CHAPTER 8

Raphael was on time. He was always on time. At seven, a small rock hit my bedroom window and bounced off the bars with a loud clink. I glanced through the glass. Raphael stood below, wearing a tuxedo.

Like we were kids going to the prom.

I swiped my oversized clutch off the bed and checked myself for the last time in the mirror. The evil dress was still stunning and badass. My blond hair floated around my head in a beautifully disarrayed cloud that had taken half an hour to arrange and coax into place. I’d tweezed my eyebrows into a perfect shape, applied a narrow line of eyeliner around my eyes to make them stand out, brushed a light dusting of bronze onto my eyelids, and finished off with a double coat of mascara. My lips were a shimmering, intense red, matching the ruby of the dragon’s eye.

I slipped a bracelet on my wrist: red garnets mixed with white sapphires. It was the only noncostume piece of jewelry I owned. My mother bought it for me when I graduated from the Order’s Academy. I always thought it brought me luck.

I checked my clutch to see if the outline of my Ruger SP101 showed through the black leather. Nope. All good. With the magic up it wouldn’t even fire, but it comforted me to have it with me. I didn’t bring a knife. I could count on Raphael having several.

For some reason, when a typical weresomething got into a fight, nature flipped a switch in its head that dictated it grow claws and fangs and rip things apart instead of shooting them from a distance or cutting them with knives like smart people do. I always thought it was to Raphael’s credit that he was the exception to this rule.

He was waiting. No more stalling. I was as hot as I was going to get.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked out of the apartment in my four-inch black heels. Click-click-click down the stairs and out the door.

The evening breeze swirled around me, flinging scents into my face. Raphael waited for me on the sidewalk. My brain took a second to process what I was seeing and got stuck. My coordination unraveled. I stopped.

Raphael wore a black tuxedo. The light of the early evening played on his face, painting the left side golden, while the right remained in cool shadow. He looked perfectly poised between darkness and light. The elegant jacket mapped the strength of his broad shoulders and the supple resilience of his narrow waist, bringing to the forefront both the natural beauty of his body and its dangerous edge. His blue eyes looked hard and focused, hammering home the point—crossing him would be extremely unwise.

He didn’t wear his tuxedo like a relaxed gentleman would wear a dinner jacket, nor did he wear it the way a knight wore his armor. Raphael wore it the way an assassin wears his leathers and cloak. He was a dagger in a black sheath. I wanted to reach for him, even knowing he would slice my flesh to pieces.

My heart hammered in my chest. This was such a bad idea. But it was my only chance at Anapa and his office, and I owed it to Nick and the families of four dead shapeshifters to take it.

Raphael was looking at me and I just stood there, unable to move. I had to do something. Say something.

Sad, sad Andrea cradling her pitiful broken heart. Pathetic.

The vitriol did its job. The world stopped spinning, my mind snapped into gear, and I finally registered the significance of Raphael’s expression. He looked blank. Completely blank, as if he was gazing at something that had broken his brain.

“Raphael?”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“Are you okay?”

Raphael’s lips moved. He swore.

Ha! I got him! Drink it in, darling. Where’s your seven-foot-tall fiancée now?

“Is there something wrong with my dress?” Rub it in, rub it in…

Raphael finally managed to formulate a word. “No. Just wondering where you hid your gun.”

I showed him my giant clutch.

“Ah,” he said. “Didn’t see that.”

Of course he didn’t. He was too busy looking at me. It was a small revenge, but it tasted so sweet.

Raphael led me to his Pack Jeep that spat and roared, belching magic. He opened the door for me. As I got in, his scent slid along my skin, singing to me.

Maaate. Mate-mate-mate.

Damn it.

I sat in my seat. Instead of closing the door, he leaned toward me, a look of intense concentration on his face as if he were about to say or do something rash.

My breath caught in my throat. If he bent down to kiss me, I would punch him right in the face. I wouldn’t be able to help myself.

Raphael pushed himself away from me and closed the door.

Good. It was better this way. Really.

Raphael got into the Jeep, shut the door, muting the roar of the water engine, and we took off.

He reached to the side compartment in his door, pulled out a folder, and dropped it on my lap. I opened it. A time line of his workers’ movements on the night of the murder. “Great. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I dug into the time line.

Twenty minutes later it was clear that none of Raphael’s people had had time to double back to the site and murder their friends and colleagues. Raphael was the only man without a solid alibi. According to his schedule, he’d gone home, apparently without his fiancée. Knowing him, I had expected them to be at it like rabbits, but I guess even rabbits had an off day once in a while.

I tapped the paper. “What about Colin? Jim’s file said he’s in debt.”

“He’s in debt because his house caught fire. He took out an emergency loan from the Pack. He works hard and he knows that if he’s ever in trouble, he can come to me.”

I leaned my head back, but not too hard—wouldn’t do to mess up my hair against the headrest.

“We agreed to share information,” Raphael said.

“I don’t have much to share. Spent all day at the library trying to pin down Jamar’s art collection. Found eight items that weren’t in the vault, some with pictures. Nothing stood out. Got a set of prints that doesn’t belong to anyone on your payroll, but there are no hits in any of the databases. Analyzed a metric ton of trace evidence without any conclusive leads.”

“You will solve it,” he said. “If Jim hadn’t assigned you to this, I would’ve asked for you.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence. So nobody can confirm that you went home?”

Raphael shrugged. “No. Had I known I’d have to provide an alibi, I would’ve made sure not to spend the night alone.”

“I’m surprised you did.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s been forty-eight hours and we have no leads.”

His tone told me he wasn’t criticizing. His people were dead. Raphael was angry, frustrated, and hurting. “I wouldn’t say that. You know how it goes—slow and steady wins the race.”

“I know.” He looked at the road. “I had to sign the death benefit papers today.”

That had to have sucked. “Nick came to see me. He’s having a rough time.”

“He isn’t the only one,” Raphael said. “I should’ve known about the vault. I should’ve known it was there.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” I told him. “I pored over Jamar’s press releases all day and I never once saw the vault mentioned. You didn’t miss it. The information just wasn’t there to begin with.”

“You really think Anapa had something to do with it?”

“I don’t know if he did. He has no criminal record. He has no parking tickets. His company is squeaky clean, although I didn’t have time to dig too deep. In addition, I spent an hour on him in the library today and I found zip. He wouldn’t see me, but he knows he’s under scrutiny. His people know who I am, too.”

Raphael glanced at me.

“His mouthpiece made sure to remind me that I no longer had the Order on my side.”

“Ah.”

Ah what? Ah—too bad? Ah—I understand? Ah—serves you right? “They know who I am; they know I’m tenacious. Why not spend ten minutes answering my questions? Then I go away, and everyone’s happy.”

“You think he’s hiding something?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m collecting information and I’ve run into a roadblock. Short of staging a break-in, this party is my best bet.”

Raphael snorted. “A break-in. You?”

“I thought about it,” I said. “I think he has the roof heavily warded and there are a lot of surveillance cameras. He did leave a very nice route open for me, with cameras not covering it even, so I’m pretty sure it’s trapped six ways to Sunday. I’d probably go through the basement instead. But again, since he isn’t in the office much, there’s not much point.”

