Rosa had been quiet all this time, but now she entered the conversation. “That’s why you were so desperate for a body. Before.”

  I didn’t want to talk about how close I’d come to losing myself during the long spell of solitary confinement. Nor about the things I’d done to counteract the risk of that ever happening again.

  “I’m going upstairs,” I told Rosa instead of answering. She and Tru and Lynette and Honor needed to speak among themselves and come up with something that would shock me enough to draw Jack to the forefront. Something I couldn’t afford to know about if I wanted this plan to work.

  I thought one of them might stop me, but they didn’t. Instead, Rosa merely ordered: “Take this with you,” while handing over a breakfast-laden plate.

  I didn’t intend to eat. But there was nothing else to do in the upstairs bedroom except remember how gleeful I’d been when I stole Tru’s memories in this exact same space weeks ago. Well, I could think about that, or I could consider the cold darkness inside my sword when I’d been trapped there after bladed weapons fell out of favor.

  Since neither topic was particularly palatable, I picked up a piece of toast that someone had spread with raspberry jam and I forced myself to take a bite.

  To my surprise, the sweetness awoke warmer memories. Memories of Jack pressing food into my hands even when I’d been not much more than a psychopathic kami. Memories of our kisses while he was cuffed behind bars in the Strays’ village. Memories of the way I’d held tight to his lemon-sugar aroma even after Ambrose returned and overcame that lusciousness with rot.

  Memories of Jack’s voice curling around me, plotting out a future for the two of us. The idea of living in peaceful harmony next door to Drake and Tru was more believable now than it had been when Jack first broached it. More believable after Drake had rested his hand on my shoulder, after Tru had hugged me tight while pulling me out of the cold between, after Rosa had cared enough to send me upstairs with this mountain of food, after I got over my own childish snit with regard to Lynette.

  So I cleared my plate and lay down to rest my eyes, letting myself imagine what the future might hold if we really did manage to get rid of Ambrose. Tru would take a while to fully warm to me—that was a given. But Jack’s charm was irresistible. He’d…

  The dream pulled me under hard as a rip tide. One moment I was half-asleep, reveling in imagined family. The next, I was remembering a decision that would shape the rest of my life.

  An old man’s hands gripped the hilt of the sword that would become mine. He was murmuring prayers, pushing energy into the cold metal.

  That energy had attracted half a dozen of us. We wafted around the samurai, curious, hungry. What he was offering was attractive and repulsive as well.

  “A terrible deal,” Tall Nose observed. He was more solid than the rest of us, having followed this warrior around for decades. He’d swallowed energy when bandits were dispatched and guarded his plum position with the same intensity the samurai used to guard his daimyo. Still, Tall Nose hadn’t chased us away and seized upon today’s offered opportunity, his reasoning becoming clear as he continued: “Why should we trap ourselves inside a sword when we can do as we please in the spirit realm?”

  He could sneer because he never worried about filling his belly, but the rest of us weren’t so lucky. Lying all day in the sunshine didn’t soak up enough energy to keep us in one piece, especially since we had to spend some of that energy crossing into the human world to harvest the rays in question. There were other methods of gaining energy, of course, but they were more difficult and more of a gamble. So we all looked tattered in places. I could see right through the smallest of us.

  “If you don’t want it, I do,” said the pipsqueak. Nameless, genderless, almost formless, it rushed the old man, wriggling between his fingers and the sword’s hilt...only to be squeezed right back out again. It didn’t have enough energy to even accept the trade-off the old man was offering, and now its translucent body was closer to completely see-through.

  I looked down at my own arms and legs, only slightly ragged around the edges. I’d led a cat to a bird’s nest two days ago, swallowing the souls of each fledgling the predator had eaten. Yesterday and today, though, I’d found nothing.

  I wafted a little closer to the sword and Tall Nose scoffed at me. “You’re an idiot. You’ll lose yourself in that sword.”

  “Would that be so terrible?” I countered. Then I twined myself through the old man’s fingers and I became solid for the very first time.

