Are you ready for a sneak peek into the final book of the Moon-Crossed Wolves Trilogy? It probably goes without saying, but the following chapters contain major spoilers for books one and two….

***

Chapter 1

The intercom crackled above our heads. “Alpha! Trouble at the front gate!”

I fumbled with my carry-on while twisting to peer up at the speaker, but Luke didn’t pause. “Ruth will hear it,” he promised, scooping the bag off my shoulder without breaking stride. “Vacation. Drake Bay, remember?”

As if his words had moved my foot off the brake pedal, I followed him down the path toward the parking lot. It wasn’t just the rainforest of Costa Rica that drew us, either, although the photos I’d perused online were stunning. It was the sure knowledge that this pack—Ruth’s pack—needed to accept their true alpha before the Naming Ceremony next month.

Because the Naming Ceremony was the key to lowering our nerve-wracking vigilance. Once we proved that Ruth was our accepted alpha, even the most powerful packs would hesitate to attack.

And, okay, it didn’t hurt that we were so close to turning over the reins that I could smell the salt surf and see the monkeys. There’d be smoothies full of passionfruit and pineapple. Parrots in palm trees. Cuddling up to my mate on a breezy balcony while watching the sun set over the sea.

Best of all, our cell phones wouldn’t work there. If the pack needed someone, they’d have to turn to Ruth. By the time we returned, Luke would be the leader’s brother rather than a third-wheel alpha. No more confusion within the clan. No more danger from the outside world if pack mates’ eyes turned to the wrong leader when push came to shove.

The ordinary sounds of pack life, however, had transformed while I was daydreaming. A sharp bark rose above the rooftops. The wheels of my suitcase caught on a stray pebble and my feet snagged against an invisible mental barrier.

Could Ruth really manage without us? After all, she was eight months pregnant….

“Alright?” Luke asked. His hand was strong against my arm, steadying my balance. We’d passed the gaggle of pack vehicles by this point, heading toward the car we’d purchased for his and my use only. The vehicle had taken us on many adventures already and the pack had been fine each and every time we left them. In fact, bonds between werewolves had vibrated stronger after each absence.

Yes, taking a more extended vacation was the right thing to do. I smiled at Luke as he stepped around me to open the car door. And, okay, I did glance backwards once as I slid into the passenger seat. I wasn’t looking for pack mates, though. I was peering up into the bluest eyes imaginable, a swirl of cinnamon curling around my left shoulder.

The fact I caught a flash of orange out of the corner of one eye was irrelevant. It was hard not to see the gaudily clad teenager sprinting toward us, but I really did try.

Luke’s brow furrowed. “Please tell me you didn’t just meet her eyes.”

I didn’t ask him how he’d known the girl—Carly, turned Blade, turned twenty other names, now Ester—was present. The pack bond had grown sturdier during the time I’d spent with Clan Acosta. Now both Ruth and Luke knew the location and status of every relative without bothering to look.

As Luke’s mate, I caught snippets of secondhand information. Like the fact that Luke’s niece was frantic. Like the fact she was so light-headed from sprinting that she was about to pass out.

Still, she gasped out my name. “Honor.” Two more pounding footsteps, then another verbal exhalation. “Luke. I’m so glad I caught you guys.”

I didn’t even glance at her this time. Instead, I peered up at Luke, watching the war play out across his features. He wanted to stay and see what kind of trouble had appeared on the other side of the compound…and he wanted to flee for the long-term good of the pack.

This was his choice. I couldn’t make it for him. So I clutched the pelt that would shift me to wolf form and I forced myself to wait.

“Luke!” It was his niece’s shriek that decided him. The shriek…plus the pack bond tugging at his gut so hard it overloaded our mate connection and made me queasy.

His niece was level-ten upset. And while Luke had turned over the pack-leader reins to his sister quite willingly, he couldn’t ignore the kid’s desperation. No wonder he spun around even as I fought to pull my sword while leaping out of the passenger seat.

“Ester. What happened?” Luke demanded.

His hands were on her arms before I’d disentangled my weapon from the seat belt. He twisted her this way and that while his eyes scanned visible skin for signs of damage. I half expected him to flip her upside down to peer at her feet.

The girl’s brows slammed down as she shrugged out of his grip. “I’m going by Bruiser now. It’s stronger. Tougher. I thought you’d remember.”

She clearly wasn’t injured. Now that I paid more attention to the pack bond—a tiny thread of light connecting Luke and his niece, barely visible if I squinted and cocked my head sideways—I could feel her bodily wholeness. Her shriek had originated in fury, not pain.

And Bruiser was still irate when she grabbed Luke’s hand and began towing him back in the direction she’d come from. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear the intercom?” she demanded. Then, without waiting for an answer: “There’s trouble at the front gate.”

***

As if reacting to Bruiser’s reminder, the intercom once again flared to life. This time, Ruth was the one speaking, her voice terse with alpha authority.

“Uninvited visitors at the gatehouse. All on-duty wolves report to battle stations. Off-duty wolves, meet me lupine at the front gate.”

Breath caught in my throat. This wasn’t mere trouble. This was an invasion.

A click marked the end of the pack-wide message. A new click suggested that Ruth’s subsequent statement was broadcast less widely than the first. “Luke, get Honor out of here. The pack can’t handle woelfin distractions.”

My mate turned to face the security camera, one of dozens the pack had installed when we returned to Luke’s childhood home six months earlier. “I might be a distraction but Honor isn’t,” he bit out before getting down to business. “How many invaders?”

“None of your business,” his sister countered. “If you don’t leave now, you’ll miss your flight.”

Bruiser’s eyes, which had been raised and bright when she back-talked Luke earlier, fell to the pavement. The fact Luke and his sister were hashing this out aloud rather than silently attested to the cracks in their united public front.

Because while both agreed that Ruth was the pack’s alpha, Luke’s over-protective wolf often rebelled against her dictates…like it did now. “Are you planning on staying inside the fence where you’re safe?” Luke demanded.

The fence, like the security cameras, was new since we’d moved here. Twenty feet tall and lined with razor wire, the enclosure made the pack’s home base look like a sprawling prison rather than the welcoming hamlet it had resembled previously. On the other hand, we all slept better at night with more than the forest shielding us from enemy attack.

Ruth wasn’t one to huddle behind protection however. “An alpha doesn’t send her pack into battle alone.”

As the intercom crackled into silence, howls rose from outside the fence line. Something in my stomach twisted. The pack was in danger and further debate would delay the clan’s defenses.

I met Luke’s eyes then jerked my chin toward the back gate.

Unlike the spot where invaders were attacking, this secondary entrance only opened from the inside. We’d planned to drive our car out, turn left at the fork, then head to the airport.

If we turned right at the fork, though, we’d circle back around and end up at the front gate. Behind the invaders. It was a way to obey Ruth while still helping the pack if the tide of battle turned against them.

Unlike Luke’s bond to his sister, the connection between the two of us glowed with strength and unity. There was no squinting required for me to see the tether, and I also didn’t have to put my thoughts into words to get the point across. Just tagged his attention and opened myself up.

Luke nodded. “Okay,” he told his sister, ignoring the disbelief in the eyes of his niece. “We’re going. Be careful, alpha. Bruiser, do whatever Ruth says.”

 

 

Chapter 2

Luke drove while I shed clothing in the passenger seat. Usually, my nudity would have attracted my mate’s attention, but this time his eyes remained fixed on the road.

“They won’t be able to get through the fence,” he told me. Or, perhaps, he was reassuring himself. Still, gravel pinged against the fenders as he sped faster than was appropriate given the unevenness of the road.

“Not unless someone grants them access,” I agreed, wriggling out of my panties. “Who’s on gatehouse duty this morning?”

“Arthur.”

Luke’s honorary uncle—actually some sort of far-removed cousin, but old enough to be in the uncle category—was one of the most stable and loyal members of the pack. “So we’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Luke must have disagreed because he didn’t slow down. Instead, he swung the wheel into a tight turn as the fork rose before us. Our passenger-side tires splashed through a puddle, creating a damp line in the gravel as seen through the rear-view mirror.

“One set of tracks,” I observed, just in case Luke was too intent upon planning and driving to notice that heartening evidence. “Other than ours. How many werewolves can you fit inside a single vehicle?”

I hadn’t expected an answer, but Luke gave one anyway. “At least two dozen in a panel van….”

His voice petered off and his eyes grew distant as he tuned in to an interior conversation I wasn’t privy to. Not Ruth, since their connection had frayed weeks ago. Not Arthur either since mental conversations with wolves I knew well tended to spill over to me through the mate bond.

Whoever it was and whatever they said, Luke’s face whitened. He swore, slamming on the brakes and leaping out of the car before it came to a complete stop.

This was where we’d planned on waiting, just short of the rise that would have returned the compound to view. Here, we could hover without Ruth noticing that we barely toed the line of obedience.

Still, Luke’s body language suggested the wait-and-see plan had already flown out the window. So I disembarked as rapidly as he had, swirling my pelt around my shoulders and pulling at threads of wolfishness to initiate a shift.

“Plan B,” Luke growled. “Arthur’s not responding. We….”

The hilltop belched smoke as an explosion roared from the direction of the pack compound. Fabric shredded away from Luke’s transforming body as his paws hit the pavement.

