Page 4

A gun comes up.

Sentinel moves somewhere beside me.

But my hellhound is already taking the rest.

My clothes tear away beneath another violent surge of muscle, purple fur swallowing the last patches of human skin as my front paws spread against the concrete and claws gouge deep grooves. My back legs hit a second later, enormous haunches bunching beneath me while hellfire races up from my gut, burns through my chest, and spills between teeth still wet with my own blood.

The man nearest the cages freezes.

Finally.

Fucking finally, they understand what they let through that door.

Three traffickers.

Three guns.

Children locked in cages behind them.

My lips peel away from my teeth.

They’re going to need more fucking guns.

The first bastard’s hand closes around the grip of his gun, but he never gets the chance to pull it. My back legs launch me across the room, my claws scrape the concrete as I hit him square in the chest and drive him backward. His breath leaves him in a strangled grunt, his boots lifting clean off the floor before his back slams into the wall hard enough to expel whatever air he has left in his lungs.

The gun slips from his fingers and clatters somewhere beneath the dust.

I barely hear it.

Hellfire boils up through my chest, gathering behind my ribs until there’s nowhere left for it to go. My jaws open and the roar rips free, carrying enough heat and force to hit the asshole from less than a foot away and flatten him against the wall.

Concrete fractures behind him. The first crack splits upward from his shoulder, another races toward the ceiling, and suddenly the entire section gives way under the force. The wall caves inward with a deafening boom, chunks of concrete breaking loose around his body while twisted lengths of rebar rip from the wreckage and dust explodes back over me.

A shape tears through the gray—the second trafficker. He’s running for the exit, stumbling over debris in his rush to get the fuck away from me, and something vicious rolls through my chest when he looks back and finally understands exactly what’s hunting him.

He should have kept his eyes forward.

Three strides are all he gets before I’m on him.

My claws catch him between the shoulder blades, and the force of my weight drives him face-first into the concrete. His weapon flies from his hand, skidding beneath an overturned table as his scream cuts through the depot, and his fingers claw desperately for something to grab onto.

There’s nothing.

Only me.

He bucks beneath my weight, twisting onto his side in some desperate attempt to throw me off, and puts his upper body exactly where my hellhound wants it.

My jaws close over his shoulder. Bone crunches between my teeth as blood floods hot across my tongue, his scream breaking into something raw when I wrench him off the floor. One violent shake sends his body whipping beneath me before I drive him back down hard enough that the impact shudders through my front legs.

The fight leaves him all at once.

His hands fall away from my fur.

His body goes slack beneath my paws.

I let him drop from my jaws and lift my head, blood sliding from my teeth while hellfire curls through every heavy breath.

Movement near the cages drags my attention through the dust.