The three friends spun around at the sound of a strange voice. It was the man she’d shot at the night before. And, as before, his three friends were with him. All golden and beautiful. And so cold that Sara felt her stomach drop. Why, oh, why hadn’t she killed them?

“Hello, pretty. Now, why don’t you be a good little puppy and come with us.”

“She’s not going anywhere with you.” Miki moved to step in front of Sara, but one of the men backhanded her. She flew across the hood of a car, landing on the other side.

There was a brief moment of silence as Sara and Angelina looked over at their fallen friend. Then they slowly turned back to face the four men standing in front of them.

“Angelina?”

“Yes, Sara?”

Sara was staring straight at the leader. Their eyes locked, “Go.” She bit out, just as she punched the man closest to her in the groin.

Angelina turned and ran; sliding over the hood of a car and charging flat out back to the hospital.

Sara charged off into the woods. Hoping, praying, that they would be more obsessed with getting her then going after Angelina.

She couldn’t hear them, but she could smell them. If they shifted she probably didn’t stand a chance. She was pretty sure she was slower as human. And she had no idea how to change to anything. So she ran. And she prayed. Prayed her Pack would come for her before it was too late.

Chapter Thirteen

TOC

Zach had smelled them as soon as they had hit the parking lot. He, Marrec, and both their Packs were already out the door of the hospital when Angelina ran into them. Silently, panic and fear for her friend coming off her in waves, she grabbed Zach by the hand and dragged him to where she had last seen Sara.

He caught her scent immediately and within seconds had shifted and took off into the woods, shaking his clothes off as he went. His Pack right behind him.

At first, the bastard cats didn’t shift. They couldn’t taunt and terrify her as cats. Only men could do that. Besides, he could still smell the human. But then, they must have realized that she was a lot faster and stronger than they had expected. About two miles from the hospital, they changed. And Zach knew that it wouldn’t be long before they caught up with her. Before they killed her.

Soon he figured out where she was heading. Home. She was going home. To where she felt safe. To where she had guns.

Good girl, he thought. Anything she could do at this point to buy him time.

***

Sara knew as soon as they had shifted, but she kept moving. If she had a moment to think, she would be marveling at the fact that she hadn’t run since her attack when she was 8. And now she had run almost 5 miles and felt—no, she knew—that she could go another 20. But they were gaining on her. She had been right. They were much faster once they shifted.

Sara cleared the woods and made a mad dashfor her house. She leapt over a car parked in front of her porch, which bought her precious seconds, flew up the stairs and through her front door. She turned and slammed the door just as the cats made it up the stairs. She could hear them throwing themselves against the wood. She wondered how long before they forced the heavy oak off its hinges? She wondered where Zach and the rest of the Pack where?

She wondered how long before the bitches behind her actually said anything?

Sara looked over her shoulder at the four women standing behind her, one holding her shotgun.

They were beautiful women. Tall. Powerful. Blonde. Really blonde. Impeccably dressed, sporting $400 gold-colored shoes and gold jewelry she could never afford.

“They were right. You do look like your mother.”

Sara was having such a bad day. She sighed and stepped forward to face the leader. She wasn’t the tallest, but clearly she ran these females.

“She killed my sister. Now I’m going to kill you.” She stated simply. “I had hoped to do it long ago, but that bitch grandmother of yours moved like lightning.”

“Then let’s end it.” Sara was so tired of the bullshit. “Here. Now. Anything to get you to shut the fuck up.”

The woman hissed her displeasure and Sara snarled back. Her lips pulling back over her growing canines.

Then the bitch’s hand was around her throat, dragging her close. Sara grabbed at the hand cutting off her oxygen, panic spreading through her. Panic. Fear. And anger. Definitely anger. The female leaned in and smelled her. “How sweet. Just turned. Just marked.” A tongue that should not have been able to fit in the woman’s mouth lashed out and swiped up the entire side of Sara’s scarred face. It wasn’t really wet, but dry and painful. “I bet he’ll miss you when you’re gone.” Then she lifted Sara off the floor and tossed her across the room and through the closed glass window.

***

Zach skid to a halt in front of Sara’s porch, Conall practically slamming into the back of him. He watched her body flying toward the window and his mind howled in anger and pain. He was going to lose her. Lose the only woman he’d liked much less loved. But as Sara’s body cleared the glass, he watched her change. Her limbs smoothly shifted to hind and front legs. Her hands and feet into paws. Black hair spread over her body. And her beautiful face elongated into a muzzle and snapping jaws.

Then she hit the porch, bounced and flipped off it; sliding across the grass in front of her house and coming to a halt when she slid right into Zach’s long front legs.

And just like that she’d shifted, officially becoming one of them. One of the Pack. But this was her first shift. She’d need time to come to terms with it. Time to learn to use her new body. Time none of them had.