The scrape of crystal claws on stone echoed through the arena, mixing with the dragon shifter’s thundering pulse—the only one among them with a still-beating heart. Ace’s enhanced senses picked up everything else: the buzzing bloodlust rolling off the spectators above, the subtle shift of crystal muscles as the pack coordinated their attack, the near-silent displacement of air as Victor fought nearby.

  The alpha wove through its pack with liquid grace. Its eyes darted between Ace and Marcus, as though it couldn’t decide who to target, and a thought struck Ace like a pebble to the skull.

  “You,” Ace said to the dragon shifter, his voice low enough that only enhanced hearing could catch it above the crystalline growls. “Get behind us. Your heartbeat’s drawing their attention.”

  “You’re offering to shield me?” the shifter asked as he took position behind the sergeant. “Why? You’re a vampire, and I’m—”

  “I know what you are,” Ace snapped. “Look, maybe you hate vampires. I don’t care. You’re part of my squad, which means we work together. Got it?”

  A muscle twitched in the shifter’s jaw, but he ultimately nodded.

  As the wolves’ low growl rumbled through the ground like an approaching stampede, Ace tracked the patterns in the pack’s movement. Their precision reminded Ace of fighter jets fanning out to cover more ground, and their coordinated stalking brought them ever closer.

  “New plan,” Ace said. “Rachel and Tara, you two split off to the left when they charge. Olivia and Marcus, you take the right. They’re pack hunters. They’ll try to herd us together for an easy kill. If we can break their formation, we might stand a chance.”

  “How the hell do we do that?!” Rachel asked, her voice trembling with terror.

  “You’re stronger than you used to be,” he pointed out with a sidelong glare. “You’re faster, too. Look at Victor. Bet you he couldn’t rip out spines before he was changed. Go out there and find out what you’re capable of.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly with a glance toward her palms. “I guess you’re right.”

  The largest wolf's head snapped toward the dragon shifter again, its attention drawn by that telltale pulse of a beating heart.

  Perfect. Ace could use that.

  He cast a quick glance toward Tara as he positioned himself in front of the others. “Their hides look tough, so target joints, eyes, anything that looks vulnerable.” His fingers curled into fists, his new instincts buzzing as he studied the predators before them. “And whatever you do, don’t let them corner you.”

  The pack leader’s body tensed, and its crystal spikes caught the torchlight like frozen fire. Time was up.

  “This is going to suck,” Marcus said under his breath.

  “Now!” Ace shouted.

  The sergeant dashed forward. Air yanked on his short hair from the sheer speed of his movement. He dug his right heel into the sand, finding purchase after sliding for several paces. The leader flew over his head, its massive form like an orange comet. He bent low and jumped up, fists blurring forward. They slammed into its underbelly with a sickening crunch that was as much its form as his own bones. His wrists crunched under the pressure of the impact, but he snarled through the pain. The leader shot to the side, colliding with two of its pack members.

  The sergeant backed up, refusing to so much as blink as he retreated to the center of his team’s haphazard formation.

  “They’re splitting up to surround us!” Marcus shouted, his voice tight with forced confidence. “I can draw them off while—”

  “Get back in formation,” Ace cut him off. “These things hunt as a pack. Split from the rest of us, and you’ll get yourself killed.”

  “Why should we listen to you?” Marcus’s jaw clenched. “You’re as new to this as we are.”

  “Because he’s actually killed something before,” Tara said quietly, her eyes never leaving the wolves. “For fuck’s sake, Marcus, he’s a Marine.”

  Ace wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but for now, the fight was more worthy of his attention.

  Without warning, the alpha wolf launched forward, its crystalline hide fracturing the air. Ace's mind split—his combat training screamed to pivot and strike the throat, while his vampire instincts demanded he phase through the shadows.

  The thought of phasing through the shadows had been so sudden, so natural, and yet he had no idea what that even meant.

  In his momentary confusion, he paused—a dire mistake. The internal conflict cost him precious milliseconds, forcing an ungraceful combat roll that barely carried him clear of those diamond-edged fangs. The wolf skidded across the ground, kicking up sand as it tried to pivot and attack him once more.

  “Contact front! Nine o'clock!” Ace barked automatically, muscle memory from a thousand military drills kicking in as his team scattered.

  “What the fuck does that even mean?!” Rachel screamed from nearby.

