Damn. Claire started toward Nina but whirled around at a shout.

One of the fallen lycans clutched Gideon’s ankle. She watched, horrified, as the lycan sank his teeth into Gideon’s calf, penetrating the denim and reaching skin. She heard Gideon’s flesh tear, heard the lycan’s teeth sink into muscle and sinew.

Claire screamed, surging forward with her hand outstretched. Her fingers strained to reach Gideon even as she realized it was too late.

Cyril recovered quickly, striking her across the face. She toppled back from the sudden blow, clutching her cheek.

A shot rang out.

Pushing herself up with one palm, she watched Gideon shoot the lycan clinging to his leg. Shaking the creature off, he lifted his gun. But it was too late. Cyril was on him. Knocking the gun from Gideon’s hand, he grabbed him by the throat, lifting him several inches off the floor.

Cyril studied Gideon’s reddening face for several seconds before saying, “I’m not going to kill you right away. Killing is too good for you, too easy. I’ll keep you alive. Make you a slave to the pack, feed you the scraps.”

Cyril’s voice sounded strange. Thick, almost strangled. A glance at his face revealed why. He was beginning to shift. His face altered, the bones elongating and stretching as the skin darkened to a deep gray. Fur sprouted over his entire head in a thick reddish brown mane.

Claire raised a trembling hand to her own face and felt that she had started to shift, as well.

“Oh God,” she whimpered, her voice strange and unnatural.

A gnawing hunger flared to life in the pit of her belly. Her heart still hammered at a frantic tempo, the air rushing out of her mouth in spurts. Dipping her head, she moaned low in her throat. A scratchy, tingling sensation overwhelmed her body. Powerless to resist, she threw back her head and arched her spine, moaning louder.

Clutching her cheeks, she felt her bones shift, stretch, grow. Fur sprouted from her pores and filled her palms where she clutched the sides of her face.

The hunger grew, eclipsing all else. Claire struggled to hold on to herself, to what she knew, but it grew increasingly harder as her body twisted inside itself.

She heard her name as if called from a great distance and vaguely recognized Gideon’s voice.

“Claire! Claire, fight it! Get the gun,” he shouted.

Staggering toward the gun, she lifted it in her hands and turned, her gaze finding Gideon. Clutched in Cyril’s giant paws, his eyes met hers. She watched Cyril’s nails grow, stretching into huge talons that dug into Gideon’s face, drawing blood.

“Pull the trigger!”

Cyril looked back and forth between her and Gideon, the slow turn of his head unhurried, unconcerned. He didn’t see her as a threat.

She doubled over, clutching her belly at the sudden cramping.

“Claire!” Gideon cried out. “Shoot him!”