Raphael stared at me. I wished he would stop doing that. Every time he turned to me, my heart kept trying to pirouette out of my chest in a futile attempt to flop itself at his feet. Meanwhile my hands wanted to wrap around his throat and strangle him. It was good that my brain was in charge.

“Who are you and what have you done with Andrea?”

“I’m the new and more-screwed-up version. Or much improved, depending on the way one looks at it.”

He stared straight ahead. “I thought being screwed up was something we had in common.”

“No, I was always the fucked-up one. You were the spoiled one.”

The line of Raphael’s jaw hardened. “I’ve worked since I was sixteen, six days a week. I’ve built my company from nothing with ten thousand dollars of seed money I borrowed from the Pack, just like everyone else, and I’ve paid back five times that. I am supporting the entire Clan Bouda now. Nobody gave me any special treatment. How exactly am I spoiled?”

I blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Please, enlighten me.”

“You remember last year you wanted to take that vacation in the Keys for a week?”

He glanced at me. “You’re going to hold our vacation against me? You loved it.”

I did. It was just me and him and the ocean. “Do you remember that bouda family wanted to join the clan about the same time? The De La Torre family?”

An individual shapeshifter joining the Pack was a relatively simple affair. He presented himself to the alphas of his clan, and if they said yes, they would then in turn sponsor the shapeshifter before the Pack. With families and small packs, the process became complicated. Multiple background checks and individual interviews later, a special date had to be set, and alphas or betas of other clans had to be present.

Raphael shrugged. “What about the De La Torres?”

“Aunt B had the date set and you had to be there to sponsor them with her.”

“Yes.”

“And you told your mother that she was welcome to do whatever she wanted but you were going on your vacation.”

“I’d worked seven-day weeks for two months nonstop.”

I bared my teeth at him. “Are you going to let me make my point or do I have to bite you to keep you from interrupting?”

“If you bite me, I’ll bite back. And I grow bigger teeth.”

Oh, it’s like that, then. “But I’m much more motivated.”

He snarled. I snarled back and snapped my human teeth at him. A little crazy light sparked in Raphael’s eyes, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant. I used to be able to read him better. I used to know exactly what he was thinking—it registered on his face and if it didn’t, he would tell me. He was more closed in now, self-contained and hidden. There was a steely resolve there, and a hint of danger under the surface. Raphael had become unpredictable. It was exciting. Exciting was so not the emotion I was looking for.

“What, nothing to say?” he asked.

“I’m waiting to see if you’re going to do something or just flash your pretty teeth.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

I gave a mocking sigh. “Oh, I would. But then I would have to bring your battered body to your fiancée and I hate hysterics. Or did you mean the other sort of tempting?”

Raphael laughed. It was a wild laugh that promised all sorts of evil things. Fun evil things.

Something loomed in front of us.

“Bus!” I barked.

He looked at the windshield and swerved, avoiding an overturned bus by a couple of inches.

Tiny needles of adrenaline prickled my skin. I shuddered, trying to shake them off. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Spots ghosted just under my skin, making faint stains on my arms.

“What was the point of bringing up the vacation?” Raphael asked.

“Your mother rescheduled everything. She traded a favor to Curran for a special dispensation so the family could stay for another week in the Pack’s territory. She convinced Valencia to bump her ballet recital—forty students had to change their schedule to match the new date. B schemed and shuffled things around. It didn’t matter how many people were going to be inconvenienced, but her baby boy would have his vacation, by God.” I laughed. “I’d walked in on her fighting with Valencia. It almost came to blood. I offered to move the vacation. She looked at me like I had grown a Christmas tree on my head.”

I imitated Aunt B’s voice. “Oh no, dear. You know how hard Raphael works. You two go down there and have a good time.”

Raphael stared grimly through the windshield, steering around potholes in the magic-pitted pavement with surgical precision.

No comment, huh?

“You grew up sheltered and you don’t even know how lucky you are. Your mother loves you more than life itself. She celebrates the fact that you exist.” Considering that both of Raphael’s brothers had gone loup in childhood and B had had to kill them, I couldn’t hold that against her. “You’re smart, handsome, and respected. You’re a dangerous fighter and you’ve made yourself wealthy—”

“Comfortable,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Okay, comfortable. Women throw themselves in your path. I bet when you brought your fiancée to Aunt B, she didn’t even blink an eye, when anybody else would have gotten tossed out of the Bouda House.”

“Is there a point to you stroking my ego?”

“It’s not stroking. These are plain facts, darling. Raphael, you are adored. You have everything.”

“Not everything,” he said.

“Everything,” I repeated. “If you aren’t spoiled, I don’t know who is. That’s why you can never put yourself in my shoes. All this good fortune gave you blinders. To you, ‘bouda’ means people who think you are a demigod. To me ‘bouda’ means people who break your bones for fun.”

He turned to me again, his blue eyes dark. “This bouda clan never abused you. This Pack offered to protect you and take you in. You betrayed them.”

And we were back to square one.

“We’re here.” Raphael nodded ahead. At the end of the street, a spacious mansion rose against the sky, all carved white stone and gold accents. Beautiful.

A gated parking lot waited for us, complete with an attendant in a small booth, armed with an arbalest. If we parked in that lot, we would be trapped.

“Not in the lot,” I murmured.

“Yeah. Might have to leave fast.” Raphael turned off onto the side street. Good idea. If we had to leave in a hurry, it would be quicker than maneuvering out of a parking lot.

I pointed at the half-ruined building. “That looks nice and shadowy.”

He parked behind the ruin and shut off the engine, killing the constant noise that had provided background to our conversation. We sat steeped in the sudden quiet.

I faced him. “We keep coming back to this again and again, so let’s just do this once and for all, because I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let’s say the Bouda House got attacked and set on fire, and then some knight of the Order called asking for my help. Your mother forbids you to leave, because she needs you here. Your clan house is in ruins. I want you to come with me to help the Order. Would you?”

“This is exactly what you don’t understand.” Raphael’s face was resolute. “If my mother put that sort of condition on me, I would’ve told her to fuck herself. Anyone who gives you an ultimatum of ‘pick me’ or ‘save your friend’ isn’t worth your loyalty.”

He had a point. “You’re right. But my question stands. The Order was everything to me, Raphael. It was my pack, my family. Every day I got up and went to work, I took pride in being me, because I was a knight. I helped people. I wasn’t a pathetic little freak creature that everyone kicked and punched whenever they felt like it. I didn’t want to be that creature. Maybe it was cowardly to reject being a shapeshifter and pretend I was a human. I don’t know. I do know that as long as I was a knight, I wasn’t a victim. I mattered, do you understand that?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you think it was easy for me? Because it wasn’t. Sometimes no matter what I did, I had shitty choices to make, and I made mine the best I could. So tell me, Raphael, would you have walked away from your mother and your clan to help the Order?”

“No,” he said. His tone told me he finally understood. He didn’t like it, but he got it. The Order had been my family. It mistreated me, but you don’t abandon your family just because they do something you don’t like. We had finally reached an understanding. Sadly, it was too late for both of us.

