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  THE WORDS WERE PURE bravado, and I braced myself to be punished by the pack leader now that he had an actual offense to lay at my doorstep. But I’d underestimated Gunner’s protective instincts. Because his proximity warmed my backside mere seconds before his hands gently moved me out of his path.

  Then the two brothers were facing each other directly, only a few inches of air standing between shoulders that were equally broad and features so similar they were almost twin-like. “An alpha knows what happens in his territory,” Gunner growled, completely ruining my efforts to keep him out of harm’s way. “It was my choice to allow Mai and Elle to spend time together. I wanted my kitsune to be properly trained.”

  I half expected Ransom to laugh at both of us. After all, Gunner and I were naked, muddy, and sorely outnumbered. But, instead, the Atwood pack leader puffed himself up further as if facing a rival, his muscles tensing as he attempted—and failed—to stare his brother down.

  “Your territory?” Ransom muttered finally. Even I could tell that the words had been ill-chosen on Gunner’s part. Because the younger brother was still on Atwood land despite having been exiled from clan central. And no pack leader likes having his property impinged upon in front of his men.

  “My corner of your territory,” Gunner corrected himself. He cleared his throat, remembered at last to avert his eyes from the supposedly un-meetable gaze of his older sibling. “I’ve finished clearing the city of malcontents as ordered, pack leader. Are you ready to put me to use so I can quit twiddling my thumbs?”

  There. That was the answer Ransom had come here to draw out of his sibling. Gunner’s head bowed in submission, and the tension between the pack leader and his brother dissipated like fog beneath summer sun.

  Still, Ransom waited a moment before accepting his brother’s rewording. But then he clapped his sibling on the back...just a little too hard.

  “Oh, are you ready to end your vacation, brother? Ready to help me manage our entire territory...and reap the sweet rewards?”

  The reminder of the waiting pack princesses made something dark flare within Gunner’s eyes for one split second. But his words were pure docility.

  “Of course, pack leader,” Gunner answered, speaking to the mud rather than to his brother’s face. “I come whenever you care to call.”

  Chapter 10

  “Wildacres is safer than the city,” Gunner whispered rapidly once we’d all donned clothes and had begun our preparations to depart. The alpha had drawn me aside at the edge of the trees where we could keep an eye on Kira without being in the thick of the action. And while his need to bid me farewell was heartening, any potential coziness was diminished by the fact that two other shifters currently hung on their alpha’s every word.

  “I can have the electricity on within the hour,” Allen noted, tapping at his smart phone’s screen, his eyes carefully steering clear of mine.

  “Can’t do much about the state of the buildings but food delivery is easily achievable,” Crow agreed. “Clothing too. And the water comes from a well, so that should work right now.”

  It was as if I’d become a problem to be managed rather than an honorary pack mate. Which, combined with the way Gunner continued to stare me down like an alpha dominating a recalcitrant underling, made me tempted to rewrite my understanding of our shared past.

  After all, Gunner told his brother he’d merely been “twiddling his thumbs” during the preceding season. Which begged the question—had he really become attached to me and Kira, or was his assistance nothing more than the actions of a bored alpha latching onto the nearest available task?

  “Stay put,” Gunner commanded now, gaze flicking over my shoulder for one split second while he continued barking orders. “Don’t give Ransom any reason to go back on his word. Keep your sister close to you.”

  Well, if Gunner could stick to business then I could also. The trouble was—having Gunner leave us didn’t only tug at my heart strings, it also threatened the safe future I thought we’d built for Kira during the preceding months. After all, without Gunner protecting us in person, what was to prevent other werewolves from poaching on his claim? How were we going to win the judge and social worker over to our point of view?

  “I promise no harm will come to you within my territory,” Gunner said, as if he was able to read the doubt in my posture. “I...” he continued. Then, shaking his head, he turned his attention to his hovering lackeys. “Give us a minute.”

