He had no reason to trust me, I reminded myself. I should have felt lucky that he opened the car door and let me slide in before him. Should have been glad that, once we were in motion, he paid attention to me long enough to once again demand that I: “Eat.”

  I tried, but the biscuit that had smelled so good earlier was now sawdust on my tongue. I barely managed to swallow the first morsel, then I folded the wrapper up around the rest and dropped it back into the grocery bag. “Later,” I told him, smelling the lie on my own breath.

  Jack didn’t notice. His mind was no longer in the car, I could tell. It was rushing ahead, running through potential scenarios he didn’t bother voicing.

  Likely he was also reliving the same memories I’d seen in his head yesterday. Drake learning to kill so Jack wouldn’t have to. Drake setting up evidence that made it look like Jack had died. Drake staying behind so their parents wouldn’t draw Jack into familial awfulness after he managed to escape.

  Drake asking for so few things in exchange, asking only that Jack protect his ward and his mate.

  Mate. In Jack’s memories, the word had expanded out from a single syllable into an overwhelming cornucopia of emotions. Even embodied, I couldn’t quite seem to wrap my head around everything mate meant to Jack.

  And that was irrelevant now. Jack’s thumbnail picked at an invisible stain on his suit jacket and I reached out to twine my fingers through his. I was giving warmth rather than receiving it, and that giving felt right.

  It worked too. Jack didn’t speak, but his vibrating restlessness settled a little and with it the queasiness in my stomach. Then we were pulling up in front of a house and I was meeting the people Jack cared enough about to make him lock away my sword.

  Three of them I knew already, and they all had reason to dislike me. Rosa, the house’s owner, was still recovering from a concussion I’d given her back before I realized how fragile human bodies became as they aged. Lynette, Drake’s teenaged ward, shot me a glare that came as no surprise given that, last time we met, I’d locked her in a cell and turned out the lights, knowing full well she suffered from nyctophobia. And Seth, Drake’s second-in-command, didn’t need his own personal reason to cross his arms and square his jaw at the sight of me.

  Neither did the other werewolf, Erik, who came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder beside Seth like a wall protecting the womenfolk from my depredations. I’d never met this younger werewolf, but Jack’s memories provided details. Erik and Lynette were a couple. Who she hated, he hated as well.

  Meanwhile, behind the wall of werewolves, Lynette was the one who went on the offensive. She grabbed a water gun out of Rosa’s hands and pointed it at me.

  The gesture appeared childish, but Jack reacted as if the gun was full of live ammunition, which it basically was for someone like me. “Hold your fire,” he demanded, stepping in front of me to prevent the possibility of water pushing my spirit out of its current body.

  Silence met his demand, well silence except for the receding rumble of our ride driving off. First silence, then a barrage of confused questions.

  I peeked around from behind his back, trying to understand why the group had suddenly forgotten about my presence. It appeared none of them had realized Drake shared DNA with a brother. None of them had realized their previous interactions with the werewolf in front of me had been with Jack.

  Which was odd. When Jack had tried to talk me out of jumping off that rooftop, he’d made no effort to hide his voice and the clue it represented about his identity.

  None of that should have made me feel better about the locked-away sword and Jack’s reluctance to allow me to come with him. None of that should have eased the tight knot in my stomach.

  Somehow, though, it did.

  Which isn’t to say I became part of the inner circle. Instead, I listened from the outside as bad news was reported and chewed on.

  Turned out, Drake’s body had been taken over by Ambrose. Meanwhile, Tru had been blackmailed into driving to meet that evil spirit with only a kitten for backup.

  In the end, all we had to go on was guesswork as we piled into Rosa’s van and headed down the highway on the trail of Tru’s not-entirely-dead husband. “You’re certain Ambrose possessed Drake?” Jack asked from the seat beside me an hour later.

  “That’s the point of the water guns,” Rosa confirmed. “We find him. We spray him. We get Drake back.”

