Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (Charlaine Harris) (Kitty Norville 2.50)

That wasn't possible for her, of course.

She wasn't dog, she wasn't wolf, she wasn't human.

She was mutant, hybrid, half-breed, monster.

She'd been unbearably lonely without them.

Slowly, over the years, she'd grown accustomed to living as a human who rarely shape-shifted, and then only to protect the endangered. Now they were endangered. Beyond words. That was also why she couldn't have warned them ahead of time. In their brains, there was memory and there was now, but there was no future. There was no way for her to say, Don't go there.

North of the village the dogs came . . . running, running, howling . . .

Close enough to see their quarry - the huge succulent beasts so conveniently tethered and tied down - the dogs slowed, scattered, circling the village, surrounding it, crouching low as they secured their positions, hair rising on their necks, primed for attack, listening for signals, for danger, for the moment when they would all rush forward . . .

Silently, they moved, and then, muscles bunched, they waited until . . .

As one, as if the pack were one body with one brain, the dogs attacked from every direction, muzzles back, teeth bared, lunging toward their kill.

The reindeer, restrained by forces stronger than leather, shuddered in their halters and yokes, but they were not helpless. They were enormous, with murderous hooves and teeth, and jaws that could grab a dog and crack its head even as it was flung to the side. Between them and the dogs, on either side, Pasha and Serge were the ones who looked helpless, until their eyes glittered and their teeth showed. They, too, could grab and tear; they, too, had superhuman strength beyond anything the wild dogs possessed, the two vampires making up in strength and viciousness what they lacked in numbers.

The townspeople slumbered under the spell of Christmas Eve.

"No!" Ingrid cried, as she raced toward the village.

Massacre seemed laid out in front of her. Her family wouldn't stand a chance, mere natural predators against unnatural ones. Long, thick white wolf fur

streaming behind her, she thundered into the midst of them, snarling, growling, pushing her own family out of the way so she could protect them from this force they could never understand.

She hurled herself toward the vampires at the heart of the fight.

Blood and fur flew all around her.

There were cries of pain, roars of fury.

And then a space cleared, and two bloodied but unbeaten vampires stared at this new attacker who was like none of the pack they had seen yet.

"What the . . . " exclaimed Pasha.

"Werewolf!" screamed Serge.

She pulled back into her haunches, primed herself to launch at them, pushed off with her great strength, and was airborne when the door of the nearest village hut flew open and the Old One stepped outside. He yelled at Serge and Pasha in a voice that quaked the ground around them, "Forget the dogs, you idiots! Don't let the werewolf get Rudolph!"

Ingrid shape-shifted while in mid-lunge.

Before their eyes, the white wolf changed into a nude and shapely young woman with red hair instead of white fur. The shift altered her speed, allowing her to hit the ground with her bare feet, right in front of the astonished vampires. As they lunged toward her throat, she crouched to pick up her knapsack that had fallen. With it in hand, she shoved between them, and then ran alongside the reindeer before the vampires could recover in time to keep her from going where she was aiming. The Unsaint figured it out first and screamed at Pasha and Serge to catch her, but they were all too late. Ingrid grabbed the reindeer halter she was seeking and with one great burst of strictly human power hauled herself up and astride of . . . Rudolph.

"Get off of him!" she heard the Old One yell.

Her answer was to pull her silver hunting dagger from her knapsack and to point it toward the jugular vein in the reindeer's neck. Rudolph, raised with vampires, barely registered the light weight of the woman on his back, and merely shook his reins a bit. Ingrid did not know why her foe was so determined to protect this particular reindeer out of all of them; she just knew that whatever the reason, it might be the leverage to rescue her family from him.

Her family!

The dogs had pulled back, at first frightened by the huge new fighter who had appeared, and then nearly hysterical with excitement as they recognized her. Out of respect for her greater size and power, all of them, including the female and male heads of the family, remained standing where they were, waiting, allowing her to take the lead. Their wounded crawled toward them, bleeding into the dust, whining with the pain of their terrible injuries.

A silence descended on the strange scene.

The Old Vampire didn't move from where he stood near the sleigh, but just quietly asked her in his deep voice, "How did you know?"

He sounded genuinely curious.