My blood boiled, in spite of the below-freezing temperature, at the sight of Marc and Jace locked up in five-foot-tall animal cages. Like me, they’d been marched out of our cabin without coats, and in separate cages, they couldn’t even huddle together for warmth. After less than two hours in the cold, they were both pale and shivering, and only warmed by the scorching rage clearly burning behind their eyes.

“How’d you get out?” Jace’s teeth chattered as he stood hunched over, fingers curled around the steel-mesh sides of his cage.

“Through the window.” I nudged the guard in the back with his own gun. “Let them out.”

“I don’t have those keys.” He started to turn, but stopped when I shoved him again.

I glanced around the shed and spotted an open, rusty toolbox in one corner, holding a hammer and an assortment of wrenches. “Get the hammer and knock the locks off. One blow each.” Because if anyone heard him, we wouldn’t have time to waste with dainty little taps. “And if you even look like you’re going to hit anything other than those locks, I will shoot you in the back.” I couldn’t kill as easily as Malone’s men seemed to, but I could and would kill in defense of myself, or either of the men in the cages.

“What about Alex?” Marc asked, as the guard picked up the hammer and hesitated, probably trying to decide if I was serious about killing him.

“Come on!” I snapped at the guard, then glanced at Marc. “Alex is a victim of his own stupidity and arrogance.”

“He’s dead?” Jace asked, his voice thick with a mix of regret and relief—they fought on opposing sides, but they shared a mother.

“Just unconscious. Same with the goon outside my window. Thus the rush.” I glared at the guard. “Do it. And if you have to take more than one swing, you’re going to regret it.”

Finally he shrugged, and I took a step back as he swung at the lock on Marc’s cage. The lock popped open, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure that would work. “Take off the chain, then do the other one.”

The guard set his hammer on top of Marc’s cage and unthreaded the chain as ordered. Still shivering, Marc stepped out of his pen as Malone’s man moved on to free Jace.

“Here.” While the guard unwound the second chain, I pulled one of the guns from my waistband and handed it to Marc. “Just in case.”

When Jace was free, I handed him the cuffs, and he secured the guard’s hands behind his back. “You want to put him in the cage?”

“Yeah, if either of the locks still work.”

“We should gag him, too, or he’ll scream until someone shows up,” Jace said. He examined the locks while Marc scrounged for something to gag him with.

Unfortunately, both of the locks were smashed, but Marc found a roll of shop towels and a roll of duct tape in an old plastic crate. He gagged the guard and taped his ankles together, then shoved him into one of the cages. Jace wound the chain around the lock hasp and the bar. Without the padlock to hold it in place, the guard would probably eventually kick his way free, but with any luck, that wouldn’t be anytime soon.

With the new prisoner as quiet and secure as we could make him, we stepped outside in spite of the cold, to keep from discussing the rest of our plans in front of him—another lesson learned from TV bad guys.

Behind the shed, out of sight from the lodge, I debriefed the guys. Figuratively. “Okay, we need to get rid of the guns before this new pile of shit hits the fan, although from the look of you both, I’d say finding a couple of coats is also a priority.” I would have handed over mine, but I wasn’t sure which one to offer it to. And neither of them would have taken it, anyway.

“Yes, business is obviously pressing, but first of all…” Marc looked like he wanted to hug me, even if just for my warmth, but he wouldn’t let himself. “Are you okay?”

I couldn’t resist a little laugh. “For once, the double standard worked in my favor. I got a warm room, hot stew, and an idiot guard. You guys were the ones freezing your butts off in cages.”

“We’re fine,” Jace insisted through clenched his teeth, probably to keep them from chattering. “You took out three of Cal’s men by yourself?”

“Brains over brawn, baby.” I grinned. “If they ever stop underestimating me, I might actually feel challenged.”

Jace returned my grin. “Or dead.”

“So I guess this means we’re moving against Malone sooner than expected?” Marc asked, arms crossed tightly over his chest for warmth, obviously unwilling to take part in the post-jailbreak levity.

“We have no other choice, unless you guys want to crawl back into those cages.”

Jace’s grin faltered, but couldn’t be completely extinguished. “Not even if you crawled in there with me.”

