“There’s a spare key to my apartment on top of the door lintel,” Jack murmured. “I’ll be lupine in the truck, then I’ll shift back inside the apartment. Take my pelt and handcuff me to the bed. That will give us some breathing space to figure things out.”

  The deep growl emerging from Jack’s chest suggested Ambrose wasn’t pleased by the plan. But my hand was steady on the gun now. So evil didn’t try to seize control of Jack’s body even after touched-together wires sparked the engine to life, even after I returned the pelt to both of them and watched the wolf they became hop up onto the bench seat inches from the steering wheel.

  It was a long, harrowing drive back to Lexington. Watching traffic. Watching the gas gauge dwindle down toward empty. Watching the wolf I both feared and feared for out of the corner of my eye. Hoping Ambrose wouldn’t take advantage of the fact my attention was divided in order to attack.

  He didn’t. And the homemade choke collar made me feel slightly more secure after I ditched the truck three blocks over from Jack’s apartment and prodded the wolf with a gun hidden in my pants pocket to continue on foot toward our destination.

  There, I stood on tiptoe, one hand stuffed in my pocket where it clutched both the leash and my weapon while the other hand fumbled for a key that didn’t seem to be present. Which was when the door I was leaning against opened away from me.

  I fell into Jack’s apartment, the rope yanking my hand out of my pocket then slipping through frantic fingers even as Ambrose in wolf form slammed himself into my back.

  Chapter 13

  I still had the gun, though. If I could reach it. Too bad an out-of-control slide was carrying me into the apartment and across its small patch of floor.

  I thrust my hand into my pocket only to yelp as folds of fabric snagged a fingernail. Really? Even hard layers of keratin were a weakness? Humanity was such a bitch.

  Ignoring the pain, I forced tensed muscles back into action. I’d been sliding on my stomach, but now I flopped over from face down to face up. All I needed was a little more wiggle room to reach my only weapon...

  What I found instead was Ambrose’s snarling face inches above mine. Confusingly, on the other side of the room, the door slammed.

  Which made no sense. My enemy—Ambrose—loped along beside me as easily as if I was a baby bird with a broken wing and he was a cat drawing out the inevitable neck snapping. He’d managed to wriggle out of the rope that had formerly hugged his neck, so without the gun I still couldn’t quite seem to get my fingers around, I now had no way to fend him off.

  Worse than the evidence of the wolf’s upper hand, though, was his breath, which no longer smelled even faintly of lemon sugar. Instead, saliva dripping onto my cheek stank of rot.

  Jack was nowhere. My gorge rose.

  Then something sharp and shiny sliced through the air inches from me. A sword. My sword? Whatever it was, it appeared to be aiming for my solar plexus.

  I tried to arch my body away from the weapon even while taking in who wielded it. A slender woman perhaps a decade older than my apparent age who moved with the swift grace of a skilled fighter. Her eyes were intense—amber and almost glowing. I would have remembered if I’d ever met her before.

  But there wasn’t time to wonder why a stranger was in Jack’s apartment and why she was attacking me. Because Ambrose had joined her in my space now, claws grazing my forearm as I attempted and failed to get away from both of them. I couldn’t evade and this time the woman’s sword cut.

  Not skin though. Instead, the drawstring that held these way-too-large pants up around my hips parted with a snap. And as I slid the last two feet to slam my head into the angled wood of Jack’s bed leg, I left my pants behind.

  My pants...and Ambrose’s gun.

  Blinking back tears of pain, I tried to get my body back into action. It refused. And moving wouldn’t do me any good anyway since I was now thoroughly unarmed and completely outmatched.

  On the plus side, no one was actively attacking me, not at the moment anyway. Ambrose seemed content to loom and drool while the woman prodded at my pants with the tip of her sword, her arm moving with the grace of a shifter.

  “Huh,” she said after one long moment.

  “Don’t like my fashion statement?” I asked, trying to figure out who this was and why she’d been inside Jack’s apartment before we got there. Could it have anything to do with the other woman Jack had saved what felt like an eon ago and was actually only last night?

