[…]
It started with her hands, for some reason, sparks rising off her olive skin into the air. Slow flames twined up her arms, and the void of the hunter’s presence moved toward her.
“Why are you protecting her, boy?” The hunter’s voice was low, calm. Curious. He just kept moving at the same steady pace as he approached Isaac. “Look out there. Look out there, and step aside.”
He put out an arm, to brush Isaac aside.
And Isaac roared, chest rumbling, ground trembling deep, lips skinning back to reveal canines a good inch and a half long—
It’d been stupid to think that this had anything to do with anything normal. The mountain ash in her palm had told him as much (she’d practically thrown the shit at him; he’d been itching to shift for the past five minutes, so bad that it actually hurt) and, well, if the jig was up then the jig was fucking up. When had there been a problem in this godforsaken town that didn’t have anything to do with the supernatural?
He surged forward, the crown of his head smashing into the man’s face, a hand flying out for his wrist and twisting it upwards and outwards, against the natural joints of his skeleton, bringing him to his knees.
“Touch me again and you won’t have an arm,” he snarled out, torquing his wrist just a hair harder. “And if you don’t leave in the next thirty seconds, I’ll take the other one as well.”
The hunter didn’t sound like he was in pain, despite his broken nose, despite the grip Isaac had on his wrist. He didn’t much sound like he was surprised by Isaac wolfing out, either. “You didn’t answer my question, son. And you didn’t look. Look at what you’re defending.”
Summer stepped forward, feeling as though she balanced a container full of something awful, something dangerous, on top of her head. If she wavered just a little, everything would burn. It didn’t help that Isaac was throwing off waves of emotion, adding to the wobbly feeling the sense of being in rough seas.
“Please stop,” she whispered, reaching out as if she could touch the two men.