Marc gritted his teeth, but remained focused on the business at hand. “So…the guns. I’m guessing Malone’s keeping them close. Probably in his bedroom.”

I shrugged. “Actually, I’m thinking they’re in the shed behind his cabin. Alex said they’re locked up, and to my knowledge, none of the bedrooms have locks.” At least, the ones in our cabin didn’t.

“Alex told you about the guns?” Jace asked, through blue-tinted lips.

“Just that they have twenty of them, and brought ten here. But there are three fewer now.” Grinning, I pulled the second gun from my waistband and handed it to him.

Jace looked impressed, but he accepted the pistol hesitantly, no doubt remembering the recovery period from his last gunshot wound. “I don’t know how to shoot.”

“Me, neither, but it makes a damn good threat, and I’m guessing that, up close, your aim doesn’t have to be that good. Just make sure you know how to turn off the safety, or they’ll figure out pretty quickly that you’re bluffing.” While Jace turned the gun over in his hands, I glanced at Marc, who remained stoic against the cold. “Okay, we need to get you guys warmed up and let Dad know we’re out. Let’s go through the woods.” That way we’d be out of sight, and blocked from the worst of the freezing wind.

“So, this is going to go down without backup…” Marc whispered, as we picked our way carefully through the woods. The guys had both Shifted their eyes, too—they were among the first of my Pride members to master the partial Shift—and seemed much more adept hiking in their human forms than I was in mine, even with their limbs surely half-numb from the cold.

“There’s no time to call in the rest of our guys, much less the thunderbirds.” Who had to be contacted in person, thanks to their discourteous lack of a phone. And any other modern convenience beyond a few worn video cassettes and an old television for their children.

“We’re all strong fighters,” Jace said. “And getting rid of the guns will help even the odds.”

But even if we managed that, war wasn’t fought without casualties. We would lose someone. Maybe more than one someone. And that was not okay.

Fifteen minutes later, we peered between the trees at the back of our own cabin, listening and looking for anything out of the ordinary. If Malone knew we’d escaped, he’d have someone watching the cabin, and while we were more than ready to fight, we couldn’t risk starting something big before we’d gotten rid of the guns and warned everyone else. And warmed Marc and Jace up.

“I think it’s clear,” Jace said finally, and I nodded. I’d neither seen nor heard anything weird, and I knew every figure who’d passed by the window. But my father hadn’t been among them. Was he still at the lodge, unwilling to leave me there alone?

My heart ached in both gratitude and frustration, and I would have given just about anything for a cell phone at that moment, so I could fill him in.

“Let’s go.” Marc stepped through the tree line, then ran for the back steps. Jace and I raced after him. By the time we got there, Marc was knocking on the door. “It’s locked,” he explained, when I stopped on the step below him, uncomfortable standing exposed in the porch light.

The sheer curtain parted, and Teo Di Carlo’s face appeared. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he recognized Marc in the porch light, then saw me behind him. He fumbled with the doorknob, and a moment later ushered us inside.

“Have I ever mentioned how much I love central heat?” Marc headed straight for the coffeepot, still dripping with fresh, hot caffeine.

“And roaring fireplaces…” Jace made a beeline for the stone hearth. “Anyone got marshmallows?”

“How the hell did you get out?” Teo closed and locked the door as people migrated into the kitchen, drawn by our voices.

Marc poured coffee into two mugs, then reached for the sugar. “Faythe broke us out.”

“And who broke you out?” Vic asked, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the kitchen wall. He was still mad, and evidently rescuing Marc didn’t earn me any points in his favor, because I’d rescued Jace, too.

“What am I, helpless?” I grinned and accepted the mug Marc handed me, but Vic only nodded in acknowledgment of my skills. “Where’s my dad?”

“He’s at the lodge, questioning Malone’s every word to keep the council busy. We were just about to execute a jailbreak.”

“Yeah, I kind of have that covered.” I set my mug on the table and glanced around, trying to gather my thoughts. “Okay, Marc and Jace need food—something hot and heavy on the calories—and I need a phone.”

Vic fingered the phone in his pocket—the phone he was pointedly not offering me—while Teo pulled a glass pan of something hot, cheesy, and half-devoured from the oven.