“They’re in,” he explained unnecessarily.

The invaders had blown their way through our fence.

***

Which shouldn’t have been the end of the world. When Luke dug deep into his personal coffers to pay for fence construction, he’d installed a second line of defense at the weakest point. All Arthur had to do was hit a big red button and fifty feet of even heavier fence material would rise out of the ground to create a smaller but nonetheless secure enclosure.

Which, okay, sounds useless since the defenders were outside the perimeter fighting off invaders. But Luke had also added wolf hatches scattered along the entire fence line. The latter were like high-tech doggy doors, keyed to each pack mate’s irises in wolf and human form.

Wolf hatches made it easy to keep the compound locked up tight when we headed off on hunts as a clan unit. They made it simple for skinless to blow off steam without stopping to chat with a nosy gate guard. Now, they would allow pack mates to return to the compound without invaders following…assuming the secondary fence rose before invaders made it inside.

That only worked if the gatekeeper remained conscious and able to erect the backup fence, however. As Luke and I sprinted toward the haze of smoke hiding gatehouse and gate, no signs of life emanated from where Arthur had last been seen.

There was plenty of life around the gatehouse, however. Swirls of movement flickered in and out of focus, heading in the direction of what I guessed to be the fence gap. It was hard to tell through the dense smoke, but invaders seemed to be halfway to the line in the pavement that the secondary fence would rise out of. The big red button wouldn’t do any good if someone didn’t push it fast.

“Don’t wait for me,” I told Luke, knowing his longer legs could traverse the intervening ground faster than mine could. He huffed protest but pushed his muscles harder. I followed suit, fighting not to cough as we dove into the foul-smelling haze.

Inside the smoke, it was impossible to make out our enemies’ progress or the state of Ruth’s defensive forces. Which made our own goal simpler. Ignore the invaders. Head for the gatehouse. Push the button….

Bruiser’s voice struck us via the pack bond just as the wall of the gatehouse loomed dark against the sky. “Aunt Ruth! No!”

A shimmery, distorted image flowed toward us along with the words. Based on the oblique angle and the chain-link diamonds between her and the action, Bruiser had been left behind in the dubious safety of the pack compound while our warriors rushed out to meet the enemy. Ruth, as anyone could have predicted, hadn’t stayed behind the fence.

No, even though she was eight months pregnant, the pack’s alpha was leading the charge. The scarred, potbellied werewolf waddled in front of her relatives, intent upon warding off attacking shifters…

…which would have been comical if battles among skinless didn’t often end in death.

Neither Ruth nor I saw what had prompted Bruiser’s initial cry. Well, not at first. Not until it was too late for Ruth to dodge the huge dark wolf slamming into her hindquarters, spinning legs out from under her. Too late for me or Luke to rush to her assistance as something pale and snarling clamped sharp teeth down on the underside of her neck.

Ruth was an alpha for a reason, though. She didn’t cave. Instead, she twisted her entire body, struggling to protect herself.

Unfortunately, her swollen belly refused to bend. Even as Bruiser’s second cry—“No! Please!”—tolled in my brain, our alpha disappeared beneath a pile of fur.

And…our entire pack hesitated. Didn’t dive in to help their alpha or defend their home. Just stood stock still, waiting to be mown down like so much summer grass.

Which is when Luke stepped into the gap.

Not literally. He and I were both too far away to see the action without Bruiser’s help, let alone impact it. But his mental connection to the pack rivaled Ruth’s.

“Are you wolves or are you field mice?” he bellowed.

His words, I could see, didn’t strike everyone. But pack mates Luke didn’t have a personal connection with possessed connections to one another. No wonder his demand spread through the pack as fast as a ripple. Ruffs rose and lips curled as a tidal wave of strength flowed from Luke through our entire clan.

Which was great…for now. It wouldn’t be great tomorrow, when Ruth tried to wrangle dissent arising from two pack leaders spitting out two different sets of instructions. It wouldn’t be great next month when the neighboring alphas we invited through our gates saw a splintered clan ripe for the picking rather than the united front we intended to present.

Of course, that assumed Ruth was there to host and wrangle next month and tomorrow. And that there was a pack left to be managed at either time.

I blinked and Luke was gone, sprinting toward the spot where his sister had fallen. “The button,” he reminded me.

I turned around to face the building that towered above me in the smoke.

 

 

Chapter 3

The gatehouse door wouldn’t open. I tried and failed to twist the knob a second time, higher smoke intensity at human face level making my eyes smart and my brain fog.

If Arthur had been knocked out of commission (I refused to consider a more permanent reason for his silence), the door should have swung open. Instead, the knob refused to turn.

Locked.

Behind me, the panel van pinged as flames heated metal. Somewhere lost in the smoke, wolves yipped and howled. But my mental connection to the pack lay dormant. Everyone was too busy to fill me in on how the tides of battle turned.

Which was fair. They had their job and I had mine. I pressed my pelt up around my neck and flared my nostrils, seeking clues about who might be hiding in the gatehouse with Arthur.

Big mistake. The only scents swirling through the smoke were rubber and gasoline. I choked on the inhale, coughing far too loudly into my fist. Had I been heard?

I paused for a moment, listening. Nothing. Shrugging off the trickle of unease at the base of my neck, I continued pacing around the outside of the building, the crackle of flames covered my footsteps this time.

Despite a locked door, the gatehouse wasn’t impenetrable. The explosion had dented siding and blackened the eaves. More relevantly, a window had broken halfway down the wall, shards of glass sticking out from the frame like pointy monster teeth.

“Arthur?” I called silently. He shouldn’t be too busy to speak with me. It would be nice to know what I was up against before I dove inside.

My only answer was resounding silence. Well, that plus a twist in my gut and the sure knowledge that the fence-raising button wasn’t going to push itself.

Shivering back down to four paws, I leapt directly through the window’s gaping mouth.

***

Inside, papers danced across the floor, skittering away from the wind of my passing. Something sharp bit into my left rear paw pad. I spun in a tight circle, prepared for enemy attack.

None came. In that first haze of searching, no movement caught my attention either. The nip to my foot had come from a shard of broken glass.

I slowed and padded around at human speed this time, blinking back smoke-prompted tears and peering into the room’s dim recesses. There weren’t many places for an attacker to hide. Two closed doors led to a bathroom and a closet. The mesh rolling chair wouldn’t shield either a living or dead body. The desk, on the other hand….

I padded forward, liquid squelching between my toes as I smelled something other than burnt panel van. Blood. I swallowed. Took another step….

Saw Arthur’s crumpled body.

The fifty-something werewolf lying before me had been the first adult member of Luke’s pack to accept my woelfin identity. He’d learned about my pelt, had spewed profanities for thirty seconds, then had backed me up during a wild sprint through the forest to escape his kin.

And, yes, Arthur’s acceptance had hinged upon my status as Luke’s mate. But during the months I’d spent here at the pack’s home place, our relationship had grown into more than that.

There had been tea invitations while Luke was busy tending the endless tasks of alpha. The hand-drawn family tree that showed up in my mailbox after I complained for the third time about pack mates’ complicated relationships. Notes scrawled in the margins about intertwining pathways of alliance and rivalry that Luke had missed out on during his decade away.

Which could all have been attempts to strengthen a new alpha by educating his partner. But Arthur had dispensed more than mere wisdom. Just last week, when I’d subtly guided two grouchy pack mates into tentative harmony, Arthur had placed his hand on my shoulder just like my father used to do.

“Good job,” he murmured, proving he saw the hard work I strove to keep hidden. In my belly, new connections clicked into place as I fell even deeper into the pack.

No wonder my muscles now refused to carry me closer to the crumpled body that lay in the smoky dimness. Arthur’s chest didn’t appear to be moving. I couldn’t quite talk myself into shifting to human form so I could place a hand in front of his nose.

Instead, I paced past the desk and reared up on my hind legs to depress the big red button. A rumble, more felt than heard, promised the backup fence was rising.

And the invaders? Were they inside or outside that fence?

I itched to pull at clan connections to answer those questions. But anyone I contacted could be thrown off their stride by the intrusion. Better I check Arthur than interrupt pack mates locked in life-or-death struggles….

A voice cut through the silence. “Hello?”

I spun, searching a second time for enemies. Because the greeting was too high-pitched to be Arthur’s. Instead, whoever had spoken was female and healthy. What had I missed when I first surveyed the space?

Nothing I could see. Even the scattered papers were still now.

Yet the voice continued, light and teasing. “I’m sweltering in here. Could you let me out already?”

I padded toward the source of the chatter—the closet door—while wriggling out of my wolf skin. Sometimes, shifting was a struggle. Today, relinquishing my lupine nature felt like taking my finger off the nozzle of an untied balloon.

Wolf gushed out of me. Humanity consumed me. My shed pelt fluttered to the ground.

Ever since the drama with my family, I hated to be parted from my lupine skin. But for once I didn’t take the time to snatch it up and secure it about my person. Instead, my attention was riveted on the closed door three feet from my nose.

There was a woman shut up in that closet. A woman who wasn’t a pack mate—there were few enough females left within Luke’s clan that I could make that identification with certainty.

