
#  Frayed

A Madison Lark Adventure 1

Blakely Chorpenning
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A MADISON LARK ADVENTURE ONE: FRAYED

Copyright 2011 by Blakely Chorpenning.

Formatting by Jesse Gordon of A Darned Good Book.

All rights reserved.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Except for use in review, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form—now known or hereafter invented—without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.

This is an original publication of Belle-Merrick Publishing.

ISBN-10: 0-9847010-1-X

ISBN-13: 978-0-9847010-1-8

# Dedication

This book is for my parents. Thank you for never saying no to my imagination, and for supporting everything I've ever wanted to do or be—Especially during those awkward years when I wanted to be a vampire (my entire youth). I will never be so lucky twice, even in a million lifetimes, to have parents like you. I love you Mom and Dad!

This book is also for Ellys, my "Baby Love." You have taught me the beauty of mortality, and the reason why change is good. And you make me see everything new again. I love you, Noodle!

A special thanks to:

My Aunt Lee, who (along with my mom) has read every word from the beginning and listened to every insecurity and crazy plot twist, yet managed to make me feel better about them every time. I love you Aunt Lee!

My mother-in-law and friend, Brenda, for showing me that family is in the heart, not the blood. I love you Brenda!

My husband, Sean, for getting on this rollercoaster with me. I love you a little more! (If that's possible.)

And last but certainly not least, this book is for everyone who pushes back when life rages.

# Chapter One

Dome lights toasted the blood streaking from brow to breastbone, turning it to liquid heat on my flesh. The sensation thrilled like the first touch of a lover, and when I realized it wasn't mine the pleasure spike awoke a fever calling to that part of me that was never human. I wanted to relinquish my human bonds, unleash that feral leopard energy for real, but that was against the rules. This time. Instead, I smiled like the devil and I were sharing a beer in hell and hook-punched Danica, my opponent, in the face. Scarlet splatters filled the air like tiny dancers. I closed my eyes, smiling as the fresh blood caressed my tender eyelids and the hyper sensitive pout of my lips.

This is my moment, the point in every fight when they see what they did wrong.

When they see me winning.

Being a semi-pro mixed martial arts fighter was my world. I especially loved the shifter fights. Underground, of course. To some, it was bloody, simple as that. To me, it was an art form. Truthfully, the decision to fight had been made long before graduating high school ten years ago. My family agreed that it quelled the intense hunting urges of my leopard half and maintained enough excitement to dock my human predisposition for trouble.

Danica, known in the fighting ring as Savage, had her chestnut hair braided in tight neutral cornrows against her skull. Years ago, I cut mine within three inches of being able to use a receding hairline as an excuse, both for fighting and because it just looked damn hot. Dyeing it blonde turned out to be one of my better ideas, as well.

Unlike the black spandex covering my thighs and torso, Danica preferred a skimpy gold bikini. It would have been acceptable in a shifter fight. In a human only forum, however, I was left crossing my fingers that _it_ didn't shift. I definitely embraced my feminine mystique—flaunting it more than my brother thought appropriate, actually—but there was a time and place. It had been hard enough the last few years for female opponents in our region to gain respect as true fighters. Danica was screwing with that. This made me want to kick the shit-eating smile off her face. So I did.

My lanky five-nine frame tested her fitness like a cat pawing a fat beetle. Aside from rounded hips, we had nothing physically in common. But I spent more time in the gym than at home.

The blows cost Danica a loose tooth. _Well earned_ , was all I could think. The fight was over soon after, the winning title meaning little since I barely broke a sweat to earn it. If standards continued plummeting, I'd expect to see them given away on windshields next to the pizza coupons.

In the locker room, Danica and I removed our standard issue fingerless gloves silently. Between Danica's russet hue and the sanguine sheen adorning my body from the fight, the spots of clean flesh seemed positively lackluster in comparison. When left to my natural charms, my skin is usually as unique as my family tree.

My paternal grandmother's family came from Africa many generations ago, some as ebony as it gets. My paternal grandfather was pure Italian with hair that made me wonder as a child what could be darker than the deepest black, which is the origin of my natural hair color. The rest of my family came from everywhere else, some so achromatic bleach gives them a tan. Born from such diversity, my complexion is a faded hazelnut. My mom has always likened it to a beautiful dusk glow, the kind that tricks your eyes, making them restless to focus in light or darkness, unable to settle on either.

In the middle of this twilight, my mother's full lips and almond eyes coexist with my grandmother's prominent nose and shallow bridge. A reminder that the strong women in my family are timeless. The lemon-drop, saffron eyes are all mine, though. I'm the only one in four generations to have marbled kitty-cat eyes in human form.

Growing sick of the standoff, Danica wiggled her front tooth and practically yelled, "Jesus H. Christ, Fray! This is the second time you're sending me to the dentist. If the two of you don't have a _thang_ , I'm gonna be pissed?" Her accent was so southern it made sweet tea taste bland.

"I wish." I forced a laugh, withdrawing deeper into my locker. "I've got two cavities and no insurance." Though home grown, I somehow escaped the thicker regional North Carolina dialect. However, if I venture west of the Mississippi or north of Virginia, I'm told differently.

Danica leaned against the door frame while I searched for a clean set of clothes. The entire room was barely larger than the smoking cell in an airport and the lighting still managed to suck. Gray everything didn't inspire much.

"Seriously, if you got a problem, tell me before I need dentures. There's definitely more to this," she wiggled the damaged tooth, "than a straightforward fight."

I stopped digging through the pile and rested my elbows on the edge of the locker, eyes focused on the floor. "It's not personal, Sav." I always addressed her by her fighting persona unless we were out socially. "I'm just sick of fighting people who don't enjoy fighting back. You can't tell me you love it, that you look forward to the next one before you've even left the ring from the last one."

We had fought on and off for the last four years, so I knew Savage wasn't as bloodthirsty as she once sought to be. Together, we used to give the audience a mind-blowing fight, a pure possession of the soul that left everyone bewitched. It wasn't there anymore. I wouldn't hold it against her, though. It would just leave a bad taste in my mouth the next time we sparred.

"Le'me tell you," she started her tirade by saying. "Not many people love it the way you do, Fray. Truthfully, not many people can." More sympathetically, Danica mused, "I know it means more than Christmas every day to you, but it's just a job for me. It pays my bills. I get some dates from the press. It'll be that 'something' I brag about to my kids one day... When I have kids. And it keeps me in shape."

"Not like it used to."

Her body spiraled to accommodate a front to back glance. "Are you implying there's too much "T" and "A" on this beanpole?" Her smile sprung to life. "Intimidated?"

I laughed as I glanced at her ass. "Don't worry, there's not enough to play bumper cars, yet." I stressed the last. "But there is a little too much if you're still dreaming of becoming a professional fighter." My comment sobered us back to the moment.

"That's the thing. Maybe I don't want pro anymore. Or any of this. I may look fine, but I'm still thirty-two, Fray. What am I supposed to do when I'm thirty-five? Or forty-five? Not this shit. I wanna do something that really matters. Do you understand that, Fray? If you're smart, you'll start making other plans, too."

Grabbing a wad of clothes blindly, my jaw dropped. "You're leaving for good, then?" Her head bobbed slowly. Now she was staring at the floor. "When?"

"No set date. I'll stick around a little longer, make sure I get a sick farewell. And I guess I'll be spending more time in the gym. Thanks for the complex."

I was genuinely stunned. "Wow, I noticed you were getting sloppy, but I didn't expect this."

"Keep talking. Maybe it'll inspire me to stay." I started to tell her I didn't mean it like that, but she interrupted with a smile. "I know what you meant. We'll talk about it later. Not right now. I've got a date."

She glided down the row of lockers and disappeared behind the last one. "Just think about what I said." The words echoed off the walls.

I was left standing in her wake yelling, "They'll have to kick my ass out! I won't ever fucking quit!"

I slammed my locker shut.

It caught me totally by surprise when a man cleared his throat.

# Chapter Two

I swiveled on bare heels to find it was no man. It was my brother.

Darien stood, arms crossed, legs shoulder-width apart. Imposing, considering he was six-five barefoot. Just enough gel tamed his thick hair. It wasn't a particularly striking or inspirational brown, more the color of mud. His skin was only darker than mine by two or so shades. He looked like our Italian ancestors, but his smile was pure Dad. I hadn't seen the original in six months because our father belonged to a different lepe.

Every band of 'like' shifters has a label. North Carolina has four lepes, which are exclusively leopard. I'm part of the Western Lepe, living alongside the Ararat River. Since the divorce twenty-two years ago, our mother, Claire, kept the house, remarried, and gave me and Darien a half-sister, Tawny. Our father, Lane, kept his sanity by joining the Northern Lepe five hours away. Over the years, Darien's made frequent visits, but the politics involved for a traveling single female are harrowing. Typical patriarchal bullshit. So I see our father whenever he's able to venture my way, which normally means once a year.

Darien loomed in front of me. He was the most dangerous looking thirty-five-year-old I knew. No one ever suspected he was a mild-mannered accountant with a lot of spare time and a gym membership. To be fair, he spent a lot of that time helping me train.

"What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk, Madison."

Only my family ever calls me Madison. Everyone else—in and out of the ring—usually calls me Fray.

I prefer Fray.

"Can it wait 'til after my shower?"

"No." He stepped closer and stopped abruptly. "You smell like road kill."

"I warned you." My laughter escaped before I saw a man step up beside him. "Who's he?" And more importantly, "Why didn't I sense him?" Suspicion hijacked the little voice in my head.

The stranger's khaki fedora strangely categorized him as a dick. A private eye, that is. Maybe an updated version.

Darien stepped between us. "Take your shower, then we'll talk."

Annoyed, I spat, "Then get the fuck out of the women's locker room," and carried my stuff wordlessly down the claustrophobic hall to the showers.

Less than five minutes later, I was out and toweled off. I pulled a thin fuchsia T-shirt over my wet head. It plunged into a V-neck down my back. Inadvertently, I had grabbed the shirt my brother hated the most. It perfectly framed a large portion of the tribal tattoo Darien forbade me to get when I had turned seventeen. Overbearing brother much? The short sleeves also left small rose-tinted tattoos visible on the soft skin of my inner wrists, the product of yet another fight before I turned nineteen.

Next, I practically leapt into my charcoal stretch denim before slipping on a pair of open-toed sandals. The summer had proven too stagnant for most types of material. Shifters have above average body temperatures, but I also love a good pair of jeans, no matter the season.

After running my hands through my hair, which left the majority of it spiky, I checked the mirror once, threw my stuff into a large black gypsy purse, and raced out to find my brother.

