But the change was on Tom, too. As his fear, his anger, all those dark emotions pounded through his body and urged on the metamorphosis, he knew that this fight wouldn’t be over until one of them was dead.

g

Now that she’d untied herself, ready for escape, Kate found she had precisely nowhere to go. She was clinging on to the remnants of the chicken wire hammock for dear life; it was hanging down almost vertically from the pillar. Many of the ’wolves, their anger spent and Takapa’s hold on them broken, had ceased fighting; they were roaming about the stands, transforming back one by one into their human forms. Stacy was going to them each in turn, trying to give help and comfort.

The firing had all stopped now; the last of Swagger’s henchmen had been split open by razor claws the second he ran out of ammo. But there was still danger in the arena.

Like the two lupines prowling around below her.

One was grey and wasted, the other bloated and black. The creatures were surprisingly single-minded amid the chaos in the rink; the stretch of wire just beyond her toes had been ripped clear away by their teeth and claws, and she doubted they were about to give up now.

Her fingers were red, the mesh biting into them so keenly she’d lost all sensation. She sensed the beasts beneath her willing her to give up, to slip and fall right into their drooling jaws.

Kate looked away, trying to blank them out, and saw Tom running towards her. She cried out in dismay as Swagger burst out and ambushed him.

Swagger. The good soldier left to carry the can while his commanding officer fled with his tail between his legs. But then, she didn’t have Swagger figured as the type to give up gracefully; he was always going to take a piece of the world with him when he went.

Now Swagger was turning ’wolf, and so was Tom. Clothes split and fell away, bones bent and cracked as the metamorphosis ran its course. Finally, she was watching two animals warily circle each other on all fours; Tom sleek and well-proportioned, Swagger the biggest, mangiest ’wolf in the arena.

Tom’s eyes had remained brown; he was his old self, the savagery of Stacy’s drug out of his system. But the knowledge sent a spasm of fear through Kate. She knew now that if it came to a fight, Tom didn’t stand a chance.

She swore as the grey ’wolf leaped up at her again. This time its jaws snagged one of her sneakers, wrenched it from her left foot. ‘Get away from me!’ she yelled.

Right. Like it would listen.

But someone had heard her.

‘Hey, Kate!’

The hoarse whisper barely carried over the snarling of the two ’wolves, but Kate recognised the voice at once. ‘Rico? Where are you?’