  Chapter 26

  “Wake up.”

  I’d been slipping in and out of sleep for who knew how long, drifting along a path of half-forgotten memories. In my dreams, in my past, I’d lapped up energy with relish each time my samurai master drew blood using the sword I’d become part of. I’d used that energy to sharpen the blade and improve the samurai’s already impressive swordsmanship.

  We won more often after that. I drank more blood. I grew more powerful still.

  Then the Age of the Samurai faded, and with it my smugness. Tall Nose had been right, although his method of feeding had likely dwindled at the same time mine did. Unused, my sword had transformed from buffet to prison. That was when the darkness had taken over, why I’d become so hungry that I’d leapt at the chance offered by Tru’s desperation and Ambrose’s awfulness over a century ago. I’d…

  “Wake up.” The voice this time was harsher. The cold at my throat more adamant. I blinked out of the past and found Honor’s eerie amber eyes boring into mine. “Let’s go. Now.”

  My hand rose to figure out what was pressing into my neck then stilled as Honor pushed what I now realized was a sword’s edge deeper into sensitive human skin. “Eh, eh, eh,” she chided. “Don’t make me draw blood sooner than I have to.”

  For one split second, every muscle in my body tensed. The world became crystal clear, the sound of Honor’s breathing matching the roar in my ears.

  I had to fight to stay alive.

  Then the events before my nap caught up with me and I relaxed. Honor was here carrying out the plan I’d suggested—putting me in danger so we could draw Jack into his own skin. Only—

  “Ambrose is miles away,” I observed. “It’s better to do this once we’re closer.”

  “You think this revolves around you,” Honor snapped, her eyes so lupine I half expected her teeth to sharpen. “You think I care more about your mate than I do about my cousin and his daughter? Especially after you stole from me? Think again. Half of my real, blood family is currently comatose and you’re the one to blame.”

  Every word Honor spoke reeked of truth, of desperation. So I obeyed the not-so-gentle nudging of her sword and rose from the bed, preceding her down the stairs and through a house that was ominously empty. Swallowing, the motion pressing cold metal deeper into my skin while just barely wetting my dry throat enough for me to ask: “Half your family is comatose?”

  Fury and terror filled the air between us as Honor answered. “Merry fell asleep while you were forcing me away from the O’Connell mansion. She hasn’t woken up since then. Get in.”

  My traitorous body quaked at the news. The times I’d seen Merry on Honor’s phone screen, she’d reminded me of a younger version of Lynette who’d never faced real trauma. If the girl survived this, if she woke up, would she ever go by the nickname Merry again?

  We were in front of Honor’s van now, the ice gone from everywhere except behind bushes and in house shadows. The roads would be easy to navigate and the mate bond tugged me even harder than it had previously.

  I could take Honor to Ambrose; that part would be easy. Still, that course of action didn’t seem very wise when she appeared to be driven entirely by emotion just like she had been before I stole her memory.

  I couldn’t steal again, even if I’d wanted to. The sword kept me quite admirably at a distance. But I could reason with her the same way I should have this morning.

  “What’s your plan?” I asked. “To trade me to Ambrose for two pelts? That doesn’t make sense.”

  As I spoke, I peered down at the sword Honor was using to prod me into the passenger seat then to force me to slide over behind the steering wheel. I’d hoped it would be my own weapon, a hint that Honor was just messing with me while setting up the takedown of Ambrose I’d suggested.

  It wasn’t my sword though. It was the one Honor had used to fight her way free of the O’Connell pack. And her answer, when she finally deigned to give it, wasn’t heartening either. “I’m not wasting time explaining. Now drive.”

  The mate bond led me back the way I’d come. Back to the O’Connell grounds although not to the mansion. I parked at a pull-off alongside the road and opened a small metal gate, leading the way inside while Honor’s sword pricked the space between my shoulder blades.

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” I asked, realizing even as I said it how un-kami-like my words sounded. “Facing a strong enemy with allies at your back is smarter than going off half-cocked and alone. This isn’t the way to help Merry...”

