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  Not to mention if the Hansens killed her, they’d have first dibs on her pack.

  I can’t ever let that happen.

  When Addy emerged, wiping hair out of her eyes, Beth was saying, “I know it’s hard to keep track of where you go in wolf form because we don’t remember, but you’re an expert tracker. How could you get lost enough to let a stranger bring you home? What if he’d asked questions? What if he found out?”

  “Beth.” Addy’s voice was sharp and rang with the power of the kikua. “He didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. He put a jacket on my shoulders and gave me a ride home. Period. I don’t know what happened while I was gone.”

  Beth sank to the toilet, and onto Wate’s jacket, with a gasp. “You don’t remember anything? But … that means you were in wolf form for two days!”

  “Get me some Excedrin, would you?”

  Beth walked to the medicine cabinet and pulled out the green bottle of aspirin, shaking four tablets into Addy’s waiting palm. She swallowed them dry.

  “I was tied up and beaten,” Addy said, sinking back into the hot water until it covered everything but her ears and face. “Body feels like it’s been crushed by a bulldozer.”

  “The Hansens,” Beth guessed.

  “Just like Marina and Riley,” Addy agreed.

  “But they weren’t gone for two days. I mean, we found Riley like two hours after he went missing, and Marina was home the next morning. We couldn’t find you at all.”

  The silence dragged on, broken only by Beth’s breathing and the drip-drip of the broken bathtub faucet. Addy washed her hair and cleaned her body of all traces of her missing timeline. When she pulled the plug and stood, Beth held out a fluffy yellow towel.

  “You still look like crap,” she said.

  Addy tucked the towel beneath her arms. “I know.”

  Beth followed Addy into her bedroom, the Master at the front of the house, equipped with 70s carpet, modern cherry furniture, and a window seat. Addy stared outside, her land stretching before her in the early morning light.

  “Addy? Did the Hansens … ?”

  Addy looked down at her sister’s concerned face. She was curled up in the window seat, looking like a little girl in her anguish. “Did they what?”

  Beth made a face. “Did they violate you?”

  “No, they didn’t.” Addy felt a rush of relief for those bruises and gashes. She’d been tortured, but nothing to indicate she’d been raped. That hadn’t even been something she’d processed as a possibility. “I must have been shifted the whole time, so there was only wolf.”

  “What are they trying to prove?”

  Addy shook her head. “I have no idea. They obviously didn’t know I was the LaBarre kikua.”

  “You’d be dead, and we’d be bound to them.” Beth looked sick at the thought.

  “Where are the boys?” Addy’s brothers weren’t boys, per se. They were twenty-four and ruggedly masculine, like their father. But they were triplets, and ever since they were babies, they’d always been “the boys.”

  “Looking for you. I texted Sam as soon as you showed up. They should be back any minute.”

  “We need to call a pack meeting,” Addy murmured, her gaze back on the farm outside the window. “It’s time we do something about the Hansens. I don’t want to risk there being a next time.”

  Beth gasped. “A next time?”

  Addy caught her baby sister’s gaze. She’d spent the five years since her father’s death protecting her family and her pack from anything that could hurt them. She suddenly felt small and useless; she wasn’t the kikua her father had thought she would be.

  Her next words came out as a whisper. “I don’t want to risk dying and putting everyone in our pack at the mercy of our enemy.”

  Chapter Four

  “You’re late.”

  The words hit Wate before he’d even crossed the threshold. The council was packed into his father’s kitchen in various poses — standing and sitting — as they convened for their weekly meeting.

  Wate sought out the source of the admonishment — his father. The man was big and brawny like a mountain towering over a valley. He wore the traditional headdress of the Riawana clan leader. The feathers and beads looked out of place cresting over the lapels of his starched white Ralph Lauren polo, though not nearly as odd as they appeared beside his gold Rolex.

  Wate bowed his head. “I apologize, Father. I had to help a soul in need.”

  Yaholo Jackson nodded once, approval on his wise face. “In that case, all is forgiven, Hiawatha. Take your seat.”

