Meanwhile, Argus took his full werewolf shape and placed one of his talons on each of the slashes on the dog’s throat to measure what size of hand had caused the wound. The werewolf was at least as big as Argus, perhaps even bigger. A look of grave concern crossed Argus’s face. If Argus had had a hard enough time defeating the wolf while he was in his werewolf form, what kind of fight would it be if they were both werewolves?

“Your brother, Argus,” Noble said. “Or perhaps your son.”

“What?” asked Argus.

“You created him.”

“We had no choice,” Tora said, jumping in to defend Argus and her decision to let him fight the wild pack’s alpha male. “Argus had to fight the wolf. If he didn’t, Angelina would have been eaten alive.”

Noble hated to second-guess his sister. From all accounts, she had done an excellent job leading the pack in his absence, so it wasn’t right for him to judge her actions. Still, while they’d saved Angelina Abruzzo, they had also created a monster, and now not just a little girl, but everyone in Redstone was in danger.

“Was there no other way?” Noble asked.

“It was the right thing to do,” Tora said, a trace of despair in her voice, even through the rough rasp of her half-human form.

Noble was about to apologize to his sister when another voice called out.

“Who’s out there?” it said. “I knew you’d be back.”

And, a moment later—

BOOM!

A gunshot split apart the silence of the forest.

A tree to the left of them exploded into splinters, and Mr. Ilson was running toward them, his gun leveled at the waist.

Without a moment’s hesitation, all four pack members lunged into the forest. Shots rang out behind them. Snow and tree branches began to fall around them.

They never looked back, but kept on running for a long, long time.

Chapter 4

It may have been the small hours of the morning, but the Brock clan was huddled around the kitchen table, sipping warm milk and eating freshly made cookies.

“The rabbit was far from the house,” said Harlan. “Fifty meters, maybe more.”

“And it had been chewed up,” Argus added. “There was nothing left but pieces of fur and bits of bone.”

“Then there was the dog,” said Tora.

“I saw it, thanks,” said the ranger, lifting his hand in order to be spared the gory details.

“Yeah, we were looking at it…” said Noble.

But Harlan picked up where his brother left off. “And that’s when Mr. Ilson shot at us.”

“What!” said the ranger, nearly jumping out of his seat.

“He took a shot at you?” Phyllis said, also rising up at the table.

“We were in our wolfen form,” explained Noble. “He was either guarding the dog, or waiting for the wolves to come back.”