“Then I consider this matter closed.” I opened my car door and stepped out into the cooling air. A moment later he joined me. We walked down the street toward the mansion.

“I’m sorry about the way things went down in the office,” Raphael said. “I shouldn’t have brought Rebecca. It was petty.”

“Water under the bridge.” I waved my hand at him and gave him a sweet smile. “But if you do it again, I’ll kill you both.”

He laughed under his breath. It was the delicious seductive laugh I remembered. “Be careful, someone might mistake you for a filthy bouda.”

“I like boudas. They’re fun in bed.”

“They?” A sudden edge crept into Raphael’s voice.

“They. Since you are now officially a taken man, you won’t mind if I test-drive someone else from the clan.”

“Like who?”

We strolled through the gates. The guard in the booth checked out my dress and stared. I gave him a friendly smile.

Raphael held up his invitation. The guard examined it and waved us on.

“Enjoy the party.”

“We will,” Raphael answered in a voice that suggested hell would freeze over before he would enjoy anything.

We strolled up the sidewalk.

“Who?” Raphael demanded.

For a man a hair away from mating to another woman, he was very interested in my sexual adventures.

“I haven’t decided yet. I always wanted to have a three-some.”

Raphael stopped.

“Two guys or maybe a guy and a girl. Since you’re more experienced than me, you must’ve had both? Which one was more fun?”

“Why stop at two partners?” Raphael said, enunciating the words very clearly. “Why not have half a dozen? You could hand out numbers to keep order. Get a little cute sign that says, ‘Now serving.’”

Oh, the spoiled bouda didn’t like that. Not one bit. “Don’t be silly. That would be tacky.” I paused by the glass and wrought-iron door, waiting for him to open it.

“Tacky?”

“Yes.”

Raphael swung the door open. Inside, a tiled lobby waited for us, bathed in the bright glow of electric lamps made to look like old gaslight lanterns. I stepped through and nodded to an older woman standing by the door. She wore a dress the color of red wine and her makeup was flawless. Two men stood near her. Both looked like they chewed up bricks and spat out gravel for a living.

“Your invitation,” the woman said.

Raphael handed her the invitation and unleashed a smile. Wow. Ascanio didn’t know it, but he had a long way to go.

The woman’s face softened. She brushed the invitation with her manicured fingers and smiled back. “Welcome to the party.”

Sixteen or sixty, it didn’t matter. Raphael smiled and they sighed. And he wondered why I thought he was spoiled.

Raphael put his hand on my back, gently escorting me to the next room. A spacious chamber stretched in front of us. Its cream walls rose high, supporting a twenty-foot ceiling. The granite floor was polished to an almost mirror gleam. Enormous, twelve-foot-tall windows, framed with gauzy white curtains and thicker golden draperies, spilled the weak evening light into the room. Matching accents ran along the molding. To our right a curved white staircase led upstairs. The entire place felt like a palace, graceful and somehow timeless.

The air smelled of wine, cinnamon, and another odd, but familiar aroma…oregano…no, marjoram, mixing with the lush, smoky sweetness of myrrh. “Interesting choice for potpourri.”

“Spicy.” Raphael leaned to me, that dashing smile still on his face. “I can’t tell if he’s covering up the scent of something bad with this perfume or not.”

We stood for a long second, our nostrils fluttering, taking shallow breaths and trying to break the fragrance down to individual scents.

“I’m a bust,” I said. If there were any hidden odors under that amalgam of herbs and resins, I couldn’t find them.

Raphael furrowed his eyebrows. “Me too.”

All around us people glided across the floor, men in tuxedos and tailored suits, women in expensive dresses and shiny rocks, looking like attendants to some ancient tyrant. Music emanated from somewhere above, gentle, exotic, and unobtrusive, like a hint of an intriguing perfume.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m at court?” I murmured.

“And there’s the king himself,” Raphael said.

The guests parted and I saw a man. Of average height, he had a wealth of wavy hair the color of pale amber. An expensive suit of light gray sketched his lean figure. He turned.

Huh. Anapa was beautiful.

He was in his late thirties, closing in on forty. His narrow face, with pronounced cheekbones and a strong chin, was masculine but it was a civilized masculinity, refined, aristocratic, and very carefully groomed. Some wealthy men carried grooming too far, trimming their eyebrows and shaving their chins until they looked slightly feminine. Anapa stopped on the right side of that. His hair was perfectly cut but slightly tousled. His eyebrows still retained some shagginess. His lips were full and crisply drawn, but his cheeks and chin suggested the future possibility of stubble. His large blue eyes, with hooded eyelashes, betrayed a lively intellect and a spark of humor. His skin, sun-painted and dark for a blond, spoke of the South, bright sun, and blue water. He didn’t seem Nordic in the least. More like Mediterranean.

He saw us and smiled, making laugh lines at the corners of his eyes stand out. It was a warm, friendly smile, as if he found something about us incredibly amusing and couldn’t wait to share.

“We’ve been seen,” Raphael said, starting toward Anapa.

We strolled through the crowd toward our host. “How are we playing this?” I asked.

“I’m a businessman and you are my brainless delicious arm candy.”

Delicious arm candy? “It’s good Rebecca isn’t here or she’d think I was poaching.”

“She wouldn’t know the meaning of the word,” Raphael said, his face flat.

“Oh, she isn’t a jealous type?”

“No, she actually wouldn’t know what the word meant.”

Ha!

The woman in the blue dress in front of us stepped aside and Anapa approached us.

“Mr. Medrano.” Anapa offered his hand.

Raphael shook it. “Happy birthday.”

I batted my eyelashes and did my best to appear dumb as a board.

“Thank you, thank you.” Anapa looked at me, still smiling, an appreciation in his eyes. There was nothing at all sexual in his gaze. He examined me more the way one would examine a rare good-looking dog. Or a horse. “And you would be his lovely companion.”

I slipped into my Texas twang and offered him my hand. “Good evenin’. Such a pleasure to meet you.”

Anapa took my fingers into his. He raised my hand, as if to kiss it, and paused, inhaling the scent instead, savoring it. “Mmm.” He chuckled softly. “You have the most intriguing body.”

Okay, that was freaky.

Raphael moved, subtly inserting himself between me and Anapa. His hand covered mine and the other man let go. “Dear, say good-bye to Mr. Anapa. He has other guests to meet.”

“Bye.” I wiggled my fingers at him.

Anapa grinned at us again. “For now.”

Raphael steered me into the crowd.

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” he growled. “He seemed normal before.”

Apparently I had a special gift for bringing out the crazy in men.

We moved to the refreshments table and turned, scanning the room. A man on the staircase to our right. Two guys by the exit, a woman by the balcony, but no guards in the hallways radiating from the main room. I plucked a small piece of toast with pine nuts and mushrooms heaped on it from the appetizer tray and took a bite. Hmm. Yummy.

“Second floor,” I murmured.

“Mhm,” Raphael agreed.

If the office had been on the first floor, it would have a guard restricting access to it.

“Ready?” Raphael asked.

“Sure.”

We stepped to the right in unison and began weaving our way from one group of people to the next. The second floor would have to wait. We had just come in and the guards were still watching us, and if they were good, they had probably nailed my identity by now. We had to circulate until they focused on someone else.

