His bedroom was lit only by pale, yellow-tinged moonlight from outside, which flowed in through the drawn curtains. The night sky was a murky midnight blue behind a vague gray haze that left the stars obscured.
“What’s wrong?” Adalynn murmured.
“Get up,” Merrick replied, tossing aside the bedding as he hurried out of bed.
The grogginess in her expression quickly gave way to concern and confusion. She pushed herself up into a sitting position. The blanket fell away, exposing her pert breasts and rosy nipples; under different circumstances, Merrick would’ve leapt back into bed after that glimpse and put all his focus and energy into pleasing her. But entirely different instincts were at play in him now—he needed to protect her from this sudden, mysterious threat. Nothing mattered beyond keeping her safe.
He strode to the armoire, tugged it open, and pulled out a black silk robe. He tossed the garment onto the bed beside Adalynn. “Put that on and fetch your brother.”
Though her confusion didn’t ease—and her eyes now gleamed with a hint of fear—Adalynn grabbed the robe and pulled it on as she climbed off the bed. “What’s going on, Merrick?”
“Intru—”
A deep, unnatural howl sounded from outside—too deep, too layered to have come from any normal wolf. Adalynn’s face paled, and Merrick’s magic flared in his chest, building to crackling heat in a flash.
“—ders,” Merrick finished. “You’ve heard that sound before, haven’t you?”
She pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded.
Merrick took a pair of pants from the armoire and tugged them on. “Get Daniel in here.”
Adalynn rushed to the bedroom door as Merrick went to the windows one-by-one, scanning the grounds outside for movement as he closed the curtains. His latest uninvited guests were nowhere to be seen—yet—but their trajectory when they’d crossed the wards would take them directly to the house.
Five werewolves. He’d never encountered werewolves running in a pack before the Sundering, but he imagined they’d changed when the moon shattered just like so much else had.
For one, they were in wolf form—but the moon-shards were not full.
A door opened down the hall. Adalynn and Danny had a brief, whispered conversation, their voices too soft for Merrick to make out their words.
Merrick glanced through doorway to see the siblings jogging down the hall toward his bedroom. He walked to the chest against the wall and knelt in front of it, lifting the lid to rummage through the bedding and old clothing inside until he found what he wanted tucked neatly at the bottom.
At the corner of his vision, Adalynn—holding Danny’s hand—led the boy into the room, closed the door, and locked it.
Merrick removed the wool-wrapped bundle from the chest, along with the box of shells that had been nestled beside it. He unwrapped the bundle as Adalynn and Danny moved to stand near him, revealing the old but pristine pump shotgun it contained. He opened the box and fed shells into the tube.
“There’s one of those werewolves outside, isn’t there?” Danny asked.
A chorus of eerie howls answered before Merrick could, all closer than the first. Adalynn and Danny crowded closer to Merrick, their eyes wide with fear.
Merrick stood and worked the shotgun’s slide action to chamber a shell. The sound shattered the relative silence of the bedroom with an ominous finality. “There are five of them.”
“What’s that for?” Danny looked from the gun to Merrick. “Don’t you have magic?”
Merrick met Adalynn’s gaze and held the shotgun out to her. “I do. But you two don’t.”
Only hours earlier, he and Adalynn had been in each other’s arms, drifting on seas of passion, relishing the joining of their bodies and souls. During that time, there’d been no other cares—the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Future and past had faded into meaninglessness. The present was all that had mattered. Adalynn was all that had mattered.
Clearly, the outside world had deemed that unacceptable.
Adalynn’s face paled further, but she took the shotgun in both hands. Merrick felt the trembling of her arms through the weapon before he released it. She held it against her chest, one hand on the action and the other on the stock.
“I’ve never used a gun,” she said, her voice low but steady.
“Point and squeeze the trigger,” Merrick replied. “Pump the action to chamber another round and fire again.”
Adalynn adjusted her grip on the weapon, clenched her jaw, and nodded.
Merrick cupped the back of her head with one hand, leaned forward, and kissed her. Despite the urgency of the situation, he was tempted to let the kiss linger. He resisted that temptation and drew back after only a moment. “Stay here. Do not come outside, no matter what happens.”
She released the shotgun’s stock to press her hand against his chest, fingers curling as though to grab him. “What? Where are you going?”
Merrick covered her hand with his and gently squeezed it. “To greet our visitors.”
“Dude, you can’t!” Danny said.
“No!” Adalynn said simultaneously. “Those things rip people to shreds, Merrick.”
“And you don’t even have a shirt on,” Danny added.
“Stay here,” Merrick repeated. Magic thrummed from his core, pulsing outward in waves, each stronger than the last. He sensed several presences outside now, all similar in the feel of their mana songs—each contained a burning core of rage, as animal as it was human.
“Please, be careful,” said Adalynn. She looped her arm around his neck and pulled him into another quick but passionate kiss before releasing him.
“You two are lucky we have bigger problems,” Danny said, “or I’d have a lot of questions for you right now.”
Adalynn took the shotgun in both hands again. “Danny, grab that box of bullets and stay close.”
Frowning, Danny bent down and scooped up the box. “Shells.”
“Shells?”
“Yeah. It’s a shotgun, these are shells. You sure you don’t want me to hold the gun?”
“No,” Adalynn and Merrick replied in unison. They exchanged a brief, amused glance before Merrick turned away and walked to the balcony doors.
The bestial presences outside remained in place, giving off their unique resonances, which were more distinct now as Merrick willed his awareness of the ley line running beneath him to life. Though he only slightly opened himself to the ley line, its sound was more a roar than a song, at once harmonious and discordant, deafening and whisper-quiet, high pitched and low-rumbling.
Merrick opened the glass door and stepped onto the porch. Just before he closed it, he said over his shoulder, “Lock it behind me.”
He turned his attention forward. The air, while not cold, had a crispness that hinted at the approach of fall. Insects made their soft night music beneath leaves gently rustled by the breeze, and his ears were sharp enough to pick up the sound of the brook running about a hundred yards to the manor’s north. The gray haze blanketing the sky was more pronounced out here, but the moons—two primary halves that had once comprised the greater whole—shone through it, casting their unsettling, bone-yellow light on the world below.