Page 99 of Silver Claw

And finally, Remy got it. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, grinning. “Okay then. Carry on.”

Then Jared lifted a hand. “Wolves,” he said. “They’re coming. Remy, Zach, stay with me. My wolves are here, as well.”

“Anika Draper, too,” I said, then shrugged. “I called her. You’ll be missing me, Rick, and Sam. Anika can make up for that.”

And at that exact moment, Gavin Voss’s wolves poured from the woods.Poured.They came to intimidate, loud and aggressive, and there weren’t just a handful of them. There were dozens. They just kept coming.

Jared roared and went to meet them, and I had a split second to wish I could yank him back and forget the whole thing. But then Gray Shadow wolves converged, and it was…it was just chaos.

I saw Lucy disappearing through the doorway of the house, Ash in her arms, and my people began to fight the enemy.

Sam raced into the woods at the side of the house, and I straightened my spine and ran to the woods at the back.

Gavin Voss might have a plan, but he wasn’t the only one.

Max had called me when I was halfway to Huntersburg. “There’s nothing, Kait. Nothing. He has no weakness other than silver, but that might not help you a whole lot.”

“I have silver blades,” I said. “At least there’s that.”

“Call Anika. She owes you.”

“She can’t help me, Max.”

But I was wrong.

“I’ll help,” she’d said. “Stay alive for as long as you can, Kait, and I’ll get you what you need. And then we’ll be even.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We will be. And I could use you in the fight that’s coming to Silverwood.”

“I wouldn’t miss it. I’d like to see Zach fighting again. Good luck, kitten.”

I couldn’t even get mad about the awful nickname.

“I’ll stay alive,” I muttered, wondering if Voss would see me first, or Sam. I didn’t like Sam shifting into me, but sometimes you had to do something you didn’t like. So when I called him and he came up with the idea, I agreed.

I left the sounds of the fighting behind me and shut out the worry. Worry was distracting, and I didn’t want to be distracted. Voss wasn’t going to play in a gentle way. He was going to hurt me.

I walked quietly through the woods, my senses on high alert. The moon was high and bright, and I felt every bit of her. She made me a stronger wolf. A better wolf. She wanted me to shift, but my wolf was used to her now, and I had control.

Control that Voss didn’t have.

I absorbed the night sounds, the hoots and bird calls and frogs, the sticks that snapped and, in the distance, the howl of a werewolf.

Gavin’s howl.

I jogged in that direction, my head swiveling, my stare probing the shadows, because even though that howl had been distant, I didn’t trust that Gavin wouldn’t have stashed some of his people in the woods.

I took two silver blades from my belt—one for each hand—and again, I heard a howl. It was distorted, that howl, and not a normal wolf’s howl. It was a werewolf’s howl.

And I could admit that it struck fear into my heart. A werewolf under the full moon was about as close to evil as aperson could come without being a demon. Add magic into the mix, and he could cause a real problem.

It wouldn’t be an easy night, but there in the deep woods with the full moon above me, I began to feel a sense of excitement. Joy, even. As long as I didn’t think about my people and the battles they were facing, I could feel happiness in my own battle.

A wolf did love to fight. Voss was in my territory, and I would defend it.

Game on.

Wolf versus magic.