  Wate sat beside his mother at Yaholo’s right hand. Dela smiled sweetly, her dark eyes sparkling. Between her legs, curled up on the floor, her wolfhound snuffled in his sleep, his nose resting on her bare foot. She tossed a long black braid over her shoulder and patted Wate’s hand. “You have an air about you, my sweet. Were you with Sarah?”

  Wate shook his head but didn’t elaborate. His mother adored Sarah; he wasn’t ready to break her heart yet.

  “My clan, I have had word of unrest in our lands.” Yaholo’s deep voice boomed. He waited in silence, meeting everyone’s gaze one by one. The council consisted of thirteen family heads, both male and female, all who served under their supreme leader — Yaholo. They looked to him in question, waiting for more information.

  “We are such a peaceful people,” Dela spoke up, sensing her husband was seeking a prompt. “How is there unrest?”

  Yaholo nodded his thanks. “It is not among our people. It is among the Skin-Walkers.”

  Wate stared blankly at his father. “Skin-Walkers?”

  “Yes, son. Skin-Walkers are immortal beings with the ability to take the form of animals.” His answer was patient, but Wate knew his father well: he was irritated that his son, future chief of their clan, had no clue what a Skin-Walker was.

  “Our local pack is said to be wolves,” Dela added helpfully.

  That confused Wate even more. “Said to be? We don’t know?”

  Yaholo spoke again. “The Skin-Walkers have lived in harmony beside us for ages, so quiet and peaceful since my grandfathers’ time that we simply have not had any interaction with them. However, something has changed.” Here his black gaze shifted from Wate to the rest of the council. “There is an air to the land. Something is amiss.”

  “Could they be in trouble?” Kita was an elderly woman with white braids, head of the Ortega family. Wate had heard she was the best weather witch in Pennsylvania, but he’d never seen her in action.

  “I do believe they are in trouble. The winds tell me so.”

  “What can we do about it?” This from the head of the Sanchez family, a thin, warrior-type by the name of Marco. “They are not our friends. We don’t even know who they are.”

  Yaholo glared at him. “Marco Sanchez, your great-grandfather told stories of his childhood, when the Kronos Clan invaded our area and murdered half of our people. Do you recall who saved us then?”

  Marco hung his head. “You are right, Supremae. It was the Skin-Walkers who helped our clan defeat the Kronos.”

  An idea was forming in Wate’s mind, centered around a beautiful, grey-eyed girl naked on the side of the road. “Father, why are they called Skin-Walkers?”

  Yaholo approved of this question. Yaholo always approved of any thirst to learn and grow. “When they shift, nothing goes with them. They change skins.”

  “So when they shift back … ”

  “They are naked.” Yaholo grinned, a white slash in his tanned face.

  Wate stood, one of his unspoken questions from earlier that day now answered. “I know who they are.”

  Chapter Five

  The sun was setting over the LaBarre farm as the pack gathered in the barn.

  Addy felt more normal this evening as her strength returned and her body began healing what was left of her injuries. The bruises were gone and the scrapes nothing but a memory.

  She slid the barn door closed, the heavy wood shutti
ng on snow as it drifted down outside.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said, her voice pitched loud enough to be heard over the steady murmur of her pack. “I know it’s a busy time with the solstice tomorrow. Many of us have feasts to prepare before the grand bonfire ritual as the sun sets tomorrow evening.”

  At her mention of the annual event, the air became charged with excitement. The wolves only celebrated four holidays — the solstices and the equinoxes. The long wait between festivals only caused the celebrations to be that much more anticipated and wild. Addy and her family had stopped hosting their own solstice feast the year after her father died. They spent their holidays with the Conrad family.

  Addy took her seat on the raised dais, her feet dangling above the dirt floor. She looked out over her pack, awed — as usual — by the strength of their number. They were pressed shoulder to shoulder in her barn, casually strung across the expanse on rugs and blankets.

  All of her people looked to her with trust, except for one.

