Adare jolted, the adrenaline flooding his system seeming to coagulate in his brain as he looked into the barrel of his own gun. Grace held the weapon high, her face unnaturally pale and the pupils of her eyes all but swallowing up the color of her irises. She looked small and determined against the tree with the wind whipping her hair around wildly and snow covering her from head-to-toe.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” she whispered, her voice shaking even more than her hands. She might just shoot him by accident if she didn’t calm down.

The Kurjans were advancing, and he didn’t have time for this. “Put the weapon down.”

“No.” Regret crossed her face and her shoulders went back. “I’ll try not to hit your brain.”

He turned and fired at a Kurjan who crossed around the burning heap that had been Adare’s SUV. The soldier scrambled back for cover. “Grace? It took us three years to finally find one of the Cyst strongholds.” It was easier to find the Kurjans, but to win this war, they needed to take out the Cyst faction of the Kurjan force. “If they get you, we might never find you.”

She somehow turned even paler, and a thin blue vein showed above her left eyebrow. “Just do your best. I have to do this.”

If she thought he was going to allow her to walk over to the Cyst enemy and disappear, she was crazier then he’d feared.

“It’s the only plan that might work,” Jacqueline hissed, two of her teeth missing.

Benny groaned and one of his bones popped loudly into place. He turned and fired toward the enemy with his good hand. “We’ll never find her again, so no plan there. You guys run up the mountain and get as far as you can. I’ll hold them off.”

Adare quickly calculated the odds. There was only one answer. “Jacki? You have to shift. Take Grace and get to safety.” As a cougar, Jacki would be faster than even the Cysts. He and Benny would fight these bastards as long as they could.

Jacki growled but set her gun down and shrugged out of her heavy jacket.

Adare knew the instant Grace made up her mind. She fired, and he ducked, charging her and securing the gun before he pinned her against the tree with one hand around her neck. The woman had shot at him. Actually aimed for his head.

Benny growled in pain behind him.

“Benny,” Grace gasped, struggling against Adare’s hold.

Adare partially turned to see a wound spurting blood from Benny’s neck. Had Grace’s bullet hit him when Adare ducked? The hybrid’s eyes swirled a deep metallic bronze as he slowly healed the hole, the side of his face still abnormally bumpy.

Grace slapped ineffectually at Adare’s hands. “Benny, I’m so sorry.”