  They didn’t flee as quickly as Ransom’s underlings would have. Instead, for the first time since the Atwood pack leader had shown up where he wasn’t invited, a hint of amusement filtered into Allen’s eyes. Meanwhile, Crow coughed into his hand as if smothering amusement, and I had to restrain an urge to kick both bozos in the knees.

  Was our separation just a big joke to them? Had our inclusion in their pack for three full months meant nothing that it could be so easily set aside now?

  Then—“Look at me,” Gunner demanded, drawing my attention away from his receding pack mates. But rather than continuing to relay orders, he reached out slow as molasses. Let fingers trace my cheekbones as he cupped my face in both of his hands.

  He’s just a touchy-feely werewolf trying to keep me focused, I told myself. But it was hard to believe the lie when my companion leaned in close enough so his breath hovered above my lips like skittish butterflies.

  For half a second, I inhaled Gunner’s exhale. Smelled his rich, warm aroma. Felt his proximity heating my skin.

  Then his mouth landed, hard as a sword thrust.

  If our first kiss had been a subtle feint on my part, our second kiss was a ploy of ownership on his. Later, I would realize that every shifter present watched the claiming. Later, I would realize that Gunner was backing up his earlier words with a show of possession that no werewolf could fail to comprehend.

  At the time, though, the kiss came and went so quickly I was left reeling and unsure of gravity. And by the time I’d regained my balance, Gunner was already twenty feet distant, his long, lean back the only part of his body visible to my searching eyes.

  “Don’t let your sister do anything stupid,” he told Kira in passing. Then, without a single farewell glance in my direction, he gathered up his pack mates, rejoined his brother, and disappeared into one of the waiting minivans.

  TOGETHER, KIRA AND I watched the last taillight recede from the parking area. Darkness was descending rapidly, the sprawling complex that had once housed a busy retreat center looming above us rather than inviting us inside.

  “We’re staying here?” my sister asked, her voice higher-pitched than usual. She sounded younger now than when wolves had first come into our lives three months earlier. As if becoming part of a pack then losing that protection had lowered her toughness quotient by 100%.

  Or maybe it was my sister’s unexplained weakness that sagged her shoulders and slowed her footsteps. Whatever the problem, it wasn’t going to be solved by waiting here for an absent alpha to remember we continued to exist.

  So—“No,” I answered, letting my hand linger on the teen’s shoulder for one long moment as I pondered next steps forward. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to manage it, but I intended to find the source of Kira’s malaise and solve it, even if—as I suspected—the effort involved hunting down the cloaked figure who had bought and absconded with Mama’s star ball.

  Which might take a while, given the fact that neither Gunner nor I had found any trace of our enemy’s trail in the three months since we’d last seen the being. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it, however. First, I pulled out my cell phone to call the sole person who might miss us if we didn’t make it home in the next few days.

  While waiting for Kira’s social worker to answer, I circled the SUV Gunner and his pack mates had left behind them. It was a nice gesture on their part...or so I thought until I realized the vehicle was locked up tight.

  “...then leave a message after the beep,” Stephanie’s voice mail told
me even as Kira offered up a suggestion on the vehicle front.

  “We could hot-wire it,” my kid sister noted, her eyes trained on her own cell phone, which currently played a video her social worker would very much not approve of. “But we’d have to break a window to get at the steering column and we’d need a screwdriver and some other tools....”

  I shushed her rapidly as a strident beep promised Stephanie’s phone was now recording every word we uttered. “Hey, this is Mai Fairchild,” I answered on autopilot while mulling over my sister’s suggestion. We might be able to break into the vehicle and hot-wire it, but we’d stand out like a sore thumb driving down the interstate with splintered glass in place of a window pane.

  Not that I knew where we were going. But I trusted that once we had wheels under us, the path forward would become more clear.

  “Kira and I decided to go camping for a couple of days,” I continued, patting at my pockets in hopes a multi-tool would suddenly materialize. No such luck. Which left the golf cart as our more realistic option. Too bad the battery-operated vehicle would likely traverse no more than twenty miles before stranding us in an even less habitable spot.