  Katelyn Aubrey sat at the back of the crowd, her heated gaze and open-mouthed sneer leveled on Addy with hostility. Not for the first time, Addy’s feelings were hurt by it, though she would never have admitted this out loud.

  When Addy’s father died five years previous, as his eldest, Addy was next in line to be kikua, leader of the pack. She was strong and smart, and no one had questioned that she would take his place.

  No one except Jonathan Aubrey, Katelyn’s husband.

  Jonathan had challenged Addy for the pack, rushing her by surprise and nearly over-taking her before she could shift. She couldn’t remember the fight, of course, because the wolf was a separate being from her and thus retained its own canine memory. But Beth and her brothers had given her all the gory details.

  Jonathan was brawn and might, but Addy was strength and agility. She wore him down, little by little, a macabre dance for power beneath a waning moon. She shifted back to human form less than an hour later, Jonathan dead at her feet, never to return to his human body.

  Katelyn’s hostility had followed Addy for five long years. Her brothers had all recommended she be banned, cast away from the pack lest she do something in revenge. Katelyn, like her husband, had no respect for the kikua and was as cowardly as a wolf could be. But Addy couldn’t bring herself to do it. She thought of it as a curse, that she couldn’t do the hard things leaders were expected to do.

  Her brothers sat at her feet, their identical faces turned towards her. Sam looked determined, while Nick and Jake looked ready to pin her down and keep her mouth closed. They’d argued, very loudly, against Addy exposing her moment of weakness that had allowed the Hansens’ to take her.

  But Addy believed true leaders had weaknesses, too.

  The pack silenced beneath her gaze, waiting for her to speak.

  “As you all are aware, I was missing for two days. I can’t tell you where I was, because I don’t know. I was taken in wolf form. When I awoke, I’d been injured like Riley and Marina.”

  The two named sat together in a group to Addy’s left. Riley was a LaBarre cousin, his hair fiery red and his eyes emerald green. He touched Marina’s knee in solidarity. Marina was a Conrad, a long-standing family in the pack. Her grandfather had pledged allegiance to Addy’s father fifty years before, and the family took it seriously.

  Addy hated the fear rippling through her pack. She understood it — she was supposed to be the strongest member, the leader, the protector. Once the magic of kikua had taken over, she was meant to be invincible, protected by the gods of nature.

  If Addy had been taken with no problem, the rest of the pack had much to fear.

  “Two weeks ago, the Munroes lost their house to fire. We all know it wasn’t an accident or faulty wiring. We know it was the Hansens. Their stench was all over the yard.” Addy shook her head, remembering the Munroe family shivering in the cold night air. It had been just after Thanksgiving, and they’d lost everything. “Vandalism, massacred pets and farm animals, the Hansens have wrought havoc on us since they arrived.”

  A murmur of agreement tittered around the room.

  “I need everyone to be vigilant,” Addy said, putting a note of warning in her voice. “Keep your doors locked. Set a watch inside your house, and do not go outside alone. If you live alone, find somewhere else to sleep.”

  This last was directed at Katelyn, the only pack member who lived by herself. As a whole, the pack was just that — a pack. Even when children got married, they usually moved in with one another’s families. Addy knew of one household — the James’ — which held sixteen inhabitants.

  “I need a volunteer from each family to meet with me afterwards to begin discussing how we will right this problem. The Hansens have encroached upon our territory, looting our food source and harming our pack. They cannot and will not be allowed to continue. We will take them down.”

  A cheer rose up from the pack. It was only a brief moment, but Addy felt like a leader, someone who could do this, someone who could protect her people.

  But the moment passed, and Addy again felt like a little girl dressed in her father’s clothes.

  *

  The meeting of minds went well, but with little to show beyond a unanimous vote to declare war on the Hansens.

  Her brothers had run off as soon as the meeting adjourned, and Beth had gone to bed because she had to work early the next morning. Addy remained behind in the barn, cleaning and stacking all the rugs and blankets that had been pulled out.