“Here.” Brian Taylor handed me his cell, and I smiled at him in thanks. While the guys scooped big servings of baked pasta onto plates, I texted my dad to keep the other Alphas from overhearing our conversation.

It’s F. We r out. @ the cabin.

A moment later, his reply came: On my way. And in spite of the circumstances, I spared a moment to be amused by the fact that my father knew how to text. Ethan had taught him, insisting that the new skill would come in handy. My heart ached with the realization that he wasn’t around to brag about being right.

While Jace and Marc ate, I helped myself to a plateful of some vaguely Italian-looking combination of noodles, cheese, and tomato sauce, and had half of it scarfed before I noticed Vic scowling at us from the living room. Irritated now, I made eye contact and tossed my head toward the hall.

He nodded curtly and met me there, then followed me silently into the first bedroom we passed.

“Okay, get it over with,” I said, leaning against the closed door.

“Get what over with?”

“You’re pissed at me, and everyone can see that, but our lives just might depend on each other in the next couple of hours. So grow a pair and say your peace, then get over it.”

His scowl only grew. “You slept with Jace.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. And frankly, I don’t have to justify that to you.” He started to object, but I cut him off. “Mostly because it’s unjustifiable.” And suddenly I felt Ethan’s absence stronger than I had since the day he’d died. I needed to talk to someone about Jace and Marc, and as awesome as my father’s advice was, he was still my dad.

“Well, at least you recognize that.” He huffed, but looked half-mollified by my admission.

“Will you sit?”

Vic hesitated, then pulled a desk chair away from the wall and sank into it. I let my back slide down the door and sat with my knees pulled up to my chest, looking up at him, drowning in the overload of pain and conflict that came rushing back, now that we were out of immediate danger. “I’m lost, Vic. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He rolled his eyes. “And I thought this was going to be hard…. You just tell Jace thanks for the ride, you’re sorry you’ve turned him into a panting puppy dog, but what happened was wrong and you can’t live without Marc.”

Tears filled my eyes and I brushed them away before they could fall.

“Shit,” he whispered, and the chair groaned beneath his shifting weight. “It’s not that easy, is it?” I shook my head but refused to look up. “Do you love him?”

I nodded and wiped unshed tears on my sleeves. “I wish like hell that I didn’t, but if wishes were raindrops, I’d already have drowned. The truth is that I can’t stand the thought of losing either one of them.”

“Fuck.” Vic got up from the chair and sank to the ground a foot away. The distance he left between us said he still disapproved, but he’d put himself on my level, in full talk-it-out mode. “Marc knows it’s serious?”

“Do you think he’d be this pissed if he didn’t?”

“I think he’d have killed Jace already, if he didn’t think he’d lose you for it.”

“I know.” I reached up to snatch a tissue from the desk on my right.

“You have to choose.”

“I know.”

“You have to choose Marc.”

I had no answer to that. I did have to choose Marc. But I had to choose Jace, too. Yet that wasn’t an option. And I couldn’t hover in decision purgatory much longer.

“I’m sorry, Vic. More sorry than you could ever imagine. I just want you to know that. And to know that this isn’t some stupid rebellion. I would never risk what I have with Marc over something like that. This is real, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and it’s torture for all three of us. And it’s all my fault.”

“Well, you’re right about that.” Another man who wouldn’t sugarcoat things for me. “But I think Jace shares more than a little of the blame.”

I blinked to clear my vision and wiped the last of my tears on the tissue. “Is there anything you wouldn’t have done for comfort after Sara died? If you were alone with her best friend, and you’d both just lost a huge part of your lives, and you were both hurting so bad it felt like the pain would swallow you alive?”

“Faythe, I honestly don’t know. But that doesn’t excuse…”

“I know. I’m not saying it excuses anything. I’m just saying that’s how it happened, and afterward, I realized it didn’t feel as wrong as it should have. I mean, hurting Marc felt horrible, and still feels horrible, but the rest of it—loving Jace—doesn’t feel wrong.”

Vic watched me for a moment, like he didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t blame him. I knew exactly what that felt like. But before he could decide on a response, the front door of the cabin squealed open.

“Faythe?” my father called. I scrambled to my feet and threw open the door. My dad stood in the middle of the floor, winded and trying to catch his breath. “I’m fine, Dad. We’re all fine.”