Closet girl had arrived with the invaders then. A year ago, I would have assumed she was their prisoner, someone to rush and rescue. Now, after finding betrayers hidden deep within families twice in quick succession, I wasn’t so sure of that fact.

I turned to assess the gatehouse yet again. If Arthur was alive, it was my job to protect him from enemies, even chatty female ones. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much available to use as a weapon. A laptop, crushed on the ground. A pen that might or might not manage to pierce someone’s eyeball.

My gaze turned to the window I’d recently leapt through. If I had fabric to shield my hand from sharp edges, one of those glass teeth would make an effective dagger….

The only accessible fabric encircled Arthur’s body. No, not his body. The fabric encircled Arthur.

Gritting my teeth at the mental slip, I stooped and grabbed my pelt rather than ripping Arthur’s shirt. Cuts on the pelt’s leathery surface would turn into cuts on my skin the next time I turned lupine. But I wasn’t ready to steal Arthur’s clothing if it meant risking a glimpse of his sightless eyes.

Instead, I used the fur side of my pelt as a second layer of protection. Then I reached up and wriggled free a triangular shard of glass.

 

 

Chapter 4

The closet door bore no lock, which meant the woman inside could emerge at any moment. But she didn’t. Instead, she spoke again as I strode toward her hiding place. “Timothy? Look, I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”

This was interesting. I paused, but no further information was forthcoming. So, using my non-dominant hand, I fumbled open the door.

I vaguely noted that the smoke outside must be clearing because sun streamed through the broken window to illuminate the woman who’d spoken. She was pressed up against shelves of cleaning supplies and printer paper, bound hand and foot with zip ties. Long dark hair snaked around her shoulders, some caught on her sweat-streaked brow.

She hadn’t been lying about the heat.

She hadn’t been lying about thinking I was Timothy either. The bridge of her nose crinkled up in confusion. “Who are you?”

“Honor,” I answered, watching for recognition in her eyes and seeing exactly what I expected.

So, a Trojan horse, not an innocent victim. I turned away without completing the introductions, forcing my feet to carry me back to where Arthur lay beneath the desk.

“Hey!” the woman called after me. “I was talking to you!”

She sounded more annoyed than terrified. Yet another data point, and not one in her favor. Settling onto my knees, I leaned forward into the desk cavity, searching Arthur’s face for any sign of life.

His eyes were closed. If he was breathing, it was too shallow to be visible. I stretched my hand toward his nostrils…then banged my head against the top of the desk as my vision flickered from the real world to the view from behind Luke’s eyes.

Wolves wove in and out around us so quickly they might have been waltzing. The pain shooting up our side, however, and the blood in our peripheral vision suggested a more deadly dance.

Despite the throbbing pain, Luke didn’t remark upon the battle. Instead, he must have seen what I was seeing because he asked, “Is Arthur alive?”

“Watch out!” I countered.

I wasn’t sure how Luke managed it while peering through my eyes and carrying on a conversation, but he dodged an oncoming wolf at the last possible second. The wolf skidded in a failed attempt to slow his mad dash forward. Metal clanged as the beast struck the chain-link fence.

They were inside the backup barrier. I hadn’t been fast enough.

“Arthur,” Luke prodded, as if the two of us were engaged in civilized dinner conversation.

As he spoke, he struck the enemy wolf so fast and hard all I saw was a flash of fur followed by blood spurting. Even though I was used to wolf fights after spending so long among the skinless, the sight of such serious injury unsettled my stomach.

And yet, I was grateful to have Luke beside me as I checked Arthur’s vitals. “Hold on,” I told him. Then, stretching another six inches forward, I pressed two fingers into the indentation at the base of our friend’s throat.

***

“I’m Destiny.” The woman’s voice impinged upon my attempt to determine whether the flutter of pulse beneath my fingertips was wishful thinking. “They hit him over the head. If you cut me loose, I’ll help carry him to safety.”

Ignoring her, I pressed my forefinger just a little deeper into Arthur’s flesh then smiled. “Alive,” I reported. “How’s the battle?”

I’d lost track of what Luke was doing as I focused on Arthur. Now, my mate turned his head so I could see the fight winding down. “We’ve corralled the few who made it in and should be able to force them out the back gate shortly,” my mate reported. “The rest are already heading your way, so keep your eyes open. Who’s Destiny?”

I shrugged, crawling back out from under the desk then grabbing Arthur’s feet to drag him into the light along with me. “A trap, I think. She was tied up in the supply closet.” I pulled up the memory of Destiny’s predicament to send down our mate bond along with the words. Finished with: “She knew my name.”

Luke hummed deep in his throat. Despite everything, the sensation sent a burst of cinnamon spiraling up out of the scar on my shoulder. “Lone wolves are hard on their women.”

“So the attackers were lone wolves?” On the one hand, identifying our attackers as non-pack was good. We’d have a better chance of driving away a loose confederation of lone wolves than we would vanquishing one of our neighbor clans.

On the other hand…did even the dregs of skinless society think the Acosta pack was easy pickings? That was definitely bad news.

“As best we can tell,” Luke confirmed. “Either way, they still have teeth. I’ll send someone along to help you with Arthur. Be careful while you wait.”

Luke’s voice faded as something more pressing required his attention. Which was fine. From the direction of the pack compound, howls reminded me I needed to get a move on also.

Too bad Arthur weighed half again as much as I did. I could either wait for help or I could try to wake him up.

I shook his shoulder. First gently, then harder.

Arthur didn’t even manage to moan.

“You should use your pelt.”

For the first time since dismissing her, I turned back to face Destiny. She was still trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, but her chin was raised and her eyes were fiery.

She’d known my name, so of course she knew I was a woelfin. Still, I chose my words carefully. “How do you suggest I use it?”

“You don’t know?” She attempted to scratch an itch at her waist, tough when her wrists were bound behind her. “Cut me free and I’ll show you.”

“You will, huh?” Maybe Luke was right. Maybe that was desperation talking.

Still, Destiny didn’t look desperate. Her gaze was tinged with something closer to pity.

And whatever itched was apparently more pressing than talking her way to freedom. Because she twisted her entire torso until one thumb became visible, pushing up her t-shirt to reveal her belly.

No. Not her belly. That was something soft and furry.

Her t-shirt had rucked up to reveal a woelfin’s pelt.

Keep reading on the retailer of your choice….

Are you ready for Honor’s second adventure? Be sure to read Moon Stalked first since everything below this point is a spoiler….

All done? Alright, without further ado….

Chapter 1

The second werewolf I’d ever seen limped out of the forest. From a distance, his scent had been wild, bitter, terrifying. But the beast himself was grizzled and bleeding from deep gashes on his chest, belly, and flank.

The stranger was barely able to shuffle, let alone jump us. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he keeled over on the spot.

My own lupine shoulders drifted downward. This wasn’t the terrifying skinless I’d been scared of since childhood. I’d overreacted. Just like when I first met Luke.

I let my eyes skitter sideways, expecting the first werewolf I’d ever seen to grace me with an amused smirk. Only…Luke’s glare was so firmly fixed upon the older wolf that he seemed to have forgotten I was present. Not just his ruff but the fur along his entire back lifted up threateningly. Then the tiniest thread of a growl, more menacing for its quietness, rumbled out of his chest.

My gaze slung forward in search of danger. The old werewolf stumbled then lurched another step forward. I cocked my head, struggling to understand how a shifter who seemed one second away from collapsing could be a danger to us both.

Oldie might appear past his sell-by date, but I trusted Luke. So I braced my paws, preparing for battle…then whimpered as attack came not from the newcomer but from the skinless I’d come to trust.

Earlier today, Luke had presented me with a sword, the gift rife with unspoken promises. Later, he’d accepted my refusal to be protected when the scent of werewolf came upon us. He’d padded up to stand shoulder to shoulder beside me in a show of true partnership and strength.

Now, Luke lashed out without warning. Well, no, that’s not quite true. The old wolf barked out a bell-like tone one millisecond before Luke attacked me, the sound rubbing my nerve endings raw. In answer, Luke’s teeth clamped down on the soft flesh of my neck, drawing blood before I understood what was happening. Lightning sparked hot and electric underneath my skin.

Words emerged inside me at the same moment, silent yet fully understandable. “Honor.” The syllables of my name reverberated in Luke’s deep baritone. “I’ll fix this.”

I pawed at the strangeness, trying to dislodge his voice from inside me. This was new…and not particularly palatable.

Stranger yet was hearing someone else’s words—Oldie’s?—flowing through Luke and into me. “It’s time for you to stand up and do your duty, son.”

“Do my duty?” Luke’s rejoinder was pure fury. “You killed my brother and threatened me with death if I didn’t leave my home and family.”

Oldie—Luke’s father—shrugged. “Changed my mind. Alpha’s prerogative.”

“And the bite?”

My ears perked up. My neck bled, but, strangely, the sensation was pleasurable. Like when Luke’s fingers stroked through the long fur of my shed pelt.

Still, the old wolf had forced the bite, whatever it represented. So I growled out unity with Luke’s demand for further information. Took a step forward to match the one Luke had already taken.

By this point, the old wolf was barely able to lift his head. But his voice in my mind was both smug and powerful. “Your sister was sufficient sword maiden for me, Luke. But you’ll need all the help you can get.”

