Of course, she didn’t tell me what she wanted immediately. Instead, she tried to reel me in first. “I’m in a bind that requires a kitsune and you have a hankering to meet your sister’s newborn. Make a deal with me and we can both get what we want.”

  The knife sagged for one split second. I wanted that. I wanted that badly.

  But it wasn’t happening. Pressing the weapon back into place, I shook my head. “Let me guess. You’re asking me to drink a werewolf’s blood on video and turn into a pariah while nearly bringing my family down with me. Oh, wait, that happened already. What else do you have planned?”

  “You take things so personally. Last fall was only business.”

  I dropped my voice as I let the knife dig in deeper. “Murdering an innocent was only business?”

  “She was meat. Irrelevant.” Rather than taking evasive action against my very tangible threat, Scarlet flicked a speck of invisible dust off the sleeve of her silk blouse. “Do you want to be back in the packs’ good graces or don’t you? This is your path home.”

  And I did want that, darn Scarlet anyway. I wanted to be able to see my niece in the flesh, rather than through a phone screen. I wanted to be able to smell her and hold her and have her understand I was present in a way she couldn’t via video chat.

  I wanted all that...and at the same time I wanted to make sure my sister’s family remained safe. That my mistakes in the past didn’t color Chipmunk’s future. That angry werewolves didn’t invade the Fairwood territory to take out what many considered to be a threat.

  Kitsunes. Our reputation for danger had doubled after I drank the blood of three alphas and forced them to do my bidding. Oops.

  I stood by my decisions last fall, especially the one where I’d broken off official ties with my sister so my actions wouldn’t blow back on her. It was why I hadn’t been present for the birth of her daughter. It was why I was trying to make a place for myself in Gate City, even though half the werewolves there didn’t trust me and their alpha now likely considered me a loose cannon with a lit fuse.

  Despite the awkwardness of last night, the thought of Thom settled me. What would he say in the face of Scarlet’s insidious offer?

  Words that tasted like Thom rolled off my tongue easily. “I’d need assurances this time. That I’m acting in an official Lawkeeper capacity. That what I do is entirely aboveboard.”

  Because that was the clincher. Scarlet had tricked me twice already. A third attempt at trickery was—as Charlie would have said—a statistical likelihood. I’d be an idiot to ignore that fact.

  Sure enough, my ex-boss’s lips pursed. “Well, that’s the trouble. It won’t be aboveboard. You’ll be hunting on the land of one of the alphas whose blood you drank and who has no wish to see you living.”

  Her words wound around me like slithering snakes as she continued. “But if you catch the fox who’s wreaking havoc, I give you my word I will do everything in my power to polish your reputation so you can safely go home to your sister.”

  Her words reeked of truth.

  Chapter 4

  I was going to do it, or at least I was going to stick my nose into the problem and hope to come out better than I’d started. I knew that even as I snapped back at Scarlet. “I’m surprised you don’t think Mai and I are responsible for whatever’s happened.” We were, after all, the only known kitsunes in the United States who weren’t currently stuck in the form of a fox.

  And even though my tone had been as sharp-edged as the blade I still pressed into her side, Scarlet’s scent sweetened. She knew she had me. “Well, I would have made that assumption if the fox had been female.”

  Curiosity tugged words from my lips before I could edit them. “That makes no sense. Kitsunes are always female.”

  I didn’t bother to expand on the information, to tell Scarlet what became of the sons and cousins of fox shifters. Traditionally, male relatives were turned over to a different kitsune mistress to form her honor guard, boosting her magic with their mindless devotion. So, yes, in their own way, males were powerful. But they didn’t shift into fox form.

  Of course, mentioning that semi-parasitic relationship to Scarlet was bound to turn me into even more of a dangerous outsider. I winced and Scarlet noticed because her eyes glinted.

  She stuck to the point, however, when she answered. “That was my understanding also. But this fox? He was male.”

  Male and, as I learned when Scarlet added more details, performing some sort of ritual in the Reed pack’s territory. Once a month, on the night of the full moon.

