Chapter 10
Tamsin
My heart pounded in my chest. Everyone beside me stood rigid, ready for the attack to come.
My fingers tightened around my knife until the leather wrap creaked.
And then the line broke and the first feral surged forward.
It hit the moonlit yard at a full sprint and for a split second my body wanted to recoil, but I didn’t move.
I waited.
Elias’s hand snapped down. “Now!”
Everything exploded at once.
The humans from the Watch behind us fired. A feral yelped as a bullet clipped its shoulder and it spun sideways, crashing into another, and suddenly the line of ferals wasn’t a neat charge anymore, it was a messy, panicked pileup.
Griff shifted mid-stride.
One blink he was human and the next his body rippled and expanded into a massive brindled wolf, dark fur streaked with storm gray and iron. He launched forward like a cannon shot, slamming into the lead feral and driving it down into the gravel with a snarl that shook the air.
Bishop shifted into a sleek black wolf with a sharp white blaze across his chest and throat, eyes bright with intelligence. He darted in low, biting a feral with one quick snap of his muzzle and then springing back before teeth could find him.
Nox shifted when it served him.
Half the time he stayed human, darting between bodies with a blade in each hand, slipping under snapping jaws and raking claws with movements so fluid they barely registered as human at all.
He used the ferals’ momentum against them.
He sidestepped charges, hooked an elbow around a neck, and drove steel home before they could recover.
When he did shift, it was sudden and devastating.
One heartbeat human, the next a lean, dark-coated wolf flowing through the chaos like a living shadow.
His coat was a deep charcoal, nearly black, swallowing moonlight rather than reflecting it.
He hit the ferals from the sides and rear, never head-on, ripping at hamstrings and throats, and vanishing again before teeth could close on him.
I saw him save three people in under a minute.
Elias shifted too. His wolf was midnight dark, almost blue-black under the moonlight, broad-chested and powerful with eyes that caught the light like cold fire.
“Keep the line!” Clara shouted behind us, her rifle steady against her shoulder. “Don’t let them break through!”
A second wave of feral wolves surged forward. One barreled straight at me, saliva flying, yellow eyes locked on my throat like it had been promised me as its next meal.
I met it head-on.
I stepped into the charge at the last second, turned my shoulder, and drove my knife up under its ribs. The blade sank in with a wet, sickening give. The feral screamed in agony and I twisted hard, ripping the blade free. Blood sprayed across my hands and the front of my shirt.
The feral collapsed at my feet, twitching.
There was no time to think because another lunged at me a second later.
I ducked, rolled, and came up with my knife already in motion. I slashed across its muzzle, saw it recoil, and then Griff was there, his teeth burrowing into its shoulder and hurling it sideways like it weighed nothing.
A feral crashed into one of the humans dressed in an oil-stained jacket with his hands wrapped around a crowbar; Seamus, I think his name was. The feral’s claws raked across his chest, tearing fabric and flesh, and he screamed as he went down.
“Seamus!” Clara shouted.
He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. Blood spread dark beneath him.
The feral raised its head to finish him.
I moved without thought.
I sprinted, boots slipping on gravel slick with blood, and leapt onto the feral’s back. My knife went down into the base of its skull with everything I had. The blade jolted in my hand as it hit bone. The feral convulsed, bucked, then went limp.
I rolled off and hit the ground hard, lungs burning.
Seamus stared up at me, eyes wide, face pale. “Tamsin—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, dropping to my knees beside him. My hands pressed to his wound automatically, trying to slow the bleeding. “Don’t talk.”
His lips trembled. “They’re… everywhere.”
“I know.”
A shadow fell over us, and I flicked a quick glance over my shoulder.
It was Eamon.
He hadn’t shifted. I didn’t know why, but his hands were already moving with a doctor’s speed. He pushed me aside gently, pressing a clean cloth to Seamus’s chest.
“Hold onto it, here,” Eamon ordered. “It needs pressure to stop the bleeding.”
Seamus’s eyes fluttered shut.
Eamon’s jaw tightened. “Stay with me.”
The ferals didn’t give him time. Two more surged through a gap in the line. One of my wolves snarled somewhere nearby. I stood, knife slick in my hand, heart hammering.
A feral lunged at Eamon from behind. I threw myself into it, shoulder slamming into its ribs. We hit the ground together. Its teeth snapped inches from my face, hot breath rancid and wet, and I drove my knife into its throat without hesitation.
Blood gushed over my fingers.
