This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,30

behind us and moments later, we reach the room at the end of the corridor. The full wall of books looks even more inviting in the morning light and the view of the city to the right is pretty as the light glints off the old buildings in the distance.

I’m grateful when we find a set of stairs going down and not up, although I’m not looking forward to coming back up them.

Iyana takes the steps far more quickly than I can in my injured state.

Craning her head around the corner when she reaches the landing, she breaks into another grin. “Hidden House provides! We’re at the gun range.”

She disappears from view until I round the corner at the landing. The stairs let out directly into a wide entry corridor that sits between two rooms, both with transparent walls. On the left is a weapons room with guns lining the walls and cabinets beneath them. Five firing lanes are situated inside the room to the right.

While I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs, Danika strides straight past me into the weapons room. She picks two different pistols off the wall before sliding open the cabinet drawer beneath them to retrieve two boxes of bullets. I don’t know my way around guns to distinguish between them—other than identifying the obvious size and shape differences between a handgun and a rifle—so I have no idea why she picked the ones she did.

Iyana is slower to choose a weapon, appearing to take her time while she casts glances beneath her eyelashes at Danika. I get the sense that she has decided to give Danika a lot of space.

I stay out of the weapons room, leaning against the transparent wall between the entry corridor and the firing lanes, making my stance look nonchalant, even though my body’s aching far more than I want to admit right now.

Danika remains single-minded, pushing through the glass door into the firing range without a second glance at me. The door seals behind her, blocking all sound. I can’t hear her footsteps as she heads to the middle lane.

Each firing lane is divided by walls at the firing end with a bench sitting between them. The bench provides a place for Danika to set down her weapons and boxes of ammunition. The booths are otherwise open in front and behind.

I turn to Iyana when she pauses at my side carrying only a box of bullets and earmuffs. I guess she already has her weapons of choice sitting at her waist.

“We might want to give Danika a minute,” she says, as if this is not an unusual thing.

I jump when the wall I’m leaning against vibrates.

Jolting away from it, I spin to stare at Danika through the glass.

Inside the firing lane, the brown-haired woman stands with her right arm extended, the angle of her body meaning her face is turned slightly away from me. She squeezes the trigger in rapid succession. I freeze when the bullets rip through the exact center of the paper target at the end of the lane. Dead center. So perfect that only a single, widening hole appears in it.

She’s a perfect shot.

But it doesn’t explain the vibration through the glass.

Within seconds, she must have emptied the entire clip into the target because she slaps the weapon onto the bench in front of her. Snatching up the second handgun, she switches her stance so that her left arm is outstretched.

An ambidextrous perfect shot.

Now that her torso is twisted in my direction, I can see that she’s screaming. I guess that explains why she didn’t bother taking earmuffs with her.

I back away from the wall, wary of whatever magic she controls that’s shrieking through the glass between us.

“Don’t worry,” Iyana whispers. “She’s not a banshee or a siren. Her scream can’t hurt you.” She shrugs. “Other than blowing out your eardrums.”

“What is she?” I ask. “I know I’m breaking the privacy rule, but it seems important for my safety that I know.”

“Hawk shifter,” Iyana says. “As you can see, she has perfect eyesight. She can hit any target. But… like the rest of us… she’s a little different than normal. She can shriek in her human form—and at a frequency that can do a lot of damage.”

Iyana sighs, pressing her free hand against the wall and spreading her fingers wide. “She’s most dangerous when she’s upset.”

“Who is Danika shooting right now in her mind?” I ask, knowing that that sort of rage can only mean Danika’s