Page 48 of August

She’d seen him fight, and she knew that was a mistake.

Behind them, park shifters entered the paddock. She recognized a few of them but really didn’t care who they were; she was just thankful they’d shown up.

Something glinted in her grandfather’s hand as he pulled it from his back.

The dark metal of a thick serrated blade flashed as time seemed to stand still. He was aiming for Cliff, who was struggling to get to his knees. She shouted in alarm, and her jackal panicked, as she thought she might lose her brother all over again.

August jerked her away, tossing her aside as the blade she thought was heading for Cliff was actually heading for her.

The blade sailed through the air with a piercing whistle.

She hit the ground with a groan.

There was a sickening, squelching sound, and August fell beside her.

No!

NO!

August had been in a few brawls, helping save the lives of his fellow shifters when people had come for them. Hell, he’d just helped Tarquin take out some human hunters who’d threatened his mate.

And he’d been fighting his way through jackals to get to Ginny.

But he’d never been stabbed before.

And it fucking sucked.

The blade was…somewhere in his side. It seared like a hot poker, or what he imagined a hot poker felt like.

He couldn’t really move, though. His whole body seemed frozen in place, and he couldn’t even say anything. Ginny screamed, a wordless, gut-wrenching sound of fury and grief mixed up together.

And then the hot-poker feeling in his side sharpened as if he’d been stabbed a second time. Ginny had reached over his body and pulled the knife out.

Holy shit, she was going to attack her grandfather.

He called for his gorilla, knowing that shifting would heal his injury and get him back on his feet. Letting himself go into his shift, he managed to roll to his side so he could wiggle from his jeans without shredding them.

With a roar, he leaped from the ground, his tattered shirt hanging from his shifted form, and he grabbed Ginny and pulled her behind him, placing himself between his female and her grandfather one more time.

The knife bounced on the ground as Ginny fell against his back, fully blocked from view.

He reared back to strike out at her grandfather, but it wasn’t his fists that delivered the killing blow.

It was her brother’s.

He’d shifted into his jackal form and attacked their grandfather, tearing out his throat and howling in triumph as he bled out swiftly.

Ginny collapsed against August’s back with a sob, her hands tangled in his fur.

He grabbed her close against his back with one arm and moved away from all the destruction, toward his people who’d gotten close just as her brother had killed the male who’d murdered their family.

Atticus reached him first. “Holy shit. Are you guys okay?”

August grunted and gestured to the jackal.

“Yeah, who is that?”

Ginny didn’t say anything.