Forty minutes later, we had made a complete circuit of the room. The old Raphael used to be expert at small talk. He spoke to men about business, paid women subtle compliments, and everyone loved him. The new Raphael at my side seemed grimmer and less willing to chitchat. Despite his looming at my side like a dark but gorgeous shadow, we managed to ferret out the location of the office from a clueless older couple who had been invited there before. Anapa’s lair of doom was on the second floor on the south side of the house. Coincidentally one of the first-floor bathrooms was on the south side too, a fact I discovered when I went to fix my hair.

The music grew louder. Couples were dancing, in the middle of the floor, swaying back and forth. The alcohol was going as fast as the waiters brought it out. A few people looked good and sauced on Anapa’s superior grog. The small talk went from weather and harmless gossip to spicier topics and meaningful stares as the booze lowered inhibitions.

Raphael took my hand and led me to the middle of the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked through my smile.

“If I have to listen to another recount of how Malisha from Accounting hooked up with Clayton from Legal, I’ll lose my mind.” He turned me, still holding on to my hand, maneuvering me into a classic dance pose. His arm slid around my waist and I shivered.

“So you thought dancing would be better?”

“Yes.” He began swaying. “Pretend to enjoy it.”

“A handsome man, a great party, lovely food. What’s not to enjoy? Oh wait, the man is you.” I began swaying, too. I was really good at swaying. He would regret ever pulling me on this floor. “You like screwing with me, don’t you?”

“Well, since we decided not to screw each other anymore, I have to get my fun somehow.”

Since we’re playing that game… I tilted my face up to his and gave him a lovesick gaze.

“Do you have to sneeze?” he asked.

“Be quiet. I’m pretending to enjoy your company, just as you said.”

“Try not to strain anything.”

“Oh, I won’t. I’m very good at faking it.”

That shut him up.

We kept swaying. Standing close to him like this, all but wrapped up in his arms, was pure torture. I leaned closer to him and made a small noise, not quite a growl, not quite a purr, made from desire and lust. Raphael focused on me, like a hungry cat on a mouse.

“You should take me to the bathroom to make out,” I told him.

A flash of ruby fire exploded in his irises and melted. He leaned closer, pulling me to him. “What?”

“You should take me to the bathroom to make out,” I repeated into his ear. “There is no way we can make it up that staircase. We can use the bathroom window to get to the second floor.”

Raphael’s hand slipped from my waist to cup my ass. A little electric zing dashed through me.

“Wow, straight for the goods, huh?”

“Can’t just make out right out of the blue.” Raphael’s grin was pure evil.

We swayed for a bit more.

Raphael squeezed my butt.

“Seriously?”

He shrugged a little. “Faking it, honey, you remember.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, stretched against him, like a lazy cat wanting a stroke.

At the other end of the room someone shattered a glass. The room collectively turned toward the sound. Raphael took my hand and we quietly slipped away into the left hallway. It was mostly deserted. Two guys milled about at the wall, engrossed in a discussion that involved phrases like “asshole” and “like he runs the damn place.” They didn’t pay us any mind.

A small sign on the door to the right said, BATHROOM.

Raphael tried the door. The handle didn’t turn in his hand. Occupied.

A security guy stepped out from the room down the hallway, a severe unsmiling block of a black suit complete with an earpiece.

Raphael pushed me against the wall and braced my body with his, catching my right arm above my head and pinning it against the wall with his left. The oldest cliché in the playbook.

He studied my face for a tiniest second, bent down…His lips touched mine.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him so badly and that need blocked out everything else. And why the hell couldn’t I kiss him? So what if he had a fiancée-to-be? I didn’t owe her anything. Being good was overrated.

Raphael licked my lips, demanding, seducing. His teeth caught my lower lip, pulled lightly. I had him all to myself. In this moment he was entirely, completely mine.

I opened my mouth.

He lingered, kissing my lips, slowly, surely, as if we had all the time in the world and there was no need to hurry. Little electric shocks shot from my heart all the way to my fingertips.

His tongue slid into my mouth and touched the tip of mine. He tasted like Raphael: spice, fire, and need wrapped into one. I licked him, inviting him in. We kissed, every stroke of his tongue, every touch of his hands caressing my body, magnified to an almost painfully intense sensation. Warmth spread through me, my body ready for more. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted his hands on my breasts. I wanted to pull his clothes off and run my fingers down the hard muscle of his chest. I teased him, enticing him, then pulling back, letting him think he could reclaim my mouth and taking his instead.

It felt like coming home. It felt like medicine soothing a raw wound. I loved him so much, and I kissed him, drinking in the cocktail of sweet memories and bitter future.

The bathroom door opened next to us, the sound too loud in my ears.

I stopped and instantly Raphael straightened. A short man who had come out of the bathroom gave him a thumbs-up with a “Go you!” smile and headed down the hall. The security man was nowhere in sight.

The kiss had torn a gaping hole inside me. I wanted Raphael. I wanted to hold him and to know that he was all mine. I wanted to make love. I needed a cold shower.

I had to get myself together and I needed to decide how bad I was going to be, because making love to him in this bathroom right now would be really, really bad.

Raphael held the bathroom door open for me. I stepped inside. He followed and locked it.

Get a hold of yourself. You can do it. It was just a stupid ruse anyway.

He had the most self-satisfied look on his face. He’d wanted me to melt right there and now he felt all smug because he’d gotten under my skin. Apparently I was a toy.

You bastard. Okay, let’s see how you like this.

I pushed him against the door and kissed him again, sliding my body against his, nibbling, licking, purring in his arms. He went for it, hook, line, and sinker. I let him start stripping his jacket off and broke away.

“I think the bars on the window have silver in them, don’t you?”

He stopped, his tuxedo halfway off his shoulders.

“It’s good that I brought gloves.”

“Andrea!”

“What? Oh, you mean the kiss? I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite finished. I’m all done now, no worries.” I patted his chest. “Your virtue is intact. You won’t have to confess anything to Rebecca. It was just one kiss. It didn’t mean anything.”

His snarl was music to my ears.

I turned to the window. It was near the ceiling that it was just wide enough for us to get through. The bars formed a rectangular grate that gleamed weakly in the light of the moon, too pale not to be a silver alloy. Silver meant burned hands. I’d handled silver bars with bare hands before. It felt like grabbing something dipped in acid.

I opened my clutch and took out my glass cutter and my gun, a black shirt, and a pair of cloth gloves. Behind me Raphael paced the length of the bathroom like a caged tiger.

All my hormones were still in overdrive, and my whole body was humming. My hands shook a little.

Inside the bag was a carefully concealed zipper. I unzipped it, and where a normal clutch would have had a lining, this one had thin shoulder straps and extra material that allowed it to be unfolded into a larger backpack. I’d had it custom-made some time ago.

“Fancy.” Raphael commented.

“Glad you like it. Now I know what to get you for your birthday.”

“I want mine in blue,” he said. “To match my eyes.”

“Whatever you say.” I slipped on the gloves. “The window is barred. Could you lift me, please?”

He wrapped his hands around my legs and picked me up without a word. He didn’t just lift me, he embraced me, caressing me without moving his hands. I was still keyed up, and when he touched me, I almost groaned.

