The Mane Squeeze. Shelly Laurenston

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      Gwen took off, shifting in midhop, which amped up her wounded speed another twenty miles per hour or so. She could see the path leading out of the riverbed and planned to get there and then to the trees. Grizzlies couldn’t climb trees, and Macon had some really high ones. Yet, she didn’t realize how fast grizzlies could move until the big, shifted bastard grabbed her from behind. He wrapped those furry arms around her waist, the four-inch claws a little too close to her tender underbelly, and lifted her up. Intent, it seemed, on carrying her cat ass to some horrible hellhole where human beings went to die so their organs could be harvested!

      Well, Gwen O’Neill wasn’t going out like that.

      She started twisting and swiping at him with her claws. She could feel fur-covered flesh being ripped off, and although he never once lashed back at her, he didn’t let her go, either—until he got slammed into by the full force of a six-hundred-pound male lion.

      Gwen went down with them, but the bear had to turn his attention to the lion trying to kill him and removed his arms from around her waist. Relieved, Gwen scrambled away as the two beasts fought. It was brutal, bloody, and ugly—she enjoyed every second of it, too, until that multicolored long-furred wolfdog came running up to her, barking and barking until she shifted into a black woman who had a tendency to blame Gwen for everything. So, in a way, she was still barking, when she said, “What the hell are you doing? Stop them!”

      “I shouldn’t interfere,” Gwen said blandly, as two apex predators fought to the death behind her.

      “Gwen,” Blayne chastised, her caring dog side out there on display, “he saved your life. I saw it. Now stop them!”

      Gwen and Blayne had met in what Gwen still referred to as prison but others called Catholic school. Ninth grade detention specifically. After a rocky introduction, they’d been best and inseparable friends ever since, with more in common than people realized and a bond that was stronger than anyone dare risk trying to come between—as quite a few males had learned throughout the years.

      And yet, none of that stopped Gwen from torturing Blayne when the opportunity presented itself…like now.

      Giving a helpless shrug, Gwen said, “It’s really none of my business.”

      “Gwendolyn O’Neill!”

      She blinked. “Ma? Is that you?”

      Blayne pushed her shoulder, so Gwen pushed her back.

      Blayne’s mouth dropped open. “Don’t push me.”

      “You pushed me first.”

      So Blayne pushed her again and Gwen pushed her back.

      “Don’t test me, Gwen,” Blayne warned. So Gwen pushed her again, this time using both hands and putting a little more “shove” in her push than she had before.

      “So what ya gonna do? Huh?” Gwen gleefully taunted, ignoring the brutal pain in her calf and the blood pooling at her feet. “What are ya gonna do?”

      And like she did that first time they met in detention all those years ago, Blayne Thorpe grabbed Gwen’s hair and yanked like she was yanking weeds out of her garden.