Page 89 of Wild Thorns

His hands twisted. Fingers elongated, knuckles popping one by one like firecrackers, nails thickening and curving into claws that looked capable of disemboweling someone with a single swipe. Fur sprouted along his forearms in patches, gray and coarse.

He opened his mouth and his teeth—God, his teeth—lengthened into fangs, rows of them, far more than any mouth should hold.

I screamed.

The sound ripped out of me before I could stop it—raw, primal and absolutely useless. My back hit the doorframe. My hand shot to the doorframe, fingers closing around the heavy ceramic lamp I’d set on the entry table. I swung it hard at the creature’s back as it lunged past me. The base connected with a satisfying crack, ceramic shattering against something that felt like hitting a tree trunk. It barely flinched—but it turned, snarling, and that half-second of distraction was all the brothers needed.

The creature that had been a man tossed Jasper into the railing and lunged at Callum.

And Callum changed too.

His hands became weapons; fingers extending into curved black claws that caught the porch light like obsidian blades. His shoulders broadened, muscles rippling beneath his shirt, seams tearing. When he snarled, his jaw was wrong: too long, too full of teeth, and the sound that came out of him was nothing human. Nothing close to human.

They collided with a sound like a car crash. Claws met claws. Blood sprayed; dark, almost black, splattering across the porch railing, the walls, my bare feet. The creature raked its claws across Callum's chest, and I saw fabric and flesh part, saw the meat of him exposed, saw bone gleaming white before blood welled up to hide it.

Callum didn't slow down. He grabbed the creature by the throat, claws sinking deep, and threw it. The thing sailed through the air and hit the magnolia tree with a crack that might have been wood or might have been spine.

Jasper was there before it could recover. His face was wrong now too; jaw elongated, eyes glowing amber, teeth bared in a snarl that showed far too many points. He moved faster than anything human should, a blur of motion and violence, and when he reached the creature, he tore into it with a savagery that made me gag.

Blood everywhere. On the grass, on the tree, on Jasper's hands, face, and chest. The wet sounds of flesh tearing, of something trying to scream through a throat that was being systematically destroyed.

Eli hadn't changed as much as his brothers; just his eyes, glowing golden in the darkness, but he was doing something with his hands, tracing patterns in the air that left faint trails of light, and wherever those patterns touched the creature, it burned. I could smell it: cooking meat and sulfur.

The creature finally broke free, missing chunks now: an ear, most of one arm, something glistening and organic hanging from a wound in its side. It howled, a sound of rage and pain, then it fled. It ran into the preserve on legs that bent wrong, leaving a trail of blood and ichor that steamed in the night air.

Jasper started to follow.

"Let him go," Callum said. His voice was still that inhuman growl. "Message delivered. Both ways."

Silence.

The three of them stood in my yard, splattered with blood and worse, breathing hard. Slowly, almost naturally, they shifted back. Claws retracting with small, wet sounds. Faces smoothing, bones resettling, teeth shrinking to human proportions. Eyes fading from gold and amber to their normal colors.

And I stood in my doorway, barefoot in a puddle of someone's blood, and tried to remember how to breathe.

"Serena," Jasper's voice, gentle, careful. He took a step toward me.

I ran.

There was no way past them. I ran inside, slammed the door, threw the deadbolt, the chain, backed away until I hit the kitchen counter and couldn't go any farther.

My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking. I could still smell the blood; that metallic-ish, pungent odor of physical trauma, and when I looked down, I saw it on my feet, between my toes, drying in sticky patches.

The bile rose in my throat. I made it three steps to the sink before my body rejected everything.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Serena," Eli's voice, calm and measured. "Please. Let us explain."

I didn't answer. I sat on the kitchen floor. The image kept cycling: Callum's chest opened to bone, blood everywhere, the wet sounds. I couldn't stop thinking about it, with my arms wrapped around my knees and my eyes fixed on the door. I had grown so close to all of them.

They aren't human.

The words kept cycling through my brain: a broken record, a prayer, a curse. They aren't human. They aren't human. They aren't human.

I'd been sleeping with something that could grow claws and fangs. I'd been falling for three creatures who could tear a man apart with their bare hands. I'd been building a life in a town full of monsters. I hadn't known, hadn't even suspected, had been so blind and so stupid—

Not just rich and eccentric… Not human… They aren’t human.