to land in a tangled heap of arms and legs. The rage rolled up in Declan so hot that he didn’t even try to silence the roar that erupted from his throat as he launched himself at the two hybrids.
They had no chance to get a shot off before he reached them, not that it would have helped them if they had. He was so mad that nothing would have stopped him from killing them.
Declan had rarely if ever used his claws in a fight. It had just never seemed natural, and up until a couple of hours ago, he’d never considered his claws long enough to be useful. That had all changed. He slashed his claws in a diagonal sweep across the first hybrid’s chest, from left shoulder to right hip. He put every bit of power that his own muscled shoulders could give him into the strike, roaring again as his blow struck home with a devastating violence he’d never felt before.
The hybrid was dead before it hit the ground.
Declan didn’t wonder why this new form of shifter violence felt so right, so natural. He simply reached across the dead hybrid and ripped the other creature off his feet and threw him to the ground.
The hybrid immediately flipped to his feet, but Declan was just as fast now and had seen the move coming long before the creature even pulled it. The hybrid barely regained his footing before Declan was there to put him back down with a partially closed fist to the left temple.
As he fell to his knees, the hybrid took a blind swipe at Declan’s midsection. If the strike had connected, Declan would have been gutted. But Declan blocked the strike with a low forearm, then brought another crushing blow down on the hybrid’s head, this time directly on top. There was a sharp crack; then the hybrid slumped, lifeless, to the ground.
Declan had the urge to hit the son of a bitch half a dozen times for daring to touch Kendra, but he controlled himself. There were more hybrids—a lot of them—coming. He could both hear them and smell them.
He turned around to look for Kendra, praying she wasn’t hurt.
She pushed herself up on an elbow and tried to roll over onto her back, but she was having a hard time managing it. As if sensing him, she turned to look his way. Her eyes locked with his, but instead of relief, there was only panic in them.
Before he had time to figure out what was going on in her head, a door on the far side of the compound flew off its hinges and crashed to the ground halfway across the camp. The huge hybrid Declan and Kendra had seen that first day stepped out of the building. He took one look at Declan, then swung his gaze on Kendra. The hatred in those red eyes nearly stopped Declan’s heart. Mouth twisting into something that might have been a smile, the hybrid charged.
“Run!” Declan shouted at Kendra.
He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed, but instead rushed the oncoming brute with everything he had. No matter what it took, Declan had to take down this asshole. Declan didn’t know what had happened between Kendra and the hybrid, but his gut told him the creature would make sure she suffered if he got the chance. Declan wasn’t going to let that happen.
Declan collided with the hulk at full speed, smashing into him like a linebacker on a football field. Declan felt something in his shoulder crack but ignored the brief stab of pain. Nothing was going to stop him from killing this monster.
By the time Angelo and his team reached the low stone wall along the left side of the compound, hybrids were there to meet them. The only saving grace was that most of them weren’t carrying weapons. Not that it made fighting them any easier. If Ivy and Tanner hadn’t been there, he and the other guys would have been dead a hundred times over. Those two were frigging amazing. If they weren’t up to their necks in hybrids intent on killing them, Angelo would have enjoyed watching Ivy work. He’d never seen anyone move as fast as she did, literally spinning and ducking out of the path of incoming bullets, slashing throats here, ripping out hamstrings there. Hybrids might behave like berserkers, but apparently they weren’t as stupid as Angelo thought, because they quickly began to avoid the section of wall