“Come on.” Gideon strode out of the living room, Darius fast on his heels.

A sound reached his ears. He paused, angling his head to the side. There it was again. A thudding noise. Like someone banging on a wall. Or door.

“What’s that?” Darius looked at Gideon.

Hope, desperate and burning, swelled to life in Gideon’s chest.

Claire.

They ran in the direction of the sound, following it through a swinging door that opened to a large, airy kitchen outfitted with an industrial-size stove and stainless steel fridge. An old medieval-style trestle table with a battered and scarred surface stood in the center of the room, at odds with the rest of the very modern, utilitarian kitchen.

The back door hung open, swinging lightly in the still air, as if someone had just rushed past it. The slow creak of its hinges raised the hair on his arms. Gideon rotated on the balls of his feet, the barrel of his gun sweeping the kitchen. He took careful note of that open door, half expecting a lycan to charge through it.

The pounding grew louder, accompanied by shouts. The racket came from a bolted pantry door. Gideon flung back the bolt. The breath rushed from him in disappointment.

Darius stepped beside him to eye the pantry’s occupants. Amid several twenty-pound bags of dog food, two teenagers stared up at him with mixed expressions of fear and hope. The other three were still unconscious on the pantry floor.

“Help us!” A girl with badly smeared black eyeliner glared up at him.

“We’ll get you out of here,” Gideon promised.

Her face softened in relief, and she hugged the weeping girl beside her.

“But you need to wait here a little longer.”

She shook her head fiercely. “No! You have to get us out of here now!”

Gideon waved a hand in the air to calm her. “I promise I’ll get you out of here.” He pressed a finger to his lips. “For now you have to stay quiet, okay? No more pounding.”

“Hell, no! Listen, you asshole—”

He closed the door on her protests and set the bolt back in place. The pounding resumed with gusto.

Gideon’s gaze shot to the open door. The air outside had deepened to an opaque purple. Time was up.

“We’re not going to get me home in time,” Darius announced, his words echoing Gideon’s grim thoughts. “You’re going to have to kill me.”

Gideon turned to face Darius, leveling his gun at him as he did so.

Darius held up both hands, saying mockingly, “I didn’t mean just this second.”

“Can you feel it coming on yet?”

“Yes.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, the only sign of his tension. Of his unwillingness to die. “We have a little time. You still need me—I’ll let you know when it’s time.”