  So...maybe we should trust Gunner and stay here after all. His underlings were nothing if not efficient, which meant we’d soon possess both electricity and food. If Kira and I had actually been camping, we would have enjoyed far fewer amenities. Too bad the hairs on the back of my neck begged me to get the hell out of there...and fast.

  “Mai,” Kira started, all but tugging on my sleeve as she attempted to grab my attention. Once again I shushed her, rattled off farewells to her social worker’s answering machine before ending the call.

  Only when I removed the phone from my ear did I realize why my sister’s eyes had widened in horror. She wasn’t nudging me onward out of ordinary teen impatience. Instead, she was alerting me to the fact that we weren’t alone after all.

  No, there were wolves howling in the distance. And, by the sound of it, they were heading our way.

  Chapter 11

  “Take the battery out of your phone,” I said evenly while matching actions to words with my own device. I couldn’t be sure that these shifters had used technology to track us, but I certainly didn’t intend to leave that particular barn door wide open for the next time....

  Unfortunately, my fingernail caught and bent on the hard plastic in the process, and I swore using language I’d been trying to eradicate from my vocabulary while putting on a good face for Stephanie and her ilk. Not that invective was going to harm Kira more than the wolves now close enough so scents of fur and electricity pressed hard against my nose linings. Brushing aside my brain’s wild attempts to think of anything other than the upcoming battle, I fumbled at the key of the only mode of transportation we had at our disposal—the slow and not-so-steady golf cart.

  Only that wasn’t our only mode of transportation, as I realized when Kira’s battery slid into her pocket and landed with a soft metallic clink. “What?” I started. But my sister was way ahead of me, digging into the denim at her hip with slender fingers then hoisting a key fob erect.

  “Tank must have put it there,” she crowed, her words tumbling over themselves even as we changed trajectories, running now toward the opposite side of the lot. “I’ve been teaching him magic tricks, but I didn’t realize he’d gotten so good at it. Way to go, Tank!”

  For the first time in over an hour, Kira’s eyes sparkled, reflecting my own rekindling hope. Because if we could outrun the wolves and flee the property that was beginning to feel like a death trap, perhaps we’d survive this ambush after all....

  Then we were piling inside the vehicle Gunner had left behind him, slamming the doors, and twisting the engine into roaring life. Back wheels spun on gravel as I pushed the SUV into a three-point turn far faster than was advisable....

  Not quite fast enough, though, since eyes were materializing behind us, pupils glowing yellow against the descending dark.

  There were at least a dozen werewolves loping out of the forest now. From inside the vehicle, I couldn’t smell whether they were Atwood shifters or strangers. All I knew was that they were hungry and huge.

  Which meant we should be burning rubber in our haste to escape them. Only...my foot slipped sideways rather than punching into the gas pedal. And Gunner’s order—“Stay put”—rang through my head like a tolling bell.

  My debt, it appeared, was working against me. Rather than rushing to evade our attackers, I only managed to clench white-knuckled fingers around the steering wheel as the vehicle beneath me rolled to a gravel-crunching halt.

  I wasn’t alone, however. Instead—“Gunner always said you were an idiot!” Kira roared, the second-hand insult strangely effective at loosening my debt’s hold. Meanwhile, my sister’s hands pushed down on my knee even as my muscles reasserted themselves. Then we were speeding out of the parking lot, racing away from wolves howling angrily in our wake.

  “He said that?” I asked the back of Kira’s head as she turned to raise her middle finger and stick out her tongue at our rapidly receding pursuers. I would have worried that she’d make them even hungrier for our blood...but we had a vehicle and they didn’t, so the point was now moot.

  “Naw,” Kira answered, turning back to face forward. She was panting and sweaty, I noted. Nothing like the teenager who could have run twice that distance without batting a lash. “But I thought a bit of anger might get you moving,” she continued, proving that even if her body was oddly weak nothing had happened to her quick mind.

