Then Jack was easing my head up off the irregular harshness of bark mulch. “You look like you need a granola bar,” he told me, but it was his palm cupping my chin that pressed a trickle of energy into my ice.

  Right. Jack was my mate. I could hold onto that as a lodestone.

  Only...Jack jolted and his scent transitioned. No longer lemon-sugar. Now, rot returned, surrounding me. The flow of warmth ceased and reversed.

  “Nice try,” Ambrose purred, yanking me upright so fast my teeth rattled. He thrust his pelt under his free arm as he continued: “But you’ll have to do better than that.”

  And the mate bond opened up to let me in on what he intended. To show me the awfulness that was about to occur.

  Ambrose intended to revenge himself on all of us. To use Merry’s and Justice’s pelts to increase his own power, to take over the O’Connell pack and use it to wreak havoc on all and sundry.

  I had to stop him. But my body was too weak. I couldn’t even yell a warning before Ambrose released me and seized the same hostage who had gotten such effective results back in the coffee shop.

  Lynette. She’d been right there beside us while ripping Ambrose out of his chosen body. And now she was clenched in the same fist that had recently jerked me around.

  Together, the two of them backed toward the cottage. The stolen pelts, I could only guess, were inside the structure. The pelts that had been used to give Tall Nose a body, albeit a rotten one. The pelts that had already pushed their owners into comas.

  Energy was limited. What came next after a coma? The obvious answer was death.

  I couldn’t let Ambrose go in that door.

  There was no time to ask permission, no time to talk the assemblage out of the terror for Lynette that froze them. All I could do was remind myself that Lynette wouldn’t have wanted us to stand down just because she was a couple of years shy of voting age. She would have wanted us to act.

  So I did. I grabbed just like Ambrose had. Snatched Honor’s sword out of her hand, an elbow to the gut ensuring compliance. Then I sprinted after the evil in my mate’s body, slashing a warning blow down the side of his arm the same way Honor had done to mine.

  It worked, in a way. Ambrose dropped Lynette, twisting around to face me. Unfortunately, in another way, it didn’t work at all.

  Because the blood on Honor’s sword filled the icy void inside me. I tasted it on my tongue, sweet and salty and full of glory. This was better than memories. This was pure energy and I was ravenous.

  I slashed again.

  This time, the line of red ran up the front of Ambrose’s thigh. He was still naked from Jack’s aborted shift, so it was easy to choose where to slice into him. “Remember what you did to me and Tru?” I asked while snicking a cut into the inside of his elbow.

  He jolted, our shared memory clear both in his eyes and via the mate bond. Ambrose had enjoyed creating little wounds like the welts I was raising while draining all of the blood out of my first human body. He’d enjoyed choosing spots where pain was instant and excruciating, where he could extend the torture for hours on end.

  Now I could return the favor. Emptiness morphed into energy inside me. I was no longer starving, was instead growing more and more powerful. There was no reason to stop.

  Another slash. Another line of glorious red.

  “Kami.” That wasn’t Ambrose. It was Jack. I vaguely understood the difference even as my sword hovered in front of his chest, deciding on its next target. A nipple would be excruciating to my victim, delicious to me…

  Jack’s words, though, got in the way of my planning. “Great idea with the exploding sword,” he told me. “Too bad it didn’t work.”

  There was so much blood trickling across Jack’s skin that it was hard to tell which bits of flesh hadn’t been cut yet. Reopening wounds wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as creating new ones. Had I already gone for that cheek? Should I aim for the other?

  I hesitated and Jack’s voice continued to distract my flow. “We can’t let Ambrose free again. You know that. I know that. There’s only one way out.”

  Behind me, someone gasped. It sounded like me, so I assumed it was Tru, especially when a rough voice rasped something I couldn’t quite interpret in response.

  “I need you to kill me,” Jack continued. “Do it fast and do it now.”