Rather than answering this time, Luke continued advancing upon his father. His world had narrowed, I knew, because my own sight was strangely doubled. I saw Luke before me, and I saw his father as if through Luke’s eyes.

“A mate who’s also a sword maiden,” Oldie continued. “That will calm the pack. Especially once you beget an heir.”

Beget? I would have raised an eyebrow if I’d been human. But the archaism slipped past me as two more skinless slunk out of the summer greenery.

Luke hadn’t seen them. He was too intent upon his father.

So I barked a warning…only to have it emerge as silent words spinning between us. “Luke, behind you!”

And Luke understood. Didn’t glance around wildly. Just spun to face the oncoming wolves.

***

The newcomers were a male and a female, the former with dinner-plate paws at the end of skinny legs promising he hadn’t yet grown into his adult strength. It was the female who led, however. The female who unfolded upward into a mid-twenties woman and speared Luke with eyes as stormy blue as his own.

This was the aforementioned sister, I guessed. Not just because of the obvious physical resemblance, but because of her greeting. A single word, full of decades of shared knowledge. “Luke.”

Luke’s sister was naked, of course, with no pelt to shield her. That’s what it meant to be a skinless rather than a woelfin. They kept their lupine nature inside while transforming. Kept the wildness of the beast simmering behind their eyes even while walking upright.

I’d been told that nudity was irrelevant to skinless, and this woman certainly made no effort to shield her privates. But her nakedness was far less shocking than the network of scars crisscrossing her body. It looked like she’d fallen through a razor-lined net.

I felt rather than saw Luke wince in reaction. “Ruth.” He stepped past his father’s slumped body, making connections faster than I was able to. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have prevented this.”

This? The scars, I guessed. Which related to their father’s mention of a sword maiden, maybe? I itched to shift upward and request further information, but it was too dangerous to share the presence of my pelt.

While I puzzled together guesswork, Luke leaned forward as if he intended to hug his sister. But she was having none of it. Ruth straight-armed him away even as she replied.

“That’s precisely why I didn’t call you.” Her eyes narrowed. “The pack didn’t need your help. We have an alpha, a sword maiden, and an heir.”

With the final word, she gestured toward the young male, who was transforming into humanity far more slowly than the others had. “Or we did,” she added. “Now we just have a mess.”

Between Luke’s failed hug and Ruth’s words, the air grew even more electric with tension. I sidled forward until my forepaws landed one inch away from Luke’s bare foot. If his family went furry and attacked him, I’d be ready to drive them back.

Instead of attacking, though, the boy emoted as soon as his wolf fur faded and human vocal cords settled. “I’m not doing it!”

He looked just like Luke might have fifteen years ago, before life hardened up soft edges. This had to be Michael, the newborn brother Luke had barely met before being cast out of his pack for the crime of trying to save their oldest brother from death.

Tears glimmered on the youngster’s lower eyelids. Luke, in contrast, appeared calmer than he smelled as he confirmed my guesswork. “It’s the only way to become alpha, Michael. Do you want to be alpha?”

For one long moment, Michael was silent. Then, he spoke through a sob. “No.”

In the tense silence that followed, the wily old wolf leapt.

Chapter 2

Oldie didn’t go for Luke or Ruth. No, that would have been too obvious. Instead, he aimed for Michael…or tried to. I struck him broadside the instant all four of his paws came off the ground.

Human, I was slower than any of the skinless. Lupine, I matched them step for step. So when Oldie twisted midair to go for my jugular, I lashed out with one paw. His existing wound was a mass of exposed nerve endings. Four claws ripping into raw flesh was bound to slow him down.

It didn’t. Instead, Oldie ignored the pain. Wrapped around me so we came down on the ground tangled together.

His teeth fumbled through fur, seeking my windpipe. But it was the rock biting into my hindquarters that made me yelp.

Then Luke was between us. Human, he grabbed the old wolf’s tail, ignoring the stupidity of such an action. One hand on the tail then the other on the ruff, he shook the injured wolf so hard his teeth rattled.

A single word was all Luke uttered, but it was harsh as any wolf’s growl. “Mine.”

So many blue eyes struck me at once that I took a step backward. The old wolf’s nostrils flared. Ruth’s eyebrows rose so high they got lost in her bangs.

Michael was the one who demanded: “Introduce us.”

“No.” Now Luke’s naked calves blocked my vision. He was standing between me and his siblings just as he’d tried to do when we first scented werewolves. The gesture should have seethed with protectiveness, but instead it made me feel like our relationship had taken one long stride back.

Especially when Luke changed the subject entirely. “How close is the pack?”

Misdirection didn’t ease the ache in my belly, but it worked on Michael. The boy swiped hair out of his eyes as he rebutted Luke’s assertion. “No one followed us!”

An almost-smile from Luke. Calming words. “Will you check for me? Scout your back trail? Howl if you see anyone?”

The boy was being sent away from the upcoming conversation for his own safety, and the scuffing of his feet among old leaves suggested he knew it. Still, he nodded. Forced himself through the laborious return to wolf form then slunk back into the trees he’d emerged from not long before.

“You can see the problem,” Ruth said once the boy was too far away to hear her. “He doesn’t look like it, but Michael has what it takes to be alpha. He puts the pack first. He just needs to finish growing up.”

“And you want me to be alpha in the interim.” Luke nodded. “I told you when we were kids that I’d come back any time you asked me to. Just….”

Now he did step out from in front of me. “You can shift now, Honor,” he told me. When I hesitated, he added: “I trust Ruth with my life.”

And his father? I spared another glance for the old wolf, noting the depth of his gut wound and the laboriousness of his breathing. I saw Luke’s point now. He hadn’t mentioned his father because the old wolf didn’t have long to live.

So I shifted. Inhaled wolf and exhaled human. My pelt slid off my back, but I caught it before it hit the ground.

And Ruth exploded. “You really are an idiot, Luke. What were you thinking?” Now she was the one advancing on her sibling, but with fists raised instead of a hug offered. “A woelfin as a sword maiden? They’ll gut her then the pack will fall apart.”

***

Luke’s arm came around my shoulders, half protection and half restraint. As if he expected me to tear into his sister physically in response to her aggression.

Which is probably what a werewolf would have done. But I was woelfin. I fought words with words and ignorance with questions. “What’s a sword maiden?”

My effort to defuse the tension worked, ironically as it turned out when Luke explained. “She’s a pressure-release valve for the pack.”

The rumble of his voice sank into my skin even as a burst of his signature cinnamon surrounded me. “But that’s not what my bite made you, Honor. It’s half of the mating ritual. A form of protection.” He glared once at his father, then returned his attention to me. “Albeit a weak one. Ruth is the only one I trust to see you this way. When Michael howls, shift back.”

That wasn’t a request, but rather an order. Still, I gave him a pass on his wording. It wasn’t every day a dying father showed up on your doorstep along with a sister demanding you drop everything and accept the reins of a werewolf pack.

There wasn’t time to take offense, anyway, with Ruth snorting out disbelief. “You’ve been gone too long, Luke. Have you forgotten that a mate is the first choice for sword maiden?”

“Our mother….”

“Was pregnant with Michael when the role opened up, and she didn’t last long afterwards. Even so, the pack wasn’t pleased to have a daughter be sword maiden when I started. That’s why Father had to kill off so many competitors.”

“Not enough.” The rusty voice rose from beneath us. No longer lupine, the old shifter lay on his back, eyes closed and one hand pressed against a wound in his belly that looked even worse with no fur to shield its extent. “I didn’t kill enough competitors”—his breath caught for a moment, then he pushed through the pain—“or I wouldn’t be in this state.”

“Who did it, Father?” Ruth dropped to her knees beside the old man, Luke and I forgotten. It wasn’t love passing between them, precisely. But something powerful linked the two nonetheless.

Her father shook his head rather than answering. “Someone too weak to call an Alpha’s Hunt.” His eyes closed as he dredged up the memory. “I couldn’t see who in the dark.”

I’d been trying to keep quiet and let Luke deal with what was clearly a family problem, but that was bullshit. “You’re skinless. You could smell them.”

Ruth tensed as if she wanted to slap me, but the old man just shrugged as best he could. “It’s irrelevant now. The pack needs an alpha.” His eyes latched onto Luke’s. “Tag.” His smile was full of wolf-sharp teeth. “You’re it.”

***

“We can do this, Luke.” Ruth didn’t return to her feet, but her back lengthened enough that she gave the impression of being in command anyway. “You’ve missed a lot, but I’ll act as your sword maiden and advisor. We need to find whoever injured Father and execute them publicly. Not just in front of our pack. We’ll invite the neighbors also. Make it a public spectacle….”

“No.” Luke’s interruption struck me the same way his father’s bark had, like a physical blow rocking me back onto my heels. His arm was barely enough to hold me upright.

“No what?” Ruth demanded.

“No, I won’t govern the way our father did.”

The veneer of civilization that had clung to Luke as long as I’d known him seemed to slip aside the same way my pelt did when I shifted. Was this the real Luke taking advantage of his superior height to glare down at his sister?

Abruptly, I remembered my father’s warning. “Skinless are all about power,” he told the four of us when we were eleven. “Their lives revolve around dominance. Don’t be lulled into thinking they’re like us.”