  My breath must have caught at that point because Scarlet’s eyes narrowed again. “You know something about this already.”

  “No.” I didn’t know anything. But I was drawing conclusions about the strange obsession that had come over me at the exact same time this male fox trespassed. And, perhaps, about Kaito, woken from his coma then disappearing off the radar a short time before the first tug at my libido that just happened to coincide with the November full moon.

  If the fox in question was Kaito.... Well, any information Scarlet had would help me figure out how to approach the problem.

  “You say he’s male,” I pressed, “so you’ve seen this fox. Why didn’t you deal with him already?”

  For the first time, Scarlet showed signs of agitation. Her foot tapped. Her muscles stiffened. She wasn’t lying, just unhappy with what she was about to say.

  “We didn’t see him,” she admitted after a pause. “We smelled him. The Reed alpha found his trail after the first incursion, patrolled and prepared then somehow ended up running in circles during the second full moon.”

  “So they called in the Lawkeepers,” I guessed.

  Scarlet nodded, a sharp jerk of her chin. “Last night, I was ready for anything. I had two wolves with me as backup. And all three of us ended up falling asleep in the forest, waking to the scent of an absent fox.”

  Inhaling deeply, I let my knife seep back into my fingers. The danger from Scarlet was no less, but it wasn’t imminent. Instead, peril hung on the fine line I intended to walk.

  Because I wasn’t about to turn Charlie against me. My human friend loved her brother-in-law and that brother-in-law loved Kaito.

  But if Kaito was manipulating my emotions, I needed to stop him. To help him find another way to achieve whatever desperate end he was working toward.

  Teaming up with Scarlet, however temporarily, might achieve that effect.

  A shout from behind us interrupted my thought processes. “Hey!” My boss for the day, a plump woman with a drill sergeant’s voice, had burst out of her restaurant’s door and stood with her hands on her hips, glaring. “More tossing, less gabbing!”

  And it turned out I didn’t need to make my case because Scarlet’s smile was almost feline. “You have twenty-eight days to find this fox,” she told me. “He needs to be caught before the next full moon. Miss this window and my offer is void.”

  I COULD HAVE GONE HUNTING alone in an enemy werewolf’s territory, or I could have left my shift early and headed to Gate City to ask Thom for help in person. Instead, I took the middle road and texted him my plans.

  Thom’s reply was quick and helpful. He wasn’t keen on the idea, but if I was going he was going. He was willing to strategize and even offered a GPS address at the edge of his territory, one that appeared to represent a place where we could park cars on Gate City turf and keep our trespassing to the bare minimum.

  What he didn’t mention was anything more about yesterday. Nor did he clue me in that he planned to invite the entire pack.

  Which is why I slammed on my brakes as I drove down the isolated forest-service road expecting Thom’s truck to be the only one in the pull-off and found a dozen vehicles crammed along the verge instead. Men of all ages were stripping, breath pluming in front of headlights but shivers irrelevant since fur was quickly forthcoming. Half were four-footed already, chasing each other through the trees in werewolf joy at running wild. The rest were well on their way to lupine form.

  Except me, Thom, and the shifter who’d apparently left his only family member behind in Gate City.

  “What part of all hands on deck sounded optional to you?” Thom demanded, his voice both firm and commanding. Raised by a human father, Thom had been a reluctant alpha. Now, though, his newfound combination of power and control drew me in closer. It wasn’t the moon this time that made my eyes soak up his form as if he was water in the desert. It wasn’t the moon, so I managed to keep my thoughts to myself.

  Still I advanced. And as I did, I noted the moment my scent invaded Thom’s nostrils. Saw his eyes flick toward me then away again.

  He didn’t spare me any words however. Not even a carefully weighted admonition like the one he’d lowered on his underling. I flinched. Clearly, even though he said nothing had happened, Thom wasn’t over last night.

  The urge to clear the air with words was nearly overwhelming, but this was very much not the time or place. Especially since the shifter Thom had addressed was muttering a half-hearted explanation. “Kid wasn’t feeling good.”

