“Mai.” My name slid across the crowd like a snake stalking its dinner. And I was pretty sure that in this scenario, I was the featherless baby bird.

  Chapter 35

  Unwillingly, I turned away from Kira and sought out the alpha who had watched me shift less than an hour earlier. Gunner must have heard Crow’s side of the story already, must be rewriting all of our past interactions in light of recent events....

  Only, it wasn’t just Gunner glowering at me from across the thinning gathering. Instead, both siblings stood shoulder to shoulder, their features so similar a stranger might have found it hard to tell them apart.

  To me, though, the males were night-and-day different. Because Ransom’s eyes were filled with amusement—had he somehow missed my fox fur party before all hell broke loose? Gunner, on the other hand, boasted muscles clenched so tightly I was pretty sure nobody would have been able to pull the stick out of his ass.

  “Come here,” Gunner growled once he saw he’d gotten my attention. And to my despair, my feet began moving in his direction no matter how hard I fought the impulse with my rational mind. It was the debt, I realized. The dragon of an owing that I’d willingly allowed to sink its claws into my flesh while Kira was caught in the grasp of someone who’d already murdered two innocents at least.

  The more I fought, though, the more control slipped through my fingers. So I wasn’t even able to glance sideways by the time we three settled beneath an awning and out of the snow. Instead, I peered straight ahead, noting that the huge male bodies raising my heart rate also blocked the entrance to a pawnshop. Unfortunately, it was far past closing time. So no one came out to drive the werewolves away and set me free.

  “Well,” Ransom said at last, breaking the silence after we’d stood there for several long seconds, nothing but white breath flowing between us in the cold. “A fox.”

  He paused, and for the space of one hopeful breath I thought maybe the local pack leader didn’t know whatever secrets made bearing star-ball magic so dangerous for me and my kin. After all, I wasn’t privy to that information. Why should a werewolf be more knowledgeable about my own heritage than I was?

  But then he continued: “A kitsune. An offense punishable by death.”

  “My sister isn’t like me,” I started, lying about the one thing that truly mattered. My own fate had already hardened into certainty, but I could at least ensure Kira slipped out from beneath the descending ton of bricks before they landed on her head. “We’re half-sisters. Same mother, different fathers....”

  “...strange, then that fox nature travels down through the mother’s line.” Ransom smiled at me then, his teeth so sharp they gleamed despite the gray of incipient snowfall. He’d apparently researched this subject, or perhaps had been raised to hunt foxes at his father’s knee.

  Wherever Ransom’s savvy came from, it was clearly bad news for me and Kira. And my first impulse, as always, was to count on fox agility to ensure my escape. To run through the crowd and snatch my sister then flee together until both Atwood brothers faded into a vague memory from our past.

  But the debt didn’t let me twitch a single muscle away from my current companions. And now Gunner was sliding closer to back up his sibling, fist clenched and brow lowered as pure aggression radiated off his skin.

  ONLY, GUNNER DIDN’T face me when he finally interjected himself into the conversation. Instead, his shoulder slid between me and his brother, making promises that contradicted his unwillingness to meet my eye. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “Hmm, yes, I do believe you will.” Ransom had appeared to possess a weak underbelly in the Arena, where his brother persisted in protecting him at every turn. But now I began second-guessing the notion that Ransom was the underdog. Because the elder sibling appeared plenty authoritative at the moment, his mere presence making it difficult for me to breathe. “If you don’t want me to deal with these two kitsune in the traditional manner,” he informed his brother, “then you’ll keep them far away from the heart of our pack.”

  “Of course.” Gunner pushed himself further between me and the pack leader as he spoke, the wall of flesh allowing me to suck in a much-needed lungful of air. “I’ll make sure they do no damage...”

  “...And you’ll keep an eye on them personally.”

  “Brother?” Gunner’s question was careful, his eyes averted so far I could make out the pained crinkling above his cheekbones. This level of submission was traditional when speaking to a stronger werewolf, but I’d always gotten the impression that power flowed in the opposite direction between the two brothers.

