Or make that Kira three-quarters on and me three-quarters off the unyielding metal. “Don’t fall!” my sister cried, clutching at my shoulders as I slid over the edge until only fingertips kept me aloft.

  And, with a pop of returning air, vision that had narrowed into catwalk-sister-catwalk expanded back out to include the rest of the world. Snow blew in a broken window, the metal platform vibrated beneath me, and twenty feet below the world erupted into snaps and snarls of a dozen werewolves at least.

  I couldn’t afford to glance down, though. Not when Kira was clinging to my arms while the sway of the catwalk suggested someone rushed upward to finish the job gravity and overconfidence had begun. Clawing against the metal, I attempted to drag myself back onto the horizontal surface. After all, if I lost my nerve and my grip, who would keep my sister safe?

  A broken fingernail sent a streak of agony shuddering up my spine as gravity stretched fingers closer and closer to the edge of the metal. Now I was clinging by one and a half hands only, the pain of ripped keratin causing two fingers to slip loose.

  Meanwhile, the shouts from below had grown louder, as if I was already falling toward the pitched battle beneath my feet. I wasn’t going to be able to chin my way back onto the catwalk, I realized. Not from this awkward angle more beneath than to one side of the surface I was attempting to attain.

  “Stand back, Kira,” I gritted out as my sister once again tried to help me rise and nearly toppled over the edge in the process. If I fell, I’d shift to fox form and survive, damn the consequences. On the other hand, if Kira fell then this entire rescue would have been for naught. I knew which scenario I preferred.

  Of course, my sister was a pro at ignoring things she didn’t want to hear. Laying down on her belly, she managed to reach all the way under my armpits this time. “You’re not falling,” Kira proclaimed, her voice angry even though a stream of tears dripped from both eyes to plop onto my chin.

  “Kira, I’m serious,” I started. “It’s not going to kill me....”

  And then Crow was there behind her. Was pushing my sister aside as he lifted me back onto the catwalk as easily as if I was a child. “Come,” the werewolf told us, not even out of breath as he lashed out to grip both me and Kira by one arm apiece.

  The hand in question latched down with predictable werewolf firmness...then Crow’s fingers twitched away as if the ability to become a fox was somehow contagious and likely to rub off on him. The male eventually forced himself to regain his grip, but I took advantage of the lapse in order to glance below.

  As earlier sounds had suggested, the theater was now filled to the brim with shifters, some in human and some in lupine form. There were so many that they’d pushed the building’s earlier occupants out of the aisle and onto the stage then surrounded Gunner and his compatriots within a nearly seamless wall of human hands and lupine teeth. Still, despite the milling mass of movement, my eye was immediately drawn to the four small figures who had watched in horror as I shifted several moments before.

  Ransom, Tank, Allen...and Gunner, whose earlier bruises were now hidden beneath streams of blood running down his arms and face.

  Just as in the Arena, my employer was intent upon protecting his brother at his own expense. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a battle to first blood. Instead, as I watched far-too-familiar werewolves attack in a badly coordinated yet still overwhelming wave, I winced at the growing carnage beneath my feet.

  Jackal’s not-quite-pack had found us. And they seemed intent upon taking Gunner and his brother down.

  I SHOULD HAVE CHEERED at the realization that most of the males who knew my secret were floundering beneath enemy attack. But, instead, I ripped myself out of Crow’s still-lax handhold, assessing my options as I backed away from my captor’s advance.

  There were two ladders extending down from this particular section of the catwalk, I noted. The one Crow had been pulling us toward led left toward a rear entrance currently devoid of battling shifters. The other led right directly into the heart of the melee.

  My fox nature suggested that turning left was a fine idea. Flee, protect my sister, and live to fight another day.

  But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Gunner, who was now grunting out a muddled combination of battle rage and breathless agony. And no wonder since two wolves were latched onto his ankles while a human-form shifter layered punch after punch upon the alpha’s unprotected chest and neck. Gunner was putting every ounce of energy he had into shielding his brother, which meant his own body was taking a beating even a werewolf couldn’t stand up against for long.