“Not for long.” He paused to suck in another deep breath. “I ran all the way here, but I could hear them behind me, about a quarter of a mile. I think they know you’re gone.”

“Okay.” My heart pounded so hard I could barely hear anything else, and the rest of the room seemed to fade into the background as I focused on my father. “This is your call, Dad. We can surrender and wait while you guys go for the guns—we think they’re in the shed behind Malone’s cabin. Or we can stand and fight now.”

“We’re going to get the best of both worlds.” He glanced over my shoulder. “Brian, go through the woods and get the guns. Take them deep into the forest and drop the whole box, then come back ready to fight. We’ll destroy them later. On the way, call Aaron and Rick and tell them to get their men ready.”

“I’m already on that, Greg,” Bert Di Carlo said from the kitchen doorway, his cell phone at his ear.

“Good.” My father looked at each of us individually, me last of all. “This time we fight.”

Anticipation buzzed in my stomach like angry wasps, fear and bloodlust combining to spin my head and steel my spine. “I confiscated three guns, but there are two more in use, plus the five Malone still has locked up. Assuming he hasn’t already distributed them. Colin Dean has one of those two, but anyone could have the last. So some of us should Shift, but we also need a few in human form, to disarm those last couple of ‘task force’ members.” I pulled my shirt over my head, hopefully emphasizing the urgency.

“Agreed.” My father glanced around at the room full of toms, all waiting for his orders. “Lucas, Jace, Vic, and I will stay human. The rest of you Shift. Quickly. We’ll do our best to get rid of the guns, but stay out of the line of fire just in case.”

Marc already had his shirt off and his pants unbuckled when I grabbed his arm and pointed toward the bedroom, where we’d be shielded from the initial onslaught. “In there.” Because we were more vulnerable in mid-Shift than at any other time in our lives. At least, since infancy.

Marc headed for the bedroom and grabbed Di Carlo’s other enforcer on the way.

“How many are coming?” I asked, unbuttoning my jeans in the bedroom doorway.

My father’s frown deepened as his gaze settled on mine. “I couldn’t tell. But more than came for you the first time, I’m betting.”

I nodded and ducked into the bedroom, leaving the door open a crack so we could get out without hands to twist the knob. I shoved my jeans and underwear to the floor, listening to my father as I dropped to my knees on the hardwood, still fumbling with the latch on my bra.

“Okay, our primary objective is to disarm and disable,” our Alpha called from the front room, as the first jarring bolts of pain emanated from deep within my joints. “But because we may be facing men with guns, if it’s kill or be killed, opt for the former.”

On my left, Marc was in mid-Shift between the two twin beds, and suddenly I wished I’d thought to put at least one mattress between me and the door, thus between me and any potential bullets. But it was too late to move. Once my Shift began, I could only ride the waves of pain. Or let them ride me.

“Once this first group is subdued—” they were coming to rearrest me, hopefully not expecting us to actually attack “—we’ll have to move quickly. We’ll tape up the survivors and regroup, then head out through the woods to Malone’s cabin. He’s our primary target, but obviously we’ll have to deal with anyone else who gets in the way. As quietly as possible, to keep from tipping him off.”

My knees popped, and I groaned. Pain echoed the length of my legs, radiating outward from the center of my bones. My ribs ached fiercely as they and the accompanying muscles were reshaped to accommodate a feline layout of organs. As I stared at my hands, splayed on the floor, my palms began to plump beneath me. My fingers creaked as they shortened and thickened, growing pads suited to rough terrain.

“But above all, don’t let any of them leave.” My father’s boots scraped the floor in the living room, and it became hard for me to simultaneously concentrate on his words and force my Shift to come faster than it would on its own. “If they warn the rest of Malone’s men, we’ll lose the element of surprise and be outnumbered. Got it?”

There were mumbles of assent from the men still in human form, but I couldn’t help wondering if we actually had the element of surprise in the first place. Surely they weren’t expecting me to just turn myself in and be hauled off quietly. Again.

“I hear them,” Vic said, his voice low enough to avoid detection by the toms headed our way, but loud enough to be heard in the adjoining rooms, over the grunts and heavy breathing of so many simultaneous Shifts.

