The men stopped, turning to look at me. And then they smirked.
It was the kind of smirk that said they thought I was out of my depth. That I had no idea what I was asking for. That I was just a soft southern wolf playing at being tough.
Fine. Let them think that.
They shifted.
And I realized, with a jolt of shock that stole the breath from my lungs, that these weren't just wolves.
They were monsters.
Each of them was massive, easily twice the size of any wolf I'd ever seen. Their fur was thick and dark, their bodies corded with muscle that rippled beneath their pelts like iron under velvet. Their eyes glowed with an unnatural light, feral and wild, and their teeth were longer, sharper, more predatory than anything that should exist in this world.
They looked like something out of a