  With an effort, I transferred my gaze from Thom to Hank, taking in as much of the latter as I could with his ever-present cowboy hat blocking moonlight from his features. Even without a view of the shifter’s face, I could sense his recalcitrance. Saw it in the way his square chin turned away from his alpha. Smelled it in the acrid scent that lingered in the air.

  That resistance to Thom’s orders was odd coming from a shifter who acted as a dependable protector to his decade-younger brother. By lone wolf standards and despite being only in his early twenties, Hank was a solid family man.

  “I understand that you want to protect him,” Thom answered, his thoughts likely following a similar path to mine. “But your brother is old enough to shift and he’s part of this pack. I want him here.”

  The proper response would have been an apology or at least an explanation. Instead, Hank shrugged. “Too late now. Kid’s in bed.”

  He punctuated his statement by spitting on the ground in a mild act of insolence. The stream of fluid, I noted, was aimed well clear of his alpha.

  Unfortunately, Hank hadn’t counted on my proximity. Perhaps hadn’t smelled me the way Thom had.

  Whatever the reason, liquid splattered against the boots I’d drawn back on after shedding my pizza costume. Thom’s scent turned dark and dangerous as his fists clenched.

  Chapter 5

  Up until the spit hit my boots, it had appeared that all other werewolves were busy kicking up their heels and reveling in their fur forms. But every action in the pack revolved around Thom. Even the most hardcore frolickers kept one eye tuned to their alpha as they played.

  No wonder silence and stillness settled on the gathering like dust after an explosion. The only sound came from a single werewolf caught midshift who seemed to be afraid to move backward to humanity or forward to fur form. The stuck shifter’s pain nipped at my nostrils while his lupine hind legs scratched uncontrollably against the earth.

  Despite being able to smell the issue as well as I could, Thom did nothing. Well, nothing other than loom and glower like the alpha he’d become over the last three months.

  No wonder Hank’s cowboy hat bowed down in apology. “Forgive me, Chief Faris.”

  Thom didn’t absolve him, but he didn’t attack either. Instead, he made a sound in the back of his throat that could have been acceptance if that’s what you were listening for, then he turned away to strip alongside the rest of his pack.

  And I stripped too. Stripped and shifted, not to wolf but to fox form.

  Fox with a magical backpack created out of my star ball. Because I wasn’t about to trespass without tools.

  In this case, I chose to bring along my cell phone plus a vial of stolen werewolf blood that would hopefully keep the Reed alpha in line if we came face to face with him. I’d used the blood once before, last fall, to force invaders out of Thom’s territory. If I had to, I’d drink another sip and force Chief Reed to let our pack go today.

  Even though my entire purpose in materializing the backpack was to protect us, Thom’s wolves still shied away from the luminous evidence of my difference. Teeth bared, they put space between themselves and the glowing star-ball magic. Their larger size was daunting in moonlight.

  But there was no time to be daunted. Not when Thom was drawing us all into the darkness of tree cover. The pack avoided me at first, then accepted matters and enfolded me. Behind us, one by one, shifters left in charge of idling vehicles winked their headlights out.

  I ONCE READ THAT WILD wolf territories contain unused spaces running the length of boundaries, the no man’s land meant to prevent bloody battles. But werewolves are half-human with the two-legger urge to mark the exact edges of their property. No wonder I smelled piss on both sides as we leapt one by one over the line that separated Thom’s land from the domain of the Reed pack.

  Now we were trespassing, silent save for frost crunching beneath our paws as we pressed deeper into Reed territory. In our planning texts, the ones where Thom had neglected to mention he was bringing along the entire pack plus a bad attitude, I’d suggested that he howl and draw the patrols away so I could sleuth solo. But he’d rejected that plan, wanting any discovery of our presence to appear organic. Now, we slowed our footfalls and spread out into a looser wedge, the better to be stumbled across.

  Then I smelled it. The first hint of fox scent suggesting Scarlet hadn’t been playing with me. Scent not just vulpine but also undeniably male.

