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strength. “You didn’t have to break my window.”
    In the middle of her tiny living room, Rogue showed his teeth. “You wouldn’t have let me in.”
    No point in arguing. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have. So get out.”
    He took a step closer, predator stalking prey, his pale eyes glistening with bloodlust. He would try to mate her, Dina realized, and at this point he wouldn’t care if she was willing. Dread beat a rapid-fire tattoo over her skin.
    Maybe she’d have a chance if she ran out into the night, but she was through running away, from anyone. Magic or not, she’d make her stand, with or without the wolf inside her.
    “You got something to say?” Just keep him talking. She needed something, anything, a weapon. A quick grope of her fingers at her back told her she’d lost her blade.
    Slowly, Roguell came closer, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed with insulting pulls. “I smell a male on you.”
    “I know.” No point denying it. Maybe he would respect another man’s scent and back away, except she didn’t have a mate mark, nothing to prove another’s hold on her. Fear, cold and unwanted, shivered through her.
    “Where is he?” His smile full of teeth, Rogue turned a full circle. “Not here to protect you. He isn’t here to do jack shit.”
    A small flick of his wrist sent the punching bag into an angry spiral. Her hands clenched into fists, Dina waited for him to make a move.
    He slicked a hand through long pale hair, and looked at her with hooded, narrowed eyes. “You need someone to watch you.”
    An obvious insult to Manakell and a deliberate attempt to piss her off. She wasn’t known for patience. Rogue obviously counted on it.
    “You aren’t the one I had in mind.” Words, just use words . If she let loose with fists again, he would have every reason to take her down and even Man would not have any say.
    She didn’t lie to herself. He had the strength to tear her apart. Without magic, she had the simple choice of offering her throat or fighting to her death.
    As if reading her mind, Rogue shifted, tearing through his clothes, bone and skin melding into silver and grey fur. A huge wolf stood beside her punching bag, staring at her with Roguell’s madness-tinged eyes. His teeth snapped in a warning, she watched his fur rise on his back, his tail standing up parallel to his body.
    Without a choice she crouched for an attack, bared her teeth at him. Hoped that it would be over quickly.
    He showed his teeth and went down on his forepaws, coiling for a jump. She watched the muscles hunching on his flanks and pushed back the sudden and bright flash of terror. If nothing else, he wouldn’t smell desperation on her skin. She’d rather have her throat torn out than let him know she was afraid. She’d rather die than let him hear her screaming.
    Rogue leapt high in the air, and her last thought was to clamp her teeth onto her bottom lip, keeping the scream at bay. Something pushed her away before he reached her. She hit the floor in a painful and graceless lump, scrambled back up to see a strong, dark human body tangled with a wolf.
    She heard a low menacing growl followed by one just as ferocious. Her bones ached as she forced herself to move, rushed forward to see Rogue snapping his jaws around Luke’s forearm. Luke pushed his arm farther into the wolf’s throat, into the soft black tissue past the teeth.
    Blood spilled into the air, its sweet metallic taste familiar and full of rage. It filled her up with each harsh breath as Roguell tried to snap his jaw through flesh and bone. And something swelled inside her, dark and pure and simple.
    The throb of ancient magic slid through her bones, thickening her blood and skin and muscles. The world changed, darkening, rounding. Scent became vision and instinct became thought. Somewhere, in the part of her that remained human, Dina rejoiced at the sweet kiss of pain accompanying a shift.
    Her wolf senses roared at the scent of enemy and