The feral gurgled, convulsed, went still.
I pushed it off and spun, but then I saw Clara take a hit. A feral had slipped around the flank and slammed into her, claws raking down her arm. Her rifle flew from her grip. She staggered, teeth bared in pain, and Corporal James Rowe rushed to her side, trying to drag her back.
“Go!” Clara snapped, shoving him away with her uninjured hand. “Hold the line!”
Rowe hesitated for half a second too long and the feral turned on him.
It hit him like a truck, jaws closing around his shoulder, dragging him down hard. Rowe screamed, thrashing as he tried to get his knife up.
He didn’t make it.
Griff hit the feral from the side, tearing it off Rowe with brute force, but the damage was already done. Rowe lay twisted on the ground, blood spilling fast, face pale white with shock.
“No—” Clara choked, crawling toward him.
Eamon was there in seconds, but it was too late. Rowe’s eyes found mine for a split second, glassy and stunned. His lips moved like he wanted to say something.
Then he went still.
Elias’s wolf roared, the sound cutting through the chaos. He launched forward, driving ferals back from the collapsing flank, forcing them into the open where the humans could take them out with bullet fire. He shifted back to a human for a moment to shout orders.
“Regroup!” he snapped. “Two steps back, tighten up!”
We followed his orders, shoulders brushing against one another, weapons raised, wolves and humans moving together like we’d rehearsed it a thousand times.
The ferals surged again.
More and more poured from the trees, a writhing mass of teeth and broken bodies.
“They don’t stop,” Griff snarled, shifting back to human for half a second just to shout, then shifting again.
A feral leapt at me.
I caught it midair with my forearm braced and my knife driving up into its belly. It slammed into me anyway, weight crushing, and we went down hard. My back hit the dirt. Stars burst behind my eyes, but I didn’t let that stop me.
I shoved, rolled, came up on my knees.
Bishop’s wolf streaked past, ripping into the feral that tried to follow up. Nox’s wolf appeared out of nowhere, taking down one on the edge with brutal efficiency. Elias’s dark wolf moved like a knife through butter, carving a path through the mayhem.
The yard rang with snarls and gunfire and the sound of bodies colliding. Moonlight turned blood black. Breath came in ragged bursts, lungs burning with cold air and adrenaline.
I wiped my knife quickly on my sleeve, eyes locked on the tree line.
There were still too many.
A feral burst through a gap near the east side, snapping at a civilian’s leg. An older man with gray hair went down with a scream. His shot went wild, sparking off the concrete wall. Two more ferals surged toward the opening, drawn by the sudden blood.
Bishop’s black wolf with the white blaze darted in, cutting across the gap and driving his shoulder into the first feral’s ribs.
The creature yelped and stumbled, but the second one caught Bishop’s flank with a swipe that tore fur and skin.
Bishop snarled and snapped at the feral’s leg, and it let go.
Griff was still out front, crashing into anything that got too close, but even he was starting to slow.
His brindled coat was slick with blood and there were dark patches matted along his chest and shoulders.
He shifted back to human long enough to yank a feral off a wounded Watch soldier with his bare hands, then shifted again as another lunged for his throat.
Nox flickered in and out of the light, never where you expected him to be. One moment he was at my right shoulder, blade flashing. The next he was gone, a shadow slipping behind the feral line to cut at one after the other.
Eamon stayed behind the line tending to the wounded. He had Clara on one side, Rowe’s body on the ground in front of her, and Seamus still bleeding on the other. His hands moved constantly, trying to keep people from joining the dead scattered all over the ground.
Then a feral slipped through and came fast and low, teeth bared, gunning straight for Eamon’s throat.
I saw it a half-second too late.
Eamon saw it too.
He simply raised his arm and braced for impact like a man who had decided his life was worth spending if it bought someone else a chance.
My body moved on instinct. I sprinted, knife already up.
I slammed into the feral’s side and drove my blade under its jaw. The knife caught, stuck for a heartbeat, and I had to wrench it free with both hands. Blood sprayed across my sleeves, hot and dark in the moonlight. The feral sagged and collapsed at my feet.
Eamon stared at me, chest heaving, then exhaled. “You’re not supposed to be doing that.”
I gave him a look. “You’re not supposed to die either.”
His mouth twitched, but there was no time for anything else.
A cluster of ferals surged through a weak spot at the north corner, bodies pushing, teeth snapping, and suddenly there were three of them inside our perimeter, among the humans.