Sera moved while they were arguing with possibilities.

Like she wasn’t real.

Like she wasn’t a threat.

A mask turned into an elbow, a chest into a car door, a knee into ground.

She did not need claws when teeth were enough, but she used what she had.

Leather split under her nails like paper and the smell that lifted made the creature inside her praise her by name. She was the cleanest kind of alive—warm blood, warm breath, the rhythm of her heart matching Luci’s as he worried bone and something else cracked somewhere tender.

"Back!" the leader barked finally, finally—because he had realized they were feeding her the very thing that made her sharper, steadier, harder to frighten. "Back!"

But it was too late for two.

Too late for three.

Sera took a fourth by the collar and turned him so the arterial spray went where she wanted it.

She was kind that way.

Luci did not care where anything went, but he did remember to drag his chew off the main lane so no one would trip on it.

On the far side of the bridge the truck had slewed, corrected, and turned.

She could hear the engine note change—a familiar throat-clearing when Zubair set the tires to bite instead of run.

She didn’t look. She didn’t need to. She had time. She was already done.

The leader decided to be clever at last.

He jerked his chin toward two men who’d hung back—a tacit send her way, circle, take the knees, bring down the beast.

They moved well. She was almost pleased.

She let them come close enough to be sure they’d remember it the rest of the way down the road when they told lies about surviving her.

The first reached for her ankle; she stepped on his hand and heard something hard go soft.

The second tried to use her distraction to bring a blade to her ribs; Luci introduced the man to a different problem by putting his mouth where the blade arm met the shoulder.

The blade clanged on the asphalt like a bell, once.

"Leave it," Sera told the leader mildly when he half-lifted his weapon in a belated attempt at authority. "You’ve already given enough."

He froze. The smart ones always did when offered a way to carry their fear home.

"Mount up!" he snarled, throat raw. He did not step closer. He did not retrieve his men.

Instead, he turned his bike with more care than anger and gunned it, and the kind of loyalty that follows only loudness followed him because the quieter loyalty—earned by keeping people alive—had not been on offer out here.

Engines screamed. The bridge filled with their retreat.

Sera licked her wrist.

The blood had already slicked her palm, drying in the wind in a tacky, satisfying way.

The taste—iron and salt and something else that was singular to this man, this minute—sat bright on her tongue.

The creature coiled back down inside her and settled like a cat on a warm windowsill. Quiet. Pleased. Fed.

She tipped her head toward Luci. "Such a good boy."

He wagged hard enough to thump against her shin with each sweep of his tail and then bent to pick up his original prize—the chain-man’s ruined forearm—like it was a toy he’d misplaced and was relieved to find again.

On the far side, the truck slid into view, big and sure, grill spattered with other people’s bad ideas. It rolled to a stop just long enough for Lachlan to lean halfway out the window, his eyes wide and delighted.

"Tell me you saved me a bite," he called, and then, as he really saw her—blood from mouth to collarbone, eyes bright enough to burn—he blew out a laugh that carried all the way across the lane. "There she is."

Alexei clucked his tongue, purely theatrical, grin sharp and proud. "You always throw the best breakfasts."

Elias didn’t speak. He looked at her mouth, at her hands, at the easy set of her shoulders now that the ache had let go, and something in his face went warm with relief he didn’t bother to hide.

Zubair said nothing at all.

He met her eyes through the windshield. There was a question in his look—enough?—and an answer in hers—for now.

He dipped his chin once, the same way a man might nod to a partner after a good lift.

She crouched, took a last mouthful because it pleased her to and because denying herself for the sake of other people’s comfort had been a hobby in an older life.

Then she stood, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and whistled once for Luci.

He came in a happy bound, forearm clamped awkward and proud in his jaws.

Sera jogged forward, put a palm on the hood, and vaulted up and over like it was a step.

She dropped through the open passenger window, easy as breath, landing with one knee on the seat and a hand on the dash to steady the landing.

Luci took the sensible door; Alexei hauled him in by the scruff with a laugh and an oof when a paw thumped his chest.

Blood spattered the glove box. She left it until it dried. It would wipe easier then.

Lachlan twisted around to stare at her with open admiration. "That was—"

"Breakfast," she said, and her voice was light again. "You expected me to waste food?"

He barked a laugh, delighted. Elias’s mouth hitched. Alexei waggled his eyebrows in a comic little never and then reached into the footwell to snap the bone Luci offered in half so the wolf could manage it easier.

Zubair put the truck in gear and eased them forward, not because he was gentle but because he was precise and there was no point jarring full bellies.

Behind them, the bridge looked smaller, cluttered with wreckage that already belonged to a different hour.

One rider...no, one man...stood in the lane with his helmet off, watching them shrink into the distance.

He looked like a boy whose father had told him monsters were make-believe and then introduced him to one.

Wind pushed the smell out of the cab. Sun made the blood on Sera’s knuckles shine dull and brown.

The ache in her gut had gone flat and quiet.

She settled back with her shoulder against the window frame and felt Luci’s flank press warm against her leg.

Zubair’s voice came without looking. "Better?"

She let the truth show in her mouth. "Yes."

"Good," he said, which was all the ceremony it needed.

Engines rose behind them a few minutes later—farther this time, thinner. Laughter didn’t ride the sound the way it had at first. Rage did. Fear did. It braided into something uglier and hungrier.

"Round two," Alexei sang under his breath, pleased like a man who loved a well-structured play.

Sera smiled into the wind. The creature inside her purred and rolled over, sated and patient. Noon pressed on the glass the way morning never had. The road bent south and did not bother with promises.

"Let them come," she said, because there was no one left to tell her not to be exactly what she was. "We’ll be here."