  It was four against approximately four million. And Kira was safe, Crow’s arm encircling the girl’s shoulders not to restrain her motion but rather to ensure the girl wouldn’t tumble over the edge of the catwalk should she lose her footing on the descent.

  For a split second, I couldn’t understand why Crow thought touching me was akin to picking up dung with his bare hands while Kira was a porcelain doll in need of protection. Then I remembered that no one had seen my sister shifting. That given her lack of a star ball, Kira wouldn’t be showing off her fox form in the near future either. Surely a pack of boy scouts wouldn’t let an innocent twelve-year-old come to harm....

  So I chose the un-fox-like path of helping the precise male slated to execute me. Chose the right ladder instead of the left.

  “Wait, I’m coming with you!” Kira cried, properly assessing my decision one instant before my feet began to move.

  But she was currently safe and Gunner wasn’t. So sprinting toward the proper ladder, I slid down the rungs like a firefighter and landed directly in the heart of the melee.

  Chapter 33

  I was vastly outnumbered, but I’d also brought a sword to a wolf fight. No wonder the furry bodies parted before me like so many rabbits fleeing from a sharp-taloned hawk.

  Unfortunately, I’d left my clothes up on that catwalk, and wolf teeth are quite effective against unprotected human flesh. Fangs clamped down around my ankle one instant before I whirled and sliced a gash along the biter’s hipbone. And even though he released me with a yelp, I could feel the blood puddling atop my foot as I continued on my path.

  The pain was minimal, though, compared to the agony of those before me. Because I could still see Ransom and Gunner, their heads barely visible across the sea of two-legged and four-legged opponents who had them so badly outmatched. Allen and Tank must have both donned their animal shapes for protection, but their pack leaders stood tall above the others...or as tall as they could be while fighting off dozens of werewolves with what appeared to be the a pipe wrench and the leg of a wooden chair.

  They weren’t just outnumbered; they were drowning. No wonder Ransom’s left arm hung limply against his side while Gunner appeared to be favoring his opposite leg. I redoubled my efforts to reach them, pushing forward one slow step at a time even as I kept my ears open for any hint that Kira wasn’t making good on her escape.

  Slice and stab, duck and lunge. At first, only the closest members of Jackal’s pack had realized I existed. But now half a dozen enemies peeled away from the Atwood brothers, arrowing directly for me instead. “Spilt water will not return to the tray,” Mama noted unhelpfully, breaking into my realization that coming down here by my lonesome hadn’t been the brightest idea after all.

  We were losing. Of course my sword wasn’t enough to make up for a horde of enemies. Ransom bellowed as a wolf broke through his brother’s defenses, an agonizing scream sounded far too much like it had come from Allen’s lips, and I was still too distant to make any difference in the end game that was about to go down....

  But then the front doors were flung wide open and twice as many werewolves entered with Tank at the head of the charge. So the rough-featured shifter hadn’t gone lupine. He’d instead fled to rustle up far more backup than I’d thought the Atwood brothers had waiting on their beck and call.

  And just like that, the tide shifted. Now it was the Atwood pack who outnumbered the enemy. Meanwhile, the newcomers were also better trained in working together, their force splitting seamlessly into two groups that looped around the perimeter of the stage area while a third arrowed directly toward their bosses in the center of the action.

  “And I guess I’m not needed here anymore,” I murmured, leaping up onto a piece of stage furniture that had been left behind after the theater’s final production. I’d avoided the high ground previously because it led away from the center of action rather than toward it. But Gunner didn’t appear to need me after all....

  Before relief could relax tensed muscles, though, the floor shuddered beneath my feet as something huge thundered into the outside of the building. A quieter clink of metal against tiles sent my head swiveling in yet another direction, then smoke erupted at floor level as black-clad figures raced in through every entrance point.