He and the stranger were standing in the empty orange hallway leading to the parking lot when I turned the corner and almost mowed them down. The overhead light flickered, and the smell of sweat seemed to waft out of every crevice to hug us like a gross relative nobody wants to touch. Worse, even, than the locker room because the entire building was free of central AC, meaning the main hallway reeked of the audience, too. Somehow, though, through all of the foreign and intimate smells, it all registered as victory.

Looking from one man to the other, I blurted, "So what the hell?"

"You're right," said the stranger, "she is very personable."

"You couldn't have worn a different shirt? Or a bra?" Darien's tone was low, definitely aware of the extra company.

"What do you want from me?" I stared Darien in the eyes. "Besides underwear."

He was not in a joking mood. Choosing not to bicker in front of the lean man, he said, "Joshua's sister and cousin are missing."

"Rachel and Genevieve?" He nodded. "When?" This was turning into a popular question lately. Counting these two, five of our lepe's teenagers had gone missing in the last month.

Ena and her boyfriend, Brian, went missing during a walk in the woods two weeks ago. Unable to find them dead or alive, many of us speculated that they ran off. Ena's parents didn't approve of Brian, who was sixteen, two years older than their daughter. Also, he's been a troublemaker from the time he could walk.

Admittedly, I had been unable to rest since Marisa never came home from school last Tuesday. She was the younger sister of Tatum, who was in my grade growing up. Tatum and I hung out a few times through friends of friends but hadn't seen each other in years. She joined her father's lepe in Kentucky a year after graduation. But her mother and Marisa had attended Mom's Sunday dinners for years. Marisa has always been a sweet, quiet girl. Her mother already made arrangements with mine to say the coming of age blessing for her fifteenth birthday in two months. A nagging feeling left me wondering if there would still be a party. Marisa was not the type of girl to wander far. Not the type at all.

And now two more were gone. Something was amiss.

Darien answered my question. "They haven't been seen since yesterday afternoon. Joshua spoke with Blaire. They think it's related to the other disappearances." I could see the strain in his eyes, the toll this crisis was starting to take on him.

"What does Blaire plan to do about it?"

Blaire was our lepe leader in training. Actually, since his father, Abram, had a stroke last year, he was acting leader, though the elders pushed him constantly to consult his father for anything more important than eating a deer. That is, before Abram fell into an unexplained coma six months ago. Blaire was growing weary of the little boy treatment, clearly, since he had been making more and more decisions without regard to anyone, least of all his ailing father. Blaire was a grade-A prick, but he also had the makings of a powerful leader if he didn't let his ego fuck it up.

"He and the rest of the lepe agree we need to take action."

"Damn right! How?" I managed to sound duly outraged, yet simultaneously dumbfounded.

"Those of us with special talents or skills are pairing off, each pair being given a list of places to search for clues or the children, themselves. Not much of a list because we don't have much to go on." He handed me a folded piece of paper that I speed-read before stuffing into my pocket.

"Not a problem. Savage and the others can cover my fights if I need them to. Where are we looking first?"

Darien looked uncomfortable. "Not we. You." He pointed to me and then to the dick.

"What?" I turned to face the man. He was barely taller by two inches. The fedora covered most of his hair, but it was long enough to see the multiple black and brown highlights and lowlights. He wore a simple black knit sweater and dark blue jeans paired with black sneakers.

Leaning in, I accused, "I can't smell you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Most people appreciate that."

"What are you?"

I stepped forward, closer.

Intervening, Darien said, "He is an Alleviator on loan to help us."

My lip twitched. "You mean vampire."

Spitting directly on the man would have been less rude than my tone. Giving him a fancy title like 'Alleviator' meant nothing. That just told me he stuck his nose in other peoples' business. How could a vampire make a situation better?

"He is here to help." Darien paused as his pulse sped up. "And you will not raise issue with it. Is that understood?"

The vampire was almost casual when he asked, "Do you have a problem with the clinically deceased?"

"Only if they refuse to lay. The fuck. Down. After last call."

"What a blossom of truth you are, Miss... What is your name?"

"Fray."

"Well, at least your mother had a sense of humor."

Before I could say something that would completely mortify my mother, even though she was nowhere nearby but would swear on mother's intuition, Darien said, "Her birth name is Madison Lark."

"Call me Fray."

My brother tried to salvage a bit of formality when he responded, "This is Haden Nash." I ignored the tense look that followed.

"Too bad you told me. 'Undead Ass-Rat' had a nice ring to it."

The vampire said coolly, "I prefer Nash."

Darien's breath hissed between his teeth. My free will had taken years off his life, or so he constantly reminded me. I guess this meeting was just one more year against his longevity.

"Sister," Darien straightened his posture, "Children are missing. Children that we have watched grow up, that we share a lepe with. They are approaching the cusp of adulthood, and with that the change. If we don't work together now, they will shift in an unpredictable place in an unpredictable manner. What's more important, their safety or your inability to work with a dead ass-mat?"

Nash waved his left hand in the air to call Darien's attention. "Ass-Rat." My brother looked confused and partially offended, so the vampire rectified, "You called me a 'dead ass-mat.' I believe you meant to repeat Fray's sentiment, 'Undead Ass-Rat.'"

He inhaled deeply before scolding Nash. "If you appeal to her humor, we'll be here all night." Not that I was laughing.

Nash nodded his head in one velvet motion. "I apologize."

"Thank you." My brother meant it, but his relief told me he didn't catch the one-sided grin Nash flashed for the span of a heartbeat.

"I'm sorry, too, Darien. I'll do my best to work with the vampire." You might as well have replaced the word "vampire" with "curse" or "flatulent plague".

"And I will do my best to work around the leopard's arrogance."

I ignored the cocky wink that followed.

# Chapter Three

It was hard to finish my burger with Nash staring like I was in a cage at the zoo. It intensified my silent wish that the sun was still up. With a mouthful, I said, "What? Dead too long to enjoy real food?"

We sat in a burgundy booth under the fluorescent bulbs of one of my favorite fast food joints. The overall feel was fifties diner gets invaded by alien-technology. Futuristic-shaped televisions "hovered" on the walls and each booth came equipped with electronic docking ports. The attraction for me: It was close to the gym and they had great two-for-one deals every Friday.

Nash leaned against the table. "What is that?"

"A double-stack cheeseburger with everything. Clearly, you're not a vegetarian, so what's your deal?"

"I've never seen someone eat four of those so fast." There was a note of awe. "Is this an example of your daily diet or just your appetite after a fight?"

"I always eat a lot. My brother says it quells my beast."

"Your leopard?"

"My temper." I took another huge bite with a grin.

"How can you eat that much and stay so thin? Is it the lycanthropy?"

I choked on the last bite. "Don't ever use that word around me. If you call me that again, I'll roundhouse kick you in the face." And I wasn't joking.

"What did I call you?" He leaned back, ignorant of his faux pas.

"A filthy wolf."

Nash said, "But you are a shapeshifter."

"Not a lycanthrope!" We looked around to make sure no one heard me. The place was practically empty. "We're all therianthropes, but I'm an ailuranthrope, specifically. Lycans are lupines. Ailurans are felines. Certain folklore refers to the ailurans as cat people." I made an "ahem" noise and pointed to myself. "Leopard. Cat person."

He straightened his posture. "I apologize for the lack of distinction. It's been decades since I have shared the company of any shapeshifter."

"I'm guessing you don't know the lore behind my lepe, then?" He shook his head and waited for the slurping to stop, indicating my vanilla-chocolate shake was gone. "It's said that, back in the day, gods and goddesses in the guise of leopards mated with humans. The offspring, a radical merging of the mortal and immortal realms, were shapeshifters. Ailurans.

"What origin?"

"Predominately African."

"You're African?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Some of my father's lineage is. My mother just calls her side "gypsy" since it can be traced to every corner of the earth. Some of those corners offer answers, some don't, but we know enough. Do you even know yours?"

Matter-of-factly he nodded and said, "Ass-Rat," as the shapely auburn waitress walked by. She didn't approve of the crude language.

A little embarrassed, I concluded, "You're going to make me wish I never said that, aren't you?"

"That would be an acceptable outcome."

"Fair enough."

Paying, we left in my black nineteen sixty-eight Mustang Coupe, the sweetest ride I've ever owned. The grumble of the motor reminded me of a cantankerous cat. Always makes my day.

"Where are we going?" Nash sat awkwardly rigid in the swayback seat.

"A quick stop." I accelerated, enjoying the hum of the vibration rush over my body. Nash was staring out the passenger window. How weird it must be for him to watch the world change so drastically so many times. It was unnatural. I wasn't sure how I felt about immortal creatures like gods living without end, let alone dead bodies walking around in the mix of things.

Sadly, the drive was less than five minutes. I loved driving my car. The farther the better. As I unbuckled the seatbelt, Nash read the name on the brick building and asked for my brother's list. Reading through it, he lifted his head.

"This club is not on our list."

"Is it not?" I reached over and, with a pen from my console, scribbled the name 'Mirth' just below the typed font. "There it is, right there. Better cross it off." I dropped the pen on his lap and hopped out of the car.

Mirth was a prominent club among the therianthrope communities, especially the ailurans. Clubs accounted for the only places shifters of different species mingled, though we rarely talked to one another. While we carried out human existences, for the most part, an ancient force from within made shifters of any type more appealing to be around than other beings. Of course, to the public, Mirth came across as a snooty, members-only club with high standards.

I strutted to the entry, flashed a grin at the doorman, who saw me at least three times a week, and slipped inside, trying to keep a healthy distance between Nash and myself. There were men present that I had dated in the past, and men to potentially date in the future. I didn't need them thinking I associated with carrion. Besides, a quick glance told me Nash had found a comfortable spot at the bar. He didn't blend in, of course, but Mirth did have the occasional vampire patrons, so no one thought much of him.

The walls were black, invisible to the erratic, multi-colored lights that swiveled, flashed, blinked, and anything else electronically possible. The bar stretched the length of the stubby building, covering the left wall. There was a small stage to the right for the occasional band. Truthfully, we were happy with a DJ and a turntable as long as they kept it going. And in between the bar and the DJ were a whole lot of hot-blooded shifters having a good time.

The scene was inviting, a home away from home you forgot to miss until you were standing there smelling it, seeing it, hearing it, becoming a part of it. It was infinity for a limited time offer.