  Honor interrupted with a slash of her sword so fast I almost didn’t see the motion. A searing pain rose along the side of my upper arm and I gasped.

  Was this what it had felt like for the men who fell beneath my samurai’s sword? For the wolf I’d cut into less than a day earlier? I blinked past pain and remorse, focusing with an effort on the here and now.

  Because the wound Honor had given me was unpleasant but not life-threatening. She was merely proving a point.

  She was in charge. I needed to shut up and obey.

  We walked in silence after that. Through wild forest and manicured flower gardens to a cottage tucked far away from the mansion. There, the scent of rot was so extreme I couldn’t maintain my silence any longer. I coughed and a woman I’d last seen dead stepped out from a shadow beneath the building’s eaves.

  “Master.” Mariana’s lips moved but the voice that came out sounded nothing like the one I remembered. “You have a visitor.”

  The being placed itself between us and the door with jerky movements that were also unlike the Mariana I’d met briefly weeks ago. Even if I hadn’t smelled decay now or seen Mariana’s dead body last night, I would have known this wasn’t the same woman who’d raced through Lexington in wolf form then invited Jack into her mansion. The singing, the stolen pelt—both must be linked to this monstrosity. But who would reanimate a corpse?

  I had a pretty good guess.

  “Tall Nose, what are you doing?” I demanded.

  The corpse returned its attention to me, and something about its body language proved I’d guessed its identity correctly before it even opened its mouth. “I’m hunting energy, just like you did. I learned from watching you, but I was smarter. Did you know that humans see a winged creature silhouetted against the sun and assume it’s an angel?”

  “I...no, I didn’t know that.”

  Tall Nose smiled through Mariana’s dead lips, the gesture grotesquely stretched and far from pleasant. “You never did think deeply. That’s why you’re a prisoner and I’m on my way up.”

  I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t be on his way up very far if he called someone else master. If, even with the moon entirely full as it would be when it rose not long from now, he couldn’t keep the body he inhabited from attracting carrion flies.

  But there were more important issues at play. Like two stolen pelts and Jack’s survival.

  I couldn’t do anything about the latter, not yet anyway. But Justice’s pelt was in Ambrose’s possession and likely Merry’s was also. My mate bond told me Ambrose was very close by now.

  So I softened my face and tried to look as confused as I felt while drawing Tall Nose out. “I don’t get it. Why Mariana?”

  “Because she was clever.” Tall Nose waved one arm and little bits of rot flecked off his appendages. “She was hunting woelfin pelts with two of her pack mates. Hadn’t gotten her hands on any and didn’t know how to use them, but I proved superior on both counts. I helped her along with information only a spirit could harvest, promoted a little literal backstabbing, then stepped into this one’s skin.” He twirled like a ballerina, waving his arms to indicate the body rotting around him.

  “Doesn’t look like you did a terribly good job of that last part.” I couldn’t help myself. The stench of decay was so strong now that I couldn’t just smell it; I could taste it coating my tongue.

  “That’s your fault. You interrupted the ceremony.” Tall Nose took a step toward me, and…

  “That’s enough.”

  For once in my life, I was glad to see Ambrose. Well, it wasn’t just Ambrose I was glad to see. The beauty of the body he’d stolen from my mate struck me like a blow, the pain of Jack’s absence so intense that for a moment I swayed and lost track of what I was doing here.

  Then Honor’s sword bit into the top layer of skin on my throat. I’d forgotten she was there, but her combined warning and reminder did the trick. I steadied myself with an effort while she provided the long-delayed explanation she’d refused to give me.

  “Ambrose, it appears we each have something the other wants. You have two pelts and I have your mate, the one who stole a life to keep you on this earth. If I kill her, you go poof. Wouldn’t want that, now would you?”

  I’d forgotten that possible method for defusing Ambrose. Kill me and the mate bond that gave Ambrose a toehold in the human realm was severed.