Oh, it was on now. We were playing a sadistic little game, and I wouldn’t lose to him.

I grabbed the grate. Solid. I braced one knee against the wall, and yanked it hard, pushing against Raphael. The grate came free. Raphael lowered me to the floor. I slid the grate behind the vanity, next to the trash can, slipped off my shoes, and turned my back to him.

“Could you unzip me?”

He touched my neck and drew my zipper down, slowly. A delicious little thrill ran through me. I had no idea I had so much bouda in me.

I stepped out of the dress. Underneath I wore a tiny black bra and spandex bike shorts. I slipped the shirt on, rolled my dress up, packed it, my shoes, my lucky bracelet, and my clutch into the backpack, and buckled the belt diagonally across my chest.

“Swiss Army Purse,” Raphael observed. I heard the familiar playful notes in his voice. The kiss must’ve thrown him off balance, but he’d recovered now, and he was up to something. “Any handcuffs in there?”

“No, why, do you think I’ll need some?”

“Depends on what you’re planning to be doing and with whom.”

And he went there. The Old Andrea would have given him a look. I leaned over to him with a sweet smile. “I don’t need handcuffs to keep a man in my bed. I think we both know that. If I really wanted to take you away from your fiancée, I would. Lucky for her, I’m not a glutton for punishment.”

I put the glass cutter into my mouth, jumped up, and slid through the window, holding on to the bricks with my fingertips before he called my bluff. I heard Raphael unlock the bathroom. A moment later he pulled himself through the window with easy grace.

We climbed up like two lizards, hurrying up the wall. Raphael reached the second-floor window and ripped the grate off with a casual tug. I cut a semicircle of the window’s glass, popped it out, slid my hand through the opening and unhooked the latch. The second latch followed, and I slid the window up and dived in, legs first. Raphael followed, setting the grate back in place.

I looked around the dim room. The contours of a large canopy bed rose from the gloom to the right.

Raphael brushed against my back. My body stood at attention. Sex? Yes, please. My mind said, “Not until hell freezes over.”

“You’re touching me,” I chided him.

He caressed my back, sliding his hand down, hitting every sensitive point I hadn’t even known I had. “No, this is touching you. That was just accidental contact.”

“Oh? Good to know. If you touch me again and I break your arm off, you can be sure it will be completely accidental.”

He stepped close, his thigh brushing my butt. I elbowed him in the ribs. It was hardly a gentle nudge.

He laughed.

“I know it’s difficult, since I have a shapely butt and all, but try to focus on our illegal burglary.”

“As opposed to legal burglary?”

Argh.

I snuck to the door and edged it open. The hallway was empty. Ahhh. Finally things were looking up. I padded out of the door and down to the end of the hallway, where a massive wooden door loomed. Supposedly the office waited behind it. I left the bedroom and jogged to the door. Raphael followed me.

I tried the handle. Unlocked.

“Too easy,” Raphael murmured.

If we got caught, the Pack would have hell to pay.

“No choice now.” I stepped into the office.

The scent of myrrh spiced the air. Rows of brown shelves looked at me, filled with assorted volumes and objects. A brigantine cast in pewter with startling detail. An ancient vase, a statue of a muscular man kneeling. Next to the shelves, a heavy rectangular desk sat on a spare rug, its corners trimmed with golden accents. Three chairs waited for someone to sit down, one behind the desk and two in the corners of the room. Shimmering golden curtains framed the two windows. Decorations of twisted metal hung on the black walls, the most prominent being metal scales with a moon above them, on the wall directly opposite the desk. The moon’s stylized eyes were closed to mere slits and her mouth smiled.

The place was empty.

Raphael moved past me and checked the windows. I locked the door and slipped behind the desk. From this vantage point, the room took on a new light. Every object within the office had been placed into a precise position oriented with the person behind the desk in mind. The desk was the center of this little cosmos, and the moment I sat behind it, I became the focal point of the room, as if I had assumed a place in the center of some invisible convergence of power. If inanimate objects could worship, the trappings of Anapa’s office would have knelt before me, because I sat in the place of their god.

The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Whatever intelligence was at work here, it couldn’t possibly be human. People did not think like this.

Raphael peeled himself from the window and stood by me. “What?”

I beckoned him with my hand. He approached and I took him by the shoulder and tugged him down to my level. “Look at the room.”

He surveyed the office. His eyes widened.

“It’s not just me, is it?” I whispered.

“No.” He bared his teeth. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

I tried the bottom drawer. It opened easily. I rummaged through it. Papers, monthly business statements from the bank…nothing interesting. I tried the top one. Locked.

Raphael pulled a pick from his pocket and threaded it into the lock. He twisted and the lock clicked. Raphael slid the drawer open. A brown leather folder. I plucked it out, put it on the desk and opened it. A clear plastic sleeve shielded a photograph: an ivory bowl carved with figures of people engaged in combat and long vessels with little cabins sailing over the sea of drowned men.

“What do you think the country of origin for this is?”

Raphael was watching the office. “Hell if I know.”

I wished I had Kate with me. She would’ve told me when and where it was made and for what god.

I turned to the next plastic page. This photograph showed an ancient jug made of brown clay with a long conical spout. The tip of the spout had broken off.

“What do you think this is?”

“A piss-pot.”

“That is not a piss-pot. Will you take this seriously?”

“I’m taking this very seriously,” he said under his breath.

I flipped the plastic. A beat up–looking dagger with an ivory handle…Wait a minute.

“I know this.” I tapped the plastic. “I saw it today in the library. Jamar had bought that knife. It’s from Crete and I didn’t see it in the vault.”

I stared at the knife. It was very plain, with a foot-long, curved blade and a simple ivory handle in surprisingly good condition.

Raphael focused on the blade. “It’s ceremonial.”

“How do you know?”

“The blade has never been sharpened.” He drew his finger along the knife’s curved edge. “See? No marks on the metal. Also the profile is wrong. It’s too curved to stab in a forward motion, but if I slashed with this, I couldn’t draw it through the wound all the way. It almost looks like a tourné knife.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a cooking knife for peeling. You remember, we have the set in our butcher block.”

He would have to stop saying “our” sometime. Pointing it out to him now would stop the flow of knife information, though, and I needed his expertise. I knew guns, but Raphael knew knives.

He kept going. “If it was sharpened and shorter, it might be a variation of a karambit, a curved knife from the Philippines. Shaped like a tiger’s claw. I never really saw much use in it—too small and my own claws are bigger. Where was this found, did you say?”

“Crete.”

Raphael frowned. “Cretan knives and swords were typically narrow and tapered, like the Greek kopis.” He turned the picture. Turned it again. “Hmm.”

“What?”

He lifted the picture with the knife pointing down. “Pickaxe. That’s what it reminds me of. The only way to get the maximum effect of this blade is to stab someone with it straight down.” He raised her fist and made a hammering motion. “Like with an ice pick.”

“Like if someone was tied down and you stabbed them in the heart?”

“Possibly. And Anapa killed four people for that?” Raphael’s voice dripped with derision and rage.