The lesson had never felt more true than when Ruth sprang to her feet and took a step closer. She and Luke were nearly eye to eye, Ruth only two inches shorter. “You won’t govern the way our father did,” she bit out, “or you can’t?”

“Is that why you begged me to leave after he killed Gabriel?” Luke rebutted. “Because you don’t believe an alpha can lead with justice and compassion?”

I opened my mouth to break into the sibling’s argument, but their father got there first. “Try if you want, boy.” His voice started low and quiet, then gained momentum once he had both of his children’s attention. “Try ruling this pack with peace and love. By the end of the first season, lone wolves will be circling like jackals. You’ll end up killing half your pack mates in an Alpha’s Hunt. All-out warfare. No rules. Just one surviving dominant—you, if you’re lucky.”

The old man shook his head. “So much work to prove you’re powerful enough for the role you could take now easily. Smart move, son. Very smart.”

Luke’s arm fell away from my shoulders as his fists clenched. “I won’t be you, Father.”

“You think?” The old shifter coughed once, so hard I thought he was finished. Not just speaking, but possibly also living.

Then he inhaled a raspy breath and his voice grew stronger rather than weaker. “Threat of an Alpha’s Hunt not enough to deter you? You’ll change your tune when the neighbors catch wind of pack rot. Remember the Vanguards? Remember how their new alpha failed at consolidating control after stepping up as pack leader? We seized their women, their territory, and burned down what wasn’t worth seizing. You think that can’t happen to us?”

“The pack needs you to step up to the plate, Luke,” Ruth said once it was clear their father was finished. The air between the siblings sizzled. But Ruth’s eyes drifted downwards, the gesture easing the tension in Luke’s shoulders a bit.

Only then did Ruth continue. “After the pack settles, you can make changes slowly. Designate Michael as your heir. Soothe the pack until you can speak to each member in their mind. Then it’ll be safe enough to bring back your woelfin. Or Michael can become alpha and you can leave if you want to. We just need to unite the clan first.”

Luke was still beside me, but his face was unreadable. The wound in my neck throbbed once, hard.

Ruth took a step closer and Luke turned until they were toe to toe, leaving me outside their tiny circle. Her voice was low but firm as she reeled him in. “You’ve had a decade to live your own life, but Michael has had no time. You have to choose, brother. Pack or mate.”

They were going to thrust Luke into this morass of skinless. Force him to emulate someone he’d worked his whole life to differ from. That was just wrong.

The pang in my shoulder said it was wrong for us to separate as well.

So I forced my way into their conversation despite there being no obvious gap for me. “I can help you with your family, Luke, the way you helped with mine.” My hand rose until I could finger the bite on my neck. The pain there felt strangely good. The notion of living among skinless, daunting an hour ago, no longer seemed impossible. Being Luke’s backup was the right choice.

It wasn’t my decision to make, though. It was his.

Luke inhaled slowly. I waited for his blue eyes to meet mine, but they remained trained on his sister when he answered. “I have to deal with this on my own, Honor.”

Ruth’s muscles relaxed even as mine tightened. Still, I remained silent, allowing Luke to choose our path forward.

And he did…in such a way that no one could forget he was a skinless.

Kneeling down, he lifted his father’s panting body in human arms. The motion was gentle, but the old man moved restlessly as if trying to break free of his son’s grip.

The non-verbal complaint didn’t deter Luke. Neither did the puddle of blood on the leaves and the new stain of red on his own skin.

Brushing wrinkled fingers aside, he wrapped both hands around his father’s neck, at first gently then harder. And harder.

Veins stood out on Luke’s forearms. His father’s heels beat furiously against the leaf litter.

It took a solid minute for the old man’s eyes to glaze over. Apparently, the first step in solving the family dilemma was patricide.

Chapter 3

Michael howled at the same moment the old shifter’s head thunked down, lifeless against the soil. Had the boy felt his father’s passing?

No. When Luke and Ruth exchanged glances, the latter nodded. “I’ll slow them down. Get rid of the woelfin.”

“Honor,” Luke interjected. “Her name is Honor.”

But he didn’t argue with the “getting rid of” part. Instead, he shimmered down to four legs, his voice echoing inside my head as I used my pelt to follow suit.

“I’m sorry. I wish we’d met a year ago. Or a year later. But I have to do this. My family needs me.”

The cascade of images that followed were like scenes from a movie condensed to the point where the montage of actions made little sense. I caught the emotion beneath it, however. Luke was terrified of bringing a woelfin into a world where strangling wounded fathers was the wheelhouse of the good guys. He was walking into a hornet’s nest and couldn’t handle the notion I might get stung.

Thankfully, Luke knew a shortcut that returned us to Wolf Camp—Luke’s seasonal gathering place for confused skinless, currently nonoperational—in minutes rather than hours. Because I didn’t trust this new telepathy between us enough to use it for a difficult conversation. Instead, I shifted as soon as we reached a roofed picnic area. Here, no one but Luke could see the pelt curl away from my shoulders as I donned my human skin.

“You don’t need to protect me.” Without waiting for Luke’s reaction, I strode naked across the courtyard, heading into the closest cabin to gather up weaponry. Adrenaline exploded through me more powerfully than ten shots of espresso. I was ready to do battle as Luke’s partner. I was ready….

Luke’s hands on my shoulders stopped me in my tracks before I could push back outside. “I won’t ask you to be my sword maiden,” he told me silently, tapping his ear in warning that skinless could hear conversations from quite a distance away. “It’s too dangerous. The pack won’t react the way I did to your pelt.”

“I’m willing to take that chance.” I countered.

“I’m not. You can’t be here when they come.”

A tectonic rift opened in my stomach. That was the only explanation I could give for why I suddenly found it hard to keep my body erect. Three words were all I could manage. “I get it.”

And I did get it. After all, Luke and I had been acquainted for just over a week. He was skinless; I was woelfin. The only physical intimacy we’d shared was a theatrical, fake kiss.

Of course his family would call and he’d leave me to rejoin them. What had I expected? A vow of his undying love?

Luke growled rather than answering. He yanked me in closer, fingers biting into my biceps. Even with human nostrils, I could smell his barely restrained rage.

Then, he spat out his own three words. “No. You don’t.” Added on four more: “You don’t get it.”

His lips pressed hard and sweet against mine, forcing me to admit that he might just be right.

***

The kiss—our second, the only one shared without the intention of convincing an audience—would have been earth-shattering all on its lonesome. But the images that flowed into my mind along with the physical sensation weakened my knees.

Scenes from our shared past, but filtered through Luke’s memories. Our first meeting, when I literally fell from the sky…and for one split second he rethought his disbelief in angels. The instant bond that drew him to me, the sure knowledge that I was his pack.

“I’m yours.” His lips didn’t have to leave mine to make the claim. Still, he pulled back so he could see me, his breath feathering finger soft across my skin.

I wanted to draw him back in and kiss him forever. To suck up Luke’s sweet cinnamon and wrap my arms so tight he couldn’t get away.

But we were interrupted by a long, hard series of knocks. “Are you in there?” Ruth demanded.

Luke’s eyes closed, his lips curling into a reluctant smile. “Patience has never been your strong suit, Ruth.”

“I’ll be patient,” she countered, “when I’m dead.”

While they bantered, I forced myself to twist out of Luke’s grasp and clothe myself. Whether I stayed or went, I needed to maintain the illusion that I was one of the skinless. So I wrapped my pelt around my waist before pulling a shirt over my head. Tucking the shirt into jeans, I turned to face Luke once more.

“Does this outfit make me look fat?”

His eyes squinted into a sunset half-circle for one split second. He understood what I was asking and was amused by my wording. Then he reassured me with a single shake of his head.

There, that felt normal. So normal, in fact, that I opened my mouth to reopen the debate he’d staved off with his stealth kiss attack.

Luke was way ahead of me. “This will get much worse before it gets better. If you....” His words broke apart as a howl outside reminded us we were far from alone. I caught only bits and pieces of the rest of his explanation. Something about “choice” and “scars” and “more death.”

I wanted to pin him down and demand a real explanation. Or even to get the explanation he was trying to hurry through, unaware that the link between us was broken.

But the howls outside were growing louder. So I only asked: “You have to deal with this? For the sake of your family?”

Luke nodded.

“And would my presence here make things worse?”

Another, even more reluctant, nod.

I inhaled once, closed my eyes and wished the world was different. Then I exhaled and let dissatisfaction disperse along with the outflow of carbon dioxide.

“Okay, then.” I started packing. Not that I had much here in the first place. Some clothes, my sword, my cousin’s letter. Electronic odds and ends.

And, apparently, a set of keys. Or so I discovered when Luke’s scent enveloped me a second time.

“Take my car. Go as far away as you can. I’ll call you when it’s safe. It might be…a long while.”

A long while like days? Weeks? Decades?

Luke didn’t need those questions however. As I squelched them, a pang ran through me. Starting at the bite in my neck and slithering lower. It felt both right and severely wrong at the exact same time.

Outside, a wolf yipped. Something told me this was neither Ruth nor Michael.

There was no time left for explanations and promises. No time for anything except reaching up and pulling Luke’s chin down until I could reach him.

Then I gifted him with a farewell kiss.

Chapter 4

“You’re washing it.”