  Wolves and two-leggers alike gagged and yelled in confusion as a gas-masked human emerged from the haze. “Call off your dogs and come out with your hands up!” the spokesman demanded, his words expanding out from a bullhorn to take over the entire space. “This is the police. You’re all under arrest.”

  BOTH FOLLOWERS OF JACKAL and of the Atwoods fell to the ground without regard to alliances, hacking and coughing as tear gas broke through the battle fervor that had previously held them in its grip. Luckily, the air was clearer atop the scuffed table. So I held my breath, leapt, and barely managed to land on the closest ladder as police in riot gear streamed in every door.

  “Stand down!” Gunner called across the roiling mass of mist and bodies beneath me, his voice breaking off into a desperate coughing fit halfway through the final word. But the simple knowledge that the alpha was well enough to give orders spurred my footsteps, and I managed to reach catwalk level before being forced to inhale a breath of my own.

  Up here, the air was just barely breathable...and my sister, I noted was still very much present rather than having been rustled out the back door as I’d hoped she would have been. “They’re fine,” she told me, pointing toward the center of the battlefield where Gunner and Ransom were currently being cuffed and frog-marched out along with all the other two-legged shifters.

  Unfortunately, Kira’s reassurance hadn’t reached only my own ears. “There’s the kid!” a cop yelled from beneath us. And while his words really should have been lost amid the whines of teary-eyed werewolves, several other officials peered upwards as he spoke and moved to join in the charge.

  Meanwhile, next to the wide-open front door, one tall, lean figure pushed through the sea of ailing werewolves toward us. I tried to tell myself this was just another police officer heeding the call of his compatriots, but the male’s excessive height and skinny frame provoked the sinking suspicion that Kira’s social worker had caught up with us at last.

  It was time to get the hell out of there. But even though I turned in a frantic circle, I found no windows through which we could escape. No doors had been left unbarricaded either. And each ladder now had multiple cops streaming up its rungs.

  “The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists,” Mama murmured. Bending? She probably meant not only surrendering but also appearing human. So, sucking in my breath, I relinquished my weapon and donned clothes the magical way, transforming myself from naked warrior into no-really-I’m-just-an-average-civilian as quickly as I could.

  Beside me, Crow’s eyes widened as my weapon poofed into nonexistence. Then his fists clenched as thin filaments of magic streamed across my skin before coalescing into a cream-colored garment that might have been overlooked from ten or twenty feet away.

  Up close, though, the effect was in no way overlookable. Crow had been sent to watch over me and Kira, but I could tell he was now second-guessing the decision to help me back up onto the catwalk rather than pushing me off its edge earlier. What his alpha would do when Crow reported my lapses remained to be seen....

  Then the police were ripping Kira away from us, were slamming me and Crow face down into the catwalk and snapping handcuffs around our wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.”

  Too bad Gunner’s mild-mannered cousin wasn’t present this time to talk us out of our current predicament.

  Chapter 34

  We reconvened on the pavement outside, policemen working their way through the crowd and handing out tickets right and left. There was no way to take all of us into custody, but I figured we’d each end up with hefty fines. The lucky combatants were the ones who’d remained four-legged and were released into the custody of a supposed “owner” with no more than a pat on the head.

  I, on the other hand, wasn’t so fortunate. “What were you trying to do with the child?” one policeman demanded, wrenching me back around to face him when all I wanted was to enfold my sister in yet another well-earned hug. Kira hadn’t been wearing either a coat or hat when she was taken yesterday, and I didn’t like the way her teeth were chattering now.

  “I’m her guardian,” I countered...then paused as the same lanky figure I’d seen earlier stalked toward me out of the crowd. Sure enough, when the male ripped off his gas mask, the social worker I’d eluded one day prior emerged from behind the covering.

  “You were her guardian,” Simon countered. “No longer. I’m taking Kira into protective custody.”