  Fast? I shook my head. Fast wouldn’t feed me nearly as much energy as this game I was playing. Killing Jack fast would be like skipping all the good parts of a book and flipping straight to the conclusion.

  “Listen to me.” The lemon sugar in the air tried to tell me this was important. But I was still hungry. I was always hungry. I needed…

  Someone was behind me. I spun in a complete circle, cutting whoever had thought they could creep up and influence my actions. My blade bit deeper than it had previously.

  Then lemon-scented hands were grabbing me from what used to be my front and was now my back. Familiar hands, yanking me through an open doorway.

  Jack slammed the door closed behind us and flipped the lock.

  Chapter 28

  The inside of the cottage was dim and quiet. Someone had boarded up the windows, leaving only small cracks for light to come in through, and even that light was dim as day faded toward evening. The way the space had been turned into a bunker, though, wasn’t nearly as interesting as who I shared the space with.

  “Kami.” Jack’s body pressed up against my mine, the sword sandwiched between us. “I need you to focus.”

  Focus. That I could do. Because, yes, I was hungry. But this contact fed me just as deeply as the blood had done. “Touch me,” I demanded.

  That dimple reappeared as my mate’s hips gave the most delightful gyration. “You think I’m not touching you now?”

  I growled and Jack laughed and obeyed me. One finger slid down my face, curving from forehead to cheekbone, from lips to neck. “I’ll touch you wherever you want,” he murmured, reaching down with his other hand to curl his fingers over mine atop the sword hilt, “and you can touch me wherever you want, as long as you keep your sword right here. If Ambrose tries to interrupt us, don’t hesitate. Cut.”

  Pleasure had suffused me so thoroughly that it took me a moment to realize Jack was raising the blade to his throat, the same way Honor had threatened me earlier. And even though I was little more than hunger at that point, I knew what Jack suggested was wrong. Especially when the alpha command he’d just doled out would give me no wiggle room. “No. I...”

  Jack stopped my words with a kiss. And for one split second, there was more to me than hunger. Our mate bond twined around and between us like Tru’s kitten had curled between legs demanding affection. I breathed in Jack and breathed out Kami. Hungry I became united we.

  The bristles of his unshaven chin scratched a line of pleasure from my lips across my jaw then to my throat, following the same path his finger had teased earlier. My head fell sideways, my eyes closing. This, this was more powerful than blood on my sword.

  “Better than convenience-store sweet tea?” Jack murmured into my ear, even the subtle stroking of his breath provoking pleasure.

  “Better than microwaved ramen noodles in a prison cell,” I managed. I almost remembered why I was here, why it mattered that my sword stayed against my mate’s throat when my arm was tiring, when I wanted so badly to use those fingers for something else.

  I almost remembered...but not quite.

  Still I didn’t fight Jack’s hand keeping mine in place while he purred, “That’s right. You’re coming back to me. Stay with me, Kami.”

  Unfortunately, Jack was losing his hold on his body even as I regained mine. His words started out melodic then turned strangled. The fingers he’d stroked me with slapped themselves against the door frame and grabbed hold of it. His chin drooped as his forehead touched mine, his face contorting into a grimace that wasn’t Jack at all.

  Rot, rot, rot. I tried to recoil but there was nowhere to go with Ambrose on one side and the door on the other.

  “Drop the—“ he started.

  But Jack’s alpha command worked faster. My sword bit into my mate’s throat.

  I managed to keep the cut small, but the blood still affected both of us. The scent of rot receded while my hunger rebounded. Meanwhile, outside the cottage, raised voices reminded me that we weren’t alone.

  A growly werewolf bit out: “Executioner.”

  A deep rasp replied: “Chief O’Connell.”

  Greetings out of the way, the growler continued: “I thought your sole job was to escort a trespasser off my property. And yet, you’re still here in the company of not only the trespasser but also his mate.”

  Their argument had nothing to do with me. I returned my attention to the sword biting into my mate’s throat and considered which would fill the hole inside me faster. Turning this seeping wound into a delicious cascade or continuing the make-out session Ambrose had interrupted.