The words were so full of disappointment that I turned from my spot in front of the bathroom sink to see who was speaking. Luke had left one moment earlier, and I’d granted myself what I sorely craved—a few seconds to wipe away the pain of parting with running water. Now, though, I released the liquid cupped in my hands. I’d been intending to splash it on my face. Instead, water gurgled down the drain as I twisted the faucet shut.

“Washing is a problem?” I asked the stranger who stood in the open doorway of my cabin. She was naked and sagging in the breast and belly areas, but wrinkles didn’t quite cover up pale lines criss-crossing her skin.

So Ruth wasn’t the only scarred female in the pack that had once belonged to Luke’s father. Was this the real reason he was sending me away? Did he think I was afraid of physical imperfections?

There was no time to ask those questions, however, when the woman in front of me was already answering my first one. “Of course not. It’s your choice.” She sighed. “Perhaps you wanted romance? You must understand why my grand-nephew was in such a hurry. I assume he asked your permission before he bit?”

My finger slipped down beneath the collar of my t-shirt, feeling for the wound that Luke’s teeth had created after his father barked at him. I couldn’t quite touch the raw flesh because my shed skin had pressed up against the affected area. As if my pelt was protecting the wound from my tentative fingers. As if my pelt liked the fact I’d been bitten.

“No, he didn’t ask my permission,” I answered the stranger—Luke’s great-aunt?—while trying to figure out why I’d accepted the bite without question. Why, if I was honest, I agreed with my pelt.

The trickle of sticky dampness on my neck didn’t feel wrong, even if its creation hadn’t been entirely Luke’s decision. Instead, it felt very right.

“Oh.” The woman’s features pinched together. “Well, that’s unfortunate. But you must understand why he chose the old way. The pack will think twice about touching you if you smell like their alpha.”

Before I could explain that Luke’s father had intended the bite to do more than protect me, my companion laughed the dry chuckle of someone who’s put their foot in their mouth. “And now I’m telling you things you know already. I’m sorry. Bad impressions all around today, I’m afraid. I’m Aunt May. Acosta, obviously.”

I wiped my hand on my jeans and accepted her shake. “Honor Warren.”

I wanted so badly to request more information about this bite that I was already supposed to know about. But Aunt May’s head cocked to one side, then she abruptly changed the subject.

“They’re coming.”

If I’d been one of the skinless, I would have heard something. A howl maybe? Or a voice in my head?

As it was, I had to trust Aunt May’s senses and Luke’s analysis of the situation. Grabbing up my duffel and Luke’s car keys, I pushed past the old woman and into the summer sunlight.

Hopping off the porch, I landed on driveway gravel just in time to be caught up in a tide of running wolves.

***

They streamed into camp. Furry heads, backs, and tails packed so close together it was impossible to tell where one ended and another started. I thought I caught a glimpse of Ruth’s scarred muzzle at the edge of the crowd, but Luke and Michael were lost in the midst of the skinless.

Until, that is, something fist-sized and furry flew out of the pack’s center, smacking to the ground an inch from my toe.

Aunt May’s arm slid around my waist as she tried to steer me away from the wolves. “I suspect he wouldn’t want you to see this part, dear.”

But Luke had been the one to toss the thing toward me. I’d caught the gleam of his black fur one second before the furry lump arced through the air.

Now speech emerged in my head, staticky yet familiar in Luke’s deep rumble. The intrusion smelled faintly of cinnamon as select syllables materialized into words. “…Alpha’s Hunt…sword maiden…tokens….”

I couldn’t tell what he was getting at, but I could twist out of Aunt May’s grip and kneel down to see what Luke had thrown in my direction. At first, the object was unidentifiable through the blood and mud caked around it. Then I turned it over and caught my breath.

This object was a paw.

Something else flew out of the center of the pack now, floating feather-light onto the top of a nearby cabin. There was no way I could climb up to examine it, but I understood what I was seeing. That second object was an ear. And based on the paw’s scent, both came from the wolf—the father—who Luke had recently killed.

Aunt May was right. This was what Luke hadn’t wanted me to be part of. Lunch tried to make a run for it and I swallowed down the sharp tang of bile.

“Is there a kitchen in this place?” Aunt May rested one hand on my shoulder, as if her joints were unwilling to let her join me near the ground but she wasn’t quite ready for frailties of age to determine her behavior. “You could use a cup of tea.”

Tea. The notion was unbearably strange while skinless frolicked around a carcass. An entire leg flew off to thunk wetly against a porch post. The yips of the pack resembled coyotes’ laughs.

And, in my head, Luke’s voice continued to whisper. “…Away…danger…I need…choice….”

I shivered. Luke had wanted me absent before this awfulness started. I turned…then froze as it became obvious that I’d been noticed by another member of his pack.

A gray wolf curled away from the roiling mass even as Luke’s voice in my head went silent. The stranger raised his snout, nostrils flaring. Then his lips drew back into a toothy snarl.

“Oh dear,” said Aunt May. The expression on her face was all I needed to understand the situation.

She wasn’t just chagrined. She was frightened.

Without hesitation, I drew my sword.

Keep reading on the retailer of your choice….

Chapter 1

The branch snapped beneath my feet. The wolf pelt that had been loosely wrapped around my neck billowed out as I fell.

Grab my escaping pelt or scrabble for a handhold?

I hit the ground on my back, air knocked out of my lungs but pelt cradled to my chest. For one long moment, all I could do was lie there and listen to the night.

At first, the signs were good. Crickets chirped. A car honked in the distance.

Then night critters fell silent. Closer than should have been possible, a canine growled.

I winced. A full day of scouting and we’d missed a guard dog. How was that even possible?

While I struggled to pull myself together, the timbre of the growl deepened. Footsteps padded closer.

Soon the dog would see me and bark a warning to its owners. Lights would flicker on in the household I was burgling. My one shot at redeeming my name would be lost.

“Mission aborted,” I muttered to myself. “Time to regroup and try again tomorrow.”

Easing my way to my feet, I started stripping. If one of the Smythewhites looked out a window to check on Spot, I didn’t want them to see anything two-legged. Shoes, socks, pants….

Someone laughed so close by I could have reached out and touched him. “Wardrobe malfunction?”

I leapt a foot sideways, my pelt slipping off my arm the way it had a habit of doing. As if my lupine nature wasn’t entirely quiescent when shed into a leathery skin. As if its wishes trumped my own.

Now, the pesky skin slid down to land on the grass between us. And before I could snatch it back up, the stranger’s hand slid across my discarded fur.

A ghost caress ran up the full length of my spine. My breath caught in my throat. It had been years since anyone touched my pelt.

The stranger’s voice was deep and smooth, like water against river rocks. “What’s this?”

“It’s….” I shook my head, unable to believe I’d almost answered. It’s what woelfin use for transformation. It’s the other half of my self, my most precious possession.

It’s the memory of my worst lapse of judgement. The only way to correct a decade-old mistake.

I cleared my throat and went on the offensive. “It’s mine. Give it back.”

Unfortunately, no pelt appeared in my peripheral vision. Even when I remembered my humanity and tacked on a modifier:

“Please.”

Instead, a ghost thumb blazed a semicircle behind my left earlobe. Well, behind my pelt’s left earlobe. The stranger was teasing his fingers through my shed fur. Stroking gently, curiously. Was that good news or bad?

His reply, when it came, rumbled through my belly like a drumbeat. “Look at me.”

My eyes remained riveted on the ground, fixed on the dandelion down caught in my right-most toe cleft. I’d learned the hard way that non-woelfin were spooked by amber irises. I shook my head rather than obey him.

We were at an impasse. Silence lengthened. Crickets restarted. There was no traffic.

Eventually, I rounded my shoulders and mumbled an explanation at my toenails. “I’m sorry. I thought this was a park, not private property.”

“And the ten-foot-high fence?”

I couldn’t help myself. My mouth quirked sideways. “To keep out zombie giraffes.”

***

He laughed, the sound rich and enticing. I felt rather than saw as his whole hand massaged my pelt this time. My human neck turned jelly-soft beneath the caress.

His words tensed me back up in short order. “Do you need help?”

Of course I needed help. My cousin was dying. I craved a time machine. Or perhaps a way to break into the vast, dark house before me and steal back what didn’t rightfully belong to the people inside.

What I had was a man dropping down to kneel so close I was finally forced to look at him. His eyes were the stormy blue of a sunlit ocean. His dark curls had tousled free of any civilized arrangement. His shirt was misbuttoned, as if he’d seen me lurking in the shadows and half-dressed before rushing over to hunt me down.

“Is this your home?” Words tumbled out before I could stop them.

He shook his head. “Yours?”

“Heh. No.” The hem of my t-shirt was ragged and holey. The house—almost a mansion—was extravagant. The fact this stranger could even ask that question proved he was either delusional or kind.

He stared into my eyes, not flinching at their color. “Here.”

My pelt lay atop his hands, halfway between us. For one insane instant, I imagined leaving it there. His touch was blissful. The unfamiliar intimacy was gut-wrenching.

Instead, I asked the most relevant question in the face of this overwhelming attraction: “Do you have a twin?”

His brows drew together, but he didn’t request further explanation. Just shook his head and dashed the hope sparking in my belly.

“No.”

