When I woke up, the room was bright with natural light, and Marc’s alarm clock read 1:44. Thursday afternoon. Shit. I sat up too fast and gasped over the pain in my…everything, as the room seemed to swim around me.

“Whoa, slow down,” Marc said from the desk chair, and I jumped, then flinched at the second flare of pain. I hadn’t smelled him because the entire room already smelled like him. The chair creaked as he stood, then the bed squealed as he sat next to me. “How do you feel?”

“Like I should have Shifted five hours ago. Why did you let me sleep so long? I need to call my uncle.” I threw back the covers and was surprised to discover that I was still wearing the shirt I’d fought in the day before, still stiff with my own dried blood. I stood—and almost screamed when my left foot hit the floor. My sore hip had stiffened while I slept, and a test movement from my left arm revealed that the same had happened with my shoulder.

“He already called. I told him you were still recuperating, and he’s expecting a call from you this afternoon.”

“Marc, you have to tell me when one of our allies calls! We have a lot to do, and we need their help. I’m the Alpha now!”

“You’re going to be a dead Alpha if you don’t take time to rest and heal.”

“Consider me rested. And healing’s on the agenda for today, too. But first I need to talk to Uncle Rick. Where’s my phone?” When my heart stopped trying to pound its way out of my chest, I headed for my suitcase, in spite of the sharp pain in my side and my left hip.

“It’s on the charger in the living room. What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to talk to my uncle, then I’m going to Shift until I’m healed. Didn’t I just say that?”

Marc huffed. “I was talking long-term. Yesterday you said you had an idea.”

“Oh.” I rummaged through the bag on Marc’s dresser for a pair of exercise shorts and a T-shirt, since I wouldn’t shower until after I’d Shifted enough to be presentable in human society. “Yeah. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to do it the right way. With the element of surprise on our side, and all our allies and men in place. Including the thunderbirds. Malone and his men can’t defend against them any better than we could. The birds are going to be the determining factor in his war. We’re gonna take back the ranch and the Pride. Permanently.”

“So…road trip?” Jace asked from the doorway, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Once I’m healed enough to be seen in public.” I started to pull my arms from the bloody turtleneck, but stopped when the pain in my side shot through my entire torso.

“Here, let me.” Marc was at my side before I could answer, and I could hear Jace’s teeth grind together from across the room as Marc ran his hands lightly up my sides beneath my shirt, holding it up so I could pull my arms free. He even stretched out the neck so it wouldn’t brush my broken nose when he lifted it over my head. Jace stomped out of the room when Marc helped me into the shorts and clean T-shirt, still careful with my damaged face, but I hurt too badly to care whose feelings were bruised and who’d just used me to assert his dominance. Again.

Dressed, I limped into the front of the house for my phone.

The living room looked like a sleepaway camp. Someone had propped the air mattresses against one wall, but there wasn’t enough furniture for everyone to have a seat, so most of the guys sat on the floor, playing cards in the middle of the living room. Manx was nursing Des on the couch, and Owen sat next to her, reassuring her softly that everything would be okay. They wouldn’t be homeless for long. That I’d find a way to get us back home, or to start a new home. That she and the baby would be safe.

My mother was rattling around the kitchen, clanging pans, openly lamenting Marc’s utter lack of a twenty-quart stockpot.

Kaci sat at the card table with Holly and Michael, playing the Shifters home version of Fact or Fiction. “So…what about allergies?” Holly asked, as I stepped around a pillow someone had left on the floor and narrowly missed an open suitcase. “Is anyone ever allergic to you guys? Because of cat dander?”

I rolled my eyes, glad she seemed to be adjusting, and Kaci laughed. Michael chuckled softly. “I think our dander is mostly human.”

“Hey, how do you feel?” my mother asked, as I pulled my phone free of its cord on the kitchen counter. “You don’t look much better.”

“Thanks.” I forced a smile. She was right. The bruises around my eyes were darker than they’d been the day before, the side of my head was swollen and horrifically tender to the touch, and my rib felt like it was being recracked with every step I took. But my poor nose…The bridge was very puffy and discolored, and the only bright side I could find, after an extensive search, was that thanks to Dr. Carver, it wouldn’t heal crooked. “I feel like I got trampled by a bruin stampede, but I’ll be better after I’ve had a chance to Shift and shower.”