Music whirled through the air like a feral creature, titillating each heartbeat. The bass pulsed and pounded until it built a frenzy. In response, my body gyrated, shaking to the floor and back up until a dew of sweat laced my skin. The light played in my hair, fluttered across my chest like a kiss, and skipped down to my toes. The combination of movement and light was like a beacon. I was surrounded by men, two of them lepe. I grinned and put my arms around Brice's neck. He was an outstanding dancer, which he proved every chance he got.

Brice and Conrad were around my age. Brice was a year younger: twenty-seven. Conrad recently turned thirty. He was a hard thirty, though, like every skeptical thought had etched a line close to his incisive cinnamon eyes. And the only shred of personal identity he shared with the world was a silver cat's claw pendant on a chain around his neck. I didn't care for Conrad's company most of the time—he spent too much effort fearing the fall rather than anticipating the leap—but part of sharing a lepe means our loyalties extend to one another, even if that tie proves to be a slipknot.

My hips swayed to the rhythm with Brice's, our chests writhing in unison. His shoulders are the type of broad that people refer to as husky, no matter the slender dimensions of his waistline. And those hazel eyes and fair, shaggy, boy-next-door hairdo make people want to trust him like a beloved kid brother. Only an inch taller than me, we fit together perfectly on as well as off the dance floor. From experience, he was no kid, nor brother. Neither of us was interested in dating exclusively. Our liaisons were simple, shameless, spontaneous moments of ecstasy.

Covered in Brice's sweat, I flung my head to the left, following Nash's line of vision to Gary, the eighty-five-year-old human sitting a few seats down from him at the bar. I tapped Brice's shoulder to let him know I had to stop our fun to take care of some business. He gave me sad puppy eyes, winked, and kept dancing as I walked away.

Gary owned a local market that specialized in everything organic, ranging from fresh produce to the latest charms. He always sold his wife's potions in the bars to the cynical, underachieving, undersexed masses looking for that extra spark of magic to turn their lives around. Or to at least get them laid before Monday.

And he _was_ on our list.

I sauntered up to the bar and leaned into the old man whose comb-over did little in his favor. "Hey, Gare. I have a few questions."

The pleasant smile carried on. "Wha-do-ya wish to learn, my dear?"

"Have any of the other shifters or 'weres' mentioned missing people lately, particularly adolescents?"

"Missing?" Gary sat thoughtfully, rubbing at the gray stubble around his jawline. "Jared Tomas called on my wife a few nights ago. He needed healing herbs for a young girl who accumulated a rash of wounds while fighting off assailants outside her home 'bout half an hour from here. She musta been a hell of a fighter. Said there were three or four of 'em. Wasn't enough, though. They took her friend. Some boy."

A chill swept over me. "Had he already shifted? For the first time, I mean."

"Can't say for sure. He's fifteen. Hell, the girl's thirteen and already changed. Don't you people normally change by sixteen?"

"Depends on the person. Some shift as late as nineteen."

"Learn something new every day." He pointed to his temple. "I'll toss that in the vault."

"Did Jared Tomas say anything else? Any other fights, kidnappings, things out of the ordinary?"

Gary shook his head. "Naw, just the one incident. He was really pissed about it, too, like he took it as a personal jab at his ruling over the pride."

"Thank you, Gary." I slapped a twenty on the bar and turned as his wrinkled hand snatched it up.

Before meeting Nash outside the club, I brushed past Brice and whispered dirty nothings in his ear. It brightened his face and gave me something to look forward to later.

The noise of the club was muted as the door shut behind me on the sidewalk. That moment always jarred me; how much volume could fit into such a tiny world, and how much I yearned for more.

The undead ass-rat appeared by the passenger door of the Mustang. "Were there not enough young men to sate your desires? You had to prey on the eldest one there?"

"If that were true, you would have been the luckiest man in the room." I unlocked the doors. "Gary was on my brother's list. I knew he would be here."

"An elderly human in a shifter bar does call attention, even to me. And what of the man you were dancing with?"

"He's on my personal list, the one sealed with this." I stretched my arm over the roof of the car and gave him the middle finger.

Nash fought a smile. "I'm sure that saves on ink."

We got into the car and drove. Other than a quick reference that I was sticking to my brother's list, it wasn't until we were in Tomas' territory to the north that I spoke up.

"This may be a rocky greeting so stay alert."

"Shocking."

Yes, sarcasm from a vampire. Just what I needed.

The car coasted at a steady twenty-five down a dead end lane. Not one house on the secluded road had so much as a porch light on. Also disturbing: Every telephone pole and streetlight was knocked clean out of the ground. Scattered toothpicks. If there had been anything else as disturbed, I would have sworn it was hurricane damage.

I knew better.

"I'm being serious. His sister, Linay, and I fought in a shifter forum a few months ago and I won."

"And she was the sore loser?"

Before I could finish saying, "You might say that," the entire car jolted. The door buckled inward by an impact so powerful it pushed my left shoulder toward the steering wheel, leaving my torso facing the vampire. Scraping metal tore through the night. Glass window shards filled the air, sparkling like sun-kissed bubbles. For a millisecond, I couldn't figure out if the light was coming from an earthly object or a divine plane.

Two ungodly enormous lions rammed my Mustang onto the sidewalk. Their musky manes filled the night air, sweeping the back of my neck through the open space where the window had just been. It would have tickled if death hadn't been such a looming possibility.

Everything caught in a time warp: the deadly bubbles, Nash's astonishment, my cursing... That is, until the seatbelt snatched my body out of motion, inches from Nash, driving a long shard of windowpane through my back. The tip promptly "dove" from my clavicle—completely ruining my favorite T-shirt—and threw enough blood on Nash's face to be considered sacrificial.

The moment it touched his lips, I saw fangs and eyes consumed by silver discs.

# Chapter Four

In a whisper convoluted by pooling blood in my lungs, I struggled to say, "Pull it out." Immediately, he reached his arm around as if preparing to bear hug me. Instead, he extracted the glass, leaving wicked lacerations across his right palm, our commingling blood thick on his fingers.

"What a bloody mess." He was trying to lighten the moment, but I was too pissed to bite...him.

As soon as the car stopped, I turned and leapt right through the empty window, leaving my broken vehicle as a broken human, and landed on the pavement on all fours.

If shifters are injured in human form, we can heal as long as we're able to shift to our second nature soon after. Luckily, the change is always quick. It starts as a prickle of electricity leading to the sound of bones remolding and organs sliding, and fur riding over the skin until it eats up the last bit of exposed human. Others might explain it as bursting out of their skin or being ripped apart. For me, it's always been like jumping into a tailored hide. Like putting on my favorite pair of jeans, or throwing on a warm pair of boots after walking so long barefoot in the cold.

There was no counting minutes or stitches or heartbeats. The second I shifted, I was ready to kick ass.

A growl in my throat cut through the roars traveling under the blanket of night. A sharp spotlight, the one that must have been illuminating the glass shards, momentarily blinded me. And it was that quick that three lions pounced. I was a mouse in a house full of kitties. Fucking huge kitties.

If I had been in human form, I would have laughed. As I was, it came out as a yip of glee.

Linay stood behind the wall of fur. Once you meet someone's animal form, it's fairly easy to recognize them again, at least for shifters. She had a pronounced golden stripe through her tan coat.

The three in front of me were hovering strangers. These lions were easily five feet tall, not including their manes that took up a circumference of four feet. Even as a fellow shifter, I was impressed. Not enough to surrender, of course.

Resembling a cartoon brawl, we bit and snarled and tore into flesh so fast it was a blur to the bystanders. All of them pride. We fought like wild dogs in the heat of a wasteland over a bowl of water. And every time I exacted a successful blow, there was a lion ready to snatch it out from under me.

As teeth grazed my left hind leg, I turned and dug claws into the side of a massive, beastly face. When he retreated, another took his place. Rushing for her pulsing neck before she could think fast enough, I chomped down without recourse. It wasn't until a large force landed across my back that I let go.

Twisting under the stranger's weight, I pushed with my hind legs and used both front paws to attack his face. I told myself he would be blind before I would be dead. It worked. Realizing my actions were no bluff, the lion jumped off. Using the nearest tree to spring myself over yet another two, I whipped my tail, readying for more. It took me by surprise when I counted eight pride crouched in wait, four in killing stances.

Nash was involved in his own unlife-and-death struggle with five lions to be of any immediate help. When my chance came to end the chaos, I scooped it up between my teeth.

Lusting after a rematch, Linay cut in line. Before she had a chance to swing meet-slicing claws, however, I clamped my teeth right into the nape of her neck and refused to let go until she was in a submissive posture. Her blood—hot against my tongue—tasted of defeat. The others backed away, not wishing further harm on their would-be queen.

Linay didn't deserve to be queen one day. She was sloppy, overdramatic, and just too damn dense for the honor. If her own people didn't assassinate her first, her leadership would eventually force them to succumb to a stronger pride. Her brother had been temporarily running things for three years—the latter half of his thirties—since their mother passed. The entire pride was waiting for Linay to mature, meaning they knew she wasn't queen material. If her brother stopped protecting her she would, no doubt, meet a gruesome end.

"Stop!" Jared Tomas stood at five-six with wavy, golden blonde hair and eyes the color of wheat. "No harm will befall you if you let her go." A slinky little rumble told him I was not in the mood for lies. To the others, he yelled, "Back!"

Linay gained her freedom and reverted to the twenty-four-year-old, bitchy, mousy blonde that blessed the world with bitterness. I kept a strict eye on her as the air quivered from the tremendous shifter energy.

Men and women started appearing out of the haze of beasts. After a cool minute, I was the last to change back. Unwilling to believe the truce was that simple, Nash stood at my back, ready. That, alone, was almost more shocking than the lions' attack.

The homes behind us were predominately brick ranches and modest Cape Cods, an example of any middle class American neighborhood. The blood-spattered nudists standing at the mouth of the suburban cul-de-sac... Anything but ordinary.

Under the cloaked moon, I heard Linay yell, "You can take a 'lepe' right up my ass, cunt!"

Enlivened, I answered, "Which was it, Linay? You'll have to be more specific, although it doesn't really matter. I'd have to wait in line either way."

"You should talk, bitch!"

We began closing the gap, but Jared stepped between us, leaving him an arms-length away. Linay immediately stopped. I planted my feet with the hope that I wouldn't have to hurdle him to kill her.

"Things should not have gotten this out of hand."

"But they did, Tomas. I thought you had a firm rein on this kitty show."

He straightened. "Don't insinuate I can't lead my people."

"Your sister's people? I implied no such thing."

Nash cleared his throat. Apparently, that was his polite way of gaining our attention. It worked. We turned to listen.

"I understand there's a history that complicates matters between you, but we are not here to exacerbate it or make amends."

