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  In response, Ransom growled between human teeth and took a single step forward, but I could have sworn Gunner was amused rather than provoked by my taunts. Whatever the reason, the latter’s lupine jaws gaped open, his tongue lolling off to one side even as he blocked his brother as gracefully as if the two were dancing a minuet.

  You-fight-like-a-girl jabs clearly weren’t going to move this match along to the point where the audience would go home happy. So I assessed the way the two males worked in effort-filled non-harmony. Guessed reasons why one gamecock brother might choose to engage in battle while the other would undermine Ransom’s authority at every turn...while still insisting upon guarding his sibling’s back.

  Then I opened my mouth and launched a second attack. “New alpha can’t handle his own fights, can he?” I guessed, piecing together whispers I’d recently heard emerging from the few shifters I dared to speak with. “Just another dumb jock inheriting shoes too big for his puny feet. You know what they say about a guy with small feet....”

  And just like that, the brothers glanced at each other in perfect harmony. Silent words streaked between them while the scents of fur and electricity filled the air.

  At last, I’d gotten under their skins.

  How like wolves to get riled up over issues of heredity...and shoe size. I let a smile crinkle my cheeks for a split second, but then it was time for battle.

  Because both brothers were leaping toward me in synchronized splendor now. And above our heads, a surge of approval rolled out over the crowd.

  FOR LONG SECONDS, MY world narrowed down to the simplicity of attack and parry. I hooked the hilt of my sword around one of Ransom’s knives and pulled it out of his grip as easily as I disarmed raw beginners in my day job. But with Gunner circling slyly toward my blind spot, I was soon forced onto the defensive, spinning on my back foot and stabbing wildly to force the wolf into a retreat.

  Whoosh. My sword cut deeper toward my lupine opponent than I’d intended, and I held my breath as hairs sprayed out around us both. If I’d misjudged my reach and pricked Gunner’s skin, the match would be over before it really started...and not in a way that would please my picky boss.

  Rent, I reminded myself as I scrambled backwards, glad there was no blood welling up where my blade had recently made contact with the four-legged werewolf. Groceries. Bus money. More magic-trick paraphernalia for Kira’s birthday next week. Tuition at her school in the nice part of town....

  Gradually, the roar of the crowd receded into the background and calm descended upon me just as it did every day during training. I grabbed the veil of control Dad had taught me to wield two decades earlier, slowed my attacks and parries until they matched my gasping breaths. There. The outer world meant nothing. Now I could be certain my blade would fly eternally true.

  “I know what you are.”

  And to my eternal embarrassment, I stumbled, Ransom’s words cutting through my hard-earned concentration far more admirably than my earlier verbal parry had interrupted his. The pack leader’s knowledge of my identity was impossible. Because if werewolves were aware of my family’s secret, their leader wouldn’t be fighting me in a cage match. The whole pack would instead descend upon Kira and me as a unit, intent upon tearing out both of our throats.

  As I tried to make sense of the nonsensical, Ransom took advantage of my turmoil. Swiping his sole remaining knife beneath my armpit, he opened up a nick in the jacket that had protected me year after year. And even though the cut didn’t reach all the way to my skin, I was so shaken by the damage that I took a step backward...

  ...and promptly stumbled over Gunner, who’d poised himself in just the right spot to take advantage of my lapse. I teetered, nearly falling. Then I decided not to fight the imminent collapse. Instead, I allowed the accidental momentum to propel me sideways as I slashed my sword in a Z pattern in front of the unruly wolf’s nose.

  The sword-waving warning gave me breathing room to come up behind the two-legger’s unguarded back. And, okay, so maybe I called upon a little supernatural speed to get me there. Maybe I bent my sword slightly away from its target so the metal didn’t come in contact with game-ending flesh. But, in the midst of combat, who would either know or care?

