“Yes,” Ari said now, risking a fleeting glance at my face.

  “You sure?” I asked again.

  He was the one who reached down the pack bond toward me. He was the one who opened the tentative thread of connection between us into a fire hose of information.

  Through his eyes, I saw myself: broad-shouldered, head haloed by the sun in a way that made me look like something between a saint and a pinup poster. I smelled like cactus flowers, sweet and seductive. I’d taste like molasses and ginger when he kissed me…

  “Sorry!” This time, Ari’s rounded shoulders suggested he wasn’t just submitting. He expected to be struck.

  “Orion,” Maya started.

  “Just a minute,” I told her.

  Then I opened up my end of the connection in a way our old alpha never would have. I let the teenager see that my attraction tended to run toward females and definitely didn’t veer away from my own age bracket. Still, I was flattered by his assessment of me. More than that, as a pack mate, I valued him deeply. I trusted him to keep me informed by allowing me to see through his eyes and hear through his ears. I was deeply proud of him for opening up for the sake of pack and sibling harmony.

  And, yeah, his cookies were the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. Surely that was better than a kiss?

  “Take them.” The boy’s voice came out deeper than I’d ever heard it. When Ari grew past the puppy-love stage, I suspected he was going to make an amazing mate for somebody.

  An amazing baking mate. For now, he made an amazing baking pack mate.

  “Thanks.” I bit the head off a howling wolf then twitched the basket away from my sister before she could steal a crescent moon. “My birthday. My cookies.”

  “You’ve created a monster,” Maya griped to the baker of the cookies.

  Ari grinned as we left him behind in charge of the pack.

  Last year, Maya, Donovan, and I had run through the desert as wolves on the day before the Solstice. Birthdays, like bedrooms, were denied to me and my sister by the old alpha. But only an asshole would prevent his pack mates from frolicking in fur form whenever and wherever they wished.

  That was me. I was the asshole who currently required wolves to seek permission before donning their fur and exploring the vast desert around us. There was even less extracurricular frolicking under my command than there had been a year ago.

  Not that Donovan could frolic any longer.

  “You’re thinking again,” my best friend complained from the driver’s seat of the van he’d retrofitted to operate with levers at hand level instead of pedals at foot level.

  Maya didn’t bother opening her eyes as she reclined on the bench seat behind us. A plush blanket emblazoned with what was supposed to be reindeer but was actually white-tailed deer formed a cocoon around her. “Orion never stops thinking,” she observed. “It’s exhausting.”

  “For you or for me?” I countered.

  “For me, most definitely.”

  From the driver’s seat, Donovan’s rumble of laughter felt so familiar I forgot for a moment that we were driving aimlessly rather than padding across the desert sand together. “Almost there,” he warned his mate. “If you’re going to steal his cookies, you’d better act fast.”

  How had my sister’s hand gotten so close to my basket of deliciousness when, last time I’d checked the rear-view mirror, she’d been lounging entirely flat on the seat?

  “One cookie,” I told her. “Not one handful.”

  Then I lost track of banter because the van rounded a bend and brought into view the most unusual sight. Was that construction equipment out in the middle of the desert? The pine garlands wrapped every which way around the vehicles definitely presented a safety hazard.

  “Stop thinking,” Donovan said, putting the van into park, “and decide whether you want to drive the bobcat or the front-end loader.”

  When I blinked confusion, Maya put me out of my misery. “You won’t claim a room back in pack central. Okay, I accept that. But you need a place to go when the bees in your head are buzzing. So we’re making you a hermit cave close enough for us to contact you and far enough away so you can retreat here for a little peace and quiet when you really need it. It’s Bureau of Land Management property and outpack territory. Nobody’ll know as long as we build fast and make the final product blend into the sand.”

  I was already shaking my head. “No. I can’t sneak away into the desert and leave our clan unmonitored.”

  “Not unmonitored,” Maya corrected, pressing herself up between the front seats so she could face me. “I’m your second. Let me do my job. Or do you really think you’re so indispensable we can’t go a few hours without you wiping our noses?”

