Sheila nodded and, yawning again, stumbled off.

  Sean got Bethany and Samantha—a lioness and a fox—settled in, then made the rounds, changing diapers on the babies who weren't yet potty trained. Thankfully the older kids were, but they were all dealing with being sick a lot better than the babies, some of whom threw up on him while he was trying to settle them down after changing them. It was going to be a long night, but what was it Stewart had said? Sometimes you just gotta buckle down and do the sucky job your boss gives you.

  Or in his case, seven bosses.

  Honestly, though, he had to admit, after he'd been puked on the third time, he really had had an easier time of it.

  #

  "So, how do you think he's doing back there?" Peg asked with a snicker as she sipped her wine.

  "You are free to go and check on him anytime you wish," Estrella said, filling a mug with beer from the fresh cask Daelyn had tapped.

  "If I do that, I may end up stuck back there," she said with another snicker. "He'll make those sad cat eyes and beg for help, and I won't be able to leave without helping!"

  "Which is why we're not going back there," said Roxy, saluting with her wine glass.

  "If he gets desperate, he can call his mom," Roberta said. "I even told him as much. But really, let's be honest, it's Sean. He'll literally die back there before he'll come asking for our help."

  "Hell's, yeah! Because he's feeling all guilty for leavin' it to us to handle all by our lonesome!" Daelyn laughed, hoisting her own mug into the air.

  "Yes, he was feeling rather guilty, I could tell," Cali said. "Which is why he sent us to give Sheila and Deidre a break as well."

  "Poor Sheila," Peg said, giving Sheila's head a light rub, as she was curled up against her and out like a light. "I had no idea she was having such a hard time of it. Remind me to check on her more; I keep forgetting she doesn't have any family to go to for help."

  "She has us," Roxy said. "Make sure she understands, no matter how trivial she may think it is, she needs to come to one of us. She's family. Just because she's not a wife doesn't mean she's not entitled to what the rest of us are. Same goes for you, too, Deidre. Never hesitate to ask. You belong to Sean, and Sean belongs to us."

  Deidre smiled and laughed. "I think it's more that we all belong to you."

  "Ssssh! Don't let Daelyn hear you say that!" Roberta said, snickering.

  "Oh, I know it," Daelyn said with an exaggerated sigh. "If you think Sean can do the sad cat-eyes thing, Rox here has weaponized it! But! As long as she keeps letting me buy expensive toys, I ain't gonna be the one complainin'!"

  They all laughed at that.

  "Now, how about a movie?"

  "I think we better go rescue our hubby," Roxy said, standing up and stretching. It was past midnight, and they'd had a good time, just talking and reconnecting as a family. Even Sheila had eventually woken up and joined in, if only a little. She was still shy at times; they knew the only one she really unburdened herself to was Peg, whom she obviously loved. Roxy was positive that she loved Sean as well, but she still seemed to suffer from that 'I'm too insignificant to burden a god with my problems' mentality. "Plus I think it's about time to feed the babies again."

  "How bad do you think it is?" Roberta asked, standing up and stretching.

  "Oh, I'm sure our Sean has it well and truly under control," Deidre said, smiling.

  "You don't think he cheated and called his bodyguards to come over and help, do you?" Peg asked, chuckling.

  "More likely he cast a sleep spell and put 'em all out," Daelyn said with a grin.

  Heading towards the back, they were surprised by how much quieter it was than when they'd left Sean on his own some five or six hours ago.

  "Starting to think you're right, Dae," Roberta said. "It is quiet."

  Stepping into the room, they noticed that Sean was in full lion form, curled around the babies, who were all lying on a comforter, under their blankets, sound asleep. They could see he was half-awake, and his clothes were in a corner, smelling of all the things that came out of sick babies.

  "Sean?" Roxy asked.

  "Ssh, they finally passed out about an hour ago," he said and yawned, then laid his head back down to watch the kids.

  "Huh, I guess they like lion-daddy," Daelyn said with a chuckle as they each picked up their child, Jolene giving Peg a hand, as she'd had twins—foxes and not lions, both boys.

  Sean stood up, looked around the room to make sure all the older children were still asleep, then with a huff, dropped back down to the floor and closed his eyes.

  "Wake me when I'm back on duty," he muttered.

  "Okay, now I know I scored way out of my league when I got him," Peg mumbled as she fed Ian.

  "How so?" Roxy asked.

  "He's a great lover, provider, protector, and he babysits without bitching about it," Peg said with a grin. "I mean, it doesn't get any better than this, right?"

  "I vote we drag 'im back to the bedroom and abuse 'im!" Daelyn snickered.

  "What's wrong with right here?" Jolene said, and stripped; she didn't have any babies that needed feeding right now, because she was still dealing with her twins.

  "I think somebody needs another cub!" Estrella snickered.

  "You're just jealous because I got to him first," Jolene said, straddling Sean's head. He woke up suddenly, shifted out of his lion form, grabbed her ass, and started in on her immediately with his tongue.

  "Hell, yeah, I'm jealous!" Estrella said with a soft laugh. "Save some for the rest of us!"