Nodding my head, I said, "You're right." I gave Linay one last smirk before readdressing her brother. "We are here in regards to a danger facing shifters in our area."

Alert and dutiful, he said, "We'll talk by your car," before ordering most of his people indoors to clean themselves up and give us privacy. Even Linay went without an ignorant remark. Maybe she was maturing...

Nah.

Walking to the car, Nash asked, "Do you need my shirt?"

I tried not to act stunned, but I'm sure he saw it.

"No. I always carry spares in the trunk."

Popping the trunk to my car still 'parked' on the sidewalk, I pulled out a towel and wiped as much blood off as possible. Some of my wounds, however, were deep enough to seep steadily. The blush T-shirt dress I was about to put on would need to be seriously scrubbed later.

It's funny how shifting to our second nature heals us, but when we're injured in that skin, we remain impaired once we revert to human form. Darien thinks it serves as a reminder that, even in our animal forms, we're still accountable for our actions.

Tomas walked up as the thin material slid down to just below the swell of my thighs. He looked at the lacerations across my right upper arm. Claw marks.

"That should heal soon. Our bites always look nastier than they are."

"I've had much worse." It wasn't meant as an insult. "Whoever took a bite out of my thigh, though, ranks in the low end of my top ten." I pushed my left hip out baring skin that resembled poorly mauled beef jerky. It would heal in a few days.

"I'll tell Drey." A leader always knows the bite pattern of his people like a fingerprint. "He will be honored to be in your top ten, no matter the rank. You've fought enough shifters to judge fairly." He looked at Nash and back, prompting the question, "What business do we have?" His tone turned stressed, taut with suspicion.

"The business of baby snatching," I said, resting against my car.

# Chapter Five

Tomas was livid that his personal informants had overlooked our missing children and the possibility that others were in danger.

"Have any more gone missing, other than the boy?" Nash asked.

"No," he said, scratching his head. "What the fuck is going on?" In a sudden surge of anger, he slammed his fist down, buckling my trunk.

"Awe, come on!"

"Sorry."

"You're going to pay for every damn repair." I fiddled with the trunk gingerly to see if it would open to no avail. Forcing it would only cause further damage. That lesson was learned the embarrassing way in high school when I tried to help a friend open her jammed car door and accidentally ripped it off completely. Turns out, they don't need to make a card for that because the government prints millions of little green "forgive me's" every year. And Jared Tomas was going to give me a bunch of them.

"Send me the bill. I have a lot of those lately." He motioned to the downed light poles. Nash ventured to ask. "Dominance fight. Two pride were showing off for my sister. Turned out she wasn't interested in either one, just bored." Tomas sounded dangerously weary of his sister's antics. "To make peace, I promised to pay for their damage."

"Boredom ain't cheap," I mused.

Tomas nodded, but quickly returned to the problem at hand. "Have other groups reported the same incidents?"

I shook my head. "No, but we have no way of knowing other than what we're doing now, by finding leads and asking."

"My wife's sister is married to a pack member two hours west of here. She can ask if they've noticed anything strange."

Shocked at the casualness at which he spoke of a family member being in an inter-species marriage, it took me an extra second to spit out, "Thank you, and I'll let you know if we find anything new."

I stood straighter. Channeling my brother's diplomacy, I added, "We wish for nothing but the safe return of our children, and I'm sure you feel the same." He agreed silently and walked away.

Out of earshot, I turned to Nash. "You have been very quiet. For a moment I thought you'd really dropped dead."

"You can only wish on one star a night, Sweetheart."

Together, we pushed my poor car onto the street. I hopped in through the window. Nash was still able to use the passenger door.

"Where do you want me to drop you off?"

"Are we done? It's still very early."

The radio clock read twelve forty-one. Peering through the dull glow of the dashboard lights, I realized his injuries had healed. Where a lion sunk his razor teeth around Nash's jaw, nothing lingered but smooth, porcelain skin. And the claw marks down his forearms were barely memorable.

Coasting through the night, I said, "Look, I don't keep your hours. I've got a day job, and now a lepe job, as well as babysitting duties." After glaring at him from the corner of my eyes, I concluded, "And I'm missing a few chunks of skin that I really wanted to keep. I need to relax, think about our information, and eat. I'm starving."

If my appetite astounded Nash, he didn't venture to comment. Instead, I dropped him off on the corner of a well-populated street downtown. Turns out, his appetite ain't so meek, either.

Feeling lighter for having gotten rid of my stale baggage, I swung by Mirth to pick up Brice and hit a drive through on the way home. The shadow of two was upon us as we found ourselves discarding empty fast food bags on the floor and kissing in my foyer with ravenous abandon. Brice's hands caressed every bit of exposed flesh, making me detest the material concealing the rest. My skin tingled, and the pain of my injuries vanished. Brice had that temporary hold over me and I loved it.

Scooping me up in powerful arms, he intended on taking me upstairs. Instead, his greedy hands searched my bare hot flesh, forcing him to drop me on top of the side table next to the household keys and personal belongings. My legs constricted around his waist with enough force to kill a human man. Brice, however, quivered with anticipation. Winding the collar of his T-shirt in my hands, I ripped the material straight down the middle until it was so many ribbons on the floor. And as I playfully bit at his lower lip, a small noise drew our attention to my right...to the living room.

Where the entire household was watching us.

I looked away quickly, annoyed.

Acknowledging the unfriendly eyes, Brice said, "I'll catch a cab," and nipped my lips one last time before smiling and sprinting out the door.

"Coward!" Picking up the bags we had carelessly thrown, I caught my breath and noted out loud, "Lasso your ego, Darien. You're not that scary."

"But I am."

_Shit!_

Before storming into the living room, I recognized that urbane voice all too well. Frustration turned on my brother like a snake on a mouse.

I hissed, "Why is everyone awake, standing in the middle of the living room on a Friday night? And why the fuck is Blaire here?"

I lived with my brother and four of his closest friends, all lepe. Granted, with that many people, the house had a tendency to feel like Grand Central Station at times, but never this intrusive. It was a spacious, faded white, five-bedroom farmhouse.

Darien slept in the master off from the kitchen on the main floor. Warren and Lydia were in the room at the top of the stairs. Warren was thin yet toned and had multiple facial piercings and body tattoos, some bordering the light auburn hairline at the back of his neck. Lydia was bouncy, enjoyed anything analytical, and loved to twist and pin her black hair in fascinating and complex ways. They were the perfect couple. _That_ couple that did everything together and happily drowned in it. To the right of them was Joshua's room.

Joshua was very subdued most of the time and had honey-colored hair that stuck up naturally in every direction for about a mile. He enjoyed reading, had a healthy respect for silence, and always complained that Warren and Lydia's sexual antics kept him awake most nights. I never heard them, but I was lucky to have the only room across the hall by the bathroom. Joshua once shared his theory that I couldn't hear them because I was too busy indulging in my own escapades. He was quiet, but not without a sense of humor.

As for Gage, he stayed out of the whole mess by sleeping in what used to be the garage. Transformed into the perfect heavy metal lover's haven, Gage was able to play the drums with his imaginary band and listen to raging music without bothering us thanks to the proper wall insulation. He offered, on numerous occasions, to let me use his weight bench, but my sanity proved more precious. Gage had muscles 'til May Day, but couldn't find a woman willing to accept the whole package for more than a month. I always kept my fingers crossed for him, though.

And then there was Blaire. Calum Abram Blaire, who had the worst name of anyone I knew, and absolutely no right to be in my house. Not anymore. When he was granted space in my heart, I called him Cale. When we were estranged, accounting for most of the time, I called him Blaire, like the rest of the world. We fell into the dating trap for roughly two years, our relationship on idle more than rev. I grew tired of the divide and ended it definitively a few months ago. Loathingly, that didn't stop me from ogling him.

Blaire's mother was from India, which left him with wonderfully rich, silky raven hair and a bronze glow. If gold could manifest into flesh, Calum Blaire would be worth millions. And he was just the right height to hug if I wanted to press my head into the warm nook of someone's collarbone. He gained his height from his father's people, who migrated from Germany generations ago. And every bit of lean muscle was sculpted, creating flattering indentations and perfect lines. Blaire was a beautiful paradigm of a man, if only his temperance could be disciplined.

My brother sighed, as was his custom when dealing with me. "Fray, there are things of greater importance than your personal life. If you were capable of focusing past your libido you would understand our angst over the current situation."

Everyone tried to look busy studying their shoes or picking their fingernails or reading the cover of the TV Guide while Darien reprimanded my haughty liaison. Except Blaire, of course, who delighted in seeing my night trashed. It was apparent by his cocky grin, which ignited a dose of pent-up resentment.

"Darien, do not make the mistake of talking down to me tonight." I brushed past him to address Blaire. "And wipe that fucking grin off your face." Next, I turned on the others. "And stop pretending to do shit." I smacked the TV Guide out of Gage's hand. "You don't even watch TV, let alone read anything that isn't written on a T-shirt or a CD jacket."

"Hey!" Gage wasn't really bothered by my aggression. It just wasn't in his nature to let an affront to his manhood go without a word. He had just said his peace.

After all eyes were back on me, Darien crossed his arms and asked, "Feel better?"

"No. Where were you tonight? Because I was out with that walking bag of bones looking for clues and getting mauled by the local pride." I took a minute to make eye contact with Blaire. "Am I the only one doing _your_ job?"

"I thought I smelled more blood than that," Darien nodded towards my tattered arm. "Where?" he asked, concern replacing annoyance.

I lifted the worse-for-wear end of my dress to expose the gore beneath.

"You were going to have sex with an injury that bad?" Joshua asked, amazed.

When Gage snickered, "That's hardcore," Darien dismissed everyone from the room other than himself, Blaire, and me. My brother wasn't officially in charge of anyone, but since he owned the house—and could bench press his own truck with his pinky—people had a tendency to give him due respect.

Blaire's nostrils flared as he took a closer look at my injuries. "Fucking lions!"

"Is this all?" Darien asked.

"No." I exhaled deeply, trying not to let the edges of my mouth droop like a dejected child. Heat welled behind my eyes.

"What?" He readied himself for anything, eyes wide. Blaire did the same, though less noticeable.

"My car looks like shit." Misery soaked my voice. I came close to waterworks when I realized out loud, "They totally screwed it up and I doubt I'll be able to find replacements for everything. It's vintage."

Their eyes met before laughter filled the previously silent void.

"It's not funny. And it's going to be extremely arduous to find someone capable of restoring it." I turned from one to the other, the anger boiling over. "You would be acting very different if it had been something priceless one of you cherishes."