  We’d both forgotten the cookies. We’d lost track of good-hearted sibling banter. Instead, this was the real deal, the argument that had been brewing beneath the surface for weeks now because we couldn’t afford to show dissent in front of the pack.

  Inside me, my wolf snarled. Behind Maya’s eyes, I could see her animal side bristling. If the two of us fought, who would end up as alpha? What would happen to our clan if they lost the strength of our united front?

  Donovan was the one who stepped in the middle. Well not stepped exactly. But he interjected before things could get any further out of hand.

  “The kids need a bolthole.”

  “What?” From the way Maya swiveled to face him, the pair hadn’t talked about this even though they were mates and shared nearly everything.

  “Backup plan to the backup plan,” Donovan said, speaking to both of us. “Enemies could find the canyon. They won’t find an underground bunker in outpack territory that no one except the three of us has ever seen.”

  “And Orion can keep it stocked and aired out.” Maya’s grin was the same expression she’d used moments ago when sneaking three cookies instead of the one I’d offered. She thought she’d won this battle.

  But the pack’s kids were really the ones winning. So I accepted the inevitable and exerted my birthday privilege to take charge of the front-end loader.

  Chapter 4

  Donovan and I played on the heavy machinery until stars came out and Ari’s wide-open pack bond suggested that our Solstice-eve dinner was nearly ready. Maya snatched cookies and gave orders, her forgiveness of my recalcitrance as quick as my forgiveness of her heavy-handed manipulations.

  There were no bees in my head as we rode back to the canyon, Maya chattering about the prefab underground enclosure we could drop into the ground to make an instant room while Donovan sang along to Christmas music on the radio, changing the wording from “Oh come, all ye faithful” to “Oh come, all ye night beasts.” His baritone was absurdly beautiful and I couldn’t resist joining in on “Sing, choirs of werewolves” as we pulled up under the canyon overhang that kept the van out of sight when not in use.

  The radio went silent as Donovan switched off the engine, at which point ear-piercing shrieks filtered into the vehicle. Shit. Over the last half hour, I’d forgotten to check in with Ari…

  I checked now. The teenager was running. Toward the screams or away from them? His thoughts were too jumbled for me to be sure of that or of what, exactly, was going on.

  “You good?” I asked Donovan, knowing my friend could get into his wheelchair and from there to the elevator without help but unwilling to leave him with only Maya for assistance. My sister couldn’t lift him if he needed lifting.

  “Of course I’m good.” Only the twitch of Donovan’s cheek proved he resented the fact I’d asked.

  His mate hadn’t doubted him. She was already back out in the canyon, using lupine ears to pinpoint the source of the screams. Without further delay, I followed her lead.

  It was pitch black in the canyon. And even though my feet knew every obstacle, tonight felt different. The air tingled against my skin.

  I sped up as I passed through the dogleg that bent the canyon entrance off to the west. Past the curve, there were lights on the rock wall above us. Bad news. Very bad news.

  Because I’d outlawed exterior lights, not that the very minor possibility of an enemy picking up on our presence was my primary worry at the moment. Instead, I sped up as I caught sight of a crowd of werewolves pushing someone toward the edge of a terrace like the one I’d come out of this morning. A staircase led down, but no one was near it. Instead, it looked like Becca—yes, that was Becca—was about to be tossed over the edge.

  A thirty-foot drop lay between the terrace and the jumble of boulders on the canyon floor. And while a werewolf might have survived that fall, a human had little chance. At best, Becca would end up paralyzed, like Donovan.

  I didn’t hesitate. “Freeze,” I roared, the alpha command slapping everyone within earshot the same way our old alpha used to smack me just to prove I wouldn’t fight back.

  Well, my order slapped everyone except the human, who was immune to alpha commands. For a split second, Becca teetered there on the edge. Then she found her footing and raised her arms up into the air so I could see the tattoos darkening her skin, tattoos that hadn’t been present this morning.