  Then, changing gears in an instant, my sister bombarded me with questions of her own. “Where are we going?” she demanded. “Shouldn’t we call Gunner to pick us up?”

  And I wanted to drop the mess into an alpha’s lap, I really did. I craved a life so simple I could depend upon werewolves to enfold us into their pack and bail us out of all predicaments.

  But Gunner’s bond to his brother had proven more resilient than any ties he’d built to us over a single season. And whatever was wrong with Kira seemed to be getting worse and worse.

  So I shook my head, stilled Kira’s fingers when she went to replace the battery in her cell phone. “No, we’ll just drive for a while,” I decided. Drive...and see if my instinctive fox nature could come up with a solution to Kira’s malaise that my rational side hadn’t discovered quite yet.

  Loosening my stranglehold on the steering wheel, I let my fox have her head.

  Chapter 12

  A while turned into five long hours, the beginning of which was just high-speed meandering, attempting not to drive around in circles while ensuring the wolves at Wildacres had lost our trail. But then Kira conked out beside me and I had time to fully consider the impossibility of the task I’d set for myself.

  I needed to figure out the source of and solution to the illness that had beset my sister. To track down the owner of my mother’s star ball and vanquish the being who had won out over me three months earlier. Those mysteries had seemed unsolvable with Gunner’s vast resources at my disposal. What chance did I have of finding the answers on my own now?

  While thinking, I raised my left forearm to my mouth, sucking at the wound I’d self-inflicted in an attempt to escape from Ransom’s lackeys earlier. The sore was no longer bleeding, but fox nature prompted me to purify the gash with the healing power of good, clean saliva. The task wasn’t very palatable from a human perspective, but at least it soothed my nerves.

  Soothed my nerves...and reminded me of how awful I probably looked. Glancing at myself in the rear-view mirror, I had to laugh at the mud and gunk splattering my clothes and skin from head to foot. One dirty wound down, ten thousand cuts and scratches still to go.

  I wasn’t about to lick my entire body, which meant most of me would remain filthy. But at least I could drive without smearing the steering wheel with drying blood....

  To that end, I switched to my sword hand to clean the red speckles off my thumb and forefinger. Only this blood wasn�
�t of my own making. Instead, the particles bit into my tongue, sharp as pepper...then filled me with an epiphany-laden euphoria that came and went in the time it took to release a single breath.

  This was the magic Elle had tapped into. This was the boost I needed to figure out where the solution to my dilemmas lay.

  This was also likely highly dangerous. Why else would my mentor have warned about the ability of a werewolf to use kitsune blood without mentioning the reverse possibility?

  Still.... Beside me, Kira curled in on herself as if shielding an aching belly. Outside, strangers rolled past in their cars. There was no one left but me to protect my sister. So, before I could rethink the avenue of exploration, I sucked up the last of the wolf blood on my finger....

  “Take me to the solution to Kira’s problem,” I said aloud even as my head threatened to float out of the vehicle like a helium balloon. In response, the power channeled inward, hardened, pointed...pulled the steering wheel toward the north.

  I FOLLOWED THE VAGUE hints of directions for the rest of the afternoon and evening, until our SUV crunched to a halt in a tree-lined dead end. Kira was still soundly sleeping, and her fetal-position body looked so childlike that I hated to wake her up. Still, the niggle of intuition in my stomach urged me onward, so I shook Kira’s shoulder gently then a little harder yet.

  “Is it morning?” my sister murmured, voice hoarse and raspy. Back when Kira enjoyed access to our mother’s star ball, she used to leap from bed to mischief in less time than it took for me to open my eyes and wipe away the sleepy dust. Now, though, my sister was groggy and grumpy, barely willing to follow me out of the SUV and into the night.

  “I miss my star ball,” the teenager complained as we picked our way across the roadbed and into the richly scented woodland beyond it. As if proving her point, a low-hanging limb smacked into her face, evoking a string of those exact same words my sister wasn’t supposed to know the meaning of.