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With this many lycanthropes in a room so small, they were too close. They could jump me if I went to help Stephen stand, but with a machine gun in my hand, I was betting most of them would be dead before they reached me. It was a comforting thought.

I spotted the Firestar in the far corner. I picked it up and holstered it without having to look. Practice, practice, practice. I kept the machine gun out. It just made me feel better.

I knelt by Stephen without taking my eyes off the others. It was hard not to at least glance down, but I was too damn close to them. The wolf had been unbelievably fast, and I didn’t think Raina would save me a second time. I was lucky she didn’t want me wounded. I got my arm around Stephen’s waist, and he managed to throw his arms around my neck. I stood, and he was almost dead weight, but we both managed to stand, and with my help, Stephen kept his feet. I was glad he was about my size. Bigger would have been harder. His robe flapped open, and he took one arm from around my shoulders and tried to tie it closed, but he couldn’t do it. He started to take his other arm off my shoulders.

“Leave it, Stephen, please. We’ve got to go now.”

“I don’t want people to see me.” He stared at me from inches away, his face vague and unfocused from the drugs, but a single tear trailed from the corner of one cornflower blue eye. “Please,” he said.

Shit. I braced him around the waist, and said, “Go ahead.” I stared at Raina while he tied his robe, clumsy and slow from the drug she’d slipped him. He was making a low whimpering sound deep in his chest by the time he got it closed.

“In some ways you are as sentimental as Richard,” she said. “But you could kill us, all of us, even Stephen’s brother, and feel nothing.”

I met her honey brown eyes and said, “I’d feel something.”

“What?” she asked.

“Safer,” I said.

I backed us towards the open door and had to glance behind to make sure nothing was coming up at me. When I looked back at them, Gabriel had moved forward, but Raina had a hand on his arm, stopping him. She was looking at me like she’d never really seen me before. Like I’d surprised her. I guess it was mutual. I’d known she was twisted, but not in my wildest dreams would I have accused her of raping one of her own people.

Stephen and I stepped out into the hall, and I took a deep breath, feeling something in my chest loosen. The sounds of fighting crashed over us. I wanted to run towards the fight. Richard was alive, or they wouldn’t have still been fighting. There was time. There had to be.

I called to Raina, “Don’t show your face out here until after we’re gone, Raina, or I’ll shoot it off.” There was no answer from the room. I had to get to Richard.

Stephen stumbled and nearly took us both down. He hung from my shoulders, his arms pressing into my neck, then he got his feet under him. “You with me, Stephen?”

“I’m all right. Just get me out of here.” His voice sounded weak, thready, like he was losing consciousness. I could not carry him and shoot, or at least I didn’t want to try. I got a firmer grip on his waist and said, “Stay with me, Stephen, and I’ll get you out.”

He nodded, long hair spilling around his face. “Okay.” The one word was almost too soft to hear above the fighting.

I stepped out into the main room, and it was chaos. I couldn’t see Richard. There was just a mass of bodies, arms, legs, a clawed form rose above the rest, a man-wolf close to seven feet tall. He reached down and drew Richard out of the mess, claws digging into his body. Richard shoved a hand that was too long to be human, and not furry enough to be wolf, under the werewolf’s throat. The creature gagged, spitting blood.

A wolf almost as long as Richard was tall leapt upon his back. Richard staggered, but didn’t fall. The mouth sank teeth into his shoulder. Furred claws and human hands grabbed at him from every side. Fuck it. I fired the machine gun into the wooden floor. It would have looked more impressive if I’d fired into the