  At this point, we’d already stopped so many times that my head felt woozy. Or maybe the wooziness stemmed from an empty stomach I couldn’t quite talk myself into filling despite the bags of convenience-store goodies resting at my feet.

  To be fair, it also didn’t help that when Lynette had demanded we pull over so she could indulge in an emotional meltdown fifteen minutes earlier, I’d put my foot quite solidly into my mouth.

  Not literally. I couldn’t seem to put anything in my mouth at the moment. But the teenager had been angsting about a promise Tru had made which kept Lynette away from the woman she considered a mother figure. I’d suggested the teenager break that oath so we could get moving again. After all, the jittery vibrations had started reappearing in Jack’s muscles the moment the van’s engine quieted. For his sake, we couldn’t lollygag.

  Only, Jack’s body had tensed further when I made my suggestion. Erik and Seth and Rosa all scowled at me as if I’d kicked a puppy. Didn’t they realize that slicing through obstacles, ignoring any pain that arose in the process, was the only way to make it through to the other side?

  I should have been vindicated when Lynette’s subsequent oathbreaking allowed her to go where she wanted to go—along with us. Still, as we’d filed back into the van, everyone including Jack had averted their eyes from me. Meanwhile, Lynette’s mouth had quivered and I had the strangest urge to enfold her in a hug.

  Not that she’d want my hug. Not that I was a hugger.

  I shook my head now and tried again to talk myself into opening the closest grocery bag. Survival was my top priority—always had been, always would be. And I was starting to be able to see light through my hands even though they rested in my lap and far from the window. It was a hint that a little more time without eating and I’d poof straight back to the spirit realm.

  Despite all that, I couldn’t seem to swallow and I wasn’t so sure my fingers were solid enough to lift food to my lips any longer. So I just sat there, letting everyone else try to come up with an idea for how to deal with Ambrose after Rosa’s water guns knocked him out of Drake’s body.

  They weren’t getting anywhere, unsurprising since they were on the wrong track. Jack seemed to think Ambrose had taken over the bodies of three alpha-leaning werewolves in quick succession because he wanted power. “That’s not what he wants,” I interjected before I remembered I was trying to be neither seen nor heard.

  “No?” Jack didn’t look at me, but at least he’d acknowledged I existed for the first time since I’d broken Lynette’s spirit by doling out necessary advice.

  “He wants a body enough like him so he can inhabit it long term,” I elaborated, wishing I knew more specifics. But every kind of spirit operated according to its own set of rules and I didn’t know anything about Ambrose beyond the obvious. “Spirits can’t do much if we don’t have a physical presence. Stands to reason that’s what Ambrose cares the most about.”

  Once again, I’d said the wrong thing. I knew that the moment Jack’s eyes met mine, a question lurking behind the gray instead of his customary sparkle. Was that what I cared about most? Finding a body? Keeping a body? Only that?

  My stomach chose that moment to rumble audibly. And Jack closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and demanded for the third time, “Eat.”

  “You have enough to share with Lynette?” This was Seth, whose protective streak toward the teenager seemed as strong as everyone else’s.

  That was an easy question to answer. “Sure, there’s plenty for everybody.”

  My translucent hands managed to pick up the grocery bags and pass them over after all. And when Lynette tried to dismiss the offerings, I dug deep and recited a litany of advertising slogans to go with each item. The crisp snap of peanuts. A hint of fruit flavor in calorie-free water. I kept my voice upbeat and tantalizing until Lynette grumbled “Okay, okay” and shut me up by pulling something out.

  A wrapper crinkled, proof she’d torn through to the sustenance inside. Then the bag came back in our direction and Jack snagged a bottle of sweet tea, twisting off the lid and pressing the bottle into my hand. “Drink this. Now.”

  His final word forced my muscles to act without permission. They raised the bottle to my lips and poured liquid down my throat so fast I almost choked.

  I almost choked because I couldn’t remember how to swallow. Not at first. But then the soothing coolness of liquid penetrated my sandpapery throat lining and my body responded with gratitude. It drank and drank and drank until the bottle emptied. And when Jack handed over a soft oatmeal cookie, I managed to force the entire thing down.