  The sharp tang of success cleared my head the way it always did. And I realized as I set up the defeat I so badly needed that my opponent was merely accusing me of being an unaffiliated werewolf...not of something considerably worse. After all, I smelled as much like fur as the brothers with whom I shared the stage at the moment. And more than a century since our supposed eradication, most shifters probably didn’t believe beings like myself and my sister continued to exist.

  So I ran with it. “Yep, you’re right. I’m outpack. That means I don’t have to kowtow to the new alpha who thinks his farts don’t stink,” I bantered, knowing that my voice would prompt Ransom’s body to swivel just the way I wanted it to. Knowing that his knife would spin through the air at precisely the same level as the hand I’d raised in supposed self-defense. The sharp blade would cut through the flesh of my palm deeper than the scratch Ma Scrubbs had promised these boy scouts would dole out in victory, but the searing pain was more than worth the result.

  Because as red blood dripped toward the ground between us, the audience erupted into jubilation. They’d lost their hard-earned money on the match, but they’d enjoyed every minute of the tussle that had come before this bitter end. The crowd would be even larger next week...and in the meantime I’d take home a rather hefty ten percent for my surprise upset.

  “Good fight,” Ransom offered, holding out a hand to shake without any arrogance in his posture at all. He really was a boy scout. As gentlemanly in his win as he would have been after a loss.

  “Good fight,” I agreed, swapping the sword over to my bloody left hand so I could return the hand clasp. Only then did I turn toward Gunner and shiver as something darkly suspicious flickered behind sienna lupine eyes.

  Maybe my lapses hadn’t been quite as overlookable as I’d thought in the heat of the moment. Now, I decided, would be a good time to beat a hasty retreat.

  Chapter 4

  I lost myself in the crowd before Gunner could shift and find me. Nodded at a bouncer then slipped through a heavy fire door to enter the private hallway that led toward the quiet of my personal changing room. I was ready for thirty minutes of down time before returning home to my sleeping sister. Thirty minutes to relax while Ma Scrubbs counted dollars and divvied up my share of the take.

  Unfortunately, there was a werewolf on the couch when I thrust the door open. And not just any werewolf, but the one who thought he ran the city I lived within.

  “My dear,” Jackal greeted me, remaining recumbent for one long moment before unfolding long limbs and springing gracefully to his feet. He wore a half-unbuttoned silk shirt that showed off hardened muscles and his hair curled dashingly over both ears. Despite the eye candy, though, my attention remained firmly focused upon the promised respite of the couch behind his back.

  There should have been overtures to live through before I could achieve my destination, but lack of nearby underlings put a kibosh on our customary embrace. Instead, Jackal merely raised his eyebrows and waited until I’d sunk into the leathery cushions before taking the opposite end of the sofa and getting straight to the point.

  “Two Atwoods in my city.” In front of the drifters who made up his not-quite-pack, Jackal would have donned a mask of alpha invulnerability. But the understanding between the two of us was sufficient to prevent him from mincing words. As a result, his observation came out as less of an observation and more of a pout.

  I shrugged, wishing for one split second that Jackal really was my significant other. The pretense propped up Jackal’s alpha tendencies in public and protected me and my sister when we walked through the city alone. A mutually beneficial arrangement...but one that, unfortunately, left me without anyone to rub my weary feet.

  Perhaps that’s why my subsequent words came o
ut harsher than I’d intended. “In their city,” I countered. “The pack leaders might not have been around much lately, but technically it’s Atwood land for another hundred miles south.”

  Which was entirely true. But apparently I’d gone a step too far in reminding Jackal that he was poaching on a more established clan’s territory while lacking sufficient manpower to back up his claim.

  “I’m the one who keeps this city stable. I’m the one who keeps you safe,” my companion bit out, a droplet of spittle striking my jacket while his fist came down to pound the leather cushion an inch from my thigh.

  Yep, I should have stopped while I was ahead. Accepting my own misstep, I attempted to fix the faux pas with a little male ego-stroking. “You’re right,” I agreed. “But the brothers are just passing through. They’re probably scouting the edges of clan territory, getting their bearings. After all, their father just recently died.”

