***

Sara felt her body go through the window. Felt the glass shredding her clothes, tearing her flesh. She briefly wondered how long she could fight if she lost a lot of blood.

She felt herself hit the porch, bounce once, and flip off it into the air. Then she felt grass and dirt against her body as she slid into Zach. He wasn’t the Zach she was used to seeing. He was the wolf she’d set up on her couch. But she recognized those eyes. Those hazel eyes. If she’d seen them that night, she would have known it was him. No one else had eyes like that.

She smelled the cats coming closer and heard them moving, surrounding her and the Pack, and she scrambled up on all fours, ready to fight.

It took her a good five seconds to realize that she was no longer human. She realized she’d shifted when she went through the window. That explained why she’d bounced so easily from the porch. She shook herself out of her clothes as the power of the wolf coursed through her new body. She felt the strength of centuries of breeding. And felt the lust for the hunt and the kill. She turned to the beast behind her father’s death. A golden lioness stood on her porch and roared in rage. And Sara realized that as a lion, the bitch was huge.

All the cats were. She stared in awe at their size and beauty and tried to figure out how, exactly, they were going to fight animals that weighed a good 300 to 400 pounds more then any of her Pack did? Then she felt Zach brush up against her. She felt his strength. His power. And his utter confidence in her. Confidence in the psychotic bitch he’d come to love.

He was right. She was a psychotic bitch. And these heifers had killed her father. She was probably going to get herself killed today, but she was going to hurt, maim, and kill as many as she possibly could.

She turned to face them; her lips peeling back to bare her teeth, a snarl angrily forced out of her. And that’s when they burst out of the woods. Thirty-strong. She saw Marrec and his Pack. People she’d known most of her life. She knew each one even as wolves. Jake. Fogle. Lana from the hair salon, and so many more. She recognized their scent. The rest? True wolves. Wolves and descendents of wolves that had watched over her since she was a child.

Sara turned back to the lioness. Things had just evened up a bit. And being the psychotic bitch that she was, she charged her head-on. The lioness let out a roar that shook the trees and went up on her hind legs, but Sara kept coming. She collided with the female and clamped her jaw around the beast’s throat. Then three of her Pack joined her. Two went for its groin. The other gripped its head in her mouth. Then they all bit down and wouldn’t let go. The lioness fought but still Sara wouldn’t release her. Big paws clawed at her, tearing her fur-covered flesh. She ignored the pain and the blood she could feel running down her side and muzzle. Instead she dug her teeth in deeper and, using all hernew-found strength, yanked out the bitch’s throat. Sara stood back to watch the lioness struggle to get back on her feet. But blood was gushing from her wounds and eventually she stopped fighting.

Sara spit out the remains of the lioness and turned to see Zach, Conall, and Yates dispatching one male. Marrec and six of his Pack were fighting another. The full-blooded wolves had taken on two males. Her Pack had taken on another female.

Sara watched as two more females came at her. She tore down the steps of her porch and slammed head first into one of them, the two bouncing off each other into opposite corners. The other lioness was slower and became the tragic victim of a white pickup truck driven by a crazy Latina.

Angelina hit the brakes and violently turned the steering wheel so that the truck spun out; the side of the two-ton vehicle hitting the lioness and knocking her across the temporary battle field. Miki leaned out the window, Angelina’s shotgun in her hands. Sara watched that expression of cool detachment that Miki always got when she was hunting. She pulled the trigger once. The beast gave a pained roar and landed in a heap, a large part of its skull gone. Sara saw that Miki smile and knew her friends were as much predators as she was.

Assured her two friends could handle themselves, Sara turned back to see the last female scramble to her big feet. She roared out in anger and frustration. When she did, Sara attacked. She wrapped her maw around the back of her neck and twisted the beast around so that they both hit the ground. Then Zach was there beside her. He grabbed the lion’s throat. Conall grabbed its rear right leg. Marrec grabbed the rear left. Casey, Yates, and Marrec all took a firm grip on exposed flesh. Zach crushed her windpipe. As she struggled to get breath, they all tore her to pieces.

Sara released the animal and trotted over to Miki and Angelina. They looked down at her, but their eyes widened. At first Sara thought they were simply afraid of her as wolf. But she realized that she was suddenly freezing cold and shaking. She looked down at her crouching form and saw blood- and dirt-covered skin. She had changed back.

“Oh, honey.” Angelina reached into the truck and pulled out a blanket.

“I’ll take it.” Zach took the blanket.

“Dude, some clothes!” Miki, the entire left side of her face already black and blue from the punch, turned away to look at the truck, the ground, anything but her friend’s naked boyfriend. But then she saw Casey prance by with her muzzle wrapped around a hunk of lion leg. “Okay. You people are killing me!” She rubbed her eyes with balled fists as Angelina put her arm around Miki’s shoulders.

Zach crouched down beside Sara and wrapped the blanket around her.

“Zach, I’m so cold.” She barely got that out, her teeth were chattering so hard.