have been too late, anyway, even if they were listening to me.
Dirt kicked up around them, scattershot, and before I understood what it was, Beck fell. He scrambled back up again, biting at his spine, falling again. There was another crackle, barely audible over the helicopter, and this time, he went down and stayed down. His body was a wreck, in pieces.
I couldn’t think about it. Beck. He was jerking, snapping, scrabbling without getting up. Not shifting. Dying. His body was too ruined to heal itself.
I couldn’t look.
I couldn’t look away.
Sam jerked to a halt, and I saw his mouth form a whimper that I couldn’t hear from here. We were both transfixed; Beck could not die. He was a giant.
He was dead.
Taking advantage of Sam’s distraction, Shelby hurled herself against his side, shoving him to the ground. They rolled and came up painted with mud. I tried to send Sam images, telling him to shake her off and get on the move, but he wasn’t listening, either because he couldn’t see anything but Beck or because Shelby was taking all his concentration.
I should have killed her.
Ahead of them, the helicopter was still flying slowly after the wolves. There was another explosion of dirt, and then another, but no wolf fell this time. I only had a moment to think Maybe Beck will be the only one when a wolf in the middle of the pack fell mid-stride, rolling and twitching. It took several long minutes for the two guns in the helicopter to finish the job.
This was a disaster.
I’d led the wolves out of the woods to be picked off slowly, one at a time, death in seven slow bullets.
The helicopter banked. I would have loved to think that it was abandoning the chase, but I knew it was just coming back around to get a better shot on the wolves again. The pack was badly scattered from fear; with Sam fighting with Shelby, they had virtually ceased all forward movement. The wolves were so close to the woods, though. They could almost make it to cover, if they could just move. They just needed some moments without that helicopter terrifying them.
But we didn’t have moments. And with Sam and Shelby separated from the rest of the pack, I knew that they were the next to go.
I could still see Beck’s death.
I couldn’t let that happen to Sam.
I didn’t even think. My shadow, stretched out in front of me, dug into the pocket of my cargo pants at the same time I did. I flipped out the syringe, pulled the cap off with my teeth, and jabbed it into my vein. No time to consider it. No time to feel noble. Just — a rapid, jagged surge of pain through me and then the silent push of the adrenaline helping speed the shift. I was a world of agony and then, I was a wolf, and I was running.
Shelby. Kill Shelby. Save Sam.
That was all I had to remember, and the words were already sliding away when I hit Shelby with everything I had. I was nothing but my jaws and my snarl. My teeth snagged around her eye just like I’d learned from her. She twisted and snapped, knowing that this time I was playing for keeps. There was no anger in my attack. Just relentless determination. This was what our fight should have been earlier.
Blood filled my mouth, either Shelby’s or mine, from my tongue. I tossed an image to Sam: Get out. I wanted him up with Grace. I wanted him away from me, back with the pack, one of many instead of a solitary, nonmoving target.
Why wouldn’t he leave me? GET OUT. I couldn’t make it any more of a request. There were ways to convince him, but my mind no longer catalogued them. Then an image from Grace came back to us. The pack, directionless, scattering, the woods so close, but so far out of reach without him. The helicopter was returning. Beck was dead. They were terrified. Him. They needed him. She needed him.
He didn’t want to leave me behind.
I let go of Shelby to snarl at him with everything in me. His ears flagged, and then he was gone.
Everything in me wished I was going with him.
Shelby lurched to follow, but I tore her down again. We rolled across the grit and the rocks. I had dirt in my mouth and eyes. She was furious. Over and over, she sent me the