My mother opened her mouth, probably to tell me to be careful. But then she only closed her mouth and gave me a sad smile, and I could see in it everything she’d left unsaid—every consuming fear for me—and I loved her for both her concern and her restraint.

“I’ll be careful,” I said, and her smile developed, like one of those old Polaroids, suddenly brighter, where it had been gray before.

I dialed on the way back to the bedroom, waving a silent greeting to Kaci. She called my name, but before I could answer, my uncle was speaking into my ear. “Faythe?” I gave Kaci a one-minute finger, then ducked into the bedroom and closed the door on Marc and Jace before I realized they’d followed me down the hall.

“Did you get some rest?” Uncle Rick asked, as I sank gingerly into the desk chair and pressed the power button on Marc’s computer.

“More than I wanted. But I’m up and running now. I’m leaving tomorrow to recruit the thunderbirds, and I was thinking we could hit Kenton and his little toy soldiers on Monday morning. Before dawn, when they’re least expecting it. If you’re still with me.”

“I’m in. And so are Bert Di Carlo and Aaron Taylor. They’re standing by, waiting for word.”

“Awesome.”

“But, Faythe, Marc made it sound like you’d need a while to recuperate. Aren’t you moving a little too fast?”

“We’re running short on time and long on enemies, Uncle Rick,” I said, then glanced up when the bedroom door opened. “I’ll be fine by Monday.” Marc stepped in with a steaming mug of coffee, flavoring the air with French vanilla creamer. Jace was right behind him, carrying several turkey sandwiches on a paper plate.

My uncle sighed into my ear. “Okay. But we need to know for sure that Malone and the bulk of his men are still on the ranch before we move in. Otherwise, even if we remove Kenton from the picture, what’s to stop Malone from setting someone else up in his place?”

“I agree. Malone is the objective. We could send scouts in advance of—”

“Won’t work,” Marc said, setting the full mug carefully on his desktop. “You think he’d go to all the trouble of kicking us out, then not patrol his new territory? If he’s still there, one of his men will smell us the minute we set foot on the property.”

Damn. Marc was right, of course. And there was no way we could disguise our scents well enough to fool a fellow werecat, and no way we could avoid leaving them with every step we took.

But what if we didn’t have to set foot on the property…?

“I have an idea.” Marc’s brows rose in question, but I shook my head to say I’d tell him later. “It’s not a sure thing, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Okay, then, I’ll leave that up to you unless I hear otherwise,” my uncle said. “Do we know yet how Malone found out about the early funeral?”

I bit back a groan and picked up the mug. “The leak was on my team, but it’s been taken care of. But just in case, I think all the men need to know exactly how much is riding on this. We can’t afford to tip Malone off again.”

“Agreed. I’m not planning to fill my men in until Sunday, and the penalty for discussing the maneuver to anyone outside the Pride—including family members—is expulsion.”

“Good. It’ll be the same on my end.” I sipped from the mug, enjoying the warmth of it in my hand. “I’ll call you after I speak to the Flight.”

“Be careful, Faythe.”

“You know I will.” When I’d hung up, I raised the mug toward Marc like I’d toast him. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.” I was uncomfortable with the thought of either him or Jace waiting on me, but I wasn’t going to turn down their help out of pride, especially when I was only twenty-four hours past the worst beating of my life.

Besides, how often had I taken coffee to my father?

But that thought didn’t help. I wasn’t my father. I wasn’t even like my father. If I were, I wouldn’t have lost—spectacularly—to Colin Dean. We wouldn’t be hiding in the free zone, abusing Marc’s generosity and taking over his small house. I wouldn’t be planning a covert trip to another werecat free zone to solicit help from another species, whose only previous contact with us could hardly be described as “friendly.” So I certainly didn’t deserve to be treated like they’d treated my father. I had yet to earn that privilege.

“What’s your idea about recon on the ranch?” Marc asked.