  The calories helped us all a little. I felt solider and Lynette’s cheeks went from pale to rosy. Even Jack, who hadn’t eaten anything, managed to crack a joke, the first one I’d heard all day.

  “Anybody got a red pen and a notepad?”

  “Red pen and notepad?” Lynette parroted, falling for the setup.

  Jack’s reply somehow managed to sound silly instead of ominous. “Mandatory accessories if we intend to draw blood.”

  The teenager laughed, which I’m sure had been Jack’s intention. His dimple, though, remained resolutely hidden. He wasn’t alright.

  Still, by the time we parked and traced the unseasonably cold air into a coffee shop, we were a team united with a single purpose—to help Tru and Drake overcome Ambrose. Too bad Tru wasn’t where we’d expected her to be when we showed up.

  Chapter 10

  Tru wasn’t there, but Ambrose was. And he recognized me despite my new features, the same way I instantly recognized his darkness beneath Drake’s skin.

  “You again,” he rasped, the words like rot seeping up from the grave I’d robbed weeks ago. His smile was twisted, predatory, and he eyed me as if already imagining how he might cause new pain.

  “Just like old times,” I acknowledged, trying not to let our past turn alertness into terror, trying to keep his attention riveted on me so Rosa could get a clear shot.

  Because, of all of us, we’d decided Rosa looked the least dangerous. So she’d been designated the official carrier of the water guns. In order to use them to push Ambrose out of Drake’s body, however, she needed direct access to the entirety of our enemy. And that was tricky given the way half of his stolen body was shielded by a table he lounged indolently behind.

  As Rosa worked her way along the wall, I ignored the tremor of remembered torture and did my best to keep Ambrose talking. “I see my superior pain tolerance granted you quite a bit of longevity. Looks like you owe me.”

  “And here you are, nearly human. Looks like you owe me more.”

  My heart raced, but the reaction wasn’t entirely from fear now. Rosa was making good headway and Ambrose’s smirk was focused entirely on me. This was going to work. We’d cast Ambrose out of Drake’s body, figure out where Tru had disappeared to, then…

  Well, I wasn’t so sure what would happen next. Ambrose could always possess someone else. We hadn’t come up with a solution to that roadblock despite all of our brainstorming.

  Still, we were here. We had a common purpose. We’d find a way to make it work.

  Then Rosa’s foot came down harder than it should have. Ambrose’s eyes narrowed and he started turning in her direction…

  ...At which point it became crystal clear that my efforts at distraction needed to be taken up a notch.

  I had no weapon, but I was a weapon. Never mind how the memories of Ambrose’s torture when I inhabited Tru’s body a century ago now tried to turn my muscles to water. Firming them back up with a growl that sounded almost like Jack’s, I launched myself toward the table and the man behind it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack lunging after me. Our combined will thrummed like sugar through my veins. Together, we could do this. Together…

  Then we both froze as Ambrose flicked aside a napkin and picked up what it had been covering. A shiny, terrifying handgun.

  “You think I’d let the lot of you traipse through that door if I was unarmed?” He spoke as if to all of us, but his eyes bored into mine while his mouth twitched up into a grin that looked just like Jack’s minus the dimple. “It will be a pleasure making you bleed again.”

  Again. The past tried to sneak up on me. The agony that had been my introduction to wearing a human body tried to pull me back under now.

  I shivered then focused. I needed to keep Ambrose’s attention on me instead of on Rosa and her water gun. To prompt him to ignore Lynette, who now appeared to be kneeling beside a swirling whirlpool of light coating the floorboards in one corner. The teenager reached down and...was her hand going through solid wood? When I passed from the spirit realm into this one, there were never dramatic light effects like what currently surrounded the teenager. But something in my gut said a similar type of transition was currently in play.

  Which meant we were making progress. Which meant I needed to keep doing my job.

