Chapter 2 Three Seconds

MORENA POV

"Bass-"

The forest goes dead silent.

Every hair on my arms stands straight up.

I inhale sharply through my nose, and my stomach drops. Beneath the smell of pine needles and river water, a rank, stench slices through the evening air. Rotting fur. Rabid sweat. And old, dried blood.

"Get in the truck," I hiss, my weight dropping instantly into a fighter's stance as I shove Bass toward the cab.

"What is it?" Bass's hand tightens on the iron wrench.

"Bass, get in the damn truck now-"

The brush twenty feet upstream explodes.

A rogue wolf the size of a black bear launches out of the ferns at a dead sprint. Its coat is mangy and scarred, its eyes bloodshot and rabid, foam dripping from its jaws as it locks straight onto us.

I don't have time to shift fully-not with Bass right behind me and the beast already airborne.

"Run!" I shout, and step forward to intercept it.

Two hundred pounds of feral muscle slam into my chest, knocking us both into the shallow stones of the creek bank. I roll with the impact the way I was trained on the mats, kicking the beast off me and scrambling to my feet.

The rogue lunges again, jaws snapping at my throat.

Instinct takes over. I slip its snapping teeth by an inch, just like slipping a wide right hook in the ring pivot on my left heel, and drive a full-force, clawed right cross into the side of its snout.

Bone cracks under my bare knuckles, but my mother's cold voice rings horribly true in my head: A boxer fights for a ten-count. A beast doesn't care about points.

My bruised right wrist buckles from the strain of the earlier match. Before I can reset my guard, the rogue swings its massive front paw and slams me sideways into the fender of the pickup truck.

Steel dents behind my spine. The air rips clean out of my lungs, and I hit the gravel on my knees, gasping for breath.

The rogue doesn't pause. It lowers its bloody snout and charges straight for my exposed neck.

Before I can raise my arms, boots crunch on the stones and a tall shadow steps right over me.

"Hey!" Bass roars.

Terror turns my blood to ice.

Bass swings the heavy iron tire wrench with both hands, slamming it across the rogue's skull with a deafening clang. The beast yelps, staggering sideways-and then whirls on Bass.

"Bass, no!" I scream, trying to force my legs under me. Bass raises the iron bar again, but he's human-he can't match the speed of a shifted wolf. The rogue bowls straight into his chest, knocking him flat onto the rocks, and rakes its claws viciously down his shoulder, ripping through his blue flannel shirt in a hot spray of red.

Bass's blood.

The scent hits the back of my throat, and every ounce of boxer's discipline inside my head shatters into dust.

There are no ropes here. There are no rules. There is only the boy I have loved since I was fourteen bleeding on the stones.

A feral snarl rips out of my chest. My vision drowns in blinding, violent red as my wolf takes the wheel completely. I launch myself across the gravel, slamming onto the rogue's back, hook my left arm under its jaw, and wrench its head back with every shred of supernatural strength in my body while my teeth and claws tear into its throat until the spine snaps.

The rogue convulses once and collapses dead in the mud.

I can't stop. My chest is heaving, my pulse hammering like war drums in my ears, the red haze blinding me to everything except the screaming instinct in my blood. Kill. Protect. Tear it apart before it touches him again.

Footsteps stumble on the rocks behind me.

Two large, warm hands grab my trembling shoulders from behind, trying to haul me back from the corpse.

"Morena! Morena, stop, it's over-look at me-"

My brain doesn't register human words. My wolf only feels hands grabbing my neck while I'm drowning in bloodlust.

Three seconds.

That's all it takes to destroy everything.

One second to whirl around with a vicious snarl.

Two seconds to slam my attacker back against the side of the truck.

Three seconds to sink my fangs deep into the warm, pulsing side of his neck.

A ragged gasp breaks against my ear.

The hands on my shoulders don't punch me. They don't shove me off. Instead, familiar, trembling fingers slide up into my hair, holding the back of my head gently even as hot human blood fills my mouth.

"Morena..."

Bass's whisper slices straight through the red haze.

My eyes snap wide. I wrench my mouth back with a strangled cry, stumbling away on the wet stones as my hands fly to my bloodstained lips.

Slumped against the dented truck door, one hand pressed over his torn throat and blood soaking his flannel shirt, is Bass.

My stomach heaves as the truth hits me like a fist to the ribs. I didn't just break the deadliest law of River Ash.

I just bit the boy I love-and when his hand slips an inch from his neck in the dim light, the torn flesh beneath his fingers isn't bleeding out.

It's already sealing itself shut.