"Oh, my sweet sister," Darien said, grabbing me into a loose hug. "That's exactly why we're relieved."

Ruining the family moment, Blaire militantly vowed, "Tomas will pay you back for your property and your spilled blood."

It was my turn to sigh as I pushed Darien's big mitts away. "We already worked it out, Blaire. Don't make a thing out of it."

A growl matriculated into the conversation. Clearing his throat, he rumbled, "Every lepe in the state is pressing me, waiting for me to tell them what in hell is happening to our children, and what actions need to be taken." He stalked up to me, glaring down from a mere inch away. "And here you stand, mutilated. Something I actually have the power to fix, yet you tell me not to make a "thing" out of it?"

Looking up into those Caribbean blue orbs electrified by his blue knit shirt, I could see the hurricane of emotions building into a rage-filled pyre. It seemed Darien wasn't the only one feeling the pressure to find the missing before there was little left to bring home. Unwilling to be the gasoline on the spark, I sucked up my pride.

"If he refutes his word, you'll be the first to know, I swear it... And I do need your help finding someone to repair my car."

Blaire had actually gifted me the car when I still inspired sentiments of love to the nth degree. Thankfully, he's never been the type of man to request returns. Maybe having to ask for something back was beneath him. Maybe he just didn't give a shit because he had enough in the bank to buy a hundred more. Maybe I should send his father a thank you note.

I waited for Blaire's quiet nod of approval before updating him and Darien on Tomas' missing cub and gross sister-in-law pack connection.

"Good job, Madison." Darien was extremely satisfied.

"Please, sound a little more shocked that I did the job you asked of me."

"I'm just surprised you found that much out in a few hours. With a vampire partner, I envisioned your prejudice would muddle the fuck out of everything."

"Then why pair us together?"

"Because every situation has a lesson to be learned." He hugged me. "I'm going to bed."

Darien walked through the kitchen to his bedroom, leaving me uncomfortably close and alone with Blaire.

"You have a relationship with Brice now?" He had this way of hanging his head down, forlorn, but tilted enough to maintain eye contact. It was manufactured to look sincere. Both enticing and loaded. He was luring me into a precarious situation.

"I have an agreement with Brice."

"Do you have that same agreement with many of our young cats?"

"Are you still seeing Vicky? And Rochelle? And Ivy? And Leah? And Vanessa, right? Oh, and it would be rude to forget Holly."

"I'm touched you've paid such close attention." The thought that I was jealous and pining for him pleased Blaire to no end.

"I can't help what people tell me, Blaire."

In a heartbeat, he stepped closer and nuzzled his right cheek against the side of mine before I could object. Incidentally, that left my face cradled in the hot bend of his neck. God, he always smelled amazing. There was no discernable scent, more like millions collaborating to thrust my adrenaline into hyperdrive. It felt damn right uncontrollable. And it was that loss of control that made me push away... Again.

"No, Blaire."

Calling it off between us was the hardest decision I've ever made because I wanted him, and time hadn't changed that. On so many levels, I yearn for Blaire. But, as a couple, we did little right. Our relationship was tempestuous at best. We perfected destruction until there was very little recognizable between us. If I could change those parts in both of us, I would fill them with silk and wine rather than splinters and briers. But fate has proven to be a callous bitch.

"Am I making you uncomfortable, Madison?" Blaire was still hurtfully close.

I shook my head. "Worse. Wishful."

After a moment, he started breathing again. Then he closed his eyes as his cheek slid down my face, my neck, until he reached my damaged arm. He swept the dried blood with his tongue, creating a tingle through my body. In a barely-there whisper, he found my ear and said, "You taste like Brice."

I turned my head so that our noses touched.

"You smell like Leah's imitation perfume."

His stare tried to scald me but failed. Instead, he kissed me. It was sensual and unforgettable, like a hundred butterflies brushing their wings across the canvas of my body. Then Blaire's roiling purr slipped between our lips to part that moment from the dream I swore I was in.

"You and your pet bloodsucker need to be at the home of Dominick Menendez tomorrow at nightfall. His sister is missing. And there's something else."

"What?"

"Be there to find out."

He slipped out the front door quieter than a vampire. Royally frazzled, all I could do was yell, "Fuck!" at the top of my lungs and toss a backpack at the closed door.

Splinters and briers.

# Chapter Six

Nash sat opposite Dominick Menendez and his sister, Rose, in a grossly floral armchair. What a juxtaposition, the chalky dead thing and the dainty pattern masquerading as earthly, living matter when both were imposters. Though, I could have been over thinking it to mask my own discomfort.

I stood by the front door, daring not one foot in the direction of the Menendez siblings. I wasn't scared of them, just resentful to be bothered with them at all.

Not wanting to wear a dress to an unfamiliar place, though it would have been the most comfortable for my mangled thigh, I chose baggy blue jeans paired with a short-sleeve navy and red plaid blouse. In comparison, Rose Menendez looked like a Playboy Bunny in a black T-shirt that pulled taut across her full chest and tight gray jeans that embraced her ample curves. Even her onyx waist-length hair looked like a freaking shampoo ad. And her cherry lipstick was a hymn from God's lips to a dying man.

Occasionally, I eyed Jose Menendez in the kitchen doorway across the room. He was squatty but fit. His hair, the same color as his sister's, was cut short in the back, but slightly longer in the front as it strained to cover the top of his forehead. Jose gave the impression of an average man in his early twenties that demanded little expectation. Trying to ignore his amateur attempt at vigilance, I inspected photo frames filled with look-a-like smiles and bold crucifixes hanging on the walls while listening to Dominick explain their family's predicament.

Dominick Menendez, not much taller than his brother, dispensed a firm hand with intelligent presence. He thought before speaking, as if each word held awesome power, and didn't shy away from the passion his cause spiked within. Dominick's accent was thick, but his English was impeccable. Their family had been born and raised in Mexico, but their Hispanic mother, an anthropologist, taught them English from the time they were in diapers.

A solid family with good fortune, Dominick shared how the Menendez clan found themselves under a dark cloud twelve years prior. After an archeological dig in an undisclosed South American location, their mother returned home, uncharacteristically sullen and dejected. She had been the sole survivor of a wicked mystery virus. When she returned, she brought something with her. Turned out to be a cursed something.

Nash listened with voracious curiosity before asking, "And the item your mother found?"

Dominick shook his head. "Barely anything: a shard of pottery. Seemingly trivial."

"A piece of broken clay turned you and your siblings into werewolves?" Yeah, I was skeptical.

His gaze shot straight past my eyes into the squishy center of my brain. "No, the cursed land where that clay was baked and cured did. You have the luxury to find that hard to believe, but it is a hard truth that has become our way of life, and now it threatens our youngest sister, Mira. For Rose, Jose, and myself, the first change happened on our eighteenth birthdays. Mira's birthday is two days from today." He leaned forward, unconsciously flexing the muscles in his arms as his hands played with the idea of turning into fists. "That untapped power will lead her to a purely depraved state of mind and physical being. Uncontrolled, we are the hounds of Hell's very fury."

That's why I hated 'weres.' They were unpredictable, manic beasts who, more often than not, over-credited themselves. They could get you killed. Shit, they would be the ones to kill you and blame it on a curse the next day.

Rose stood, her patience pushed to the edge by my disbelief. "Don't stand there, a visitor in my home, and challenge my brother's integrity!"

"I'm not challenging his words or your family. It just sounds like some Scooby-Doo bullshit."

Nash caught his head in the palm of his hand before looking back to witness Rose's outpouring.

"Why must it be bullshit? Because we were not born with a second skin? Because we do not act as if Jesus has come down from the heavens to bless our mangy shrouds? We are not creatures like you." She divided her attention between Nash and me. "But that does not make us your trash." There was venom in her words, as if each time she had said it in her mind it gained a level of toxicity.

Dominick stood and said, "They did not make such an accusation."

"Didn't they?" She nudged her head toward me. "You stand there afraid to touch anything. Are you afraid we will taint you?"

"No, I'm afraid of what might come out of your mouth next."

Rose screamed as she threw a marble drink coaster at my head. I blocked it with a forearm. When I peeked around it, I saw a red gash.

"Rose!" Dominick screamed. Her eyes smoldered with a death wish for me as Jose moved to stand behind his brother and sister. Nash was just instantly by my side, knowing I would have taken offense if he stood in front as a shield from the 'weres.'

Dominick reached an open palm to me. "Please come with me. You can wash up and I will give you a bandage."

I sat on the closed lid of the toilet holding tissues to my arm as he rummaged through the cabinet under the sink. Though dulled by the white cabinet door, the slow pace of his speech was the inevitable product of emotional wear.

"Ms. Lark, we do not have a support system beyond each other to fall back on as shifters and vampires have. We do not even register the smallest seed of respect as a community, as scarce as we are." Dominick took a moment to inhale before continuing. "Rose has developed a lot of anger towards other supernaturals because of the treatment we have received, for what we are... Or maybe more so for what we are not."

"Do you feel the same way?"

He leaned on his haunches, thoughtful, before nodding his head. "Sometimes."

"Then why are you trying so hard?"

As if someone hit a switch, he stopped searching. Remaining squatted in front of me, he replied, "Because there is no one else. Mira has never been apart from us. And whether or not you believe the origin of our curse, or even if it is a curse at all, makes no difference to the reality that she is going to change." He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, which shattered the baby-face illusion. It was clear that Dominick was at least thirty-three or thirty-four. Too young to have seen a lot, but old enough to have seen plenty.

He mumbled, "We have already tried on our own. That is why I contacted your leader."

"Did you find anything?"

"A male 'were' in a neighboring town went missing the same day as Mira."

"A teenager?" It was more of a statement at this point.

He shook his head, saying, "Adult. Late twenties," before resuming the search for bandages.

"Who reported him missing?"

"His girlfriend." Dominick held out a large, freshly opened bandage. "She was asleep when it happened." He pointed out, "She is a vampire."

"Damn it." I stuck the bandage on my arm.

"You need stitches."

"Nah, it will heal the next time I shift."

"And that limp?"

My gift from the local pride. I couldn't help but smile. "Happened in kitty form. No supernatural healing." Standing up, I requested, "Let's finish the conversation in the other room. Nash needs to hear this."

Nash was mesmerized as Dominick, once again, demonstrated his superb storytelling capabilities.

"What time does she think the male disappeared?" Nash inquired.

Dominick sat down next to Rose. "Sometime in the afternoon. His lunch was still sitting on the counter. He always eats around twelve-thirty after his daily jog in the woods bordering their property."