  Luckily, it was easy to turn a shiver into a full-body shudder as I recalled my first meeting with the evil before me. And the sign of weakness made Ambrose lick his lips then grin as I reminded us both of our shared past.

  “You jumped through an awful lot of hoops to make sure Tru couldn’t fight back while you were harvesting her blood back then. So I guess I should have expected you’d have something to hide behind now.”

  “Like Jack is hiding behind you?” The gun tilted upward. Over my head, but likely in line with Jack’s.

  My pesky body took that opportunity to malfunction. Its heartbeat skittered so fast I could barely think straight. All I knew was that I had to bring that gun’s trajectory down.

  Because my body was disposable. Jack’s was not.

  “You know what they say,” I answered, forcing my voice to stay light. “Behind every successful woman is a strong man. Who do you think...?”

  I’d forgotten Rosa, but she hadn’t forgotten the task we’d chosen for her. A massive gush of water interrupted me, drenching Ambrose. And at the exact same moment, Lynette dragged Tru up out of the swirling pool of light.

  After that, everything happened so fast I only caught fragments. The water forced Ambrose out of Drake’s body, but he slammed back into it so fast the exorcism might as well never have happened. Then Ambrose lunged across the room and took a hostage, his long fingers squeezing Lynette’s slender throat so hard tendons rose on his arms.

  The teenager couldn’t speak, but I could see every thought fluttering across her face. She was terrified. And furious. And, if her flaring nostrils were anything to go by, fighting back vomit due to Ambrose’s awful smell.

  Around me, everyone’s focus became laser-targeted on saving our youngest member. And...I almost understood that. Like the moment in the parking lot when I’d ached to give Lynette a hug, I wanted to make things better for her now.

  Lynette had joined us willingly, though. Had begged not to be left behind, actually. She’d wanted to be treated like an adult, then she’d been too slow to get out of Ambrose’s way and become a liability. We shouldn’t be falling all over ourselves and derailing our plan, such as it was, for Lynette’s sake.

  While I tried to work my head around the dueling emotions inside me, Ambrose demanded a body, a permanent one this time. Jack tried to talk him down. Tru offered her second life of three, a single dark hair within a streak of white the avenue of transfer. She reminded Ambrose that they were mated due to their marriage a century ago. That she’d be part of the deal if he accepted the hair and the full, bodied life it represented. If he stopped trying to possess unwilling bodies, she was willing to once again become his spouse.

  “Bound to you until death and past it. It’s exactly what you wanted. All I ask is that you let everyone else here walk away.”

  I wasn’t sure what I thought about Lynette’s self-inflicted danger, but if Tru got her way it would break the man I’d spent the morning handcuffed beside. Jack would never forgive himself for failing to protect the mate of the brother who had given him everything. Jack’s dimple would never reappear.

  I couldn’t let that happen. I’d tried so hard to win the permanently bodied life Ambrose was being offered, but that wasn’t why I acted. I acted for the sake of the dimple.

  For the dimple, I spun into the space between Drake and Tru. Grabbed the offered hair before Ambrose could take it. Grabbed it...and became.

  My body changed and that was all I noticed for several long moments as muscles and bone solidified in a way I’d never before experienced. It was as if the difference between disembodied kami and the form I’d inhabited a moment earlier was but a single step in a five-story staircase. And now, taking Tru’s hair, I’d been spirited to the tippy-top.

  Spirited. I laughed, despite myself. Laughed as pure joy suffused me. Breath billowed my lungs, the expansion affecting my entire torso. I widened my eyes and felt every tiny muscle stretching. This was more than safety from fading into nothingness. This, this was profound.

  Then I paused as I caught my reflection in the barrel of Ambrose’s handgun, left behind on the table and forgotten in the ensuing drama. I looked like Tru now, only without the white in my hair. I looked like her...and I finally understood why she’d been drawn back to a scary alpha werewolf over and over even after I stole her memories away.

  Because there was another face behind mine reflected in the metal. Jack was my mate and that meant so much more than I’d understood previously. Just thinking his name filled my mouth with honey. Pure pleasure spun through me…