  He knelt, his hand pressing into the dark red sand as he sighed in annoyance. Commanding these survivors was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

  As the alpha pivoted toward him yet again, the wolf’s haunches bunched, and its snarl only intensified. Ace backpedaled, using those precious seconds to analyze the terrain like he’d been trained to do. Pillars provided cover but limited mobility, and the sandy ground was too uneven for reliable traction. He inched closer to a nearby pillar of stone, and his back hit cold granite just as the beast launched its second attack.

  His mind raced, but the faster his thoughts whizzed past, the better he could comprehend the world around him. Time seemed to slow, and for the first time, he experienced what he assumed was the true speed of a vampire.

  And it was glorious.

  He instinctively dodged to the left with barely a second to spare. The wolf’s maw—a nightmare of dagger-like fangs that refracted the torchlight—snapped shut inches from his face. Its teeth carved furrows into the pillar where his head had been, throwing off a spray of sparks that danced across its faceted hide like stars on black ice. It slammed into the stone with the force of a car hitting a wall at full speed, and it yelped in pain.

  But even with his enhanced speed, he made a mistake.

  Before Ace could dodge it, the alpha’s tail slammed into his stomach. The powerful blow sent him crashing into Rachel, and the two of them went down in a tangle of limbs as more wolves closed in.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Someone do something!” Rachel yelped as she scrambled to stand. Raw terror cracked through her voice.

  “Back in formation!” Ace barked as he grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. He pulled her after him as he ran back toward the others.

  The alpha lunged, its claws slicing through the air in a wide arc. Ace studied the telegraphed attack—sloppy, overextended—and he pivoted just beyond the beast’s reach. His roundhouse kick connected against its leg, fueled by his newfound vampire strength, and a wet pop echoed through the arena as the alpha’s shoulder dislocated.

  No time to savor the small victory.

  Ace shot to his feet and bolted out of its reach, weaving between lunging beasts and snapping jaws as he raced toward the others. They were scattered, each dodging the wolves as the survivors pounced, and he was grateful that at least they were alive.

  For now.

  As he ran, he grabbed Rachel by her collar, yanking her clear of a wolf’s teeth in the nick of time. Blood streamed from defensive wounds on her arms. When he reached Marcus—who lay sprawled across the ground as another wolf snapped at his face—Ace’s free hand nabbed the man’s shirt and hauled him upright.

  Two close calls.

  Nearby, the dragon shifter flipped backward as a wolf snapped at him and landed just out of reach. Olivia yelped as a wolf nipped at the ends of her dress, and she bolted toward Ace in a mad dash. Tara darted through the fray toward them, and she elegantly spun out of a wolf’s reach as its jaws snapped through the air where she had been moments before.

  Within seconds, they moved as one unit again, their backs together, facing outward as if this were just another drill they'd practiced a thousand times. But these weren’t Marines, and Ace’s mind raced through his limited options. Standard military tactics wouldn’t cut it—not against supernatural predators with hides thick enough to shrug off bullets. They needed something new, something that merged human discipline with vampire power.

  Victor blurred through the wolves at the far end of the arena, drawing another two beasts toward him as he fought another one in the midst of three wolf carcasses.

  Six wolves on Victor.

  Five wolves for Ace.

  The sergeant growled in frustration. Part of him wished he didn’t have to babysit the others because keeping an eye on them was distracting him from the fight. If this were his squad, he could trust his fellow Marines to hold their own.

  But that wasn’t an option, and he had to work with the cards he had been dealt.

  “Stay together!” he ordered, his arms spread out defensively as he shielded the others from the wolves regrouping before them.

  He and his team needed structure, or they would die.

  Tara instantly fell into step beside him. Her eyes darted between targets, likely assessing threats with the same clinical efficiency she must have used in triage. Even the shifter remained calm, his reptilian glare darting between the five remaining wolves as the beasts growled from afar.

  A snarl ripped through the air as two wolves broke away from the formation of five, while the other three—including the alpha—lagged behind.

  They were switching up tactics.

  Damn, they were smarter than he thought.

  In seconds, the first slammed into Ace's body. He barely had time to brace himself against the impact. The blow threw him backward, through the gap between Rachel and Olivia. He slammed into one of the tall obsidian pillars spread out across the arena, and his head snapped backward into the stone.

  For a second, he saw stars, and the world around him blurred.

  He slid to the ground, temporarily dazed. The first wolf’s hazy silhouette caught up with him quickly and pinned him to the ground, baring its teeth as it dared him to fight back.

  The second wolf, however, darted straight for Tara.

  Ace tried to yell out, tried to warn her of what was about to happen, but she barely had the chance to raise her hands to guard her face before it was on her.