  She was terrified and brave enough to admit it. The Hansens had been pests for the better part of the fall, but they hadn’t killed any of her pack, nor had they given any indication that was their intention. They danced around her pack like fleas, doing just enough to annoy but nothing to destroy completely.

  What were their intentions? She didn’t know what they were plotting. Nobody did. And it scared her shitless.

  She also knew nothing about them. Nobody in her pack had seen, or smelled, the Hansens in human form. Because the human scent and wolf scent of a shapeshifter were so different, her pack couldn’t track them back to their human hide-outs. Addy felt blind and dumb, forced to take her pack to war to restore peace and claim the territory they’d run for over two hundred years.

  Addy was so lost in her worries that the intruder was behind her before she ever caught his scent.

  Chapter Six

  If Wate hadn’t known what type of creature Addy LaBarre truly was before he tracked her down in her big red barn, he would have found out the instant he walked in.

  She had her back to him, shoving a stack of throw rugs in stable stall that had been converted to storage. Considering he’d seen her naked, he found it funny how arousing she looked in skin-tight blue jeans and an over-the-shoulder sweater that bared a tantalizing expanse of neck and bicep.

  Before he could open his mouth to greet her, to let her know of his presence, Addy’s shoulders tensed. The change happened too quickly for him to process it. One moment Addy’s back was before him; the next, a giant wolf was lunging for his throat.

  Wate yelped, stumbling backwards in an attempt to get away, but the wolf was too fast. Heavy paws nearly the size of human hands planted on his chest and he tumbled to the ground, the breath whooshing out of him as the wolf landed on top. In one seamless move, the wolf clamped her fangs around Wate’s neck.

  Wate didn’t have time to think or to consider how to get out of the predicament without hurting Addy. He already felt blood on his neck, and her jaws were vise-like. He called for his Wild Magick, closing his eyes as it burst from him like a tidal wave, flames licking over his body and consuming him.

  The Addy-wolf howled, leaping off of him to escape the flames.

  Wate sat up, letting the flames die just enough to see her but not enough to give the wolf another opening to rip his neck from his body. She sat on her hind legs, both front paws in the air as she whined.

  “Crap, Addy. I’m sorry.” Wate let go of his
magick, his flames extinguishing immediately. He crawled on his hands and knees to the wolf, his head down, trying to show her he had no intentions of hurting her.

  The Addy-wolf growled.

  Surely she hadn’t already forgotten his face? The thought made something twitch in Wate’s chest. He certainly hadn’t forgotten a moment of his time with her. The thought of her had haunted him all day.

  “I want to help you,” Wate said softly, catching Addy’s gaze before quickly dropping it. Her wolf eyes were the same steel grey, and just as beautiful.

  As a whole, Addy in canine form was breathtaking. She was tall, nearly horse-sized, and her white fur looked thick and soft, speckled with grey spots down her back. Her ears lay flat as she placed one paw on the floor.

  Wate tried to remember anything his mother had ever taught him about dogs. Dela was the clan’s dog whisperer. She’d trained and rehabilitated animals for as long as Wate could remember, not just for the clan, but as a business for the entire area. She’d taught him a lot, but nothing he’d ever thought he would need to remember.

  Wate slowly lowered himself to the floor and rolled onto his back. He avoided Addy’s eyes, remembering that eye contact was confrontational.

  He stared at the wall, hoping to the gods she wouldn’t rip his inner organs out.

  A moment later, a big wet nose snuffled against his ear. Wate stopped breathing, real fear lancing through him as he waited to see what she would do. She limped closer, her nose trailing down his hooded sweatshirt. He saw the moment of recognition, when her head shot up and she sat back on her haunches.

  This change was slower. The air around her blurred like a mirage in the desert. Colors moved and shifted beneath the haze, and a moment later, Addy sat on her knees before him.

  Naked.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” Wate said with a grin, his head cocked back to look up at her from his prone position on the floor. It was a pretty erotic angle, giving him a damn good view of her round breasts.