I set the mug down and jiggled his computer mouse, irritated by how long the computer was taking to boot up. “This is going to sound crazy, but thunderbirds can do much better reconnaissance than we can, from much farther away. From any decent distance, Malone and his men would have no idea they weren’t regular birds, because there’s nothing to judge scale against in the sky.”

“You want the birds to do recon for us?” Jace sat with his hip on the edge of the desk until Marc scowled at him. He stood, but didn’t move away.

“Yeah. It’d be safer and faster.”

“And you think they’re so bored they’ll offer to spy on Malone for entertainment value?” Marc asked. “Because we can’t afford to absolve their debt on anything less than full-scale combat.”

“I know.” I frowned. “Maybe I can present it as a package deal…”

Jace shrugged, drawing my attention. “You only need one bird for this job, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What about Kai?” The thunderbird Owen had captured during their raid on our property. “We spared his life. According to their law, doesn’t that mean he owes us?”

My smile developed slowly, and it was all for Jace. “That just might work. Thanks.”

“So, we’re leaving tomorrow?” Jace set the plate on the desk in front of me, then leaned against the wall where he could see both me and Marc.

“Yeah. I’m trying to book the flights, but the site’s taking forever to load….”

“Here, let me do it,” Marc said, already reaching for the mouse.

“Thanks.” I set my credit card on the desk, then carried my plate and mug slowly to the side of the bed, where I used his old nightstand as a table. But even sitting up hurt my ribs, and it took most of my concentration to ignore the pain. “We need three seats on the earliest flight to Roswell tomorrow morning.” Because Roswell was the nearest airport to the thunderbirds’ nest. Seriously.

“So we’re just gonna, what?” Jace frowned, as I bit into the first sandwich, wincing over the pain in my nose when I chewed. “Storm in on the ranch and start throwing punches? Don’t you think they’ll be expecting that?”

“Probably.” I shrugged, then swallowed. “But the classics never die. And hopefully they won’t be expecting air support.” And I was just as bothered as the next guy by the fact that we needed help from another species to even our own odds. “We go in when they’re not expecting us and we target Malone and Dean. And we fight anyone who stands between us and them.”

“We might have to kill Kent,” Marc said, as his computer hummed and beeped, the outdated dial-up modem protesting its involvement in the day’s work.

“Kent’s already made his choice, and he’ll have to live with the consequences. Or not.” Jace frowned again, and I knew what he was thinking. I didn’t want Parker to lose another brother, and I certainly didn’t want to be the one who made that happen. Especially after Kent had offered me what he naively considered to be safe asylum in my own former home. But there were bigger issues at stake, and I’d do what I had to do to protect my men.

And to earn their trust back.

I’d just finished the third and final sandwich when Marc finally spun in his desk chair to face me. “Okay, we take off from Jackson at 9:38 in the morning. We need to be there an hour early, minimum, and it’s a two-hour drive. So we’ll have to leave here around 6:00 a.m.”

“Great. Thanks.” I finished my now-lukewarm coffee, then handed both dishes to Jace. “I’m going to Shift a couple of times, and hopefully start to put this head trauma behind me. Not to mention the broken nose. I can hardly stand to look in the mirror at the moment.” And the lower arc of my field of vision was a bluish-purple haze of bruises I could barely see.

“You’ll have to eat again between Shifts,” Jace said, heading slowly, reluctantly, toward the hall. “I’ll bring some more sandwiches in about half an hour. Do you need anything else?”

“A meat mallet and one more shot at Dean’s head,” I said, carefully pulling the T-shirt over my head all on my own. If I couldn’t take the pain of changing clothes, how the hell was I going to Shift?

Jace forced a grin, but beneath the effort, he looked tense. Disappointed. “Soon, hopefully. Yell if you need anything else.”

I tried on a smile, but it didn’t work. “Thanks, but I just need to Shift.” And to heal. And to think. And to become a competent, respectable Alpha overnight. I met Marc’s gaze. “Can you get the guys up to speed on the plan? And smell Parker’s breath? He’s officially cut off from the bar until further notice.”