  Then the swordwoman’s gaze rose to meet mine and I flinched despite myself.

  Because those amber eyes, while unfamiliar, did remind me of someone’s. They were like the flaming version of the coals I sometimes saw hidden behind Jack’s gray irises. Alike yet entirely different.

  And the item she’d been considering now rose on her sword tip, the promise of pain clenching my belly into a hard knot. She’d found my pelt. No longer hidden, and apparently understood by this woman better than it was by me.

  “She’s a woelfin,” the woman said, not to me but to Ambrose. “What’s the deal, Jack?”

  “She’s my mate,” Ambrose replied as he became human, hand lashing out to grab onto his own pelt as it sloughed off him. He shot me the tiniest smirk, proof that he was well aware I’d hoped to nab his sole weakness now that the gun was out of my control. “But spirit possession is involved,” he continued. “Bad business.”

  His words smelled of truth. Of course they did. I was Ambrose’s mate and there was spirit possession involved...just not in the way he was insinuating.

  No wonder the woman’s eyebrows shot up away from those strange amber irises. “Yikes. I’m guessing you’d feel more comfortable hanging onto this then?”

  My pelt flicked off the tip of her sword and flew through the air like the promise of freedom. I knew I couldn’t reach it before Ambrose, though. He was on his feet and I was on the ground and basic physics suggested I was out of luck.

  So I ignored the knowledge that evil’s fingers would shortly sink into fur that acted as an extension of my nerve endings. And I inched sideways toward the poster tube that still leaned up against the side of the wall.

  Because, now that the woman’s blade wasn’t streaking through the air toward my belly button, I knew the sword she held wasn’t the one I was tied to. Which meant, there was yet another weapon in the room, one Ambrose might not have dug deep enough into Jack’s memories to be aware of. One that was as much a part of me as this human body with all its foibles. One that just might be my path to escape.

  And Ambrose seemed too intent upon the way my breath caught as his hand closed over my pelt to notice what I was aiming for. “Thank you, Honor,” he murmured, voice low and growly. “You’re right. What’s hers is mine.”

  It shouldn’t have, but the mere sound of my mate’s voice doubled the sensation of the stroking that followed. Goosebumps rose on my forearms as immaterial touch worked its way down from elbow to wrist before pressing into the hollow beneath my thumb pad.

  This was worse than my fingernail bending backwards. This was worse because it was glorious.

  But the room wasn’t much bigger than a shoebox. Even with Ambrose toying with me and my brain throbbing, residual scuttling landed me up against the wall I’d originally been aiming for in short order. And when I nudged the poster tube, it was as heavy as when I’d held onto it last.

  The tightness in my chest eased a little as I paused to settle myself and consider my options. I’d have to leave Jack at Ambrose’s mercy if I took this route. That part tasted worse than the drying saliva on my cheek smelled. There was no way around it, though. Not with Honor here also, her easy belief in Ambrose’s misdirection suggesting she and Jack shared a past full of trust and joint experiences.

  So I’d use the sword to threaten Ambrose. Would snag my pelt, make it out the door, then regroup.

  I’d have to be fast though—I knew that. Honor hadn’t picked up the gun but she was a pro with her blade.

  Luckily, I was my blade. And I was quite capable of speed.

  The plan clear in my mind, I pried the plastic end out of the poster tube slowly, slowly. I lifted the tube and…

  Eye-popping agony spun through me, emerging from my mouth as a scream. It felt like the membrane between realms was being twisted, squeezing me, suffocating me. Like every single cell in my body was being rearranged in entirely the wrong order.

  No wonder my nerveless fingers stopped working on the poster tube. I couldn’t even turn my head.

  Out of the corner of one eye, though, I caught movement. Ambrose was wringing out my pelt as if it was a wet t-shirt.

  “Eh, eh, eh,” he chided me. “Bad girl. Drop the sword.”

  Chapter 14

  I tried not to. I tried so hard to cling to this final fragment of an escape route.