Nash held out a piece of paper from his jacket.

"If you could please write down their names and address, it would be of great use. We need to speak to the girlfriend immediately."

Dominick started writing. "The vampire's name is Lucy Wells. Her boyfriend is Rush Stevens."

Wordlessly, Nash retrieved the paper. "Thank you." Taking a moment to bow his head, he swore, "We will do everything possible to find your sister."

Leaving the talking to Dominick, Rose and Jose stood behind him as he implored, "If we can, in any way, help recover Mira or the others, please call us." As we walked to the door, Dominick quietly apologized again for his sister's behavior. "She would never have done that if she was not under the stress of Mira's disappearance."

Nash laughed, dismissing it. "You wouldn't believe how often that happens."

Dominick smiled. "You have known each other a long time, then?" he asked, looking between the two of us.

"Since yesterday."

"Get in the car," I snapped. And yes, I was driving my poor, beat-up vehicle. Nash didn't own one, as it turned out, and every other car in the world seemed to be occupied.

With an eyebrow to the sky and a flat tone in his voice, Dominick yelled, "Nice ride!"

Out the window, I yelled back, "One of a kind!"

And as I pulled away from the curb on the way to see a distraught vampire with a missing furry lover, Nash confessed, "Lucy Wells is my ex-girlfriend."

"Well, fuck a goat, Nash!" was all I could muster.

# Chapter Seven

Still reeling from Nash's confession, I stood outside a cottage so cheery I half expected something blue or puppety to skip out the front door. The covered porch was full of suncatchers, a bright contrast, even at night, to the rustic cedar as the small bug light reflected in them a hundred times over. And the sunshine yellow shutters left my eyebrows singed, even in the balmy eve.

Taking a moment to ponder the two-story bungalow, Nash observed, "I bet it's atrocious in the sun's embrace. Lucy was always a creature of light. Destined to the night, I believe she's made an oath to see things as clearly as one would in the daylight. She is very atypical."

"In her choice of décor?"

He paused before answering, "In every way." There was no longing or sense of remorse in his voice. But a pause, for a vampire, means much more.

"Does it bother you that she's dating a man with a cool, one-syllable name like yours?"

Nash thought for a moment as we walked up the steps to the front porch. "No."

"Then I guess you're not a suspect."

When we stopped walking, he asked with a quirky grin, "Was that an attempt at humor?"

"Did I miss the mark?"

"Yes... But it was nice of you to try."

"I'm capable of more than just pissing people off."

"I think that depends on the company," he said, before knocking on the canary door. He was right. It surprised even me to be joking with a vampire. Luckily, a dainty blonde opened the door and delivered me from the conversation.

"Baby Jesus in a tutu! Haden Nash, you are the last person I expected to see right now." She gathered him into a death grip that left _my_ ribs aching. Her long hair, even pinned up, managed to envelop them as she mauled him with kindness. The white sweater stretched across her back, allowing the flittery blue and yellow pattern of her sundress to permeate the thin material. Finally, when the embrace grew awkwardly long, Lucy unbound him. It was Nash, however, having stood rigid to her touch, that made it awkward.

Lucy held his right hand between her palms as she apologized, her voice as delicate as the pattern on her dress. "I forgot your discomfort with intimate gestures." Not letting go of his hand, she looked at me. "It was always such a barrier, like a third entity exacting pressure where there should have been space only for pleasure."

"I'm sorry," was all he said in return. Was he apologizing for the kink in their expired relationship, or for his failure now to offer comfort as a friend? Both, if he was smart.

She spoke as she moved his hand with hers to rest over her heart. Her voice was reminiscent of a favorite babysitter I once had that let me eat ice cream in bed and could, in the most polite tone, tell the monsters under my bed to go home because they weren't allowed to sleep over.

Looking into Nash's eyes, Lucy said, "There are things about ourselves we cannot change, even in our afterlives. There are so many things I would never change about you, Haden." She moved their hands to rest at her lips as she continued, but with grave concern. "I'm glad you're here with me now. In my heart, I fear Rush is gone forever. Not the human forever, but ours, which is far worse to bear." Carnival tears would have glistened in her eyes from the suncatchers if vampires were able to shed their grief so humanly.

She gingerly dropped Nash's hand. "Please, come in."

We found ourselves ushered to a rustic, oblong table. The dining room consisted of a juniper table and six chairs sitting in a thin space between a not much larger living room and kitchen, all one room. As I walked past the stairs, I stopped to glance at a cluster of photographs and framed currency. Lucy came to stand by me, hands clasped behind her back, admiration in her gaze.

"Are you a fan of our third president?" I asked.

Two portrait oil paintings of Thomas Jefferson accompanied a small frame cradling a collector's stamp, a two-dollar bill portraying John Trumbull's 'Declaration of Independence,' and a photograph of the famed Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"No," her soft voice answered, "A proud sister." Trying to swallow, I looked to Nash, who seemed unfazed by her admission. Lucy smiled. "As vampires are instructed to do, I begrudgingly changed my name. But I miss Jane. I miss being who she was."

Shifting uncomfortably, I searched for a consoling sentiment. I don't know why. She was just a vampire. What came out instead was this: "I'm sorry...someone killed you."

Lucy wistfully touched the photograph. "I wish I had been alive when this was finished. I would have wept tears—real tears—of elation to walk in such a marvel by my brother's side."

A moment of silence passed before she swept her hands to show me to the table. Completely unhinged, having never experienced a firsthand account of historical name-dropping, I chose to sit at the table as Nash led the rest of the conversation.

After recounting the current situation, he outright asked, "Do you think the disappearance of your boyfriend is related to the troubles plaguing the shifters and Mira Menendez?"

"I have no doubt." She sat straight, hands in her lap.

"How so? We've found no real link between the shifters and Mira other than age. Rush is no teenager. All be it, at twenty-four he is still riddled with immaturities, I'm sure."

And the jealous ex emerges. I almost kicked him under the table, but Lucy dealt with his emotions swiftly.

"Rush is nothing short of a sincere gentleman. Your animosity, however, leads me to question your ability to help find him anywhere but in his grave."

Again, Nash found himself apologizing. "Please confide in us."

Somewhat reluctant, Lucy began with Rush's personal history. We patiently sat through a long recap of his lonely childhood in Massachusetts where he wasted much of his youth working odd jobs to help his single mother pay their bills. The history lesson especially lagged from eighth grade to his sophomore year when he, apparently, did nothing.

Just as my heel began tapping the floor uncontrollably, Lucy announced that during his junior year, Rush was attacked the night he escorted a senior to homecoming.

"Within days of the werewolf bite," she recounted, "Rush was confronted by a group of men dressed in black. They had been stalking him."

Nash interjected, "They knew what he was?"

"Yes, and they took him."

"They kidnapped him?" I asked, my body completely still.

Now she had my attention.

Lucy's entire being oozed with sympathy as she added, "He was a seventeen-year-old boy with a mother working so hard to care for him she did not even realize he was missing for two days."

"But the police found him?" I asked.

"No, they had nothing. He escaped by way of his own wit, but not before learning about them and what they are capable of doing." She cringed.

"If they can make a vampire squirm, they must be real sons-of-bitches," I said before catching myself.

I didn't have to look at Nash to feel the flames of his temper lick my flesh, but it was Lucy who chastised my reckless tongue.

"Bloodlust may label me a monster, but even I am not capable of what these men do. I am no murderer of children, Ms. Lark, nor could I torture them so brutally for being different, like you."

She had every way of making a person feel like cured shit, even with her delicate features and soft brow. Before I could open my mouth to apologize, or potentially make things worse, Nash focused us back to the information.

"Are we dealing with human men?"

Subsiding the urge to lash me yet again, her head moved once from left to right. "They are all stricken with various forms of the Versipellis." That was the Latin term for therianthropy.

Nash sighed. "There is one common denominator: We all share a trace of humanity. And from such few drops—no matter the form—evil pleasures bloom."

"Not for pleasure. Not this time."

"Who are these bastards?" I asked.

"While captive, Rush discovered their origin to be a group of Puritan dissenters whose ratification against shifters dates back to the Salem Witch Trials. They had no real interest in the occult. It was merely kismet. It served as a shroud for their degeneracy, prodding the fear of locals to seek out every supernatural under the charge of witchery. These individuals, however, never saw a biased courtroom or quick, unjust demise. Such awful things..." She stopped to compose her voice, which should have been accompanied by tears. But even the most civilized vampire can't act completely human.

Nash raised his hand. "You don't need to go on."

"I do," she whispered. "It can help save Rush and the missing children." Nash shrugged his opposition, but Lucy continued, voice flat, wanting to get through it. "They call themselves Dissenters. At one time, they believed themselves to be on a holy mission to find the source of each Versipellis and dispel the evil forever. As body after body has been covered with earth in their wake, the mission has distorted into something wicked. The latter Dissenters seek a cure for their own familial bloodlines above all else."

"And that's wicked?" I should have kept my damned mouth shut.

"Is it not wicked to torture others for self-gain? Rush told me of their methods. They are older than their skewed religion." She would have cried, most definitely, if she were human. "There are limitless ways to make someone wish for death, each more barbaric than the last." Her voice rose, all resemblance to my beloved babysitter vanishing. "They hung Rush from the ceiling with meat hooks. When his tender young skin ripped apart, they found unblemished flesh and started over. The soles of his feet are tough with scar tissue from hot coals when he lost his balance trying to stand on a two-inch board for hours at a time. And when these abominable things yielded no answers, they crushed him with stones. Bones were excruciatingly broken over the course of days."

"How did he escape?" Nash could hardly believe the tale.

"By the grace of our Lord, he changed, caught them off guard, and ripped them to pieces. He even ate a few. The most devilish of his captors." I caught a chill, not from the visual, but from our shared approval. Breaking eye contact, Lucy carried on, "If these men are using such methods... If such things are being done to children, they need to be rescued swiftly or slaughtered mercifully before they turn into monsters of hate and fear. My boyfriend was lucky to escape with his body intact, let alone his sanity."

"If these men seek answers, why are they torturing to just this side of death?" I asked.

"They have studied the inner beast for ages. What angers it, what draws it to the surface, when and how. If they can harness that power, it may be possible to chase it out-"

"Like an exorcism," Nash finished.

I added, "The optimal time to drive it out would be at its weakest time, before the first change. If that were even possible." I was sick at the revelation, at the purpose for the children, the weakest ones of our kinds who hadn't changed yet. I leaned forward, pressing my face into hardened, angry, terrified palms. "Oh, God... I have to call my brother immediately."