  I expected Jackal to relax back onto the cushions, to accept what he couldn’t change. But instead, something dark and menacing rose within his eyes, and his muscles tensed with lupine alertness when next he spoke.

  “Well, they’d better keep moving,” he told me. “Because this city and everything in it is mine.”

  “BE CAREFUL OUT THERE,” Ma Scrubbs warned as she led me to the back door half an hour later. The old woman had been alerting me about the city’s hidden dangers ever since I’d started trailing along behind my father two decades earlier. But something in my employer’s tone promised a rapier might not be enough to keep my skin intact tonight.

  Still, I had a hard time taking the threat seriously when my pockets were full of cash and all three werewolves I’d run into this evening were long gone through the opposite entrance. So I offered a jaunty salute and strode away into the darkness, already counting the moments until I could fall into my warm bed. Just one last stop at the corner store for bread and milk to ensure Kira’s cheery disposition, then I could rest easy in the knowledge that I’d raked in sufficient supplemental income to ensure our survival for another week at least....

  Or so I thought for the few minutes it took to exit the Arena’s alley and turn onto the wide but quiet avenue that formed the main artery of this part of town. Only after enough time had passed that Ma Scrubbs would have removed her hearing aids and descended into her basement apartment did a thread of sound cut through my thoughts of hearth and home.

  And at first, I thought the auditory intrusion was merely a run-of-the-mill wolf whistle. But I couldn’t make out a single human shape lingering in the shadowed doorsteps I was passing. And this sound was less a whistle and more a thread of barely discernible melody that sent a trickle of prey-like awareness skittering up my spine.

  As much as I strained, though, I couldn’t make sense of the disjointed notes. The night musician was quite a distance behind me, I estimated. Perhaps a block or two east as well....

  But then the tones coalesced into a strangely familiar lullaby, the tune popping to life as if emerging from a dully remembered childhood. And even though my curiosity was piqued by the vague memory, my gut told me the sound represented danger rather than intrigue. So I sped up my footsteps, wishing I hadn’t already shrunken my magical star ball away from its sword shape and down into its easy-to-carry energetic form. Now would be a good time to be holding onto a blade....

  Even another human on the streets would have been appreciated at the present moment. Anything to jolt away the adrenaline-rush of terror that was flooding my body for no discernible reason. Was I really about to break into a sprint to escape from a song?

  Unfortunately, the streets on every side of me were dark and empty. And the whistle continued at exactly the same volume even as I sped up my pace, as if my follower had increased his own footsteps in synchrony rather than falling behind as I would have hoped.

  Yes, the tune’s volume remained steady...but its tempo gradually lessened until both my star ball and my feet were pulsing in sympathy. Like Kira, I enjoyed moving quickly and silently. But now my instinctive press for speed felt akin to slogging through a sea of molasses. Meanwhile, my boots thudded against the pavement with every descending step.

  What’s wrong with me? Stifling a shiver, I glanced backwards, half expecting a fairy-tale monster to be following in my wake....

  But my gaze met with nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual potholed pavement, one streetlight vainly attempting to illuminate an entire block. Doors were locked, windows were grimed over, and a single rat was the only living being in sight.

  There was light ahead of me though. The 7-Eleven came into view like an oasis in a desert, the brightest patch of safety around.

  And sure, the establishment possessed grease-stained windows along with an air of declining profitability. But I knew from experience that the store also boasted a rifle-toting clerk and a back door that would spit me out into an untraveled alley. If necessary, the clerk would cover my back sufficiently so I could use my hidden abilities in safety, then I could slink home with my tail quite literally between my legs.

  Or maybe I’d get lucky and my stalker would turn out to be a cheerful passerby who whistled his way past the plate-glass windows without so much as a glance in my direction. Kira could enjoy milk on her morning cereal with toast as a chaser, and all would be right in our little world.