  But the alpha command did the job agony had started. The poster tube clattered sideways and Honor was there to scoop it up.

  Now Ambrose loomed over me, his bulk twice mine and his muscles rope-like. But he didn’t need physical force when words would do the same job with less effort. “Walk to the bed,” he demanded. “Lie down and shut up.”

  The handcuffs my left wrist still remembered dangled from his long fingers. And he wasn’t nearly as gentle as Jack had been when he used those cuffs to secure me not to himself this time but to the slats of the headboard.

  “Jack.” This was Honor, her voice suggesting she’d padded closer although all I could see was the bed, the wall, and Ambrose’s broad body. “You’re not acting like yourself.”

  For a split second, I thought she’d guessed what she was dealing with. That she would help me wriggle free then together we’d find a way to de-fang Ambrose…

  But when my captor turned away from me, he sounded so much like Jack I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference without the taste of rot on my tongue. “I know. I should have asked you before this. Your niece. Your text yesterday was vague but concerning. Tell me. What’s wrong?”

  And Honor swallowed his change of subject, hook, line, and sinker. She forgot about me, still shuddering from the recent pelt-wringing, while she told Ambrose all about her eleven-year-old niece Meridian running afoul of an internet predator.

  Well, not quite running afoul. “Merry didn’t meet up with them in person, of course. She told her parents and they told me. But whoever it was knew about her pelt. They wanted it.”

  “Smart kid.” Ambrose sounded so supportive. So attentive and caring as he peered at a picture on Honor’s phone, angling the screen in such a way so I could also see the girl with mischief in her eyes. His thumb stroked the glass as if he cared as much about Merry as Jack likely did. Only I could taste his greedy interest down the mate bond as he added, “Why do they want the pelt?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out,” Honor answered while the mate bond continued to clue me in about Ambrose’s thoughts. He wanted to go after this child. He wanted to know if he could use her pelt for his own gain. He found the concept that someone was stealing pelts intriguing.

  Jack would have been horrified...but Jack wasn’t here. Which meant I needed to fix this myself.

  The obvious route to saving the child was to clue Honor in about Ambrose’s intentions. But she believed the man before her was Jack and that I was an evil spirit inhabiting Jack’s mate’s body. She was unlikely to listen.

  Plus, Ambrose’s alpha command to shut up still wrapped itself around my tongue.

  So, instead of trying to reason with Honor, I clenched my muscles and stretched the handcuffs as hard as I could stretch them. If I freed myself, I could find a way to deal with Ambrose. Surely if I pulled hard enough, the wooden slats on the other end of my handcuffs would break…

  If I pulled hard enough, I would bruise my wrist bone and make absolutely no impact on the bed. I blinked back yet more tears of pain—my body was curiously wimpy—while Honor continued cluing in an evil force who wanted no good for her or her family.

  Her friends, she told him, had used tech wizardry to track down the internet predator’s screen name. She’d acted like a buyer and the predator had indeed offered something vague for sale.

  A pelt? A woelfin? Another preteen girl?

  Whatever this predator was selling, Honor intended to find out about it. Tomorrow. At a physical meeting she’d set up and hoped to bring Jack along to.

  “You pass better than I do,” she continued, tapping a finger beside one of those startling eyes of hers. “I can wear contacts, but my face isn’t exactly a secret.”

  “Of course,” Ambrose answered, warmth in his tone and putrification on my tongue. “You know I’d do anything for Meridian.”

  “For all woelfin,” Honor corrected. “If this is like what happened with Bastion...”

  Silence extended out, both me and Ambrose awaiting further information. But clearly Jack should have already known what Honor was referring to, so she felt no need to elaborate.

  Finally, Ambrose nodded. “I’m glad you came to me.”

  Every word he spoke smelled like truth. And down the mate bond came rot, rot, rot.

  For longer than I should have, I yelled Jack’s name down that same mate bond and hoped he’d find a way to rejoin us. But no lemon sugar arose. Without me threatening Ambrose, Jack was once again lost so deep inside the evil he likely didn’t even know what was happening.

