Keran was standing in front of him, blocking his way out.

Her face covered in blood, she gazed up at the man until she finally spit at him. Samuel thought she’d only spit blood to blind him but then something fell to the floor and Samuel quickly realized that it was a tongue. She’d bitten that first soldier’s tongue off.

Keran slapped the blade out of the blond man’s hand, hooked her leg around his, and yanked him to the ground. Then she grabbed him by the collar and began hitting him in the head. Blow after blow from her fist. Over and over until she’d destroyed the man’s face.

Another soldier attacked her from behind but Samuel got to his feet and pulled his sword. He blocked that soldier’s blow at Keran’s back and pushed him away. He then went on the offensive, striking at the soldier again and again until he’d backed him out the door and kicked him down the stairs.

Turning, he grabbed Keran’s axe.

“Here,” he said, forcing the weapon into her hand. He had to do it in order to get her to stop hitting the blond man, who was clearly no longer breathing. “Take this. There are more.”

“Oh.” Keran smiled at him as if her face and hands weren’t covered in other men’s blood. “Okay!”

Some of the soldiers attempted to escape with a few screaming girls through the hallway.

“Take the women to safety, Samuel,” Keran ordered. “I’ll get the rest.”

Samuel probably shouldn’t leave her alone to fight but when he looked down at the blond man with the crushed-in face and the other soldier choking to death on his own blood and without his tongue . . . he assumed she’d be fine.

* * *

Gemma paused in the middle of the town to watch her centaur compatriots fight the mercenaries. Rapidly shifting from human to centaur and back again so they could confuse their opponents, they avoided direct assaults to important body parts. But as fascinating as that was, Gemma had to move. She grabbed an abandoned sword from the ground and pointed it at a group of soldiers attempting to drag off some women who’d been trying to use the sudden battle to escape.

“Leave them!” she ordered and a few of the men snickered at her. “I said leave them!”

“Or what?” one of them demanded, facing her. “What will you do, nun?”

Burying the tip of the sword into the ground, Gemma grabbed the collar of the white robes she wore and ripped out and down.

The man stumbled back. “War Monk!” he screamed. “WAR MONK!”

* * *

Quinn heard the soldier’s scream and turned to see a battle unit release the women they’d been dragging away and run. From Gemma Smythe.

“You really love doing that, don’t you?” he had to ask, briefly ignoring the fighting going on around him. “Scaring the unholy shit out of them when they see what you really are?”

She looked at him over her shoulder, the smile on her face pure sin. Which was kind of strange since she was a monk and all.

Yet it wasn’t that she simply scared her opponents away. He saw that now when she caught the handle of a war hammer aimed at her head—one not nearly as large as her sister’s hammer—without even looking at her attacker.

Yanking the war hammer and its wielder close, she rammed one of her short swords into the soldier’s belly, then slashed him across the throat before shoving him to the ground.

“Are you fighting, Brother?” Laila called out to him. “Or watching the woman?”

“Can’t I do both?”

“No!” his kin yelled at him.

Surprised by his siblings’ intensity, he twisted around to see more mercenaries—a lot more—racing into the town on horseback.

Quinn’s stomach dropped. “Oh, shit.”

* * *

Keeley lowered her head and readied her weapon. The prince had walked out of the hall but with a cry, he tumbled back in. The lead demon wolf knocked him to the ground.

“Get it off me!” Straton screamed. “Get it off me!”

One of the men ran to Straton’s side and kicked the wolf off. He rolled across the floor but, as Keeley would expect, righted himself quickly enough and charged back. Straton stood and pulled his sword. He slashed down, hitting the animal in the head.

“No!” Keeley screamed out, hitting two of the soldiers that stood closest to her and running. But another soldier caught her and held on.

The prince studied her with cold eyes. “A pet of yours?” he asked. “This thing?”

“Leave him!” she ordered, watching her friend stumble from the blow, leaving a trail of blood as he moved.

“I’ll end this thing,” Straton swore, raising his sword above his head, “and then I’ll end you.”

Keeley yanked her arm free and rammed her elbow into one soldier’s face. She pulled away from the other and brought the head of her hammer down on his foot, crushing it.

As the soldier howled in pain, Keeley charged forward but she stopped when the demon wolf’s blood abruptly disappeared into the ground and a crevice opened up in the stone floor. The soldiers and Keeley moved away from that opening when paws appeared, and then wolf heads . . . their eyes made of flames.