  Apparently I’d been wrong about a lot.

  “Let me be more clear.” Now I could once again smell the fur of Ransom’s presence, could see the older male’s eyes piercing me over his brother’s shoulder as he stepped up into Gunner’s personal space. “I’m done being mollycoddled. You’re not the pack leader. I am. And now you’ll take one huge step backwards as I stand in my rightful place at the head of the clan.”

  “Of course you’re the pack leader.” I could have told Gunner that such a placating tone wouldn’t work against his brother. But apparently the younger alpha felt the need to at least try.

  “Silence.” Whether or not Ransom was powerful enough to make that command stick, the male between us subsided instantly. And we both listened as the Atwood pack leader laid down the law. “You’ll stay here until I call for you. No more manipulations to avert my orders. No more undermining my commands.”

  “Yes, Chief.” Gunner’s head bowed in acceptance. But his fists clenched when his brother refused to accept a simple affirmative.

  “You’ll swear it.”

  I kept expecting Gunner to sell me out, to decide that Kira and I weren’t worthy of such a severe loss of face. But, instead, he dropped down onto one knee in the slush of snow melt without hesitation, the ice that currently froze my toes surely sliding through his clothes to bite at his skin as well.

  But Gunner’s feet were warmer than mine, metaphorically at least. Because he spoke so clearly that even I could feel the magic imbuing his promise. “I swear to obey you, brother, in this as in all things. From this moment forward, I am your man.”

  “Good,” Ransom answered. Then, without a hint of compassion for the profound concession he’d dragged out of his sibling, he turned on his heel and left us both alone.

  Chapter 36

  Gunner’s ensuing silence was oppressive, but I had more important matters on my mind than a glowering alpha’s injured pride. Matters like Kira, whose facade of spunky indifference faded the instant the last police officer rolled away in his patrol car, leaving us alone with one painfully silent alpha and the three pack mates who’d chosen self-imposed exile over returning to the heart of their clan.

  “Let’s go home,” I suggested, taking in the way my sister’s lower lip was beginning to quiver while the arm I’d slung around her waist did most of the work of holding the girl upright. Kira sagged in silent acceptance of my game plan, and I hugged her tighter in lieu of wrapping the shivering child in the jacket I no longer possessed.

  Meanwhile, I glanced over Kira’s shoulder at the boarded-up theater. The owner had finally arrived to lock the doors and cover broken windows, so there was no slipping inside now to grab the possessions I’d left on the catwalk. Plus, the officer in charge had warned us to get moving, the glint in his eye suggesting he’d be driving back around in a few short minutes to make sure everyone had dispersed.

  So—back to our apartment, where Kira could snuggle up under the covers and I could change into non-magical garb. Unfortunately, my companions weren’t impressed by my proposed retreat.

  “Not a good idea,” Crow offered before kneeling down to assess Allen’s injuries. The accountant perching on the curb below us hadn’t been one of the two males who’d died in wolf form this evening, but he hadn’t come through the battle unscathed either. Instead, he hissed as Crow rolled up his left pant leg, the swelling and mottling above Allen’s knee suggested he’d either broken a bone or pulled something serious on the inside.

  “Yeah, stupid to go back where Kira’s kidnapper can find her so easily,” Tank agreed, glowering at me from under lowered brows as he joined his pack mates in the snow. Then, turning his attention to Allen, he added, “This is going to hurt” one second before wrenching the accountant’s swollen leg back into place.

  So, a displaced bone rather than a broken one. I pressed Kira’s nose into my neck, covering her ears with my hands in an effort to cut off Allen’s agonizing scream. “You could have at least offered him a sip of whiskey,” I growled at the lawyer-turned-medic, surprising myself with how much Allen’s pain had cut into my gut.