Standing to grab the cell phone from my pocket, I absent-mindedly asked, "What are they even doing in our territory? Massachusetts is a long fucking way off." Listening to speed-dial, I was met with blank expressions when I looked up. It took another minute before my brain wrapped around the heinous truth. "They came for Rush."

Lucy nodded. "He suspected he was being followed a day before his disappearance."

"So he went jogging? Alone? In a wooded area?"

Nash sat forward. "He presented them with a time and place that would not compromise Lucy's well-being."

She smiled. "That's what I think, too."

Listening to my brother's recording, I said, "They must be smart enough to know that you'll look for him, right?"

"Likely," she answered. "Do you think they are still in the area?"

"With this many missing so close together?" I nodded my head. "They couldn't have gone far."

Nash grabbed Lucy's forearm imploringly and stood. "You need to leave tonight. Now. They obviously don't like loose ends."

"Being me," she surmised.

She stood and they froze, gazing into one another's eyes. For the first time, I caught myself feeling sorry for them—vampires, corpses, dead flesh. I could sense his fear for her and the underlying passion that connected the dots to their ancient romance. I was peeking into that tiny, personal space that proved Nash right. We all carried a piece of humanity, some just more prominent than others.

As the phone beeped in my ear to signify the beginning of my message, I hung up. This was too important to record on a machine that anyone could get their hands on. It was privileged information.

When I dialed Blaire and got the same beep, I cursed. "We're in the middle of a goddamn emergency. Why isn't anyone answering his phone?" I fought the urge to throw my cell phone across the house.

Nash tried to act casual. "I'll see Lucy to a safe location."

"I never consented to leave my home," Lucy said in a brass voice.

"You must."

I shook my head with Lucy. "No. This is the closest we've come to them. If we run and hide, everyone dies and those bastards dissolve into another city. No. Unacceptable. We stay and cross our fingers that Lucy's worth killing."

Lucy seemed pretty cheery, considering.

After minutes of inner deliberation, Nash agreed. "Fine. But we need to feed to be at full strength."

"As long as it's not my neck, then carry on."

Grabbing a periwinkle silk scarf from the back of a large armchair in the living room—such a human gesture—Lucy pointed up the stairs. "My roommate is out of town. You can sleep in her room. First door on the left." The scarf glided overtop of her light hair as she cinched it under her chin like a bonnet.

Nash stepped closer. "Will you be alright alone? If you need to call one of your lepe for company, we can wait."

"I plan to make a few calls, but don't wait. I don't expect the crazies to arrive until daylight. Hit at the weakest time, right?"

"It would be smart of them to attack once I have retired for the day," Lucy concurred.

On their way out, Nash requested, "Call when you locate your leader."

"Yeah, I wish I could take a picture of Blaire's expression when I tell him about the shit that's befallen our territory right under our noses. It would be a real knee-slapper."

Nash smiled. "We can only dream." He locked the door and shut it behind them.

Left in the quiet cabin that smelled of freshly cut roses and undead flesh, the hair on my body prickled with the immediate sensation that I wasn't alone.

# Chapter Eight

Spending the better half of an hour, I secured all entry points and closed each shade. Confident no one could sneak up without creating a lot of noise, I ascended the stairs to the roommate's quarters. She was a vampire, too. To my shifter senses, the unmistakable smell perfumed the air like stale bread.

The dark wood room was sparsely adorned. No photographs or trinkets. Only a hairbrush and a potted Aloe plant decorated the dresser top, and a Robert Frost book of poetry sat on the side table all by its lonesome. The elephant in the room was a super-sized cedar box with small doors on the front. No way in hell was I climbing in there, even though it was five feet tall. However, I did muster enough courage to peek inside, all the while thinking, C _uriosity killed the leopard_. To my surprise, past the downy pink pillow and comforter was a corner shelf holding a TV and DVD player. Guess vampires get insomnia, too.

I turned off the overhead light, choosing to relax in the brown armchair close to the window, and tried to call Darien and Blaire again. The aggravation of no answer lulled my heavy mind into an annoyed half-sleep peppered with facts and fictitious monsters stealing apples from my dreamscape. I was locked in this skewed world for an unconscious eternity. Until one of the monsters, that is, suddenly smelled pungent. A bitter, foreign aroma jolted me out of the chaos.

It was still dark outside. My eyes stung from just enough sleep to yearn for more rather than face a dose of reality. After talking myself into consciousness and standing, it didn't take long to discover the dead phone battery. "Great." I tossed it in the chair and walked softly to the door expecting to hear people moving about.

When I got my head out of my ass and reminded myself that vampires were noiseless, that gut feeling refused to wane. Sucking up the anxiety pooling like a reservoir in my chest, I dashed downstairs. "Nash? Lucy?" I mumbled. "Are you here?"

The odd stench from my dream filled the living room. My human half wanted to cover my nose. My leopard half, however, made me lift it and sniff the air. It was so repulsive I knew something was deeply wrong.

Half a second passed and I was out the back door tracking the foe, whatever it was. My inner voice demanded, _Seek and destroy_. An excited growl burbled in my throat at the thought of something to chase. Something to catch and feel between my teeth. A fiendish smile bloomed. But as I stalked through a huge overgrown field that had not been farmed this season, a twisted vision befell me. The kind that never pales with time.

The kind that never releases you.

There was a person on the other side. Under the pre-dawn sky, across a herd of floating dandelion wisps and dewy grass blades, a naked female slouched under a hardwood along the tree line. I shuffled forward on autopilot, eyes trying to focus out the distortion.

As the sky awakened with filtered light, the alabaster figure was clearer. Her arms hung limply by her sides, palms upward in a macabre yoga pose. Extremely long hair caught in the breeze like a yellow sheet on a clothesline, the only thing about her that moved. Her head draped to one side, completely slack. And her face... Jesus, the skin bloated outward, stretching and pulling features in shocking ways. Ways I never considered possible.

Was she dead?

Stopping inches away, it was apparent the putrid smell was actually the abominable combination of multiple odors. Potent. Alarming. They smelled of the earth but nowhere I would dare tread. They masked her scent, whatever it should have been. I could only tell that she was young because her flesh showed no age markers.

_Oh shit._

"Lucy?" Squatting and leaning forward, her hair was heavy against the back of my right hand as I swept it aside, using my left one to balance on the ground between us. Blonde hair. Delicate features. Soft brow. That's how I envisioned her before the monstrous makeover. "Oh God, Lucy." A sense of duty and failure plunged through my heart. "I was supposed to protect you. What happened?"

Two things happened at once, actually.

The grayish sky began its submissive withdrawal to daylight.

And her head jerked forward, eyes bulging open.

"Wow!" I hopped backward and froze.

Her mouth opened. The overly taught skin made me fear that her teeth would rip right through the thin veil of lips. Painful gurgles filled the silence instead of words. And, as true dawn broke over the sky as seamless as water spilling from a glass, a long hiss escaped before her throat swelled shut. The filmy flesh of her neck pulsated, once beautiful cheekbones engulfed her temples, and a sickly green puss started sliding out of her tear ducts thick as honey. The sun was frying her.

"Shit!"

Acting on impulse, I lunged forward to shield her. It was too late.

While I was airborne, her body suddenly convulsed, ballooning outward. Having enough time to turn my head, I noticed something shiny in the distance. Just as swiftly, she burst apart like a goddamn piñata. Little bits of gore, ligament, and bone tore through my clothing, into me, blasting me backward. The earth bounced against me.

And I didn't get up.

The world had come undone. Static invaded my sight and hearing, making me nauseous. Dueling sparks of pain and numbing tingles swept into me, over me, that is, until the chill came. It leapt into my core. Nothing was that cold except death.

I thought it would kill me, and I was ready to change and bite the living fuck out of death before it would take me so easily. But then the little bits of Lucy began to burn. Again. I raised a shaky arm to see smoke billowing from every puncture. Her bone in my bone, flesh in my flesh, blood in my blood, burned to dust. I felt like the inside of an incinerator. Or an ashtray. And I screamed. Screamed until my eardrums should have disintegrated from the unholy vibration.

Trying to scratch out the bits that felt like thousands of burning cigarettes was futile. Finally, intermittent thoughts turned to sanctuary. Shade from the damaging sun. I used every inch of anger, obduracy, and bitch I had in me to reach the tree line.

The feeling of not being alone was there again. But this time I heard the 'not theres.'

A chorus of voices urged, "Get out of the sun," "We can help," "Come to the trees," "Hurry! They're coming."

My survival instincts didn't care that disembodied voices were luring me into unfamiliar woods. Crawling on all fours, I collapsed, short by two feet.

A male voice said, "Give us your hand." Before trying, he demanded, "Reach!"

Stretching my arm overhead, a tickle of air gathered around it, forming suction, not unlike a small storm, and pulled me to the graces of shade. Unable to locate bodies or faces, I wheezed, "Thank you."

Shadows shifted amongst tree trunks and branches, never still enough to see clearly, and too translucent to be real. It gave the illusion of a forested ocean current.

The same voice said, "You need to shift to heal." He spoke in my ear, but no one was there.

More voices whispered across nothing, "Shift now or die."

Trying to nod in agreement, my eyes shut as I focused on my leopard half. Smelling pinesap and deer, old pesticides and wild onions, my body relaxed into the knowledge that I would be healed in seconds.

That's what I thought, anyway.

I channeled all the energy I could to shift, usually the same amount it took to wiggle my toes. But the more I tried, the stronger the toxic smell grew. It swelled within me, strangling all senses. The wheeze in my throat grew increasingly distressing. My heartbeat was unable to keep proper rhythm.

"She can't shift. There's no time," someone exclaimed.

Abruptly, a warm blanket of air swarmed overhead, and a weighted darkness cocooned me. Someone was lying on top of me.

"Shadowshifters..." slid from my lips. I should have realized sooner.

A mellifluous "Sshhh" heated my ear as invisible fingers swept across my forehead.

Shadowshifters are strangelings, even amongst other therianthropes, because they are not flesh bound. They're elemental. In darkness, whether of night or shadow, they shift into the air itself. Able to draw together as one effective entity, shadowshifters can also channel their human form if they remain separate from the rest. Their ghost-like abilities are the cause of many urban legends and folklore. In human form, they resemble albinos. No one knows why. No one's really asked before.

"They're here," a timid voice announced. The woods fell deadly silent. I was proud I could slow my breathing enough to lose the rattle.

Safe in the darkness of shadowshifters, heavy footsteps inspected the dust—all that was left of Lucy—and combed the field for my whereabouts. It sounded like two men. The tension in the air built, a coil readying to spring, as they circled and talked secretively to one another. Either immensely stupid or vastly intelligent, they never ventured past that line from field to woods.