My heart rate doubled. Moments away. My pulse echoed in my ears, a fanfare to announce the coming attraction. We were on the brink of actual war—the first American inter-Pride brawl in decades—and I wasn’t ready.

I dumped the extra adrenaline my nerves spawned into my Shift, forcing my body through the paces faster and faster. My entire head ached with pressure so severe it felt like my skull would squeeze my brain out my ears.

Instead, my face lengthened and pain exploded along the new length of my jaw. My cheekbones stretched with an odd screeching sound heard only in my head, as my ears traveled forward and all outward sound was temporarily suspended. My nose flattened and darkened, and a long, bare muzzle now took up most of the bottom half of my field of vision.

“Is everybody ready?” This time my father’s voice was low, steady with a false calm.

I could only whine in answer, and I was acutely aware of Marc standing next to me now, fully Shifted. He stood between me and the door, obviously intent on protecting me until my Shift was over.

My entire body began to itch as fur sprouted over my skin, beginning along my spine, and flowing to cover every inch of me, except for my paw pads. My teeth grew so quickly they forced my mouth open, and I nearly bit off the end of my own tongue, as backward-facing barbs suddenly sprouted all over it.

Whiskers shot out of the sides of my muzzle, stark white against the dark blur of my own fur. They twitched as I sniffed the room. Almost there. Just waiting on… My claws.

Even as I pictured them, my finger- and toenails grew hard and sharp, lengthening to deadly points. I sheathed them, then unsheathed them again and dug into the floor, picturing them piercing vulnerable human flesh.

And just as my tail began to swish, fully formed and twitching angrily, my father gave the “get ready!” signal from the front room: he went completely still and totally silent.

Marc and I padded silently to opposite sides of the bedroom door, where we were least likely to be shot and most likely to surprise any intruders.

Soft footsteps climbed the front steps. Malone’s men were in stealth mode, too. Did they think we didn’t know they were coming?

I peeked into the living room to see my father standing to one side of the front door, his back against the wall, Lucas on his left. Jace and Vic mirrored them on the other side.

The footsteps stopped. They must have realized something was wrong. How could they not, with the lights on, but no one in sight through the windows? With no voices carrying from inside.

The first man paused in front of the door. His dark silhouette spanned the entire width of the small window cut into it. His shadow turned, and I heard the faintest of whispers as he spoke to the toms behind him. I couldn’t make out his words, but the message was clear: we were up to something. Or else we’d left. Run away.

My heart thumped in my ears, and suddenly I wondered if we should have. Were we making a fool’s mistake, taking on men with guns while we were armed with nothing but anger, shielded by nothing but courage?

Either way, it was too late for a change of plans. The silhouette canted to one side and kicked the front door open.

I knew several of the faces, but had no names to go with them, and at a glance they all seemed to be carrying guns. Brian was too late to get rid of them. Malone’s men stared into the apparently empty living room, and our men in human form held their breath. They couldn’t disguise their heartbeats, but if the intruders’ pulses were rushing as loudly as my own they’d never hear heartbeats, anyway.

“They ran.” The first tom lowered his gun. “Bunch of cowards fucking ran away.” He stepped over the threshold, and two more followed before the first one turned around.

Jace seized the nearest man’s gun arm and pulled the tom in front of him, shielding himself from gunfire. Vic did the same with the second man to turn.

My father lunged with a speed I’d seldom seen from him. He grabbed the lead man’s hand and forced the gun to one side, then pulled the tom to the left, out of sight from the doorway and out of the line of fire. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to worry, beyond the wordless adrenaline-laced terror already surging through me.

The tom tried to jerk free. My father squeezed his hand so hard I heard the bones crack from fifteen feet away. The tom howled and dropped his gun. Lucas bent to snatch it.

“Toss your guns inside and step forward with your hands on your heads.” My father’s voice carried absolute authority, a fact I’d recognized long before I took my first steps. But the three men still standing on the porch were completely unfazed.

“Not gonna happen, Councilman.”

My father was seconds from losing his temper. “Drop your guns, now!”

“She’s in here.” The first tom craned his neck in my father’s grip to glance around the cabin. “I can smell her. But the rest of them are Shifted. Call for backup.”