Keeley looked at her old friend and watched the wound to his head heal, leaving a raw scar from the top to under his jaw. Then he flashed his fangs at her. Not in warning, but a smile.

A brutal, merciless smile.

That’s when they came tearing up from the crevice. Ten. Twenty. More.

Full-grown. Eyes full of flame and rage for one of theirs who’d been harmed by a human.

They charged at Straton and the bastard dragged one of his own men in front of him before running back toward the bedroom.

Keeley ran after him. “Straton!” Keeley barked to stop him before he could go back into the room. She didn’t know if his captive had made it out yet and she didn’t want to risk it.

He came to a stop.

“Afraid of me, are you?” she taunted.

“Afraid of you? A farmer’s daughter? You’re nothing,” he said, walking toward her, his bloodied sword still clutched in his hand. “You’re no one. And you will never be queen!” he bellowed.

“Then come for me, prince. Or are you afraid of a woman who can fight back?”

“Cunt,” he hissed.

“Right here,” Keeley agreed. “And waiting.”

Straton now held his sword with both hands and raised it over his shoulder.

Keeley readied her hammer, smirking as she heard the sounds of the soldiers behind her being torn apart by the wolves.

That smirk was too much for the prince. He ran at her first and Keeley raised her weapon to block the downstroke of his sword. But he abruptly stopped, removing one hand from his weapon and reaching behind his back. As he did, he turned, and Keeley spotted the knife that had been rammed into his spine.

Straton fell to his knees; his sword fell from his hand. As he dropped, Keeley saw the woman who’d been chained in his room. Still naked, her hand covered in the blood of the prince; but the woman hadn’t killed him. Straton wasn’t dead. Her strike had been precise, Keeley guessed, to keep him alive but leave him unable to fight.

“You need his head,” she calmly said to Keeley, walking past her. “Feel free to take it at your leisure.”

Keeley watched the woman walk out of the longhouse, and Keeley sucked her tongue against her teeth. She motioned to the lead demon wolf and then the woman. He sent several of his original pack to follow her. They’d help her get to safety.

With the woman cared for, Keeley looked down at Straton. She sheathed her hammer and pulled the long sword hanging from her side.

“As I told the first contingent of mercenaries you sent to kill my kin . . . you chose the wrong family.”

“You’ll never be queen, peasant!” he desperately gasped out. “You’ll never—”

The head came off swiftly and cleanly, bouncing a few feet away.

Done with that bit of unpleasantness, Keeley switched back to her hammer and headed out to join the fray.

“Bring the head along, would you?” she asked the lead demon wolf. “The rest of you can have the body.”

Keeley met Gemma outside the doors. Her sister looked in, then glared at her. “Where did all those extra demon wolves come from?”

“Why do you ask me questions when we both know the answers will only upset you?”

* * *

“Pull back!” Caid ordered the centaurs. “Pull back!”

Caid knew not asking the dwarves to send a battalion or two with them was a danger but he also agreed with Keeley that they would need the king’s dwarf armies far more when they took on Prince Marius and Beatrix. It would be foolish to waste their good favor for such a small battle.

Of course, they hadn’t expected fresh mercenaries would be arriving during their attack and now they had to contend with the new arrivals. They were holding their own but Caid didn’t know how much longer they could.

Although, he had to admit, his brother was enjoying the melee.

Dragging two soldiers off their steeds, Quinn threw them to the ground. He used his front hooves to batter one to mush while he bashed his sword into the other’s head, bellowing like a madman as he did.

“Pull back!” Caid ordered again, hoping this time his brother would hear him. Maybe even obey.

A hand pressed against his hindquarter and he recognized Keeley’s touch.

“Is it done?” he asked.

“It’s done. Quinn!”

Quinn stopped bellowing and looked at Keeley. “Yes, my lady?” he asked calmly.

“Your brother said to pull back.”

“But he’s not my queen.”

“Do it anyway. I have a greeting for those reinforcements.”

Quinn moved quickly, joining the others, and Keeley stepped in front of them. The lead mercenaries came to a stop and stared down from horseback at Keeley.

“Turn back,” she called out. “It’s over. Straton is dead and the town is ours.”