He startled and clamped his hands around her shoulders. The bastard was strong.

Arching back, she pulled her knees up—her flexibility and wiliness were her biggest strengths. Her weight slammed into him suddenly—unexpectedly—pulling his top half with her as he struggled to hang on. She pushed out with her arms, arching more, and yanked her feet around. The force was finally too much, and he let go. The soles of her feet hit ground instead of her head. Phew. She hadn’t properly accounted for his strength with that maneuver.

No time to stall, she launched forward, dagger up, jabbing. The business end pierced his stomach. He grunted and reached for her, ignoring the painful wound. She was already moving. To stay still in this situation was to be overpowered and die.

Dodging his reaching arms, she took the hilt of the dagger in both hands and slammed the blade into his body. It squelched as it came back out, and then she jammed it in again, aiming for a kidney. Her aim on this part of the body was terrible—she knew she’d miss—but it would hurt like hell, and if he knew what she was going for, it would freak him out. A couple of shots to the kidney would kill a shifter, and now he knew that she knew.

Welcome to being mind-fucked, my friend.

A fierce snarl nearly pulled her focus. Mordecai was engaging. She couldn’t watch, though. One slip and she’d be toast, as he’d said. She’d be damned if she’d die and give him a complex.

“Stupid bitch,” Big Ears wheezed.

Big ears…

Maybe she’d cut one of those off, just for shits and giggles.

Ducking behind him, she bent and stuck her knife in his inner thigh, really close to his nut sack. If the kidneys didn’t freak him out, this would.

His high-pitched scream made her smile. She jumped, slammed her blade into the top of his shoulder, and climbed him like a tree. He spun while reaching around, trying to throw her off. But this was why she’d embedded the knife—as a handle.

He spun the other way, slowing a little. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Working faster than she ever had in training, she scrambled up to his shoulders, wrapped her legs around his head, clutched the knife, and spun her upper body down and to the side, ripping her legs with her. Gravity helped her to the ground. Before she hit, she pushed her arms wide so the knife didn’t end up in her middle.

The impact cracked something and knocked the air out of her. Her execution of that move needed a little work, because that had hurt like hell.

Struggling for breath, she scrambled up. To give in to the pain was to give in to death—or so Zorn always said. Right now, she believed it.

A black animal went rolling across the white sands, leaving a trail of bright red in its wake. Was that a panther? Cool. Mordecai was on it a moment later, his fierce snarl sending a jolt of uncontrolled, primal fear through Daisy’s middle. She’d never heard that note in Mordecai’s growl before. She’d never felt this sort of unbridled intensity when they’d trained. It was a little daunting.

Mordecai still busy, she took two side steps, spun, and attacked, dagger ready. The shifter hadn’t gotten up and certainly hadn’t changed, so she pounced on his back and dug the knife between his shoulder blades.

She yanked it free and bounced off, waiting for his movements to determine where she struck next.

But he didn’t so much as twitch.

A howl of pain grabbed her attention. Mordecai ripped across the panther’s belly with his claws before going for the jugular. The panther struggled feebly, beaten.

All Daisy had to do was stall before Mordecai handled the other half of hers. Well…probably more like a quarter at this point. She’d stuck him pretty good. He hadn’t been as quick as the people they’d faced in the halls.

The man still lay prone, unmoving.

Worry crept through her. She really hoped he was playing dead so as to surprise her.

Except…shifters didn’t play dead. They were like Zeus in that way. Their egos couldn’t handle standing down.

“Shit,” she whispered, kicking one of his arms out of the way. It was heavy and lifeless. “Oh shit. Mordie…I think I fucked up.”

Mordecai padded over, leaving the panther on its side, its bloody, glistening body rising and falling as it struggled to breathe, its jugular ripped open and freely bleeding into the sand. Mordecai had taken that fight, hands down.

“Is that one going to live?” she asked, pointing at the panther.

Mordecai sniffed Big Ears’s face before his head came up, his intelligent hazel eyes meeting hers. She knew the situation without having to ask. That crack hadn’t been her back—it had been his neck. She might’ve executed the move poorly, but she’d done it well enough to be effective, something Zorn had said she didn’t have the strength and precision to do yet.

Well, joke was on him, because she had enough precision to crack someone’s neck, she just didn’t have the landing down.

Maybe the joke was also on her and Mordie, because now they had a body on their hands.

“Zorn will help us get rid of it. Should I go get him? This is really his fault, anyway. If he’d had more faith in me, I wouldn’t have tried to practice on this guy.” Only an asshole blamed herself, after all.

Mordecai changed back into himself, breathing quickly from the fight and the change.

“That wasn’t half,” he said, bending to take the man’s pulse.