  Still, I flung open the 7-Eleven door with my head turned in search of my pursuer...and had no warning as I ran smack dab into a far too familiar chest.

  Chapter 5

  “You and your sister don’t look where you’re going very often, do you?”

  Gunner’s fingers burned against my wrist as he restrained me from...what? Pulling a sword that didn’t currently exist? Punching him in the eye or kneeing his balls in an effort to relax his grip?

  Unfortunately, the tremor racing down my spine couldn’t be entirely attributed to the grasp of a powerful opponent. And perhaps that’s why my rebuttal came out with so much bite. “Oh, yes. The expert on sibling relations. Did you show your big brother to his room, sedate him with sleeping pills, then sneak out for a beer? Is that why you dared to leave his presence when the poor little pack leader might very well be stubbing his toe at this very instant?”

  Only the slight twitch of Gunner’s left eyebrow proved that my verbal attack had struck home. But he did release my wrists and take one small step backwards, the musk of predatory alpha thinning until I was finally able to think...

  ...and to remember that I had a friend here in the convenience store. Over the werewolf’s shoulder, I caught the eye of a clerk I’d gone to high school with and shook my head briefly in response to his raised eyebrows. No, I didn’t need help. Not against one annoying shifter whose worst fault was a tendency to show up in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

  “A beer,” Gunner answered, picking the least incendiary part of my tirade to fixate upon. “Good idea. How about I buy you a bottle and we can talk about why you purposefully lost tonight’s match?”

  His words followed me more closely than the whistled melody had as I slid away from his tantalizing body heat and stalked toward colder quarry. Bread—not the kind Kira liked the best but the cheaper sort she would still smile upon. Life was all about compromise and tonight’s Arena windfall wouldn’t last long if I fed her tween appetite with name-brand morsels.

  “I didn’t lose on purpose,” I lied vaguely, trying to decide whether my kid sister was still on a 1% kick or whether we could return to the whole milk we’d both enjoyed until the previous autumn. Unfortunately, the girls in her grade were brutal on body fat, and Kira embraced their barbed comments even though our kind required far more calories than the average couch-potato twelve-year-old.

  Better safe than sorry, I decided with a grimace. Plucking out a gallon of low-fat, I froze as Gunner’s warm breath counteracted the cold emanating from the refrigerated case.

  “Or we could change the subject,” the werewolf murmured, voice so low the clerk had no chance of overh
earing. “My brother and I are hunting something very specific. My gut says you’re the key to finding it. We’d pay very well if you helped us track it down.”

  I was the key to finding whatever these brothers were looking for here in a city their pack had ignored for several decades? A shiver far less enticing than the ones that had been impacting me previously ran down my spine. Slowly, unwillingly, I turned to meet Gunner’s gaze. “What are you looking for?”

  “Something,” the werewolf answered unhelpfully before allowing silence to descend between the two of us. His face was as expressionless as a still pool of water, but I could smell his amusement that I’d risen to the bait.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to focus on lunch meat. Perhaps if I splurged on a hunk of salami my kid sister’s eyes would light up at the treat like the noon-day sun....

  But despite my best impulses to the contrary, Gunner’s hook lodged itself in my gills and pulled me relentlessly out of the safely deep waters. What were these werewolves looking for? Did it have anything to do with Kira and my kind?

  My inherent curiosity sent me leaning forward as I pondered, heart rate elevated more than it had been by my recent near miss. Still, I opened my mouth to give the smart answer, the correct answer. Because I shouldn’t spend any more time than necessary around the new pack leader’s brother. Kira and I couldn’t afford to risk our skins just to enjoy salami on a weekly rather than a yearly basis...or to douse inquisitiveness that was so painfully inflamed.

  But before I could come up with an appropriately scathing comment, a trickle of melody slid beneath the crack in the door. The same strangely familiar tune I’d heard while walking down the street....