  The massive beast slammed one of its spikes into her chest, its shoulder ramming into her ribs with crushing force. The impact launched her off her feet and sent her flying. She hit the ground hard and rolled, gasping as the damn thing knocked the wind out of her.

  The wolf looming over Ace snapped at his head, and he grabbed its snout with seconds to spare. He gritted his teeth, yelling in pain as he struggled to keep the thing from biting his face off.

  But even as he struggled with his own wolf, he cast another glance at Tara.

  Before she could recover, powerful jaws clamped onto her leg. Dagger-like teeth punctured her skin and ripped into her muscle with a ravenous shake. Bones snapped hard, so loud that they echoed across the arena with a crunch like ice cracking across a frozen lake. Her wolf shook its head violently, treating her like a rag doll, and she was helpless in its jaws. Each savage lurch sent a fresh spray of blood across the arena floor.

  Pain exploded through Ace’s skull as his enhanced hearing picked up the wet, meaty squish of Tara's body surrendering to the beast's assault. He had seen plenty of good people go down in his days as a Marine, but this was different. This was primal, almost intimate —the sound of someone being unmade piece by piece.

  "Tara!" Rachel screamed.

  The wolf dragged Tara across the arena floor, and her fingers left desperate trails in the dirt as she clawed at the shifting ground. Blood darkened her pant leg where the beast's teeth had sunk in, so thick it was nearly black.

  The System's presence lingered at the edges of his mind. That cheerful, sadistic, messed up little girl must’ve been enjoying the show. Plenty of death. Plenty of gore. Plenty of blood to go around. Hell, she was probably taking mental notes on how to make the next batch of monsters even more efficient killing machines.

  Enough.

  He’d had enough.

  Ace's fangs descended, driven by rage and that ever-present hunger eating away at him from within. As the wolf pinning him to the floor pushed further against his bare hands—the only thing keeping its jaw from clamping around his throat—he glared up at it.

  The monster had made a tactical error—it hadn't severed his spine, nor had it crushed his skull.

  And in this world, he could already tell that anything less than complete destruction was nothing more than a temporary setback.

  The wolf's paw pressed against Ace's chest with crushing force, and each breath was a struggle against its weight. Pinpoints of light danced across his vision as its claws extended and dug into his chest, shoving their way deeper into his ribcage with every movement.

  But Ace wasn’t about to let an oversized dog be his undoing.

  Rage and adrenaline flooded his system, triggering the new vampiric blood that now defined his existence. He felt it flood through him—a surging cocktail of power that still felt foreign in his veins.

  With a guttural roar that wasn't entirely human, Ace pushed against its snout, creating precious inches of space. His muscles screamed as his newfound strength enhanced his already muscled body, and the wolf’s head inched ever backward.

  He drove his fist upward with enough force to shatter concrete, connecting with the soft spot beneath the wolf's jaw. The impact traveled up his arm like recoil, his bones cracking and then instantly reknitting as his enhanced body struggled to keep pace with the damage he was inflicting on himself.

  The wolf's body went rigid, and a high-pitched whine escaped its throat as spiderweb fractures raced across its crystal spikes.

  But Ace wasn’t done.

  He hammered another blow into the same spot, feeling the creature’s body give way beneath his bloodied knuckles. This time, he punched clear through the base of its skull, and a rush of blood cascaded down his arm. Something ruptured inside the creature as its inner light flickered and dimmed. It slumped to the ground, and though its chest still heaved, Ace didn’t bother finishing the job.

  He didn’t have time.

  Tara's scream cut through the arena's cold air from the dark tunnel, and it left a lingering echo that haunted the air.

  In answer, the crowded arena only roared louder.

  Fucking psychopaths.

  Ace jumped to his feet, but the first wolf stumbled in front of him, still blocking his path even as it struggled to stay upright. The other three charged toward his remaining group members, forcing him to make an impossible choice—chase after Tara, or protect the others who were even less capable of defending themselves.

  Tara’s wolf hauled her toward the dark tunnel at the far end of the arena, her struggles growing weaker as the blood loss took its toll. She was the one competent teammate that he had, and he wasn’t about to let her die.

  Her eyes met Ace's for one desperate moment before the shadows swallowed her.

  "Damn it!" Ace roared, his fangs extending as rage coursed through him. But three wolves now circled what remained of his group, and he couldn't abandon them.

  He needed a plan, and he needed it fast—because Tara's time was running out.

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