  “Kami,” Jack’s voice stroked me the way his fingers didn’t. “We need to listen to what’s going on outside.”

  Did we really? It seemed utterly irrelevant to my hunger.

  “Drake is my twin.” Jack’s reminder came with a gentle touch this time as he brushed hair that had fallen into my eyes back behind one ear. “What matters to him matters to me.”

  And what mattered to Jack mattered to me...maybe. As I thought that through, the drama outside continued to unfold.

  “...which is how I know you’ve been bamboozled by an ill-meaning spirit,” Drake’s rasp concluded. “My continued presence is meant to deal with that danger.”

  “Danger?” Chief O’Connell’s scoff was overlain with threat. “What danger? That my dead mate will be returned to me? That an angel will bless us with his presence? That’s no danger. That’s the promise of heavenly intervention!”

  Drake started to answer, but Chief O’Connell spoke over him, ordering around underlings I could neither see nor hear. “Spread out. Be prepared to sing the moment the moon rises. We missed the perfect window last night but the holy relics are now inside this cottage. We can’t lose our final chance to restore my mate.”

  The holy relics? Jack got it before I did. He started to wrench away from me, only to freeze as my sword cut another line across the delicate skin of his throat.

  “Kami.” His eyes were gray coals boring into mine. “We have to find those pelts and get them out of here. This matters.”

  And despite the call of blood and the hunger inside me, I knew what Jack meant. I knew it the way I’d known our kiss was more than mere physical pleasure. I knew it via the mate bond, which transmitted Jack’s desperate desire to protect a child and that child’s father.

  The trouble was, keeping the newfound knowledge in my mind felt like walking along a greased balance beam. Yawning emptiness kept trying to tug me back down to the issue of my own survival.

  What did a child I’d never met matter? Couldn’t a grown man take care of himself?

  “Merry matters,” I said aloud, hoping the words would ground me. They didn’t. “Justice needs our help.” Even though I’d met Justice, those words didn’t ring any more true.

  “They do matter and they do need our help,” Jack confirmed, “and you’re the one who has to hunt for their pelts.”

  I trusted Jack so I started to drop the sword and turn away, but his hand clenched down over my fingers. Unlike before, he didn’t temper his strength. Instead, this squeeze was painful. The words that came with it were nearly as rough as his twin’s would have been.

  “You have to tie me and gag me in case Ambrose tries to take over while you’re looking. It’s either that or—”

  Now I was the one slamming my palm down over his mouth. Jack wanted me to end his life and I knew that was so wrong it shouldn’t even be spoken. “No.”

  I was shaking as Jack and I moved around the room, finding two neckties, a sheet, and a handkerchief to tie him with. I was shaking because I couldn’t do this.

  Well, I could bind Jack. Yes, that part was easy. I could fill my stomach with the banana sitting on the counter after Jack picked it up and cracked the peel for me.

  But, as I yanked the last knot tight, I knew I’d lose my footing on that tenuous balance beam of desire long before I found two hidden pelts belonging to two near strangers. Especially when the light oozing in the windows had faded so much that it was nearly invisible. Especially when the werewolves outside—what sounded like dozens of them—were already starting to sing.

  Chapter 29

  Without Jack’s lemon surrounding me, the cottage interior stank of rot. Ambrose had been here, I guessed, ever since he’d escaped last night.

  His scent reminded me of darkness. It reminded me of hunger and…

  “Bondage appears to be our thing.” Jack’s words traveled down the mate bond so clearly he might as well have been whispering into my ear. I glanced across the room at him, the overhead lights I’d flicked on making it easy to discern his dimple above the handkerchief digging into his mouth corners. He should have been chaffing at the discomfort of his situation, but instead he laughed about it. Well, if he could do that, then I could keep myself together long enough to hunt.

