The image of his mother fully shifted flashed across his mind—the gore on her face, his father’s blood on her monstrous hands. He hadn’t allowed himself to consider Claire actually shifting before. Not in reality. It was never supposed to come down to this. He had meant to either save her or destroy her. Now it appeared neither might occur. He shook his head and cleared his thoughts of all emotion, zeroing in on the mission at hand, slipping into his familiar role of hunter.

His gaze drifted back to the house, sizing up the lycans as they carried the bodies of their victims inside.

Gideon motioned to the window at the side of the house. “Let’s go.”

Darius grabbed hold of his wrist, stopping him. “It grows late,” he announced in that oddly formal speech of his.

Gideon followed Darius’s gaze to the purpling sky, the brilliant streaks of red and gold a painter’s dream. The sun had already disappeared below the treetops, forsaking them to the coming night.

Darius’s voice was no less firm for the quiet solemnity with which he spoke. “If we’re not out of here in time—”

“Don’t worry,” Gideon cut him off, giving a quick, single nod. “I’ll kill you.”

Darius’s lips twisted in a crooked smile. “Somehow I thought you’d say that.”

“No prob.” With a small amount of wonder, he realized he wouldn’t relish destroying the lycan. Hell, first Claire, now Darius. He might as well forget about being a lycan hunter and go into the business of lycan preservation.

“Let’s go.” Gideon crawled through the grass, calling over his shoulder in hushed tones, “With any luck you’ll be back in that room of yours before moonrise.”

Claire dozed in and out of sleep with Nina’s head cushioned in her lap. She had quickly gotten over her fears of touching Nina and used a length of rope to bind Nina’s arm to her chest. The basement grew colder as the day faded, disappearing into shadows, and she covered Nina with a tarp.

“Miss Morgan,” Nina whispered in the stillness.

“Hmm?” Claire asked, trying to fight the hunger pains clawing her stomach.

She trailed her fingers through Nina’s hair, soft as a child’s. With a pang she realized Nina was just that—a child. Sometimes she forgot that her students, trapped in their almost grown bodies, were still children. Lenny had been only a boy. A lost boy whose sad life met an even sadder end. She blinked at the tears springing to her eyes.