Wild barking and excited yips—lycans only a few streets away. People started running from all directions, heading for the Colony's main gate. Rapid gunfire tore the cool morning air.

Gull felt each concussive discharge, sound a hit to the chest. He'd had less time than expected; the lycans were attacking now. And they had the Colony in their sights, home to children and other non-combatants, including his mother and his artist sister, Mika.

Hashi slapped his pistol into Gull's hands. "Get the fuck out of here, kid!"

Gull wanted to reject the order, but the reality was anyone close to him would be a target.

He jammed the pistol into a jacket pocket.

Then he ran.

He stayed at ground level, boots hammering pavement. Every gunshot and scream jolted through him as he bound over discarded tyres and weed-cloaked refuse. He knew laying down a fast, straight trail away from the settlement was the best thing he could do, but his heart still warred with his mind. He'd split off some of the mutts, but the lycans had other reasons than him to hit the Colony. They needed to rebuild their numbers and—

Zera.

Gull's stride faltered. He recovered in time to clear an overturned shopping trolley, but his thoughts scrambled. Dragon, the lycans' alpha, was possessive and controlling, especially toward those he'd Changed. He considered Zera his. He'd want to reclaim his packmate.

But she was no longer what he'd made her.

Gull skidded to a stop; swung back to face the Colony.

Chaos. Lycans running down people as they tried to reach safety.

Horror hazed Gull's mind. His friends and family. Shit. Zera. She wouldn't even be able to flee. He'd left her chained and defenceless. If her packmates found her... Gull's stomach dove. She hated what she'd done as a mutt. She'd die before she'd let the lycans retake her.

Movement—to his left.

Gull turned, fear leaping the same instant as a dark, shaggy body. He made to dodge—

An explosion of fur and meat.

The attacking lycan slammed into the pavement as Gull jumped clear. Blood streaked the ground, the creature missing half its head.

Shock dissolved into pure adrenaline.

Gull pivoted and ran. Some sniper in the Colony still had his back. He needed to have theirs. As clawed feet scrambled behind him, he tried to convince himself that was a good thing—not a total nightmare. The more mutts hunted him, the fewer hit the settlement.

Another gunshot. A thud—another large body hitting the ground in his wake.

Gull choked back an oath as barks sounded down a side street: lycans flanking the northern side of the Colony. He'd nearly run into the group.

Glass and metal clattered just metres away, the wolves now right on his tail.

The entrance to a public square loomed, a dozen stainless steel bollards protecting its herringbone pavers. Planting a foot, Gull jumped onto the furthest; launched himself up the crumbling plaster of a derelict cafe.

His momentum got his fingers to the wall's top edge. A smooth pull-up had him on the café's flat roof—just as snarls and skittering claws sounded directly below.

He gasped in a breath, legs shaking as he pushed himself upright. He was only postponing the inevitable.

Fighting that knowledge, he forced himself across the café's roof. The next shop was a two-storey. Using a side window, he hauled himself to the higher level.

With at least ten lycans below, he moved for the next shop, staying to the roof's edge—staying visible. Run and a predator would chase. He had to keep the mutts' attention for as long as he could.

He ran out of roof all too soon, the row of shops terminating at a side street. The next building, an old Best Life Gym, was too far away to jump to. But this close to the Colony, the streets were organised for the settlement's defence and human foot traffic.

Reaching the roof's edge, Gull lowered himself over its stub wall and dropped straight down onto the double-decker bus blocking—and bridging—the street.

He raced along its roof, lycans snarling and yipping below, streaming across the street like black death. The lower section of the gym's two-tier roof rose before him.

He calculated the short jump to reach it—

Three lycans put on a burst of speed. Spearing ahead, they leapt through the gym's broken front windows.

Gull jumped, fear surging. The lycans were trying to head him off.

He landed on the gym's flat roof. Barely breaking his stride, he made for the air-conditioning units that would get him up onto the central, second storey. Overturned plastic deck chairs and scattered beer cans cruelly reminded him the gym's lower roof could be easily accessed from inside.

The clang of a door slamming open.

Two huge black bodies careered around the corner of the second-storey level, paws skidding on concrete.

Gull flung himself up onto the blocky industrial air-conditioners. His blood iced at the ease with which he made it to the higher roof. The units were tall and wide enough to allow the lycans to follow.

