperate struggles.
The bullet sliced into a nearby tree, showering her with splinters.
The fingers tightened around her wrist like an iron shackle.
Pain numbed her fingers, and she lost her grip on the gun.
With a shout of surprise and anger, Jorie whirled around, ready to face yet another attacker.
Instead, Nella stood before her.
"What are you doing?" Jorie yelled. "He's killing her!"
"He won't! She's bigger and stronger. He's got no chance," Nella shouted. Her eyes were wild, and she was visibly struggling not to shift and attack Jennings herself.
Jorie bent down and searched for the gun she had dropped.
"No!" Nella's tight grip on her elbow stopped her. "If you're really a dream seer, there can't be Wrasa blood on your hands. If you kill one of us —"
"I don't care!" There was just one thing Jorie cared about: Griffin's survival. Blood rushed loudly through Jorie's ears. She was close to losing control and hitting Nella. "If he kills Griffin —"
The loud crunching of bone and a gurgling scream interrupted them.
Jorie whirled back around.
The liger was crouched over the wolf, her blood-smeared muzzle clamped around his neck in a stranglehold. The wolf's choking sounds and the twitching of his limbs slowly stopped, but Griffin didn't release her grip. Her blood dripped onto the white fur of the dead wolf.
"Griffin," Jorie murmured. She needed to get Griffin to let go and shift back. As far as Jorie knew, it was shifting shape in either direction, not being in animal form that stimulated the healing process, so Griffin needed to shift back before she bled to death. Jorie took a step toward Griffin.
"No!" Nella held her back with a strong grip around Jorie's arm.
Jorie yanked her arm back and tried to break free, but Nella hung on stubbornly and with superior strength. "Let go, dammit! Don't you care about your daughter at all?"
"Of course I care!" Nella yelled back. "I'm only doing what Griffin would want me to do. Griffin risked her life to save yours. She wants you alive. All Griffin went through will be in vain if you get killed because you approached her at the wrong moment. Imagine how she would feel? Do you really want to put her through that?"
"She won't hurt me," Jorie said, struggling to pull her arm away.
Nella's grip tightened. "You naïve little human!" She hissed at Jorie. "She's a predator who just made a kill, and you think you can just stroll up to her? Only a pride mate would be able to approach her now without being attacked — and Griffin is not a part of any pride. Even Brian and I might be in danger if we stepped up to her now."
There was no close bond between Griffin and her parents. At least not in the past.
Is there a bond between Griffin and me?
They had been through a lot together, and Griffin had proven her trust in Jorie when she had followed her up the ladder to the hunter's lookout. Still, that had been the two-legged, rational-thinking Griffin, not the large liger snarling at them now.
Blood dripped down the golden-striped fur.
No time for doubts.
"She fought and risked her life to protect me. She won't hurt me," Jorie said again, willing herself to believe it.
Nella's upper lip curled back. "Are you willing to bet your life on that, human?"
"Yes!" Jorie yanked and almost fell when Nella suddenly let go of her. She stumbled down the hill and slid to a stop a few feet away from Griffin.
The liger swiveled at her approach, dragging the wolf's limp body around with her. A growl of warning rumbled deep in her chest.
Jorie shivered as she got a glimpse of bloodstained canines and took in the sightless blue eyes of the wolf.
You almost shot him. This is no different,
she sternly told herself.
Griffin has the instincts of a predator, but she's no bloodthirsty killer.
"Griffin," she said as calmly as she could. Her voice trembled, though.
The liger's ears moved around, now no longer laid back in silent warning but listening to her.
That's good,
Jorie told herself.
"Let go of him, Griffin," she said. "He's no longer a threat. You need to shift." She inched closer.
Bones crunched as Griffin's grip around the wolf's neck tightened. Another growl warned Jorie to back away.
"Jorie," Nella called. "She might think you're trying to take away her prey. Better move away from her."
Jorie hesitated. Her gaze darted back and forth between a worried-looking Nella and the giant cat in front of her. The cat stared back, the expression in the whiskey-colored eyes as wild and predatory as Jorie had ever seen it.
The liger lifted her upper lip and snarled again. A scarlet drop of blood trembled on Griffin's whiskers and splashed to the ground.
This is crazy.
Doubts slowed her approach.
What woman in her right mind would voluntarily step up to a liger who's still throttling her prey? How can I be sure that Griffin will even know me?
Brian, now in his human form again, joined them while keeping an eye on the edge of the clearing, where barely human-sounding howls started as Cedric Jennings's pack members mourned the death of their leader. "Yeah," he said. "Come here, and stay next to me until Griffin has calmed down enough to shift."
A part of her — the part that was scared to death — wanted to take his advice. While her rational mind told her approaching an angry liger was crazy, her instincts insisted that she was perfectly safe.
"But she's hurt," she whispered. Blood was dripping from at least three different deep wounds that Jorie could see, mingling with the blood that already stained the wolf's once white fur. "What if she doesn't have time to calm down on her own before she loses too much blood?"
"She'll be fine," Brian said. "Once she shifts, she'll be as good as new."
Helplessness clawed at Jorie. She still didn't know enough about the Wrasa to judge how dangerous the wounds were for Griffin.
Brian is a Wrasa and a doctor — and Griffin's father. Surely he wouldn't lie to me about this?
"Slowly step away from her," Brian instructed. "No fast movements. Don't trigger her hunting instinct."
Images of being chased by a large predator flashed through Jorie's mind. A shiver of fear raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
Inch by inch, she moved away from Griffin. Her shaking knees didn't allow for faster movement anyway.
A sound rumbled up from the liger's chest, muffled by the grip the massive jaws still had on the wolf's neck.
Jorie stopped.
Was that a growl of protest? Doesn't she want me to go? Or is she warning me to back out of her personal space?
The whiskey-colored eyes watched her closely, but Jorie couldn't read the expression.
"Don't stop. Come over here." Nella's warning voice sounded right behind her. She reached out a hand to drag Jorie back.
The liger let go of her prey and crouched low, getting ready to pounce.
No, Griffin. Please, no.
"Get back!" Nella grabbed Jorie from behind and pulled her back with her.
An angry roar made Jorie's heart slam against her rib cage.
The liger didn't leap, though. In midpounce, she changed direction and was now trying to circle Jorie and reach Nella.