Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,70

made her yelp a high-pitched puppy whine that caught in the back of Jack’s brain.

Danny darted forward. He grabbed Shauna by the scruff just as she reached the steps into the house. Her heavy, dark-furred body dangled from his fist, and he tossed her aside like a football. The monster twitched its head to follow the arc of its prey’s body—and maybe there was still enough of a being there left to be surprised—and crashed into Danny. They tumbled over each other and kicked up snow in grubby arcs as they wrestled in front of the house.

“Get it into the fire!” Danny grunted as he landed on his back, hands locked around the monster’s throat as it snapped at him. “It won’t heal as fast.”

That could work, Jack supposed. He slammed into the monster with his full weight and sent both of them crashing through the blistered front door and into the flames. Fire singed his fur and blistered the pads of his feet. The smoke was sharp in his throat and eyes, but maybe Surtr remembered who’d set him loose. It was the monster who caught. The blond strings of what was left of its hair flared, and the naked, drum-tight skin blistered and scorched as the fire hit it.

Again, something of the person the monster had been scraped out of its throat as it screamed in panic. It writhed away from Jack, still lamed on that ruined leg, and fled blindly into the house. The charred floor gave way under it as it ran, and it fell with a whinny of miserable confusion, into the hot, red flames that filled the basement.

The house shuddered and groaned around Jack, the floor under his scalded paws rolling like a ship’s deck. It could have been cracked stones and weather, or it could have been the low, grating laugh of Surtr. This might not be his time yet, but he’d gotten at least one god-thing to burn.

Jack clamped his tail and backed out of the flames. The bitter cold outside was almost a comfort as it hit him and stole the heat from his burns.

“Are you okay?” Danny asked as he dropped to his knees next to Jack. There was blood on his arms, freckled skin raked down to raw meat as he slapped out the charred spots on Jack’s fur. “Jack?”

Jack pawed at his stinging muzzle and then leaned his weight against Danny’s shoulder. He smelled like blood, smoke, and fear… but still home. Shauna crawled over and put her chin on Danny’s foot, her sides fluttering as she breathed raggedly.

“Mam’s on her way,” Danny said, staunchly hopeful. “The dogs are holding their own.”

They weren’t, but Jack appreciated Danny’s view of the world. It took a dog or a human to lie that stubbornly to themselves. Jack pawed his nose again—the blisters itched—gave Danny’s face a quick lick, and threw himself back into the fight.

If Shauna had been a bit faster, Danny’s plan would have worked. The monster’s own bulk would have carried it straight into the fire without help from Jack. He headed for the heavyset, bulldog-shaped thing as it pinned Millie to the ground. The dog made a weirdly alien sound as the heavy, twisted head dropped. Jack went between a prophet’s legs, threw the snarling woman in the air for the dogs to pile on as he landed, and darted in to grab a mouthful of the slack folds of flesh that hung from the monster’s throat. It split under his teeth but stretched rather than tore as he snarled and shook it like a rat.

“… gro… oof,” the thing grunted as it threw its head back. It almost sounded like words. Jack hoped it wasn’t. He loathed the monsters, instinctive as the hackles that pricked at the smell of him, but whatever they’d been before didn’t deserve to know what had happened.

He let the folds of musty flesh drop, blood and fluid wet on the skin as it dripped out slowly, and went for the stomach instead. There was more mass to this monster than the other one, muscle layered over muscle in knots that threatened to split its skin, so it wasn’t as limber. It shook its head and lumbered around to snarl at Jack. Blood and flesh were clotted between its broken fangs.

Millie was still alive. Jack could hear the rattle of her breath, and that was all Jack could buy her. He lunged in and snapped at the monster’s face. The flattened features,