  #

  Fay looked around the satellite control room for probably the tenth time since she'd gone on shift. Data was coming in like it always did, nothing strange was happening—well, nothing strange for the other people in the room, at least! There were always strange things going on all over the world these days, and their satellites were watching all of it. Northern Europe, South America, Mongolia, and of course, the western US.

  She'd spent two hours before coming into work, telling that lioness everything. Who she'd been helping in the effort to discredit the lycans; who she knew to be possessed; who she knew had made the same deal she had, as well as those who didn't know the djevels were behind all the help they were getting to grow their own personal power.

  She'd never thought about how many people were involved; it turned out to be quite a few, when she thought about it.

  Then there was the reason she'd done it; why she'd sold out, not just her own country, but her own humanity, her own being. It had all started innocently enough; there were people, important people in her community, who had shared their disgust and their feelings about the animals; then later at work, there'd been a number of people who'd freely shared their opinions, and those people had been important people. Powerful people. Bosses.

  There were even those who'd claimed that Walker had been set up, and she just kept going along. After all, these people couldn't be wrong; they were the ones in charge, after all!

  When her son had joined the ALS, she'd actually been proud of him, but Frank, her husband, had not. The arguments had gotten worse and worse, and when their son had gotten arrested for attempted murder, he'd left her.

  When Howard had been killed, he'd filed for divorce.

  It wasn't long after that Keith Henry had been introduced to her by one of the people in the CIA who'd commiserated with her over the death of her son, due to those animals.

  With nothing left in her life, she'd put her skills to work to help Keith and the others discredit the animals, expose their lies, and put them back in thrall to humans, where they belonged. She'd done such a good job that he'd offered her the power to influence those around her, and to one day avenge her son's death by killing the man her son had tried to kill.

  Her memory was still hazy about the things that had happened that night, but over the months to come, she'd slowly realized the mistake she'd made, but she'd learned as well that her will was no longer her own. Looking back on all of it now, it was obvious there had been something living in her head, watching her, urging her, and at times even controlling her thoughts!

  Even Tisha, that lioness, couldn't control her thoughts. She could order her to do things, and she would, whether she liked it or not. But at least her thoughts were her own! She didn't like what she was going to do today, but she knew she wouldn't be hung out to dry for doing it, either.

  Her animal—she shivered a little at that, she had something sharing her head with her again, but it didn't argue with her, it agreed with her more often than not, because it was her, and when it didn't, it didn't try to force her to do things, it just told her she was wrong and left it for her to find out herself.

  Her animal had also made it clear to her, along with her new alpha, Card, and the other members of his team, that she was pack now, and pack took care of each other.

  She belonged.

  "Fay! We got a problem!" one of the techs said.

  Clicking on the icons on her desktop, she called up the tech's display on her own, and looked at it. Damn. They really had broken into the feed of the imaging satellite tasked with following the DEZ, as well as a few other key spots due to its orbit.

  She picked up her phone and punched her boss's number. He was another of the traitors. She already knew he wouldn't be here after lunch, because she'd been told about the upcoming vetting of everyone working on the campus.

  "Yes, Fay?"

  "Someone has decoded the stream to 238, sir. They're interfering with our orders."

  "How in the hell…"

  "They took Utah, sir. It was only a matter of time before they put it to use," Fay said in a soft voice. That's what she would have said before last night, and she was finding it hard not to go along with what Tisha had told her to do. Her animal was telling her it was the right thing, too, and she remembered suddenly how the…thing in her head had tried to consume her when she'd been bitten and her animal had suddenly just appeared and fought it off, driving it out of her mind and killing it.

  Protecting her.

  Saving her.

  Card had saved her soul when he'd bitten her.

  "Open the safe and send the override. I'll call Homeland and file a complaint!"

  "Yes, sir," she said and hung up the phone.

  "Jason! We're opening the safe!" she said standing up.

  "We're doing a reset, then?" he asked, coming over to join her as they walked over to the large safe set into the wall.

  "Yes, we are," she replied, and put her hand on the palm scanner set into the front, then entered a 12-digit code as it recognized her.

  Standing back, she watched as Jason did the same. Then they each took out keys, stuck them in the two locks, and turned them first one way, then the other at the same time.

  The latches on the safe clicked, and they pulled the door open.

  There were a series of drawers inside, and she ran down them until she came to the one for 238. Pulling it out, she picked up the bound folder, opened it to the table of contents, found the entry for the hard reset, opened it to that page, and looked at the code number.

  "Looks right," Jason said.

  Fayette nodded and walked over to the tech, as Jason stood guard at the safe, and she showed the number to the tech, who'd called up the code entry window. She checked his entry, then watched as he committed it.

  "How long does this take?" the tech asked.

  "You should see a response in two minutes; it has to reset everything, just like a normal code update."

  She pointed to another number further down on the document. "This is the encryption key for the new protocol."

  She watched as he entered that information, as well. It was a simpler encryption than what they normally used, but then, as soon as they had the satellite back, they'd change to the next code in the update bin.