  It was hard, though, with eau de corpse inside and singing outside. I could almost feel energy being channeled out of Merry and Justice’s pelts and into Tall Nose. I wanted that energy. I needed it.

  Just like I was tempted by the pelt I’d taken from Jack. I forced myself to set it down halfway across the room from both of us, but my feet kept trying to carry me back toward it.

  “Jack.” I froze the third time his pelt called to me, hands clenching into fists. “I don’t trust myself. What if I find their pelts, then I use them...”

  “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know you, Kami. I trusted you earlier. You need to trust me now.”

  I did trust Jack. That part was a given. The one I didn’t trust was myself.

  “Okay, I hear you.” His silent words stroked me the same way his hands and lips had earlier. “Go between then. Get your head on straight.”

  I wasn’t so sure submitting myself willingly to the cold emptiness of the spirit realm was the right move when I was already teetering on the edge of losing control of my better nature. But Jack had asked me to trust him. So I did.

  Without taking time to think about it, I slipped out of my clothes and swirled my own pelt across my shoulders, clenching down hard on the transition to prevent it from progressing after I made it halfway. Pain shot through me, but my spirit self blinked its eyes open and spun in a tight circle there in the immaterial coldness. Yes, this had been a smart move, although not for the reason Jack thought.

  Coming to the spirit realm wasn’t the way to steady me, but it was the way to hunt for unclaimed energy. In the foggy nothingness, Jack’s pelt was visible as a glowing spark right where I’d left it. And, turning slowly, I found two other bright sparks that had to be Merry’s and Justice’s pelts also. I couldn’t tell how the pelts were hidden, but I could estimate distance and direction. I could…

  Then Tall Nose was up in my face, talon-capped fingers raking through my immaterial self like wolf claws. “How could you steal my body?”

  The rents in my spirit skin were like holes in a balloon, letting the tidbit of luminous energy the banana had provided wheeze out. Glowing trails of light flowed away from me, fading into the ether, and Tall Nose let them go without attempting to catch and consume the energy.

  That meant his anger was greater than his greed. I tried to shuffle away from him, but he was so much faster than I was here in the spirit realm. He ended up in the space I’d aimed for before I even arrived.

  Now his huge beak pressed up against what passed for the skin of my face here in the sprit realm. I couldn’t feel the contact, but I would feel the pain when he dug into my stomach, ripping once again at my surface level. Here on his turf, he was far stronger than I was. Especially since he currently had an entire wolf pack singing his praises.

  One deep tear might be all it took to pop me into nothingness.

  The third time he reached for me, though, I was ready. I used every memory of that samurai’s skill to evade his grasp and tossed out a snappy comeback for good measure. “You tried so hard to go from incorporeal to incorrigible,” I observed. “Too bad you failed even at that.”

  “It’s true that you gambled right and I gambled wrong,” Tall Nose acknowledged while circling around me, seeking a weakness. “But you’ve lost the thread of purpose. You’re wasting your advantage.”

  He continued rambling, and I gradually pieced together why he was taking time to talk rather than outright attacking. He wanted me to join him. My foray into the human world had changed his opinion of me, had made him consider a spirit partnership, an alliance of convenience nothing like the shifter mating I now understood.

  This was Tall Nose’s version of courtship. Which meant he wasn’t going to slash one last time and end me. Which, in turn, meant I could ignore him and return to the human realm.

  First though, I felt obliged to answer. Because Tall Nose was so much like who I used to be, and I wished I’d come to a certain realization much sooner. “I’m not the one who’s lost the thread of purpose, Tall Nose. You have. There’s more to life than mere survival.”

  “I know that.” He slashed again, just a scratch to remind me who had the upper hand here, but the bubbles of light that oozed out of me were small and slow this time. I was almost dry and the excruciating pain as I hovered between wolf and woman was making it hard to think straight. Still I heard what he said when he continued. “There’s power,” he rebutted. “Pleasure. You possess all of that, or you could.”