  But werewolves were resilient. Allen offered me a reassuring smile at the same time Gunner finally reentered the conversation, stalking over to join us after seeing the last of his brother’s men off. “Mai and Kira will come home with us,” the alpha stated, proving that he hadn’t missed our conversation even though he’d been talking to someone else a dozen yards away. With the effortless grace of a predator, he pulled Allen upright, draped a jacket around Kira’s shoulders, then turned in the direction of the SUV without bothering to wait for our reply.

  And I should have argued. Should have asserted my independence. But I was bone weary, any confidence that I could protect Kira on my own thoroughly shaken by recent events.

  So we went. Accepted two bedrooms on the second story of the mansion—although the wrinkling of Kira’s brow foreshadowed the moment five minutes later when she snuck back down the hall to bunk with me. The two of us listened to computerized gunfire emanating from the far end of the hallway where the guys were winding down to the tune of a highly violent video game, then we allowed our eyelids to gradually lower into sleep.

  When I woke, five minutes or five hours later, the mansion was silent around us, my skin cold against the late-night air. Kira had rolled sideways and pulled the blankets along with her, but it wasn’t just lack of bedding that sent goosebumps shivering across my skin.

  The laptop. In the relief of surviving a pitched battle and police standoff, I’d forgotten the serial killer’s MO. Had assumed that whoever initially wanted my sister was now gone without a trace, a few hours of shuteye making no difference to our own search.

  But our opponent was a cat-like predator, one who enjoyed playing with his prey. Why else dangle Kira so theatrically when he could have simply tortured any secrets out of her? Why lure me in with a note on my door rather than snatching me off the street?

  And what would a cat do when partially successful but cheated of the full prize he thought he deserved? He’d wait and hope the mouse would crawl back into the trap so he could snap the jaws the rest of the way shut.

  I wasn’t a mouse, though. I was a fox. And if I got to that laptop while the killer was still connected, perhaps I could use his own cockiness to figure out exactly who he was.

  Chapter 37

  I slipped out of bed silently, pulling on the baggy jogging outfit Allen had lent me in lieu of absent clothing of my own. Even though the accountant was the smallest of the werewolves living in this mansion, I could barely draw the string tight enough to keep the pants up around my waist. But at least I’d stay warm this time around...and could carry my star ball in the far more useful form of a sword.

  I didn’t leave immediately, though. Instead, I hovered over Kira, loathe to be away from her for even an hour. Not that I thought someone would sneak into the mansion and snatch the child while she was sleeping. Our enemy didn’t seem idiotic enough to break into an alpha werewolf’s lair while Gunner was in residence. Still, if my sister woke and guessed where I’d gone off to...well, experience proved she’d dive into the fray without bothering to look before she leapt.

  It was the cold of floorboards chilling my bare feet that suggested the solution to that particular conundrum. Sneakers. I needed shoes anyway if I was going to walk through the city two-legged, and surely even Kira would turn back to the warmth of the mansion the moment her toes froze into blocks of ice.

  My feet were half an inch longer than Kira’s, but I managed to stuff them into my sister’s shoes anyway. Then I was gone, out the door, through the hallway, sliding down the banister in a burst of joy at the unfettered freedom I’d wrapped around myself.

  Because Kira was safe and I was finally going on the offensive rather than acting like a night-blind chicken fleeing a fox in the hen house. I was the fox this time. And I was ready to hunt.

  But my mother’s ghost wasn’t so sure. “Stepping into a melon field, standing under a plum tree,” she warned me, her words so adamant that I turned in a circle to make sure she wasn’t actually present. But, no, I was alone in the entranceway of the mansion, only five feet distant from the freedom represented by the gargantuan front door.

  Unfortunately, I remembered this particular proverb from my childhood. Remembered how I’d argued that I wasn’t stealing sweets when Mama came in and found me with my hand literally stuck in the cookie jar at five years old. Gunner would judge my actions similarly if he woke in the night and found my bed empty save for Kira. I wasn’t running away this time...but how was he to know that?

  The resultant twinge of guilt—plus something far less identifiable—sent me creeping back up the same stairs I’d recently slid down, continuing to backtrack until I hovered indecisively outside the alpha’s bedroom door. Something about this moment felt like a turning point. Like an admission that I no longer hunted solo, that I needed someone to watch my back.