“Sure.” Marc selected Shut Down from the start menu on his desktop, then turned off the monitor and stood to push his desk chair in. “Do you want me to bring you more coffee? Or some water?”

“I’m fine for now, guys. Really.” I glanced over Marc’s shoulder into the hallway. “Could you close the door? I don’t think Holly needs another demonstration quite so soon.”

Marc nodded and disappeared into the hall, and the door clicked shut behind him. And I was alone enough that I didn’t have to wear the Alpha face I hadn’t yet perfected. Or the enforcer’s poker face I wore all too often. Or any other face that would hopefully hide how scared, and furious, and unsure, I was. How convinced some deep, dark part of me was that this new plan, this latest reincarnation of the fight-or-die routine, would fail spectacularly and kill not just me, but everyone I loved.

I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t afford to lose again.

I shoved my shorts down and stepped out of them, then carefully lowered myself to my knees on the rough carpet. My side felt like I’d been stabbed. My left hip protested sharply and my shoulder sang in harmony with it. Even my nose throbbed harder from my change of position—or maybe altitude—and it felt like someone had driven a hammer through the left side of my skull.

I embraced the pain as both penance and consolation. It was the consequence of losing the most important fight of my life, as well as proof that I’d survived. Pain was a reminder of my arrogance and weakness, and if I ever forgot that lesson, Dean would kill me. I had no doubt of that.

So instead of ignoring the pain, I called out to it, reaching for more. Pain is part of who I am. It’s the defining characteristic of a Shifter’s transformation. Pain is what I suffer from my enemies. It is what I deal out to those who break our laws. It is what I protect my charges from. Pain is what I inherited from fate, that fickle bitch who gave me a mouth and fists, then put me in a world that wanted only my womb and my cradled arms.

Pain is what I feed from when nothing else will nourish the noxious fury in my heart. It’s what I cling to when everything else—everyone else—slips right between my grasping fingers.

And pain was what I clung to that afternoon, with my brother and father murdered, my Pride stolen, my body beaten, and my responsibility crushing me like the weight of the world resting firmly on my chest.

I closed my eyes and called out to pain—in all its glorious forms—and rode it like a runaway horse.

Miguel pins me to the floor of a commercial van, while I fight nylon rope and try to scoot away. His grip bruises my thigh, his invasion bruises my soul…. In my present hell, fueled by remembered rage and pain, my hands and feet thickened into paws.

Miguel straddles me on a bare mattress in a filthy basement cell. He punches my face, but that doesn’t shut me up, so he punches me again…. On Marc’s bedroom floor, my nails hardened into claws, digging into the carpet in lieu of enemy flesh.

In my own basement, Luiz kicks me, snapping two of my ribs….

My spine lengthened beyond my tailbone, already swishing angrily before my tail had even fully formed.

On a forested hillside in Montana, Zeke Radley stabs my right hip, plunging white-hot agony all the way to the bone….

That echo of pain sang deep in my marrow, and my face began to elongate, a muzzle forming where there had been only chin and broken nose before.

And finally the pain swept everything else away in a blinding wash of agony that incinerated thought, obliterated memory.

I’d Shifted for the first time since becoming an Alpha.

My cat form felt different this time, in no way that could be explained simply by my new rank. I felt powerful, and lethal, and barely restrained. My new body was born of pain and rage, and had both to unleash.

But I had nowhere to put the power. Nothing to unleash it on, without hurting someone I loved. I had no way to expend that vicious power, except in more pain for myself. So I Shifted back, less than two minutes after I’d first stood on four paws.

The pain was worse that time instead of better, in spite of the small wounds I could feel healing. As if pain was this violent power’s purpose. My purpose…

I needed power, and I deserved pain, so I took them both. Again, and again.

I Shifted back into human form while bitter memories played behind my eyes like old filmstrips, jumpy and out of focus, and almost too fast to truly understand.

Andrew straddles me on the glass-strewn floor, punching me, over and over. Kevin Mitchell backhands me in a suburban living room, then the memory stutters and he jerks my arm hard enough to crack the bone. In the Montana woods, a big black cat pounces on me, his rear claws rip into my stomach.