“We don’t know that.” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. “All we know is that Anapa knew about the knife and it’s important. We don’t know why.” And there was no convenient description of it either. A little card listing its name and special powers would’ve been nice. “It’s a place to start looking.”

I flipped to the end of the book. More artifacts. Nothing else I recognized. The knife had to be the key.

“You matter to me,” Raphael said. “You always did, and not because you were a knight or a shapeshifter.”

Suddenly the game wasn’t funny anymore. “I mattered so much that rather than waiting for me to get my shit together, you found another woman. Let’s be honest, Raphael, get a blowup doll, put a blond wig on her, and she and I would matter about the same to you. Hell, the blowup doll might be better. She won’t talk.” Christ, I sounded bitter.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” he said. “I love you.”

It hurt. You’d think I’d be numb by now.

“Too late. You are about to be engaged.”

“Rebecca doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Raphael, she’s a living, breathing woman. Someone you felt strongly about. Of course, she matters.”

“Rebecca isn’t my fiancée.”

I froze. “Come again?”

“I said, Rebecca is not my fiancée,” he repeated.

“What do you mean, she isn’t ‘my fiancée’? I mean, your fiancée.”

Raphael shrugged. “She’s some gold digger I picked up at a business engagement. Someone must’ve pointed me out to her as a good catch, so she attached herself to me. My mother has been getting on my last nerve with her machinations, and since I had to go to the Bouda House for a barbecue, I took Rebecca there. After she told Mom that it was very exciting that we all turned into wolves, I explained to my mother that if she didn’t lay off me, someone like Rebecca would be my next mate. Rebecca must’ve overheard me.”

This was not happening.

“You left me,” Raphael said. “No explanation. We had a fight, then we all went to battle Erra, and after she set all of us on fire you disappeared. I thought you were dead. I went to every hospital. I sat in waiting rooms. Every time they would bring in a new charred body, I’d stop breathing because I thought it might be you under all that crusted meat. And what do I get after all that? A note in the mail. Five days later. Five fucking days later, Andrea! ‘Don’t look for me, I have to do something for the Order, I will be back soon.’ A fucking note. No explanation, nothing. You dismissed me from your life and went on your crusade. Now, weeks later, you suddenly decide to call me, like I’m just some mutt who will always be waiting for you.”

I opened my mouth.

“I brought her because I wanted you to know what it felt like. You go through life so hung up on helping people you barely know that you hurt people who actually give a damn. You want the truth about Rebecca? Fine. I barely know her. She was a means to an end. I haven’t even slept with her. I thought about it.”

There were too many words I wanted to say at once.

“Out of spite,” Raphael said. “She kissed me and it didn’t do anything.”

The correct response finally accreted in my mind. I made my mouth move.

“I hate you.”

He spread his arms. “What else is new?”

Everything that churned inside me, everything that hurt and twisted, like a whirlwind of shattered glass in my chest, tore out, shredding through my brave front. “You broke my heart, Raphael!” I snapped. “I cried for hours when I got home last night. It felt like my life was over, you egoistical sonovabitch. And you, you put me through this just to teach me a lesson? Who the hell do you think you are? Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know exactly how much.”

“There is a difference! I was one of those charred bodies in a hospital bed. I was out for three days and woke up in a military hospital, chained to my bed. There was an Order’s advocate sitting by my side. I had no choice: either I came with him or I would be taken into custody by the Order and brought to headquarters in leg irons. I got to write two notes, stop by my apartment for ten minutes to grab my clothes, and we were gone. I didn’t even have a chance to make arrangements for Grendel. I had to take the dog with me and they agreed to it only because I would rather fight the lot of them than let the dog starve to death inside my place. I didn’t hurt you on purpose, but you hurt me deliberately. Am I a toy to you?”

His eyes sparked with red. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“You…you asshole! You spoiled baby!”

“Self-centered idiot.”

“Momma’s boy!”

“Stuck-up, self-righteous harpy.”

“I’m so done with you,” I told him through clenched teeth.

“I think I’m tired of doing things your way,” Raphael said lazily. “Don’t expect me to go meekly into the night just because you said so.”

My voice could’ve cut through steel. “If you don’t, I’ll shoot you.”

He snapped his teeth. “You better make it count. One shot will be all you get.”

That challenge burned right through the last of my defenses. My other self spilled out of my human body in a mess of fur and claws, exhaling fury. I snapped my monster teeth at him, my beastkin voice a ragged snarl. “I’ll carve your heart out. You’ll regret the day you were ever born. Of all the selfish, egoistical bastards—”

“And you want me.” He grinned. “You can’t wait to climb back in my bed.”

“Grow up!”

“Look who’s talking.”

The magic slammed into us, like a massive deluge. Wards spilled from the top of the door frame and windows in shimmering curtains of translucent orange. Blue symbols ignited in the corners of the room.

The moon on the wall opened its eyes with a metallic screech.

I dived under the desk and Raphael flattened himself against the wall, under the scales.

“Boudas,” the moon said in Anapa’s amusement-saturated voice. “So predictable. Couldn’t resist snooping around, could you?”

Crap! Crap, crap, crap.

Raphael jerked a curtain off the window and tossed it over the moon.

“That won’t help you,” Anapa said. “Don’t leave. I’ll be right there.”

I lunged out from under the desk and hit the ward on the closest window. Pain burned through me, I blinked, and Raphael pulled me off the floor. My teeth rattled in my skull.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Anapa-Moon said. “I told you not to leave.”

Raphael hurled himself at the window ward. His resistance to magical wards was higher than mine. The defensive spell clutched at him, sharp whips of orange lightning stinging his skin. His body jerked, rigid. His eyes rolled back in his skull.

I grabbed him and pulled him back. The orange lightning kissed me, and I almost blacked out again. We crashed to the floor.

“Fi-fi-fo-fum,” the moon sang. “I smell the blood of hyena man and I’m coming up the staaaairs.”

Raphael’s eyes snapped open. He surged off the floor and looked up.

If we busted through the floor, we’d fall right into the welcoming embrace of his security. Going through the ceiling was our best bet.

“Pick me up!” I called.

He grabbed me and thrust me upward. I punched the ceiling, putting all of my strength into it. The panel broke from the impact of my fist, and I hit the wood beam underneath it.

“What are the two of you up to?” the moon wondered.

I hammered the ceiling with my fist again and again, widening the hole. The wood cracked, then broke under the barrage of my punches. I tore the broken section of the beam out, hurling it aside, and punched the darkness. It tore and the night sky winked at me through the narrow gap. No attic. We would break out straight onto the roof above. Raphael set me down on my feet, took a running start, and jumped, flipping in midair, kicking at the opening I had made. He landed in a roll as a shower of wooden boards hit the floor. “Go.”

I crossed my arms over my head and jumped. Wood and shingles hit my forearms, and I grabbed onto the roof and pulled myself up. The edge of the roof glowed with magic. On the ground below, huge orange symbols stretched across the luminescent lawn, a pale yellow glow coating every single blade of grass in a sheath of magic. The entire yard around the house was warded and it was a hell of a ward. Great.

Raphael forced his way through the hole behind me.

Landing on the lawn wasn’t an option. The magic could fry us or do something worse. I spun around looking for a tree, a tower, a wall, anything close enough to jump to from the roof.