“Ah, well, then.” I turned away. If he didn’t have a twin, he wasn’t for me.

Snatching my pelt out of the stranger’s lax fingers, I grabbed up jeans, shoes, and socks in one hurried gesture. I was halfway to the fence, plotting my escape route when he called after me.

“My name is Luke.”

A low-hanging limb assisted my ascent. Scrambling across the scrap of carpet I’d lugged along to shield against razor wire, my bare ankle nonetheless snagged on a protruding point.

An inhaled breath from below. I glanced down in time to see the man—Luke—catch a droplet of my blood in his outstretched fingers.

“Clothes,” he suggested. “They’re for wearing.”

I shrugged, shoving off the carpet then grabbing one corner to take the square with me. Down, down, down. I landed on the sidewalk on two bent legs.

Straightening, I found myself eye to eye with Luke, nothing but air and fence between us. In the seconds I’d been busy, he’d lowered himself to perch on the edge of a concrete planter. Despite the fact I’d used perfect plummeting posture this time, my lungs felt as windstruck as when I’d landed on my back a few moments before.

Luke was tall and broad but not muscle-bound. The veins on his hands stood out even in the shadows. He was strength and power incarnate.

He was also patient. His head cocked but he didn’t request my identity a second time.

Perhaps that’s why I gave it to him.

“Honor. I’m Honor, master zombie-giraffe hunter.”

Then, without allowing myself another moment for banter, I turned to flee from the home I’d hoped to burglarize in an attempt to regain the right to use my name.

Chapter 2

“You’re blushing.”

Justice was right where I’d left him two blocks over. And still my breath caught in my throat when he stepped out of the shadows.

Because my nearly-a-lawyer cousin—double cousin, actually, the son of my father’s brother and mother’s sister—looked just like his dying twin. Both were olive-skinned with straight dark hair and eyes like wells of understanding. But only Justice peered at me as if I was dog shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

I coughed to clear my throat of the bitterness of his expression, then attempted to explain my hot cheeks away. “I ran here.”

Bastion would have known that cough was an evasion. Justice simply didn’t care.

Well, he didn’t care about my emotional volatility. He did care about the mission that had drawn us back into the close proximity we’d eschewed for years.

His eyes slid over me, ignoring my nakedness. “You don’t have it.”

I hugged my pelt closer to my chest before I shook my head in deflated confirmation. I didn’t have it, so we should….

My hand went for the door of the car Justice had been leaning against, but he pushed between me and the metal. “You realize we’re on a deadline. A permanent deadline.”

I clenched my fists, then relaxed them. Reminded myself that it was Justice’s brother who lost a little more will to live with each passing hour. Plus, Justice was skipping a very important capstone seminar to help us hunt for Bastion’s pelt. His surliness deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Still, his ailing brother and I were closer than siblings. We’d been a family of two for the past few years, out earning cash to pay for the others’ education. It wasn’t as if I was likely to forget that our seven-day window had already dwindled down to just a hair more than five.

Bastion’s decline was a pang in my gut that I ached to mitigate. And I had a temporary solution right there in my arms.

Lifting my shed skin until it nearly touched Justice’s nostrils, I raised my eyebrows at the exact same time. “We can stand here all night, or I can use my pelt to ease your brother’s pain.”

Justice’s nostrils flared. “It’s not a pelt. It’s a wolfsfell.”

This argument was cozy as a well-worn blanket. So I baited him, hoping for something lost a decade earlier. “Semantics. If you’d chosen the name ‘Fred’ instead of ‘Justice’ when you were a teenager, would you have been any less likely to study law?”

For one moment, I thought I’d hooked my cousin into his favorite pastime—arguing words and their meanings. My shoulders loosened. Maybe our relationship wasn’t irredeemably broken.

But then Justice’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking hospice care.” He turned away from me to peer up at the Smythewhites’ rooftop, barely visible as it towered above nearby buildings. “My brother can handle a little ache here and there. What he needs is his own wolfsfell.”

I followed Justice’s gaze, wishing it had been as easy as I’d hoped to swipe back the decade-old stolen object. “I couldn’t get inside the house,” I admitted after a long moment. “There was a guard dog….”

And a man. Tall, dark, handsome….

Irrelevant, I decided, leaving the guard dog as the only road block worth mentioning aloud.

“I’ll research it.” Justice pulled out his phone as if he planned to dive into the issue here and now, after midnight, on a darkened street corner.

He still hadn’t moved out of my way or offered his car keys.

“Bastion needs….”

At his brother’s name, my cousin glanced up. For half a second he was the quarter of our pack he’d been in our youth. The strong, silent type with an emphasis on the first adjective. The one we all sought out when we needed an ear that would never retell our secrets…even if he might pick our grammar apart.

But that familiarity must have been a trick of the light. Because I shifted to my other foot and Justice’s listening glance turned into a scowl.

“We’re low on cash,” he told me. “Make yourself useful.”

He held out his hands, waiting for me to drop my clothes into them. Then he turned resolutely away as I slung my pelt across my shoulders and fell onto four paws.

***

Despite wanting to quell Bastion’s pain, it was a relief to avoid my newly reunited family for a short while. Among them, I was out of my element. Alone, I could spend at least a few hours returning to what I did best.

So I ran, following the thread of an online conversation struck up hours earlier. “Wife beater slipped me on Madison Ave,” a local had messaged. “Interested? 50/50 cut.”

At the time, I’d scratched my head, wondering why and how Bastion had managed to update his profile on the Bounty Hunter’s Forum in between bouts of vomiting and feverish napping. Because that was the only way our local counterpart could have guessed we were in town.

Knowing my sunny cousin, Bastion had probably thought he’d shake off his sickness then get back to work within hours. He hadn’t, of course. Instead, I’d been the one stuck answering pesky PMs from people I’d never met but who felt like they knew me. That’s what came of Bastion’s forum stories, thrusting thousands of interested readers into our day-to-day lives.

In this case, I’d messaged back a curt: “On vacation.”

“Just in case you get bored,” the local had countered, following up with his telephone number.

I wasn’t bored, but I was in need of both cash and distraction. So I turned toward Madison Avenue, allowing myself to forget both the past and the future. My claws clicked through the silence of suburban sleep as I achieved the site in question. The street was dark, residential. It was after midnight.

And the perp? Jimmy English hadn’t traveled far from the spot where he’d last been sighted. I followed the gray grunge of predator-turned-prey aroma for half a mile until it strengthened into the garlicky smugness of triumph.

The bail jumper had returned home. Of course he had. Didn’t we all crave our dens?

My local counterpart swore the wife hadn’t seen her husband in days. And she probably hadn’t. In wolf skin, I couldn’t see Jimmy either, tucked away in the kids’ treehouse.

But I could smell him. Could hear him. Knew from the scent of rage on the step closest to the bottom that the wife beater was plotting revenge.

Revenge on his spouse, who might not even know her husband had failed to show up for his court hearing yesterday. She was inside, unprotected. He was outside, sharpening his rage.

The capture couldn’t wait until morning. We needed to settle this immediately.

And…I needed backup. Without a human partner—or, you know, clothes—it would be difficult to apprehend a criminal. Apparently I’d been running on adrenaline all night long.

Luckily, suburbanites are lax with locks. I gnawed my pelt off my shoulders then pried the garage door upward, cringing when wheels squeaked on their metal tracks.

But nothing came out of the darkness to check on my intrusion. And inside was just what I’d hoped I’d see.

Stairs leading into what appeared to be a man cave. Old beer. Old socks. Everything old.

Meanwhile, off in one corner, the rarest of modern utilities—a land-line telephone.

Also old. But when I lifted the receiver, I was greeted by a dial tone.

I dialed the local bounty hunter’s digits from memory. Realized too late that I was likely waking him up.

Only, I wasn’t. Slim’s voice was curt. “What?”

“This is Honor. I changed my mind. Wanna be my backup?”

“Address?”

I rattled off my current location…then froze as the point of a knife dug into the base of my skull.

***

I could hear my uncle’s voice in crisp, vivid memory. “A blade plus your wolf teeth is all you need to protect yourself and your family. A dagger is the weapon of the strong.”

Despite myself, I hummed satisfaction. Because the holder of this particular blade was strong, even though she likely didn’t think she was. The knife point didn’t wiggle even though the woman’s voice, when it emerged, squeaked up, up, up.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a fugitive recovery agent, ma’am. Here to pick up your husband.” I hesitated a moment, then offered further reassurance. “I’m totally unarmed.”

The knife point slid sideways. The overhead light flickered on. To my surprise, the woman behind me laughed.

“I can see that.” Her tone had turned dry.

Which is when I remembered that I was naked save for the pelt wrapped around one wrist like a bracer. I turned…

…and sprinted toward the man looming in the doorway behind her. After all, Mrs. English might be strong when faced with a naked female, but she’d let herself be beaten by her husband for years before reporting him.

And that husband was the one who’d snuck up on both of us. His scent was unavailable to my human nostrils. But I’d perused his mugshot. Knew his face.

Jimmy English. Wife beater and bond jumper in the flesh.

He was furious. Our voices must have drawn him closer. Then he’d assumed—what? That his wife had seen him creeping into the treehouse and ratted him out?

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t me but rather his spouse who drew Jimmy’s ire. He charged toward her, wordless rage bellowing. I changed my trajectory to intersect his path.

