The cost of those words hurt me on her behalf, because I wasn’t sure they were true. “What about Meemaw?”

“I can get word to her.” She wiped her face and sucked in a breath. “It’s not right to ask her to abandon her home…at her age…because I…”

Aunt Dot wrapped Dell in her arms, and Isaac gave me a nudge to get moving. “Mom will take care of her.” He started backing toward his trailer. “Harlow will have heard all that racket. If she was on land, she won’t be for long. The safest place for her is in the water where the wargs can’t reach her.”

A nod was all I could manage. I swallowed hard, turned and dashed into my house to grab the bag Harlow had abandoned in Abbeville. I didn’t own a swimsuit, but I was a jogger in another life, so I pulled on a gray sports bra with matching spandex workout pants that cut off just below my knees and molded to my legs. I tugged a T-shirt on over it and shoved my feet into sneakers I could kick off before I…

Don’t think about it.

A minute passed while I stood frozen in the bedroom with my hand on Harlow’s bag and my heart lodged in my throat before someone pounded flat-palmed on the exterior. I jumped, and the spike of adrenaline thawed my fear. I slid the bag on and jogged out to meet Isaac.

Cutting short his lingering glance at Dell’s back, he hefted a ratty duffle bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

He stepped free of the wards and onto Chandler pack land ahead of me. I blinked, and he was flat on his back, buried under the weight of a snarling warg. At least one more set of golden eyes pierced the gloom.

Great. Bessemer had positioned sentries to keep us occupied.

Magic coasted over me, the change to half-warg complete in the time it took Isaac to throw off his attacker. His eyes widened when he spotted me. I didn’t have time to let him gawk; I made a fist and knocked the second wolf out of the air. The first scrambled and leapt for Isaac, who had shifted so that his arms were as thick as tree trunks and shaggy as Spanish moss. Blunt fingers the color of swamp water dug into the warg’s throat until it went limp in his grip.

“Don’t kill them.” The second wolf skirted me and pounced on Isaac, who was pushing himself off the ground. “Incapacitate them.”

“Oh…” he panted through clenched teeth, “…I plan on it.”

Dodging his beefy arms, I gripped the wolf’s ruff and hauled him off Isaac, who clamped a fiber-thin silver collar around his throat with stubby yet nimble fingers. The warg howled and thrashed until I dropped him.