  “I seem to have stepped in the werewolf equivalent of dog-doo,” she said, tone self-deprecating. “I tried telling them it’s only henna. Temporary. I’ll scrub mine off if you want, but the kids’ skin is too sensitive.”

  She’d painted tattoos not just on herself but on our kids also? No wonder everyone was furious. No wonder the wind from the desert carried the tang of old magic, woken by the unwitting and ready to twist into who knew what.

  Because the desert could build bridges the way it had between me and Prince. But stories promised it could also be capricious, even malicious. You didn’t mess with old magic.

  Instead, you kept it happy. Didn’t stir up trouble with tattoos. Offered a sacrifice if an unwitting outsider caused trouble.

  The old alpha wouldn’t have thought twice about what needed to come next. Becca wasn’t one of us.

  “Come down here,” I told her, “and bring the henna.”

  Then I released the alpha command that had frozen my pack mates, at the same time tugging on threads of clan mates who weren’t already present. We’d gather and deal with this together, as a pack.

  The only place large enough to hold all of us was the canyon floor. It was where we’d intended to enjoy our Solstice-eve feast, an affair scheduled to be much quieter than usual since I didn’t want to risk our usual bonfire and I wasn’t willing to separate the strong from the weak while hunting meat to roast the way we usually did. Instead, we’d bought turkeys and hams at the grocery store like ordinary humans, had cooked everything in electric ovens rather than roasting our bounty over open flames. And we’d planned to amuse the children with almost-human party games like pin-the-tail-on-the-real-live-wolf and moonlit-hide-and-seek instead of initiating those on the cusp of wolfhood into the pack with exuberant howls.

  It would have been festive enough, but our actual gathering was far more somber. Somber and also fraught.

  Ari arrived one second before Becca’s pack mates, who I could hear pounding up the canyon behind him. “I’m sorry, alpha,” he panted out, words tumbling over each other. “Becca was with the children. I thought she’d be fine. I didn’t know...”

  “You can’t be everywhere,” I soothed the teenager as I stuck out one arm to clothesline Oliver. The dominant had intended to lunge past me and protect his human leader, but he instead swung back around to face the direction he’d come from as I grabbed hold of his neck. “She’s fine and you’re not helping,” I told our guest.

  He growled. I growled. Isabella squeaked and her father enclosed the little girl in his arms so she wouldn’t be privy to a scene that he clearly thought was going to erupt into bloodshed. Wasn’t this a delightful holiday gathering?

  “Henna,” I demanded, holding out my free hand toward Becca.

  She obediently passed over the applicator and I stroked a bold line down the back of my left arm, the same arm still restraining Oliver. Sand swirled around my feet and someone gasped in the jostling closeness of my own pack.

  “Alpha...” Maya murmured.

  Great. If even my big sister had used my title instead of my name, I was screwing up.

  Might as well screw up big then.

  “Isabella,” I called to the little girl who was already peeking out at me over her father’s forearm. “Your turn.”

  She came forward fearlessly and I knelt down so she could reach me, releasing Oliver in the process but still watching him out of the corner of my eye. The dominant was a danger, but a bigger danger was the way the desert air pressed up against Isabella, wafting her wispy hair up into a halo.

  Whatever lived in the outpack, Becca’s tattoos had fixated its interest upon our children. None of them could handle that interest. We needed to transfer the magic to me instead.

  Isabella understood none of that. She took the applicator in tiny fingers, fingers that were stained with ornamental patterns. And I held my breath, hoping…

  She tapped one dot onto my skin. Then another. Six lines. Two triangles. A loopy W of a mouth.

  “What’s that?” I asked, diverted despite myself.

  “Kitty,” she answered. “It’s what I want for Solstice.”

  Werewolf pups didn’t believe in Santa Claus. They believed their alpha snuck into their homes in the middle of the night and brought them presents. Until this year, their belief had been just as much a myth as the fat, bearded guy squeezing down humans’ chimneys.

