Roger is far from done. He rushes at me again, excitement glittering in his eyes. “Yes! I love it when they fight back! I’m going to teach you a lesson or two. Women belong in the kitchen. They are below men. Inferior. You think just because you managed to land a punch, it makes you better than me? By the time I’m done with you, you’ll know who your master is. I’ll tear out your fucking insides!”

My body goes cold at his words. The image I’m seeing is flipping between this huge man charging at me and seven teenage boys surrounding me. It is the same sick fear that consumed me when I was sixteen. But not the same helplessness.

I’m not a little girl anymore. I know how to defend myself.

My wolf may be defective—a broken, twisted creature that has never seen the light of day—but I can feel its rage within me. I wait for Roger’s fingers to graze the edge of my mask, and as soon as they do, I grab them in my fist and twist them backward. His scream is high-pitched, and I use his distracted state of mind to kick him in the stomach. Next, my fist lands against his nose, breaking it in a shower of blood. He falls back against the table one more time, clutching his broken nose with his good hand and cradling the hand with his injured fingers against his chest.

“You fucking freak! I’m gonna kill you! I was about to go easy on you, but now I’m going to rip out your—”

I don’t give him the time to finish his threat. My foot locks against his ankle and yanks. As he goes down, I grab a knife from the block on the kitchen counter. My body is on autopilot.

He’s a threat.

That’s all I can think of.

Get rid of him. He’s a danger to me.

Fear fills those beady eyes of his, and he manages to whack the knife out of my hand.

Fool.

I bare my claws, ready to strip his face off.

But before I can do any such damage, a strong hand grabs my wrist, stopping its descent. I look over my shoulder, my other hand raised to attack the person who has stopped me. But he fends off my attack easily, and I barely manage to land a good scratch on his wrist.

“Enough.”

The low, raspy voice and the scent of his blood start to dissipate the red haze clouding my vision.

It’s the man who was watching me during the fight, the one with the blue eyes who made me lose focus.

I try to pull my hands away from him, but his grip is like iron.

“You’re going to kill him,” he warns me, his tone deep and rough, almost a growl.

His strength is greater than mine, and when I look into his eyes, the feral edge to his gaze makes me fearful. He’s a wolf shifter. There’s no denying it. A human wouldn’t have this kind of strength. And if that weren’t enough, the scent of his blood oozing from the scratch I gave him is a dead giveaway.

I can’t pull away from him using force alone, so I try another tactic. I yank my arms down as I cross them, which causes him to lose his grip. Without a second thought, I jump free of him.

“Wait!” he calls, but I grab my bag and run out the door.

I expect him to give chase, but he doesn’t.

I’ve gotten just a few feet away when I catch two different scents. They’re on either side of me, as if zeroing in on my location. I think fast.

If I keep running straight ahead, they’re going to give chase and might catch me. They’ll expect me to do that, and if this is a preplanned attack on me, there might be others waiting in the forest. The only alternative I can see is up.

There are plenty of trees in Oakrest’s forest. The boxing gym has a training track in these woods for those who claim to be serious athletes, and Mathew leads tourist hiking groups through here. Securing my backpack, I quickly leap onto the closest branch and then propel myself off of it to jump to another tree with denser foliage. Using the leaves to camouflage myself, I realize I have no choice but to stay here till they’re gone.

A few minutes later, two large wolves burst out of the forest and look around.

They sniff the ground, and I hold my breath, knowing that even the faintest sound will give me away.

They glance at each other and then in the direction of the boxing gym. The man who stopped me from maiming Roger steps out of the building. “Anything?”

The two wolves shift into their human forms, and I see that they’re wearing casual outfits. With witch magic on nearly every shifter clothing store out there, my kind no longer has to worry about destroying their clothes with each shift.

I study the two men. I don’t recognize them. They’re not from here.