At the far end of the roof a long cable dived down to the wall that surrounded Anapa’s home.

“Power line,” we barked at each other at the same time.

We dashed along the roof. I danced onto the power line and ran along it, balancing on my oversized feet. One, two, three, tilt, tilt…I leaped on the low stone wall that separated Anapa’s house and yard from the street. Raphael pulled off his shoes, hurled them into the night, took a running start and jumped, catching the power line with his arms. He swung himself back up on it and walked slowly, arms out, suspended between the glowing orange lawn and the black sky.

I held my breath.

The side door of the mansion sprang open. A deep rumbling roar reverberated through the night, made by a cavernous mouth. My hackles rose.

Raphael swayed, ran the next ten feet, and jumped, clearing the remaining distance in one powerful leap. He sailed through the air and landed on the wall, next to me.

A bright, unnaturally yellow flash of light exploded on the lawn. I didn’t wait to see what it was. We jumped down off the wall into the street and ran.

The roar chased us. Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a huge shadow leaping over the wall like it was nothing. The creature landed on the street behind us, as big as a rhino, its head with a huge mane armed with long crocodilian jaws. Its odor hit me, a pungent oily odor, reminiscent of rotten fish, old blood, and decomposing sweat, shot through with an unnatural stench. Revolting, violent, terrible, it lashed at me, promising death. Fear squirmed through my body. My instincts whipped me into a sprint.

We raced down the street.

The thing behind us roared again and gave chase. It pounded after us, huge, but freakishly fast.

I glanced back. The distance between us was shrinking.

The air turned to fire in my throat. A stitch pricked my side.

Run. Run faster. Faster!

I glanced over my shoulder again. The beast was gaining. We were sprinting full-out, and it was gaining.

We took a corner at breakneck speed. A ruined building loomed in front of us, a big, dark wreck with a gaping black hole in its bottom floor. Raphael pointed at it. We veered right and leaped through the gap into the darkness.

Inside, the building was vast and empty, a shell bordered by outer walls. Tall support columns rose up, supporting nothing—the top floors had crumbled long ago, and the moon shone through the holes in the dusty glass roof, painting the floor in random patches of blue light. We flew across it like two phantoms, silent and quick, and sank into the deep inky shadows against the opposite wall. Raphael reached over and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.

Maybe the beast would pass.

A dark silhouette loomed in the gap in the wall through which we had entered. No such luck.

The beast took a step forward. Half of its body swung down—it lowered its head. I heard it sniff. Tiny puffs of dust slid across the floor. It was tracking us. If we fled, it would outrun us. If we took to the rooftops, we’d eventually run into ruins and have to land, and it would be waiting. We had to kill it.

Next to me Raphael shrugged off his tuxedo jacket. He wore twin leather sheaths underneath. He drew two foot-long knives out and passed them to me. I held them while he pulled off his shirt. His pants followed. He took the knives back and I eased my backpack off my shoulders.

The beast took a step forward. Claws screeched on the concrete. Step—scratch. Step—scratch. Its revolting scent drifted toward us, washing over me like a shower of cold slime.

I gathered myself into a tight clump.

The beast moved into a patch of light and my pulse sped up. What I had mistaken for a mane of coarse hair was a mane of tiny brown tentacles. They wriggled and twisted, stretching and coiling, like a nest of three-foot-long, thin earthworms. Scratch the neck from the list of possible targets. Cutting or clawing through the mass of writhing flesh would take too long.

The beast dipped its head again, bracing on powerful legs sheathed in sandy fur. The long claws on its front paws scratched the dust. Its sturdy frame looked built for ramming. If it took a running start, it would smash straight through the wall and not even slow down. I could see no weakness. Why did things like this always happen to me when I didn’t have an assault rifle handy?

The beast raised its head. Large yellow owl eyes peered straight at us.

We’d have to go for the gut and eyes. Those were our only options.

I touched Raphael and pointed to my eyes. He nodded, hunched down, muscles contracting, and leaped. His skin burst in midjump as his body snapped into a new, stronger form. A man had started the leap, but a bouda in warrior form finished it: a seven-foot-tall lethal hybrid of animal and man, armed with deadly claws and wicked teeth set into oversized jaws that could crush a cow’s femur like it was a peanut shell.

I dashed to the side.

Raphael landed on top of the beast and raked its back with his blades. Blood drenched the gashes. The creature bellowed and dropped to the ground, rolling. Raphael leaped off, into the gloom. The beast sprang to his feet and whirled, trying to lunge after him.

I struck from the side, slicing across its forehead with my claws. The creature whipped back, too fast. Teeth grazed my skin. I jumped back and the beast lunged at me, snapping its teeth. I leaped backward again and again, zigzagging as it chased me. Damn, it was fast.

Raphael shot out of the gloom and cut at the beast’s side with his knives.

The beast paid him no mind. The tentacles on its head sparked with deep orange. The orange light pulsed outward and caught my arm. An intense ache seared my shoulder, a cold burn, like someone had skinned my arm open and poured liquid nitrogen over the muscle.

I cried out and raked its snout with my claws, gouging the sensitive flesh.

The beast lunged at me. The glow pulsed and clutched me. Pain exploded in my head. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t make a sound. I just shuddered in the magic’s grip, the agony so intense, it felt like my bones were splintering.

Someone cut my legs off, the walls somersaulted, and I crashed into the dirt.

Behind the beast Raphael turned into a whirlwind of steel, flinging blood into the night.

The beast howled.

I tried to get up, but I still couldn’t move my legs. I could see them right there in the dirt, but they didn’t obey.

Raphael hammered a massive kick into the creature’s ribs.

The abomination spun toward him, its mane sparking.

Raphael ran.

The creature bellowed, an otherworldly, terrible sound. Blood from the cuts I’d caused dripped into its eyes, rendering it half-blind. It raised its snout, inhaled, and charged after Raphael.

I just had to get up. I had to pull myself upright.

Raphael sprinted along the wall, leaping over the piles of refuse. The creature raced after him, devouring the distance between them in huge leaps. The floor shook with each thud of its paws.

I rolled up to my knees, clumsy like a drunk, and forced myself upright.

The creature’s mane turned bright orange.

“Magic!” I yelled.

Raphael glanced over his shoulder.

The orange glow around the beast’s mane coalesced and whipped from the creature in twin bolts of bright lightning. Raphael zigzagged, but it was too late. The left bolt caught his ankle, splintering into a dozen small forks that bit into Raphael’s flesh. It jerked him off the ground.

The world stopped. All I could see was Raphael’s face, twisted by pain. Fear clamped onto me and spurred me into a desperate sprint.

For a second he seemed to float weightlessly, suspended a foot above the ground, and then he crashed down, rolling in the dirt.

Please don’t die. Please, please, don’t die.

There were fifty yards between me and the beast. It felt like I was running for an eternity, stuck in some sort of hell, watching the man I loved die in slow motion.

The beast snorted in vicious glee.

I’ll get there, honey. Hang on another half a second.

The giant jaws opened wide, teeth ready to rend.