  But a child’s Solstice wish represented powerful magic. I could feel Isabella transferring the desert’s magic over to me as she peered up through little-girl eyelashes, wishing as hard as she could for a pet to stroke and tease.

  Looked like I’d be driving to town tonight. Were there any rescues open after midnight? Maybe I could buy cans of tuna and go out looking for strays?

  And as I accepted the task, Isabella’s hair settled down to lie flat against her shoulders. One child was safe, apparently, although what I’d do with the magic I’d harvested off her was still very uncertain.

  I didn’t peer that far into the future. Instead, I turned my attention to another youngster. “Ricky, you’re next.”

  Chapter 5

  The desert’s interest sat upon me like static electricity. It raised the hairs on my arms, or at least the ones not matted down by henna. I hadn’t fully believed the old stories before this, but I could now feel the prickling of external awareness. The promise that tonight wouldn’t be the end of this. That there would be repercussions—good or bad, I wasn’t sure which.

  There was no time to dwell on the unknowable, however. I was the alpha of a pack in transition, one struggling to celebrate without howling, without fire, without wide open horizons calling to our lupine feet.

  So when the last hennaed child plus Becca had painted their Solstice wishes onto my arms, I drew upon the only celebration I could think of that didn’t involve loud noises or bright lights or other hazards. I lifted a child onto each of my shoulders and led the pack in a silent, wild dance.

  At first, we moved at odds with each other. But then feet pounding against sand made our hearts beat in synchrony. Donovan’s chair became the center of us. Then Ari’s red cheeks, his embarrassment at being the focus of so many eyes overruled only by his pleasure at being part of the whole. James busted out some kind of fancy footwork that drew Becca toward him without the need for trickery. Then her humanness was on full display and my pack mates celebrated instead of glaring at the outsiders in their midst.

  And as we danced, pack connections drew tight like the skin beneath drying henna. Barriers between myself and my clan mates fell as we laughed and twirled and covered mouths that wanted to yip out pure pleasure.

  All along, electricity crackled through me. The desert was celebrating also. The desert was part of us, was part of me, was part of our pack…

  Later, we feasted on treats that, if I was entirely honest, tasted better than the stringy meat we sometimes ended up with after Solstice-eve hunts. Laughter bubbled between us, more powerful for being hushed and secret. Children played until they collapsed into a heap on blankets, then they were carried upstairs.

  Which is when the mood turned dark.

  Abruptly, everyone not in tucking-kids-into-bed mode huddled around me, blocking out the moonlight. There was an intensity about them that suggested they’d gone along earlier to keep our youngest members happy. Now, though, it was just adults and teenagers present. Worse, Becca and her pack mates were shoulder to shoulder with each other again, separate and prepared for attack.

  “Problem?” I asked James, who appeared to be my clan’s designated spokesperson.

  “Huge problem,” he growled. “A kitten? A dirt bike? You realize that fancy doll house you promised sold out before Thanksgiving?”

  “They’ll be up at first light,” another parent griped. “Dawn means nautical twilight to eight-year-olds. That leaves us less than six hours.”

  “You should see the look on your face,” Maya whispered in my ear, not really quietly enough to keep anyone from hearing. “Did you think this was a mutiny?”

  “I think I had a plan to make all the gifts materialize,” I retorted. I hadn’t. I’d lost track of everything other than the pleasure of evading the oldest children and letting the youngest ones catch me when it was my turn to be the wolf-in-need-of-a-second-tail.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Maya said, her authority as my second rolling out to fill the canyon. “Bring any loot you already have down here so my thoughtless brother can deliver presents. The kids need to smell him beside their beds tomorrow morning. It’s Solstice magic, a pack leader who can be in everyone’s houses over the course of a single night. The rest of us will make a list of the gifts we’re lacking. Divide and conquer.”

  “And us?” Oliver growled.

  “What, you don’t know how to shop?” Maya’s glare worked despite their lack of blood or pack bonds. “If money’s an issue, we’ll disburse credit cards. You have your own transportation. Any other complaints?”