  When he finished, she returned the folder to the drawer, and they relocked the safe. She'd memorized both number strings—it didn't matter how long they were, surprisingly, they were both very much burned into her memory right now. Tish had had a friend of hers cast something on her, and apparently it was doing its job.

  "We got control back!" the tech called out.

  "Good, load the next key on the next pass," she said, going back to her desk.

  Less than an hour later, which was earlier than she'd expected, a team of Secret Service agents and a team from Homeland Security came in and escorted everyone out of the building at gunpoint.

  She was one of the first to be interviewed, along with her boss. From the sounds of the gunshots, which her much better hearing picked up, she guessed they hadn't decided to bite him.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  "What's the matter?" Card asked as he passed her his encrypted phone.

  "Could you ask them to at least try to save some of them? I know we don't deserve it, but still…I don't want to be the only one who got a second chance."

  Card nodded. Looking down at the phone, she quickly punched in both sequences of numbers, checked to be sure she hadn't made any errors, then pressed send.

  "Great, now turn into a wolf."

  "Huh?"

  "I just discovered your boss planted a compulsion on you to suicide to cover up his plans. I had to infect you to save you. I'm taking you back to our place to debrief you."

  "But what about my job?"

  "It'll still be here if you want to come back to it," Card said, "but right now, I think you need a vacation, and maybe a few rewards."

  "But my house, my…"

  "We paid your house off this morning, same for your car. We said we'd take care of you, and we will. You're one of us, Fay."

  "But what I tried to do, what I did…"

  "The lions don't hold grudges. Trust me, if anyone would know, it's me. Now shift, and let's go. You probably won't be the only one who ends up getting infected today, I'm sure."

  She looked up at him as she shifted. She wasn't sure how old he was—he definitely wasn't a young man—but the look in his eyes made it clear that he wasn't holding any grudges, either, and when he smiled, she suddenly realized he was quite attractive, as well.

  #

  Steve handed Finn a printout with the codes on it and watched as Finn punched the numbers into a device about the size of an iPhone. The only real difference was that it had a couple of cables hanging off of it.

  "Now, are you sure you can get this to…"

  Just then Sean stepped into the room. He had a lioness with him Steve had never seen before, though he was pretty sure who she was, from what Tisha had been telling him.

  Finn jumped. "Where'd you come from?"

  "Nevada. Now, please, tell my friend here exactly how this works."

  Finn looked at the lioness. "Are you familiar with satellite communications?"

  "Some. We've already got a track on the satellite; it'll be in range in twenty minutes, so do please be quick and concise."

  Finn nodded, obviously deciding not to ask any more questions.

  "Push this button"—he pointed to a button labeled 'Base Key' on the handheld's display—"and it'll send up the reset code. It'll take a couple of minutes for the reset to take place. Then press this key." He pointed to one labeled 'Reboot'. "That one will power cycle the entire satellite. That takes eight whole minutes. The moment it replies, you have to press the next key, the one marked 'Clock Reset'."

  "What about the fourth key there? The one labeled 'Code Reset'?"

  "If you still have the satellite locked on, press it, but it takes a minute to upload. Just resetting the clock will keep them from regaining control, but we're going to need this back," he said, handing it to her, "as soon as possible."

  "Fine. Sean?"

  Sean nodded, and the two of them walked through a gray portal Steve hadn't even noticed. It closed behind them immediately.

  "What the hell was that?" Finn said, looking surprised.

  "We have a teleportation spell set up between this office and certain other key places," Tisha told him. "And no, don't ask."

  "I hope he isn't planning to drag me through that damn thing!"

  Tisha shook her head. "No, it'd kill you. You're not a lion. Now, where should I tell Sean to deliver the device when they're done?"

  "Tell him to give it to Sawyer." Finn stood up and looked around. "Guess I might as well be goin', too. I wanna be there when Sawyer pulls down the first batch of images!" Finn said, rubbing his hands together and cackling happily.

  "Give Sawyer our regards and thanks for the help," Steve said.

  "I'll be sure to do that!"

  They waited until Finn had left.

  "Well, that went easier than I thought it would," Steve said.

  "A lot easier."

  "So what do we do about Fay?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, what are you going to do for her? I seem to recall a promise about making her happy?"

  "Oh! That! Yeah, I told Card he should take her home and show her a good time."

  "Really?" Steve said, looking at her.

  "Steve, if there's one thing I know about, it's what a woman who's lost her only child wants."

  "And that is?"

  "More children."

  "Does Card know about this?" Steve said, looking shocked.

  "Oh, I'm sure he'll figure it out soon enough. Besides, I think he's sweet on her."

  "Oh, now this I've got to hear!" Steve said with a laugh. "How do you figure that?"

  "He set her down rather than dropping her."

  "Huh?"

  "Some males are attracted to female lycans who remind them of themselves. Now don't worry, they'll be fine. We can send them out to Carson City; she can work on the imaging system while raising her kids."

  #

  Sean's tail was dragging by the time he got to his afternoon meeting. The girls had kept him up all night, then he'd had to pop over to China, grab Ceithir, go to Steve's, get the device, go back to China, then come back here. At least Cali, Peg, and Sawyer had things well in had.