I collapsed on Marc’s bedroom floor, covered in sweat, yet shivering. My pulse raced. My breathing was too fast and too shallow.

I rolled onto my hands and knees, and the room spun around me. I clutched the footboard, and when the earth stilled, I pulled myself up slowly and turned to the mirror, mentally cataloging my aches and pains. My bruised ribs had gone from black and purple to bluish-green, but the cracked one still screamed every time I moved. My shoulder no longer hurt, so I swung my left arm to test it. All good. Holding the edge of the dresser for balance, I dropped into a deep squat. My left hip felt limber, my motion smooth.

The bruises around my eyes had faded and yellowed, but they weren’t any smaller. The side of my head still looked lumpy, and it still throbbed without being touched. The swelling in my nose had decreased, but when I touched the bridge, it still hurt. Gritting my teeth, I pushed on my nose until my eyes watered from the pain, then I clutched the edge of the dresser and studied my reflection. Frowning. It wasn’t enough.

Again. I had to do it again.

I turned and dropped onto my knees. The carpet blurred with my tears while reality blurred with my pain. Again…

The old deer stand gives beneath me, and my arm is shredded from wrist to elbow.

Colin Dean pins me to the wall by my neck. My feet dangle. I can’t breathe. The memory stutters, and he’s cutting my face, threatening worse….

I stood in cat form again, stretching. The buzz of power still burned beneath my skin, and my side still hurt, but I felt like I could jump out a five-story window and land on all four feet. I was strong. Starving, and hurting, and exhausted, but so incredibly strong…

I closed my eyes and my whiskers twitched. Warm, metallic-scented air brushed my fur from the vent overhead. And I called to the memories again…

Ryan turns out the light and closes the door, leaving me alone with Abby. I’ve never been so scared….

The thunderbird swoops, snatching Kaci from the front yard. Her legs dangle above my hand. I can’t reach her. Terror and despair wash over me and I know I’ve lost her….

Human form again, and I could hardly move. My hair hung in my face, stringy with sweat. My arms shook. I pulled myself up using the edge of the dresser for support. I looked wild. The bruises were gone, but the flesh beneath my eyes was still dark. My cheekbones stood out sharply, and my face was pale. My head no longer looked puffy, but it was tender, and when I touched the bridge of my nose, my eyes still watered.

I dropped to the floor again. I needed to Shift, but I could hardly remember why. My tongue felt thick and dry when I swallowed, so I bit it until I tasted blood.

A black cat drops out of the branches and knocks Ethan to the ground. His unsheathed claws slash Ethan’s throat. Ethan reaches for me. He dies with my name on his lips….

Cat form again, and that time I couldn’t stand. I fell onto my stomach, panting, and the room refused to come into focus. The pain echoed inside me, filling the emptiness, sucking at the cold with blazing agony. My stomach was eating me alive, demanding fuel, but I wanted only the blaze. The fire.

Colin Dean aims his gun, and the flash is blinding in the dark. My father falls. Blood blooms on his shirt like a midnight rose. And then he is gone, and I’m being sucked into darkness the size of a pinprick, and the pain is…

The Shifts began to run together. Memories of loss and triumph—because Shifting was my glory; it enabled justice and was my sword and my shield—fueled them long after my energy waned, long after the buzz of power faded. The pain was all a blur—past and present, physical, and psychological. And for the past two cycles, I couldn’t even stand. Could only force my body through its paces one final time, wondering if that would be enough.

When it was over, I couldn’t sit up. I lay on the floor panting, huffing, sweating, boiling with agony. My ribs had healed. My knee had healed. My cheek looked normal at the bottom of my vision. And still there was pain. Deep, deep pain, in places I couldn’t reach.

My weight on the floor bruised my hip. My neck creaked when I lifted my head. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. How many times? It was too much. Too fast.

Tears poured down my face, silent, because I didn’t have the energy to sob. The buzz of power had abandoned me, and part of me had gone with it. I didn’t deserve the power. Not yet. But I deserved the pain.

