Retribution by Sherrilyn Kenyon

their lips in a purely canine fashion as they stalked toward the two of them.
    Jess braced himself for the attack he knew was coming. He’d never much cared for shape-shifters, and these were going to be brutal. “C’mon, punks,” he goaded. “You want to fight or sniff each other’s crotches?”
    The leader ran at him. With a bright flash of yellow, he turned from a man into a coyote. Jess reversed his shotgun so that he was holding it by the barrel. Using the stock like a bat, he knocked the coyote into the wall, where it hit with a heavy thud.
    The others changed form and came at him full force.
    “Run!” he said over his shoulder to Abigail.
    She didn’t listen. Rather, she ripped the tacky antlers off the wall that Andy had put there as a sick joke—that boy had never been right in the head—and held them to defend against their attackers.
    It was a bold move, and he seriously hoped those antlers broke during the fight so he’d never have to look at them again.
    Even though Jess had a feeling he was wasting his time, he went ahead and loaded his gun with the shells in his pocket, then opened fire on the coyotes. The first one he shot yelped, skidded sideways, rebounded off the wall, then kept coming.
    Yeah, all it did was piss the coyote off and give him some target practice. But what the hell? He kept shooting until he was empty again while he and Abigail backed down the hallway.
    Until she stopped moving.
    He slammed up against her.
    “You’re about to be in daylight.”
    He glanced over his shoulder to see the truth of that. Had she not stood her ground, he’d have been in some serious pain right about now. “Much obliged.” With no choice and with their retreat cut off, he took a step forward to fight.
    The coyotes launched themselves at the two of them.
    Jess moved to hit one, but they never made contact.
    The coyotes slammed into an invisible wall that magically appeared around him and Abigail. Yelping, the coyotes tried to attack again and again—they couldn’t.
    Yee-haw on that. He just hoped whoever was shielding them was a friend.
    Abigail moved to stand beside him. She reached out to touch it, and apparently there was nothing there. She waved her hand around but it contacted nothing. Meanwhile, the coyotes couldn’t touch them.
    Interesting  …
    She frowned in confusion. “What is this?”
    “Don’t know. But given everything else that’s happened so far, I’m not real sure it’s a good thing.” For all he knew, that magic wall might be protecting the coyotes from something ugly about to happen to the two of them.
    As if on cue, an evil growl, low and deep, echoed around them.
    The coyotes hesitated at the sound.
    Abigail swallowed in fear. When the scariest of scary were wary, it was time to take note. She whipped out her mental notepad to wait on whatever evil was about to pounce.
    She didn’t have to wait long before a huge wolf launched out of the walls to attack the coyotes.
    That was unexpected on several levels. She turned toward Sundown. “Is that on our side?”
    He squinted as if trying to look into the heart of this latest addition. “Looks like, but  … hell, who knows at this point?”
    Within seconds, the coyotes vanished into a mist. The wolf circled as if he was about to give chase. Until he turned into a man in the middle of the hallway.
    Tall, blond, and extremely handsome, he still looked feral in his human form. There was a light in his eyes that said he wanted to taste blood.
    She hoped it wasn’t theirs.
    Abigail held her breath as he moved forward with a deadly glower.
    Here we go again.…
    The wolf flipped the gun out of Sundown’s hands. He cracked open the barrel to check its loaded status and shook his head. “Shells, cowboy? Really?”
    Sundown shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to try even when it’s wasted energy.”
    The wolf laughed, then handed it back. “I admire the tenacity, useless though it is.”
    Abigail relaxed as she realized