  That wasn’t why I gasped though. My gasp was a sheer reflexive response to the pain as Honor sawed with her sword as if I was a loaf of bread hot out of the oven.

  And as if my pain had woken him, Jack now peered out through his own eyes.

  Chapter 27

  “Kami.” My name was like honey, cutting through Tall Nose’s aroma and enfolding us within a cocoon that was just the two of us. “I don’t know how long I can keep Ambrose out. Explain, please.”

  “If you’d stop flashing that dimple at me,” I countered, “then perhaps I could.” One moment before, I’d been wobbly on my feet. But now, my entire body felt like it had been pumped full of helium.

  Because familiar people were rushing toward us out of the undergrowth. Drake and a man I suspected was Honor’s mate took down Tall Nose in a football-worthy tackle. Rosa held not just a sword but my sword, and Lynette had removed both gloves in order to bare her hands.

  I’d been right the first time. Honor’s threat was just a ploy. We were doing this.

  “Let me guess,” Jack said, eyes twinkling. “You brought me a water buffalo so I could redeem my tarnished reputation.”

  “I brought you Lynette,” I answered, “which is ten times better. You need to shift and make the transition last as long as possible. Lynette’s going to grab Ambrose’s spirit out of you while you steer clear of her fingers. You’ll have to stay halfway between human and wolf forms for it to work.”

  There was so much more to explain and no time to explain it in. “It’s complicated,” I finished. “You just have to trust me.”

  “Of course.” He was already shedding clothes, not slowly the way my haywire hormones wanted but fast and business-like as the situation demanded. His pelt swept across muscles I couldn’t take my eyes off, then Lynette was there pressing both hands into his fur.

  There was nothing the rest of us could do other than watch as she struggled to catch a slippery spirit by feel and Jack somehow managed to hold himself midway between man and wolf to assist her fishing expedition. He clenched a human jaw that had gone wolf furry and the mate bond reverberated with agony arising from his aborted shift.

  We weren’t meant to stay between for more than a second. Cold shot through me like splinters of ice forced beneath my fingernails. I had to help Jack. I had to…

  ...Then the pain quieted. Jack’s eyes met mine, his face twisted up in agony until it was nearly as grotesque as Tall Nose’s stolen body. And yet, he still smelled like lemon-sugar as he murmured, “Apologies. You didn’t need to feel that.”

  I clenched my fists, hating this sensation of being unable to help those I cared about. I wanted to scream at Lynette to hurry up, to unthrottle the mate bond so I could at least share Jack’s pain if not take it from him.

  But that would have only distracted Lynette from a task that seemed like it might be beyond her. So, I did the only thing I could think of to help matters. I bantered with Jack.

  “Which do you think stinks worse—an unwanted house guest, three-day-old fish, or Ambrose?”

  “Ambrose. Definitely Ambrose. How do you think he smells from the insi—“

  His final word disintegrated into a pained grunt and I bit the inside of my cheek, the pain stopping me from grabbing Lynette’s shoulders and shaking her. If she didn’t finish this soon…

  Then the girl’s eyes opened, the widest grin possible stretching across her face. “Sword!” she demanded and Rosa was right there offering my weapon to her. The tiniest glint of light sparked around Lynette’s fingers as she forced Ambrose into the sword that had been my cage and my lodestone and was now, hopefully, about to serve the same purpose for a very evil spirit.

  The sword didn’t look quite the way I remembered it though. There was something lumpy wrapped around the blade halfway down…

  The purpose of the lump became clear when Lynette tossed the whole thing through the air in the general direction of Tall Nose. “Now!” she demanded.

  Drake shoved Mariana’s dead body into the path of the Ambrose-scented sword while everyone else dove for cover. And when my sword exploded, it carried with it bits of rotten corpse.

  The scene was disgusting, but I barely took it in. Because the sword’s loss yanked out something in my center. All that was left was a deep, yawning hole of emptiness, as if I’d forced my way from the spirit realm into the human world using up every ounce of energy I’d possessed in the process. And on the other side, I’d found no sustenance waiting to fill me back up.