• "No!" Scarlett screamed as the gunman aimed at her heart. "I can't help what I am!"
    "That's what all of the other inhuman scum said when they met me," he chuckled. "And I'm supposed to believe you?" He finished and leaned back against the alley wall.
    "I guess not," Scarlett admitted. "But that doesn't mean I'm the one to blame, it means that you just don't understand me."
    "'Don't understand me' my a**," he retorted, "For hundreds of years, your kind have mercilessly hunted us. And now I'm picking you guys off, one by one." he said as he pulled the trigger. Pain exploded through her chest as the copper bullet pierced her left shoulder, missing her heart by millimeters. The wound might not have killed her if it was a normal bullet. But copper was poison to her immortal blood.
    "You won't get us all, you b*****d. We're still here, and we always will be," Scarlett choked out. Her eyes dimmed, and she fell to the cold pavement.
    That was the night the shapeshifters lost their leader, dignity, and hope. But they did gain something. They gained a new anger, a new rage, a new enemy. But most of all, they gained strength from that anger, a strength never known to anyone but the great gods and goddesses of the Night World.