  And now that I’d had time to digest Scarlet’s bombshell, maybe the presumed impossibility made sense after all. Yes, it was true that, unlike werewolves, kitsunes were always female while male relatives donated their latent magic to a mistress. They had no ability to form a star ball or to shift, but wouldn’t those males still smell a little foxy? Especially if they were performing a magical ritual, one that might or might not have forced me to make a fool of myself last night.

  Whatever the reason, I smelled a male fox now. I couldn’t tell if this was Kaito, but I intended to follow that scent trail and discover what lay at the end of it regardless. Veering away from Thom and his pack mates, I leapt onto a fallen tree and used it to bypass a tangle of thorns and brush.

  The fox scent beneath my feet was fresher than the wolf urine at the boundary, suggesting whoever I smelled was actively walking through the forest right at this moment. Which was a good thing. Maybe we could nab Kaito and be back at the cars before our presence was noted. Perhaps it would be simple to talk him out of whatever he was doing, simple enough that I could set Scarlet’s mind at ease without handing Kaito over to the Lawkeepers.

  A howl rose from behind me. Another, then a sharp bark of warning.

  No such luck.

  Chapter 6

  When Thom and I had planned out this maneuver, I’d asked if he was willing to draw the patrols away so I could nose out evidence. His answer, I now realized, had been evasive. “I’ll make sure you have time and space to work.” He hadn’t actually said he’d lead the wild-goose chase himself.

  So I shouldn’t have been surprised when the wedge of wolves peeled away from me...and their alpha didn’t peel along with them. Instead, Thom’s musk crept up behind me. His bulk blocked the light from the just-past-full moon.

  A shiver of something—fear? Desire?—skittered down my spine, but I shook it off and kept running. Even with the entire Gate City pack on the job of distracting Reed sentries, I couldn’t extend this trespassing session indefinitely. Not if we wanted our neighbors to think the chase had merely been a testosterone-laden lark.

  So I ran, nostrils flaring, as the scent of fox grew stronger. And there, just where Scarlet had said it would be, was the beaten down circle of leaf litter. The puddle of candle wax. The tingle of residual magic seeping up through my paw pads when I slowed to examine the space.

  Scarlet’s scent was nearly as strong here as the fox’s, hers and two of my ex-coworkers. All three had sniffed around this little clearing just like I was doing, but they hadn’t followed the fox’s path where he left the area. Why the heck not?

  Probably because wolf noses weren’t as adept at catching hints of fox on two-leggers as I was. I traced the path Kaito—if it had been Kaito—followed away from the clearing. Up, up, up, until the hill crested in front of a jumble of house-sized boulders. The moon hid behind the geological feature, shadowed rocks looming far over my head.

  The space between boulders wasn’t impenetrable, however. Cracks large enough to walk through turned the space into a maze which night made into a blind labyrinth. No wonder Thom tried to push in front of me before I could enter that pitch darkness in search of an unidentified male fox.

  Well, Thom started to push in front of me, then his shoulders stiffened. His head turned to peer back in the direction from which we’d come.

  I froze, expecting to hear or smell some sign of danger. But there was nothing close. Even the scent of fox was fading, as if the magic clinging to Kaito’s hide had seeped away the further he distanced himself from the scene of the ritual. He might have merely used this rock maze to confuse followers, although my gut said otherwise. My gut said he was inside somewhere, holed up deep within the jumble of boulders waiting for wolves to abandon the hunt.

  We needed to enter and find him, but as I tried to slip around Thom he sidestepped to stop me. I hopped right; he countered. I growled; he waited impassively for me to give up.

  So I shifted up to two legs, and as soon as I did, my skin prickled. Kaito was close, I somehow knew that. Not fleeing but lingering, intrigued by our presence. Was he close enough to hear me? Interested enough to come out of hiding if I called him by name?

  “Kaito.” As I spoke, Thom whined so softly I almost missed the sound over my own breathing. He thought this was a mistake. But what had Kaito done to make us distrust him? If anything, he should be the one distrusting us.