  Which meant it was up to me to do what Jack would have wanted: to save Merry and everyone like her no matter the cost. Good thing I still had one last way to achieve that goal.

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to imagine disembodying just like I’d done many times previously. I’d have to steal a memory from both Ambrose and Honor afterwards, something powerful enough to put the pair of them out of commission while I regained my sword and pelt.

  Or just my sword if the pelt disappeared at the same time I became fully kami again. I bit my lip, trying not to wonder whether losing this body would also mean I lost the soul-deep understanding of what a mate bond represented. Whether it would lessen the astonishing connection I now shared with Jack.

  Something inside this strange new body twisted at that notion, but I silenced the qualm. My mate bond wasn’t the issue. The issue was how to steal a memory powerful enough to debilitate Ambrose and Honor so I could beat them to tomorrow’s meeting. I’d have to gauge the weight of the recollection just right if I didn’t want the pair permanently affected.

  But...without this body, would I care enough about anyone other than myself to finish what I started? I had to. As long as I made myself a promise now to deal with the larger evil then return to squash Ambrose, I was pretty sure I’d keep that vow.

  I hoped.

  Ignoring the uncertainty, I closed my eyes and released the body that had provided so much pain over the course of a single day while also overwhelming me with an astonishing array of pleasures.

  Or I tried to. Only I was just as physically present when my eyelids fluttered back open. My lungs continued to billow air in and out of me. The bruise on my wrist throbbed while a nose itch joined in the bodily symphony.

  Meanwhile, inside my head, Ambrose’s voice was so cheerful it was clear he’d poached on all of my recent thought processes. “You think you can escape me, but you can’t. We each have a real, human body now. The only way out is death.”

  Honor left not long thereafter with a promise to pick us up bright and early the next morning. Because there were hoops we had to jump through prior to tomorrow’s meeting if we didn’t want to run afoul of the local alpha.

  Hoops I couldn’t have cared less about at the current moment. Because an evil spirit in my mate’s body was settling onto the bed beside me. His weight indented the mattress and I slid toward him just as the weight of his hand came down on the inner curve of my naked thigh.

  Handcuffed in place, there was nothing I could do other than spit words at him. “If you intend to rape me, I can’t stop you. But this is me saying No.”

  I’d never before had to beg to halt unwanted behavior, at least not since that time a century ago when Ambrose had cut into Tru’s body and I’d been powerless to halt the knife strokes. Since then, a human skin had been a garment to shed and regain at will. The reality of how little control I now possessed was terrifying.

  And Ambrose enjoyed that terror. “Perhaps,” he said, stroking the inside of my thigh oh so softly, “I’ll let Jack out for a little while. You won’t say no to him. I’ll merely watch.”

  I swallowed while my nerves and brain spat out an explosion of mixed messages. This was our mate...only it wasn’t. This was terror...and also pleasure.

  I wasn’t entirely sure Ambrose was wrong about what would happen if Jack was the one sliding his fingers across my sensitized skin.

  Then the broad hand on me stilled. Tightened into a fist. For one split second, lemon infused the air. “Let me out,” Jack said, “and I’ll feed our mate. Can’t you tell she’s starving?”

  Was that the source of the pain in my belly? I wasn’t entirely sure Jack was right, but he wasn’t wrong either.

  Rot rekindled, overwhelming the lemon. Jack disappeared again, pushed down so deep I could neither smell nor taste him.

  And now the mate bond curled around my throat, pressing me back against the pillow. Ambrose was furious that Jack had stolen his lips and spoken. He was furious and I was the only one present for him to take out that fury on.

  Blood pounded in my ears. I tried to lash out with my free hand, but it was tangled up in the mate bond. I was thoroughly and completely trapped.

  I expected Ambrose to do something terrible. But after holding me down for one breathless moment, he released me. Flicking off the bedside light, he then settled down far enough away so I couldn’t even feel his body heat.