As I sprinted by, his wife took in the intruder with the same recognition but much more horror than I’d felt at his presence. The barely healed wound along one side of her jaw was bright red now, her face having whitened around it. She flinched as if the two broken ribs Jimmy left her with had shattered a second ago rather than last week.

I was the naked one, but it was as if Jimmy English’s arrival had stripped his spouse of something far more valuable than mere clothes.

No wonder she cringed, seeming to lose half her height in a second. The knife she’d been holding clattered to the floor.

Scum is awfully good at taking advantage of opportunities. No wonder Jimmy dove past me, stretching for the weapon that would provide the upper hand he should have already possessed by virtue of his bulk.

I couldn’t let him have it. Mrs. English needed the strength of success, not another beating by her husband.

Jimmy’s upper lip curled into a sneer. And I took advantage of his posturing to slide my arm through the gap between his fingers and the weapon.

Too bad my pelt had a mind of its own.

Wolf teeth caught on Jimmy’s elbow, and he lashed out instinctively. I don’t think he even had time to choose a target. Just got lucky when his fist connected with my breast so hard I yelped.

I expected the sound of my pain to send Mrs. English scurrying for cover. Instead, she appeared to have recovered her spine.

Or so I guessed. My eyes were watering too hard to really see her. But I felt the jolt as she kicked her husband with the full force of years of pent-up aggression.

“You bastard! You really think it’s okay to hit a woman young enough to be our daughter?”

Her heel in his groin shook both of us. I rolled sideways away from the burly monster who’d crumpled into a pile of deflated testosterone at his wife’s furious feet.

Mrs. English kept kicking while I leveraged myself upright. Headlights curved across the wall behind me…then stopped.

The timeline had moved up faster than anticipated. Slim must have been out cruising—no wonder the answer to my call had been so prompt.

I’d intended to chase Jimmy into the front yard in wolf form, leaving the capture to my partner. Teaming up with Bastion, the move would have been seamless. Even with a stranger for a partner, I should have been able to stick to the shadows and let Slim cuff our perp.

After that, I would have shifted and called out instructions. Made myself known and ensured I landed my cut of the bounty.

But now I was naked, in a lit room, watching a marital dispute that seemed destined to continue. Because with every kick, the wife appeared to be learning to inhale.

I could steal some clothes, intervene and talk Mrs. English around until she was confused about my former nakedness. Stick to the plan. Refill the pack’s dwindling coffers.

Or I could walk away and let this wronged wife complete her retribution. Slim would find them at his leisure. Jimmy would go back to jail, so the same end would be accomplished. I’d just fail to make my own contribution clear.

“So much for cash,” I muttered, toeing the knife sideways so it wouldn’t end up part of the marital tussle. Justice would be pissed at the lack of cash flow, but I inhaled deeper than I had in hours. For the first time all day, the name “Honor” hung unwrinkled across my shoulders.

Sliding past the raging wife, I shifted in the stairwell and wriggled out beneath the raised garage door. Then I waited in the shadows until Slim disentangled himself from his seatbelt and made his way upstairs.

Chapter 3

I slunk back to the fleabag motel where my pack camped, exhausted and craving my family. Halfway there, my head started pounding. The sensation was sharp, intense…then abruptly gone.

I shook away transient pain and kept on running. By the time I made it to the foot of the stairs leading up to the motel landing, dawn was just beginning to gray the sky.

The hour was either very late or very early, depending on your perspective. I didn’t expect anyone to have waited up for me. But as soon as I shivered out of my wolf body, the door swung open above my head.

Darkness fled. Light cupped me. My twin stepped out onto the concrete landing and leaned down over the rail.

Like Justice and Bastion, Grace and I were biologically identical…yet we’d never be mistaken for each other. Grace was well named, her body slender where mine was athletically curvy. Perfectly managed hair poured over her right shoulder in stark contrast to my endlessly tangled mop of curls.

Until recently, we hadn’t spent more than a weekend of our adulthood together. Grace had focused on finishing up her undergraduate degree at RISD before landing a sought-after fashion-design internship. I’d been hunting criminals with Bastion while attempting to redeem my sins.

No wonder we had very little to talk about.

Now, though, Grace and I were united with one purpose. “How is he?” I asked, slipping past so I could peer around the door jamb. Justice was hunched over a computer in one corner. A dark lump on the opposite bed was smaller than it should have been.

“Worse.” Grace breathed out through her nose, as frustrated as I was. We both watched as Bastion turned restlessly underneath heavy covers. It was high summer, yet our cousin could never seem to get warm.

Then he moaned, and my feet carried me closer until I could lean over where he curled beneath the bedspread. Tomorrow, we would revamp our plan for finding Bastion’s pelt. We’d discuss avenues Justice might have found online while I was bounty hunting. Then the three of us would turn our strategy into fact.

Tonight, all I could do was give my favorite cousin a little fleeting comfort. My pelt slid off my shoulders as if it was a living being. I shook out the skin to its full extent, let it drift down to cover Bastion like a shroud.

No, not like a shroud. Like a blanket. A cocoon, both warm and healing.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Bastion’s deep exhaustion bit into my bones.

He wasn’t just worse; he was floundering. There was little of my cousin left inside this body. Just fever and emptiness leading to dark, endless sleep.

His eyes had sunk into their sockets, his family resemblance to our dead parents during their last week of life starkly evident. Bastion was dying because of my mistake, just as Justice and Grace would decline if the thief started using their stolen pelts.

No wonder the pair wanted nothing to do with me. Yet when my legs buckled, hands were there to catch me. Justice on one side, Grace on the other. Together, my family lowered me until I lay next to Bastion on the bed.

A damp cloth materialized on my forehead. Someone’s fingers twined through mine. I barely felt the contact, so intense was the agony of virtual ice picks pounding into my skull.

Beside me, Bastion stirred. Sat up. “You shouldn’t…” His hand was steady as it peeled the pelt off his chest and shoulders.

As the fur lifted, pain eased within me. The two-day-old lines bracketing Bastion’s mouth tightened at the exact same moment.

Either I bore the pain or he did. I was grateful when Grace reached over and dislodged his fingers.

“Leave it,” Grace said sternly. “She wants to.”

The pelt fell. The pain returned with a vengeance. My head now pounded like a gong being rung by a dozen drunk chimpanzees.

And for once, my twin was right. I did want this.

I nodded. Bastion hesitated, then left my pelt where it had fallen across his body.

Relieved, I reached for returning agony as if it was a hand-quilted comforter, pulling it close around my sullied soul.

***

“Get up.”

Hard hands pushed me off the edge of the bed and I didn’t manage to grab onto anything solid. I hit the ground butt-first—good thing my rear end is padded.

“Whereza fire?” I slurred as I blinked open my eyes. Sun poured through the window, turning Justice into a silhouette. But I understood his head shake. As he turned away, I could imagine him rolling his eyes.

No wonder he was pissed. It felt like only a few minutes had passed since I let unconsciousness salve my agony, but the sun’s position suggested I’d slept for most of the day. Behind me, Bastion was once again hunched under the covers, my pelt discarded. He must have soaked up every ounce of the energy I’d manage to store during my short time in fur the previous night.

Was it just my imagination, though, or did he seem to be sleeping more soundly than he had yesterday? That realization did more than an aspirin for melting away the pounding inside my skull.

“There is no dog.” Grace prodded me with a pointed boot toe, reminding me that I couldn’t sit on the mildewed carpet forever.

The floor slipped sideways as I tried to press myself up to standing. My hair frizzed across my face, blocking my view. I grabbed onto the side of the bed to balance myself while my balance spun like a tilt-a-whirl. “You know that how exactly?” I croaked.

“Went through their garbage.” I raised my eyebrows and Grace flushed. “Justice went through their garbage,” she corrected herself. “No Alpo cans.”

“So they feed it dry dog food.”

“…and I dropped by to see the town dog catcher. Nobody from that address has ever applied for a dog license.” This time, Grace didn’t wait for my argument. “Yes, I know that’s private information. But I dressed to impress. He looked it up for me anyway.”

I reached across the rumpled bedspread to regain my pelt. The fur was cold at first, but hairs warmed as I stroked them. Alertness unfurled inside my human skin.

With returning clarity came the harsh reminder of reality. One week after each of our parents had started to decline, they’d faded away at midnight.

My stomach clenched. That wouldn’t happen to Bastion. I wouldn’t let it.

“Today’s day three,” I said aloud, running the back of my hand across Bastion’s forehead. Beads of sweat came away on my fingers, but he didn’t move beneath my ministrations.

As best we could tell, being separated from our pelts only caused harm once someone started using the missing items. That same manipulation gave us a small window of opportunity when we could track down the stolen skin.

Unlike with our parents, this time we’d been lucky. Proximity and youth meant Bastion had been able to point us in the direction of his stolen pelt before he became delirious.

Unfortunately, he was no longer strong enough to narrow down the search window. Our luck was rapidly running out.

Or maybe not. “Five hours until showtime,” Grace informed me, waving what appeared to be a newspaper clipping through the air in triumph. When I just stared in confusion, she deigned to elaborate.

“Benefit party at the Smythewhites this evening.”

It was time to create our own luck.

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