  “But...” I started, only to be cut off once again, this time by the sound of a shifter’s voice emerging from behind my back.

  “You’re taking a child away from her only living family? For what reason, may I ask?”

  I turned, half expecting Liam to have arrived after all. But, instead, Tank stalked forward, looking no more prepossessing than he had when I saw him last. The male’s nose had been broken then reset improperly many years earlier, his eyebrows fuzzed upward to take over half his forehead, and he weighed more than both the cop and the social worker combined. Despite those facts, however, the male’s voice was urbane as he pushed his way into our little grouping, placing one hand possessively upon my back.

  “Who are you?” Simon demanded, attempting to separate me from the intruding werewolf. Tank was approximately as movable as a brick wall, however, so the social worker had little luck tearing us apart.

  “Ms. Fairchild’s lawyer,” Tank answered easily. He pulled out his billfold, removed a card that did, indeed, list his job title as “Attorney-at-law.” The paper was heavily textured, the letters gold-embossed and well-scripted, and I could see the cop measuring up the likelihood of ending up on the wrong side of a civil case...and finding the odds not at all to his liking. Perhaps that’s why the uniformed officer took one huge step backward, leaving me alone with the social worker and the wolf.

  Unfortunately, Simon was less easily intimidated. Sometime between last night and this morning, he’d apparently decided that I was an unfit guardian for a child, and he wasn’t any more willing to back down now. “Social services has the right to withdraw any foster child from temporary custody without notice,” he started.

  “And Ms. Fairchild has the right to sue your ass back into the Stone Age,” Tank replied. This time, I could smell the waves of fury radiating off the male shifter, and I wasn’t surprised when Simon’s fight-or-flight instincts kicked in at last. After all, humans might not be aware of the existence of werewolves...but their lizard brains knew how to protect their own skins.

  “I’ll be bringing this matter to my supervisor’s attention,” Simon said after one long moment of loaded silence, snatching the business card out from between Tank’s extended fingers. But he didn’t argue the matter further. Just stalked away, leaving me alone with yet another werewolf who’d recently seen me shift into vulpine form.

  LUCKILY FOR THE SAKE of my skin, Tank seemed even less interested in my secrets than Crow had been earlier. So instead of tearing into me verbally, the male left without another word, fancy business cards spreading through the crowd like confetti as he squared away matters with officer after officer until every Atwood wolf had been released from custody.

  Which left me to warm up my chilled sister...who, I belatedly realized, was no longer hovering by my side. I vaguely recalled an EMT pulling Kira away to check her vitals a few minutes earlier. But now the tween was invisible, lost within the milling crowd.

  And the number of bystanders appeared to be growing larger by the minute. I didn’t recognize even half the faces around me, suggesting that Ransom’s backup forces had been even more extensive than they’d appeared from my elevated perch in the theater. No wonder Jackal stuffed his driver’s license back into his wallet after a policemen relinquished the rectangle of plastic, glaring at me only once before leading his underlings stiff-leggedly away into the snow.

  I had little interest in future battles, though. Instead, I pushed between rock-hard shifters, searching for a sister who resolutely refused to be found. “Kira!” I called, not wanting to bring any more attention to myself than was absolutely necessary but driven to desperation by the absence of a sister who had disappeared without a trace only a day before.

  I smelled her before I saw her. Caught a hint of caramelized sugar seconds before a raised hand waving in my direction from the other side of the street. “I’m fine!” Kira told me, voice filled with just as much wounded dignity as if I’d forgotten her age and had warned her to look both ways before crossing the street in front of her sixth-grade compatriots.

  And despite everything, my lips curled upward in response. Kira was the ultimate tween, certain of her own abilities and craving independence. I loved the fact that even dangling from a rope in an abandoned theater hadn’t robbed her of that trait.

  Unfortunately, my own resilience wasn’t through being tested. Because the search for my sister had drawn the exact sort of attention I’d been hoping to avoid.