“Faythe?” The door creaked open, and I smelled Marc. “Faythe!” He was at my side in an instant, lifting me, and even his gentle touch bruised. A second later, Jace was there, too. “Get her some water,” Marc whispered. “And something to eat. But don’t say anything.”

“What happened?” Jace took his cue to whisper from Marc.

“I think she Shifted. Look at her face.”

“But…one Shift can’t heal like that. Hell, four Shifts can’t heal like that.”

“I know. Get the water. And close the door behind you.”

Marc laid me on the bed, and I blinked up at him, but his face wouldn’t come into focus. My eyes were so dry it hurt to blink.

“What the hell are you doing? Trying to kill yourself?” His voice was thick with emotion, and his eyes were damp. “You’re stronger than that. Suicide is the coward’s way out. People are depending on you!”

“Don’t want to die,” I whispered. “I needed the pain.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed, like he wanted to understand, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. Everything was black and white for Marc. Right and wrong. Good and bad. He understood the spectrum of pain—he’d certainly been through enough of it—but not what it meant to me. He didn’t understand how making myself suffer and relive so many bad memories could possibly lead to catharsis, a psychological release of emotional poison. “You weren’t in enough pain already?”

“It clears my head. I needed more.”

The door creaked open, and Jace came in with a sweating bottle of chilled water and a box of protein bars. He cracked open the bottle and handed it to me.

It took all of my concentration to manage the bottle, to keep from dribbling water all over myself, but I drained half of it before coming up for a breath.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Marc took the bottle when I lowered it, while Jace ripped open the snack box. “Even under the best of circumstances, you should eat between Shifts, and this is hardly the best of circumstances. How many times did you Shift?”

“I don’t know. Lost count.”

“In half an hour?” Marc cursed in Spanish, and I flinched. “What are you, brain-dead?”

“I’m sorry.” I swallowed thickly and took the protein bar Jace handed me. “I didn’t mean to go so far. I just…I needed to heal, and I needed it to hurt. That’s the only way I could make sense out of any of this.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Marc demanded, forgetting to whisper that time.

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t make him understand what I could hardly understand myself.

Jace sighed. “She was punishing herself.”

“No, I…” I shook my head. That wasn’t it. That sounded crazy. Yet he was right, though I would never have put it in those words. “It just… It seemed like a failure on so massive a scale should involve more pain. Like I shouldn’t have been able to just walk away from a loss that cost everything for so many people. Like if I wasn’t hurting, I wasn’t paying for what I cost us.”

“You didn’t walk away from it,” Marc pointed out, ever helpful with the literal interpretation. “Jace carried you. And damn, Faythe, Dean nearly killed you. How is that not enough pain?”

“It just…wasn’t.”

“You’re not making any sense. You did the best you could, and what happened wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was.” I bit into the snack bar and avoided his eyes. “My best wasn’t good enough, and that’s not an option for an Alpha.”

Marc stared at me for nearly a minute, and I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head. Grinding. But he didn’t really get it, and he hated that. Finally he stood and stomped toward the door. “Make sure she eats the whole box,” he growled. Then the door closed behind him, and I was alone with Jace.

I should have called out to Marc. I should have called him back and figured out a way to explain myself to him. But I was too tired to think, and beyond frustrated.

“He doesn’t get it,” I whispered, wadding the first empty wrapper into a cellophane ball. “Why can’t he get it?”

Jace laid back on the bed next to me, one arm propping up the pillow beneath his head. “Because he’s never failed to measure up. Failure has never ripped a hole in his gut so deep and wide that physical pain is a mercy and a punishment all at the same time.”

“But you have?”

Jace sat up and met my eyes with a gaze so intense my next breath caught in my throat and refused to budge. “I left Ethan in the woods, and he died. We were partners, and I left him, Faythe.” He glanced down at his hands, and I started to argue. He’d only left because Ethan told him to get Kaci to safety. He hadn’t abandoned his partner. But before I could put my argument into words, he looked up again, and something deep in my stomach clenched. “And every time Cal hurts you, and I can’t kill him, I feel the same way. Like I’m not worth the air I breathe if I can’t protect you.”