  That thought nearly sent me scurrying back in the opposite direction as fast as my legs would carry me. But I needed to be rational here. Needed to remember that there was more at stake than my fox-sensitive pride. Ensuring I captured our opponent rather than being captured by him was more important than asserting prickly independence when Kira was the one who’d suffer if I failed.

  So I didn’t flee. Still, I turned the doorknob thief-in-the-dark slowly, not quite willing to commit to this path by waking Gunner up. And...he heard me anyway. Heard and was across the room before I’d caught more than the barest hint of movement out of the dark.

  “I was wondering if you’d leave without me,” the alpha rumbled. And when he smiled, I caught a glimpse of wickedly pointed, wolf-sharp teeth.

  I MUST HAVE SQUEAKED, because Gunner stepped backwards, cold air rushing in to cool my suddenly heated cheeks. And as he moved, the moonlight played across his bare chest, sliding over muscles that my fingers suddenly itched to stroke.

  So that’s why my subconscious had been strangely willing for me to accept a hunting partner. Apparently my instinctive side wanted to do more than hunt with this wolf.

  Dropping my eyes, I clenched my hand over the hilt of my sword but found little comfort in the cold weight beneath my fingers. A bladed weapon wasn’t going to cut through the confusion and embarrassment that now rioted beneath my skin.

  As if sensing my discomfort, Gunner’s chuckle rolled over me like a warm-fingered caress, so different from the cold silence with which we’d parted earlier in the evening. “I’ll put on clothes if that’ll make you feel better,” he offered, his voice receding into the darkness. And my feet followed after him without consideration for the self-preservation instinct that should have made me wait out in the hall.

  Gunner’s bedroom smelled like a jungle. Like male and power and seduction wrapped up in the crispness of fresh dew on pine needles. “I remembered the laptop,” I called into the silence, hating the fact that I had to clear my throat halfway through my first sentence to ensure the rest of the words came out clear. “It’s a long shot, but Kira’s kidnapper might still be linked to it. He was talking to Kira through the speakers when I showed up.”

  “He?” And Gunner’s attention was trained once again upon the mystery, the almost tangible sway he’d held over my body receding as quickly as it had begun. I was disappointed in myself for regretting the absence, which might explain why I offered more information than my companion had really asked for.

  “It was a computerized voice,” I answered, catching a glimpse of hard muscles rippling across Gunner’s abdomen as he pulled a shirt on over his head. “Anonymous. But, yes, my gut says it was a he.”

  “Speaking in real time?”

  “Do you really still think the killer is your brother?” I countered, attention finally snagged by the puzzling dynamics flowing between the two males. “Ransom was fighting by your side against Jackal’s wolves yesterday. He let you take charge of me and Kira without batting an eye.”

  For a moment, I thought I’d pushed too hard. Because the granite of Gunner’s aroma rose up to overtake the fresh, leafy odor, and he sank down onto the bed to lace up his boots without bothering with a reply.

  But then Gunner laughed out a short “Heh” beneath his breath, glancing up at me with an almost hangdog droop to his features. “I’m still figuring out my brother,” he answered, the words coming slowly as if they were just now coalescing for the very first time.

  For my part, it was dawning upon me that this alpha’s earlier silent treatment hadn’t been anger at my actions. Gunner’s instinct outside the theater had been to protect me...which had likely confused him as much as it did everybody else. So I hummed out a question, gave my companion the space to speak or not as he saw fit.

  “When we were kids, Ransom was the rash one,” Gunner continued after a long moment. “He made...mistakes...and was glad to have me as his compass. But maybe he’s grown out of that. Maybe he doesn’t need me any longer.”

  The pain in Gunner’s voice was palpable, so I did my best to brush his worries aside. “Siblings always need one another,” I countered, unable to imagine a day when Kira and I would be glad to see the other’s taillights receding in our respective rear-view mirrors.