I smashed into the beast from the side, thrust my claws under it, and sank them into the creature’s gut. Blood drenched me. Slippery innards slid against my fingers. I grabbed them and yanked.

The beast spun, trying to bite me. I sank my claws into the wound and hung on. The orange lightning bit into me, fire and ice wrapped in pain. The moonlight dimmed.

Raphael loomed on the other side of the beast and clawed it. He was alive. I almost cried from the relief.

The magic stung us again.

Oh my God. It hurt.

The magic wouldn’t kill us. It just hurt.

Hurt.

Raphael and I stared at each other over the beast’s spine through the haze of pain and laughed. Our eerie hyena cackles echoed through the ruin.

It wanted to play the hurting game against two boudas. It had no chance.

We mauled the beast.

It raked us with its hind legs and shocked us with its magic, and we clawed it and clawed it, hanging on and laughing through the pain. I tasted blood in my mouth and clawed even harder, digging into the beast’s stomach, wrenching innards and bone out. We carved and gouged, blacking out and coming to, throwing blood and wet entrails.

The beast shuddered.

We ripped into it. It was the creature or us, do or die.

The beast stumbled, careened to the side, and crashed down.

I looked up, breathing hard. Across from me Raphael stood, covered in gore. His muscular furry chest heaved. Between us the beast lay, the bones of its rib cage bare. We had nearly stripped its carcass. It should’ve died ages ago, but the magic must’ve kept it alive.

I sank to the floor. My body was red with blood, some of it the beast’s, some my own. Long scratches marked my side and right leg from the hip down—gouges from the beast’s claws. The cuts burned. If I were human, I’d have needed hundreds of stitches.

We won. Somehow we had won and both of us had survived. It was some sort of miracle. I was bone tired. The floor looked so nice. Maybe if I just lay down here for a minute and closed my eyes…

“Andrea.”

Raphael’s eyes glowed with ruby fire. His face, a meld of human and hyena, didn’t mirror emotions well but his eyes stared at me with a chilling determination.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m taking you home.”

My mind chewed on his words, trying to break them into chunks. Take me home? Take me home…Home. With him.

My fatigue evaporated in an instant. “No.”

“Yes. You’re coming home with me. We’ll take a bath and eat and make love, and everything will be fine.”

I got my ass off the floor. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m done doing things your way. Your way means we don’t talk for months. You’re coming home with me.”

“You hurt me, on purpose, but everything is cool now, because you didn’t sleep with Rebecca and we can go home.”

“Yes!”

“It doesn’t work this way. I’m not going home with you. You and I are done.”

“You’re mine,” he snarled.

What the hell. Maybe the fight had knocked some screw loose in his brain.

“You’ll always be mine.” He stepped on the carcass and started toward me. I looked into his eyes and saw bouda insanity glaring back. The fighting had tipped the balance between rational thought and crazy passion. Raphael’s emergency brake was malfunctioning and he and I were on a collision course. “You know it and I know it. We love each other.”

“We’re bad for each other.”

“You’re not leaving me again!” he growled.

The adrenaline still coursing through me surged up. He was challenging me! I marched toward him, put my muzzle as close to his as I could, and said slowly, clearly pronouncing every word, “I am leaving you. You don’t get to play with me. I’m not your pet and you don’t get to hurt me because you think I should be punished.”

Baiting him was stupid. I knew that, but I couldn’t help myself. The crazy cocktail of biochemicals and magic that got me through this fight drove me on. I knew I should stop, but it was as if there were two of me—the rational Andrea and the emotion-crazy beastkin—and right now the rational Andrea was being dragged off by a raging river of hormones, while the beastkin Andrea waved good-bye from a cliff nearby.

I bit off words. “You broke my heart and now I’m walking away from you. Watch me.”

He’d hurt me. He would pay.

“This is me walking away.” I turned and took a couple of steps. “Are you watching?”

He lunged at me, and we went down, rolling in the dirt, arm over leg. My back hit the floor and Raphael pinned me in a classic schoolyard bully mount, sitting on my stomach. One of the worst positions you can be trapped in. Great.

“Not walking away now,” he said.

I bent my knees, planted my heels in the ground, and bridged under him. He pitched forward, his right hand coming down on the ground. Got you. I dropped my hips, caught his right arm, pulling it snug against my chest, stepped my right foot over his, capturing him, and bridged sharply to the right. Raphael pitched over and I rolled up on top of him. He clamped my shoulders with his hands.

“I’m getting up and walking out of here. You’ll have to fight me to stop me. Your call.”

Raphael opened his arms. He was letting me go. I had known he would.

I jumped to my feet and walked away. A part of me was screaming, What are you doing, stupid? Run back. I kept walking, holding on to the memory of Raphael telling me, “I know exactly how much it hurt.” This thing between us was too complicated and it hurt too fucking much. I had nothing left in me now and I couldn’t deal with it.

Behind me Raphael roared, shaking the ruin. I kept walking. The sound of his frustration chased me until I finally broke into a run. My body hurt. Fever heated my face from the inside—the Lyc-V was trying to mend my battered body. If only mending other things were that easy.

I ran faster, scurried up the wall, through the opening, and out into the moonlit night. I leaped onto the nearest roof and ran and ran, the air burning in my lungs, droplets of the beast’s blood falling off my body, leaving a grisly trail.

I kept going until the fatigue built into an ache in my limbs. I was on a roof…somewhere. The buildings around me no longer looked familiar. I slowed, then stopped. Behind me the city stretched, steeping in magic. In front, a river flowed, like a silvery serpent glinting in the moonlight. Tall trees stood guard on the distant bank. Tiny points of light, green and turquoise, drifted gently between their branches. I had run all the way across the city to Sibley Forest, one of the new post-Shift woods, supercharged by magic and filled with hungry things that viewed humans as tasty, fun-to-catch snacks.

The trees beckoned me. They looked so peaceful and even though I knew they weren’t, I couldn’t resist.

I dived off the building into the river. Cool water foamed around me with a million bubbles. I surfaced and swam, gliding through the cool depths as if I were flying. The river ended too soon, and I emerged onto the opposite bank, dripping wet but no longer bloody. I climbed up and made my way through the underbrush. The forest sang to me in a dozen different voices and teased me with a myriad of smells. I inhaled the spicy scent of forest herbs, the musk of a raccoon, and the slightly bitter scent of opossum. My ears twitched, catching the sounds of mice scurrying in the underbrush, the distant hooting of an owl, and the chirping of cicadas, fiddling away in the soothing darkness.

As I walked, the grasses rubbed against my legs, tickling my fur. Above me a dense vine covered with tiny white flowers shivered in the night breeze. The tiny flowers detached, glowing with pale green, and floated past me, like fairy lights. Fascinated, I crouched in the grass and watched one of the glowing blossoms settle on a leaf. So pretty.

I walked the woods, thinking of nothing at all. If I could’ve shifted into a hyena, I would’ve. I just wanted to cool down, smell things, watch animals move about, and pretend that I was part of this world, rather than the place across the river. My choices were simpler here. Lay in the grass or on a fallen log. Watch the mice or try to catch one. Listen to the owl hooting or listen to the frogs singing. Simple and easy.

Finally I climbed a large tree, curled up in its branches, and fell asleep.