CHAPTER 377: CHAPTER-377.

She yanked her hand back, letting him choke on his own pain, and snapped her head toward Cutie.

The wolf’s claws were already halfway down.

If those hit Cutie’s skull, that was it. No surviving that.

Cutie raised his arms on instinct, trying to protect his head, but Kaya could see his strength failing, his eyes unfocused.

She didn’t think. She didn’t plan. Her body moved before her mind caught up.

Her hand went to her leg, fingers sliding under the strap at her calf. She ripped the gun free, brought it up, and aimed at the wolf in one smooth, desperate motion.

Her finger squeezed the trigger.

Bang.

The shot ripped through the cramped room, loud enough to drown out every other sound.

The wolf beastman’s shoulder snapped back as the bullet tore through flesh, the force spinning him sideways. His raised claws missed Cutie’s head by a breath and slammed into the wall instead, leaving deep grooves in the plaster before his whole body crashed to the floor.

Kaya didn’t even watch him land. The second the shot left her gun, she was already running. Her feet pounded across the bloody floor as she rushed straight to Cutie’s side, gun still warm in her hand. She dropped to her knees so hard they stung, arms going around him before she could stop herself.

"Cutie!" she snapped, voice shaking more than she wanted. Blood from his head had already soaked through his hair, sticky and dark against her fingers as she pushed it back to see the wound. Her heart hammered; for a second it felt like the whole room narrowed until it was just his pale face and that damn red line on his skull.

"Hey, hey, look at me," she muttered, one hand cupping his cheek, the other pressing against the cut to slow the bleeding. "Don’t you dare close your eyes now, you idiot... you hear me?"

Kaya’s hands were still clamped over Cutie’s head wound, fingers sticky with half‑dried blood, when she heard it.

Footsteps. Fast. Heavy. Getting closer.

Her spine locked. Her free hand twitched toward the gun lying by her knee. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to spin around, aim, shoot—but Cutie’s weight was slumped against her, his breath shallow and uneven. If she let go now and he slipped away because she turned her back for one second... she would never forgive herself.

The door slammed open so hard it bounced off the wall with a sharp crack.

"Kaya!"

That voice cut straight through the noise in her head.

Veer.

He stood in the doorway, filling it—chest heaving, hair a mess, shirt smeared with blood that definitely wasn’t all his. His gaze swept the room in a single, hard pass: the jackal facedown in a spreading pool, the hyena crumpled near the bed, the mongoose twitching weakly with wood still buried in his neck, the wolf lying unnaturally still with a neat bullet hole and blood haloed around his head. Wrecked furniture. Claw marks. Bullet scar on the wall.

Then his eyes stopped on her.

Kaya, on her knees in the middle of it all, one hand pressed to Cutie’s bleeding skull, throat bruised with dark fingerprints, chest rising too fast. Cutie’s head rested against her shoulder, blood soaked into her clothes.

For one heartbeat, the room froze. Even the wounded mongoose seemed to hold his breath.

Then Veer moved.

Three long strides and he was there, dropping to his knees on Cutie’s other side so hard the floor shuddered. Up close, Kaya saw a thin line of blood on his forearm, a tear in his sleeve, dust clinging to his jaw. His hands, though, were steady as they went straight to Cutie—first his throat, then his wrist, then carefully to the wound on his head.

"What the hell happened?" Veer asked, voice low and razor‑sharp. It wasn’t a shout. It was worse—quiet, controlled, dangerous. His eyes flicked over the room again, counting bodies without needing to look long. "How many?"

"Five," Kaya rasped, her voice still rough from the mongoose’s chokehold. "Maybe six. They came for Sparrow." She jerked her chin toward the small body by the wall—the unknown Sparrow, limp and wrong against the floor. "That one. Not ours."

Veer’s gaze followed, lingered for half a second, then snapped back to Cutie. He caught Kaya’s wrist, gently pried her hand away from the wound. Warm blood immediately welled up again, and his expression went even darker.

"This needs stitches," he muttered. "Now."

"I know that," Kaya snapped, fear fraying the edge of her words. "Where the hell were you?"

Veer’s jaw ticked. "Dealing with three more outside," he said. "They were blocking every exit." His eyes met hers, and for a brief second she saw it clearly—rage, cold and sharp, sitting under the usual calm. "This wasn’t random, Kaya. Someone sent a whole damn pack after us."

Between them, Cutie groaned softly, eyelids fluttering like they were too heavy to lift.

"Hey." Kaya’s hand went straight to his cheek, thumb brushing away a streak of red. "Don’t move, idiot," she whispered, voice cracking on the last word.

Cutie’s lips twitched like he wanted to joke, but all that came out was a weak exhale.

Veer was already pulling a small kit from inside his jacket—crumpled bandages, a tiny bottle, tape. His movements were fast and clean, the kind that came from too much practice in ugly places. He poured something over the wound that made Cutie hiss and Kaya’s nose burn, then pressed folded cloth down hard.

"Hold this," he ordered. "Tighter."

Kaya pressed her palm over the bandage, feeling the hot throb of Cutie’s pulse under her hand.

"We can’t stay," Veer said, eyes flicking once more to the dead wolf, the unconscious bodies, the wrecked room. "If this many got inside wolf‑tribe territory, more might be circling. We move before they realize their first wave is gone."

Kaya’s throat tightened. She looked down at Cutie’s face—too pale, lashes clumped with sweat and blood—then at the broken bodies around them, then back at Veer.