Sprinting across the second storey roof, he searched for an escape route his pursuers couldn't use. A sinking sensation of despair hit as scrabbling paws sounded—wolves making it to the upper roof.

He aimed for the black void of a large skylight missing most of its glass; prayed the last minutes of his life had made a difference.

An excited bark right behind him.

Gull leapt for the shattered skylight—plummeted feet first.

Concrete and rotten carpet—an internal staircase—hurtled towards him.

He snagged the central transom of the skylight's framing, stopping his fall with an arm-wrenching jolt.

A slicing rain of glass—what little the skylight had left.

Two twisting bodies plunged past him to slam onto the stairs below. With pained yips, they tumbled to the ground floor, knocking over exercise bikes like dominos.

Gull wasted no time; he had none. He dropped to the staircase's railing then down to its thread-bare treads. Heart hammering, he sprinted up the stairs to the gym's mezzanine level, away from the snarls and banging and crashing on the lower floor.

A weight room awaited.

So did a third lycan.

Gull had just enough time to snatch up a ten-kilogram hand weight—swung it as fangs and mangy fur launched at him.

A jarring impact, rubber-covered metal ramming into a solid canine jaw. A crunch—fracturing bone and enamel. The lycan crashed down into equipment, sending dumbbells tumbling and machines rocking and clanging.

Gull dropped low to catch his balance; belatedly recognised the haggard beast—Stroya. Shit. Weight machines clanked and banged as the lycan struggled to extract herself and regain her feet.

He pushed upright, pulse wild. Concussion and a few loose teeth wouldn't stop the mutt from biting and infecting him.

Claws on the stairs: one of the other lycans.

Vaulting over a leg press, Gull made a break for the fire-escape door the mutts had used to get to the lower roof. He dove for the concrete outside—

A heavy body slammed into him before he could reach it.

Twisting, he managed to land on his side and roll between weight machines.

The lycan who'd knocked him down lunged again, driving snapping jaws through the wires and frame of a cable machine.

Gull scrambled backwards; wrenched Hashi's pistol from his jacket—pulled the trigger.

At such close range, the round did damage, blasting through a rust-red eye into brain. No bloody skull fragments exploded out the other side, the bullet failing to exit. The round spent its energy ricocheting off bone, mincing brain tissue.

The mutt went limp, entangled in the machine it'd tried to attack through.

Gull righted himself, breath heaving. Unlike Stroya, currently trying to bite and jerk herself free of capsized equipment, this mutt wouldn't be getting back up.

A sharp slap of palms, then another: a slow clap.

Gull swung about, pistol up.

A tall, muscular figure stood at the top of the stairs, covered in a short pelt of curling hair. Dragon in human form.

The lycan bared his fangs. "The pack calls you weak, but I am intrigued."

Gull estimated his chances. Fourteen remaining rounds in his pistol. The huge alpha only six metres away, and Stroya a little closer, shaking herself free of overturned equipment. She snarled, her snout bloody, one long canine broken, and her stare pure death.

Swallowing, Gull gave away any foolish hope. It didn't matter how many rounds were in his weapon; he'd get off one shot max before being taken down. And while Stroya might be reconsidering her plans to make him her pet, her alpha's slow smile killed any hope of a clean, fast death.

Gull clenched his fingers on his pistol's grip. Run and he'd be caught in an instant. Fight and he'd be downed as quickly. As Dragon shifted forward, muscles coiled, eyes sly, Gull recalled a different stare: Zera's—dark with horror as she spoke of what she'd done as one of the Changed.

The virus stole control, identity, and choice.

Gull jerked in a breath. He still had all of those.

He flipped the pistol in his hand; aimed it up under his chin.

A weight machine slammed into him—Dragon shunting it in a swift move.

A deafening bang—the pistol discharging.

Gull hit the floor, his weapon flying from his grip. He had an instant to realise the round hadn't found its mark—his brain—before tearing pain struck.

Mutant fangs sunk into his leg.

Heartbeat a roar, he groped for his pistol—could reach only a dumbbell. Smashing it down on the wrinkled, semi-human snout fixed to his calf, he got the lycan alpha to release his hold. But it was too little too late.

Gull fell back to the floor, his skin washing hot then cold. The world whirled from red, to grey—to black.

He'd been bitten.

He was lost.