Footsteps pounded on the porch as the last three toms turned and ran, two of them armed.

My father roared. His face flushed with fury, and his fist smashed into the side of the tom’s head. The tom collapsed to the floor with a thud. “Get them!” my dad yelled, his throat half-Shifted, his words barely understandable.

But his meaning was clear.

I leaped into the living room and was on the porch two bounds later. I hit the grass running, frozen blades crunching beneath my paws, frigid air burning in my lungs. Marc was on my tail, and I could hear two others behind us.

My pulse raced as I ran. Each breath was a deep huffing pant, powerful in its own right, without the accompanying soft thuds of my paws on the ground.

Three men ran in front of me, clearly visible in the sad light of a cloud-covered quarter moon. One man half turned, gun haphazardly aimed. The barrel flashed. For an instant the world was too bright to bear. The bullet whizzed by several feet over my head and thunked into the frozen earth behind me.

He aimed again, and I zigged while Marc zagged. The next bullet split the air between us. Too close for comfort.

He turned to run again and I pounced. My paws slammed into his back. He screamed and fell beneath me. My muzzle closed over the back of his neck. My teeth pierced tender flesh, just enough to threaten. Blood ran into my mouth. It tasted like fear. He waved the gun at his side. I swatted it away before he could fire, dislocating his elbow. He thrashed beneath me.

A dark blur flew past us. Another thud. The second tom hit the grass with Marc on top of him. He screamed when Marc performed the same maneuver with unsheathed claws.

Wish I’d thought of that…

The third tom still pounded toward the main lodge, unarmed. Another dark blur raced past us on Marc’s right—one of Di Carlo’s men still in pursuit. He slammed into the last tom’s back and they both hit the ground.

All three toms were down, but their screams and gunfire would surely draw more.

Teo Di Carlo slunk past me in cat form, huffing in approval of my takedown. More footsteps pounded behind us—my father, Bert Di Carlo, and at least one other tom in human form.

“You are so screwed,” the man beneath me gasped. I increased the pressure on his neck and more blood trickled across my tongue and down my chin. “You’re outnumbered. Malone called in a dozen extra enforcers and they’re just waiting for you assholes to start some shit. Looks like they’re going to get their wish.”

That time my jaw clenched involuntarily. An extra dozen men? He’s right. Even without guns, we were seriously outnumbered. They’d known we’d fight, rather than submit to an unfair trial. Or at least that there was a good possibility.

The footsteps slowed to a stop behind me. “Good work.” My father knelt beside me with a roll of duct tape, and I stepped off my prisoner, but didn’t release his neck until his wrists were taped.

Several feet away, other toms in human form were doing the same with the other two downed enemies—Aaron Taylor and my uncle Rick had sent their men to join the effort.

But our early victory was about to be trumped. From the other end of the complex came the unmistakable whisper-thud of cats running in feline form, sacrificing stealth for speed. Those in human form couldn’t hear it yet, but when Marc and the other cat both whined, I knew they’d heard.

My father hauled my prisoner to his feet and followed my gaze into the darkness ahead. “They’re coming?”

I nodded, then nudged the taped tom with the top of my head, ordering him to tell my Alpha what he’d told me. But he refused to speak, and there was no time for me to Shift and warn them.

The footsteps grew louder, and my father froze. “There are too many,” he said, loud enough for the others to hear. “But on the bright side, relatively speaking, they can’t carry guns in cat form.” Which meant that Alex had been telling the truth about how many pistols they’d brought. By my count, we’d confiscated all but one. Colin Dean was still armed.

I tugged my father’s sleeve. We should retreat. We couldn’t fight that many of them, even without guns. But my dad jerked his arm free.

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “If they want into the cabin, they’ll get in. It’s better to fight here, where there’s room to maneuver.”

I started to argue, then realized that would be futile. We were outnumbered, but we’d been outnumbered before. And if we didn’t take this moment to stand up for ourselves, we might never get a second chance.

“Are you ready?” my father asked, while the last of our allies came to a stop in our midst, slick black chests heaving from their sprint, eyes flashing in the little available light.

I nodded, as the first of our enemies came into sight, a long line of snarling muzzles and fur gleaming beneath the quarter moon.

And when the first cat lunged, I leaped up to meet him.