After the longest five minutes ever, the heavy-treaders tenderly exited to the south, the way they had arrived. The claustrophobic wall of air dissipated. Once again, shadows swayed in depth around me. To everyone's horror, when the warm mass over my body retracted, the surge of cooler air tailspun me into an uncontrollable seizure.

"She's been poisoned," a female someone gasped.

# Chapter Nine

I woke up in bed with the worst hangover I'd ever had and, possibly, my first documented case of amnesia.

Between burnt amber Egyptian Cotton sheets, I inventoried the destruction of my bedroom. If it hung on the walls, it was currently on the floor. Like the framed black and white photo of Grandma Fay in her prized gele that had belonged to her mother. If something had been on a shelf, it was so much broken confetti encasing the hardwood floor. If it had a specific home, it was everywhere but. Amongst the mess were rare beads that used to be valuable necklaces. And, to the displeasure of my sinking heart, the remnants of a pearl necklace my family and I presumed I'd wear on my wedding day. There were even high heels embedded in the beige walls like a damn crime scene.

First my car. Now my room. My karma was jacked. And when I tried to sit up, I realized karma wasn't the only thing off. Every limb, muscle, and centimeter of skin hurt immensely just to perform such a daily chore as sitting up.

Also, my room was uncharacteristically freezing, and quieter than a tomb.

Dressing in the thickest sweatshirt and pants I owned—black cotton with lambs wool lining—I gingerly descended the stairs to the living room. More a geriatric venture due to spasms and a constant shudder, my arms remained huddled tight against my chest.

The living room was a hub of activity. With the entire household utilizing the space, the massive room seemed more the size of a waiting room. Darien stood in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. His white shirt was dirty. Warren and Lydia sat shoulder to shoulder on the plush couch, their black clothes bleeding together. Lydia's hair was twisted and pinned back with two pencils sticking out in chopstick fashion. Joshua was deep in paperwork, scribbling notes and every so often wrinkling his nose in vexed concentration. And Gage was standing at the far end by the foyer lifting seventy-five-pound dumbbells like acorns. The TV was on, but nobody paid attention. Physically, they were in the same space. Their thoughts... Not so much.

I lingered on the last step. Everyone turned and stared.

"You guys have got to stop doing that," my voice croaked dryly. A twisted damp rag would have sounded better. "What happened? Did you fight the bastards in my room and I slept through it?" Trying to act like smiling wasn't the hardest activity since dressing myself, I waited for a response. Something. No one returned the smile or cracked a smartass reply.

Blaire emerged from the study on the other side of the foyer behind Gage. His stride was wide and sure. Until he saw me. Then he fell under the same catatonic spell as the rest.

"You know what," I laid in, "I don't appreciate this shit. I don't feel good. The least you can do is tell me who fucked up my room?" A pain the size of a knitting needle drove through my chest and made me gasp and grab the banister. The built-in shelf on the same wall that usually held pieces of family collectibles was empty. When the pain receded, I asked, "What's going on? Were we robbed?" I had never sounded so little, even as a child.

No answer. The breath of the entire room was being held.

Blaire, dressed in a forest T-shirt and dark wash jeans, began moving through the room, never looking away. He could have been approaching any wild animal, but it was just me, so his precaution seemed ridiculously exaggerated.

Forcing muscles to relax to stop shaking for a moment, I faced him, asking, "What are you doing?" It didn't work. His movement created a minuscule shift in the air current, causing a domino effect of shivers. Crossing my arms and clutching the material on each side of my neck, I spoke through gritted teeth. "Something's wrong with me, Blaire."

I stared into his uncharacteristically empty baby blues, searching for some semblance of my Cale, and my chest jolted from fear that he really might not care anymore. I closed my eyes and threatened the pending tears with full animalistic wrath if they showed their wishy-washy asses in front of him. Then a mighty heat drew near, a wild flame that gladly crashed into the ice and rolled down my grave circumstance until a moment of peace did come. Releasing my stony grip, Blaire caught my hands in his.

Inches away, I blinked up at him and whispered, "I think I'm sick."

Peace spread from the crinkle of his brow to the outer corners of his eyes and sensual mouth. He made the barest show by shaking his head back and forth. "I think I'm very lucky."

"What happened to you?"

"You." Blaire got this expression that could scare a gladiator straight into the mouth of a beast. Just as expeditious, it was gone, replaced by a fatigued grin on a jaded face. But anytime his hair was slicked back, it hardened his overall appearance. When he didn't use hair gel, scattered waves and curls broke the hard lines and reminded me of the boy I knew before the man I sometimes cursed for knowing. I used to lose at every sport in school because I was too busy watching Blaire. No one ever noticed, except my mother.

Darien burst through our intimate discussion. Grabbing me into his arms, he repeated, "You're okay, you're okay," like a mantra. Before I could protest, he blabbered, "Mom said you were strong. I should have listened. She was right. Mom's always right."

When my hair was damp from kisses, and his rambling didn't slow, I urged, "Let go before I walk right back up those stairs."

For some reason, everyone took that as a sign to gather round and, with the whirlwind force of a mosh pit, push me to the couch. Blaire was lost behind the bustle while Warren and Lydia flanked me on the sofa. Joshua and Darien just kind of stood back, and Gage danced from foot to foot out of habit.

Lydia brushed a casual hand through my hair repeatedly until I shot an expression reminding her that I wasn't a mutt.

"Sorry," she smiled, biting the left side of her lip, the way she does when she's excited. "It's just, this is the outcome we hoped for after your cataclysmic event."

"Being?"

About to answer, Lydia was cut off when Gage sat on the coffee table in front of me and yelled, "Those motherfuckers tried to kill you!"

"With poison!" she exclaimed, not to be left out of the moment.

Joshua cozied in for the recap and Darien took off into the kitchen to cook five hundred meals. In the shuffle, Blaire disappeared into the office again.

It seemed my paranoia in Lucy's house wasn't totally meritless. The Dissenters played to my leopard half, luring me straight into a trap. The smell? A combination of toxic herbs to shifters, the most offensive being Zedoary, Banyan, Coriander and, for the true kiss of death, Flame of the Forest. Blood purifiers, body temp stabilizers, and anti-inflammatories. Helpful for humans, but to shifters with unique blood chemistries, high body temperatures, and larger than normal veins and capillaries to support a higher volume of blood... It incapacitates us while totally arresting our ability to change form. Otherwise, death in a vile. Well, in my case, death in a flesh bomb.

I tried not to cringe at the last sight of Lucy stamped on the backs of my eyelids as Warren and the rest nonchalantly referred to her as "the bloodsucker". It shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. It wouldn't have a week ago. A day ago. Not letting on that I actually cared, even a little, about a dead-dead vampire, I asked about the shadowshifters. That's where the memory gap began.

"The coolest sons-a-bitches I've ever seen," Gage responded. Hands clasped towards the heavens, he pleaded, "Mother, in my next life, make me a ghost."

Another reason women didn't hang around Gage long: He talked to his dead mother a little too often, and a little too public. Of course, we didn't care. We were used to his weird shit because we had weird shit of our own. Obviously.

"That cool, huh?" I tried to smile.

"Cool enough to bring you home," Joshua chimed in.

"Well, to Blaire's," Warren corrected.

"When the fuck was I at Blaire's?"

The last time I remembered was Christmas. And I sure as hell wasn't there for him. His dad, still sick, had just been ordered to permanent bed rest. No shifting allowed. No red meat, even. That in its self is a form of death, especially to an alpha male, a leader. So I snuck some deer meat and prime rib past his housekeepers, one in particular that fashions herself his primary physician in the absence of his real doctor.

"Shadowshifters rushed you there yesterday morning. They were eager to get you out of their arms before you croaked." Warren's voice dropped off.

"I guess I'm bad company when I don't feel good." No one took the bait. Actually, their perky mood quickly reverted to the catatonic spell I first encountered. Thankfully, Joshua picked up the story, though he remained gravely solemn.

"Blaire called Darien and, uh, when we walked in...you were convulsing on the floor in Blaire's front hall. You started choking. This green foam bubbled from your mouth. That's when oozy congealed blood started pouring from your eyes and ears. And your nose. At one point, blood was just coming out of your pores. It was like watching someone suffer the Stigmata. There was nothing left of you on that floor. Just a shell. Then it all quit."

"To your relief, I'm sure," I consoled, truly unable to decide how I should act.

They shook their heads in disagreement.

"We thought you were dead." Joshua's voice was hard as stone. His skin turned the same faint hue of his gray shirt. "We thought you died..."

Lydia added, "Until you got up, a human possessed by something not even your leopard could touch. I looked into your eyes, Fray. There was no humanity in them whatsoever. You were feral. A wild thing ready to shred us." Before I could ask, she answered, "You tried. We scattered, we fought, and you finally turned your attention elsewhere."

"Oh God, what did I do?" Completely horrified, I hoped Blaire's father was okay. The man was barely able to protect himself from a toothpick, let alone my crazy ass.

"You attacked his grandmother's urn," she mused.

"There was nothing left," Warren added.

Lydia corrected, "Except ashes, of course."

Gage chuckled, "You killed it." He reminded me of Dennis the Menace when he laughed, except his hair was dark and shaved close to his scalp.

"I never liked that woman," I confided.

Joshua chimed, "That's when the field trip was over."

Before Lydia could say more than, "So we brought you home," Gage interrupted.

"That was a fun car ride! I'm lucky I've still got my good looks and two balls."

Darien emerged from the kitchen carrying two plates piled with pork chops, au gratin potatoes, hash browns, bacon, and a few side veggies.

"I must be dead and you're God, Darien. I'm starving."

He shooed Gage off the table. As he sat the plates down, Lydia moved to the other side of Warren, and Darien nestled into her spot to my left.

"Sister, you're lucky to be here."

"Yeah, me and Gage's balls." Blocking the mental image, I inhaled the food. Trying not to spit any out as I talked, I asked, "How is that possible, by the way?" Not that I was complaining.

Even with a few morsels in my stomach, the shakes had lessened, my head feeling a step up from a gong.

"Their malicious plan was flawed. When the slivers of vampire burned in your flesh, it eradicated most of the herbs before entering your bloodstream. The very vehicle of their poison is what saved you."

Again, a moment of silence passed for Lucy in my head. I ate the rest of my food without talking. Everyone else watched me eat the rest of my food. And when I finished, feeling much better, Darien told me Nash had filled them in on Rush and the Dissenters.

"Did you tail them?"

"Blaire sent Conrad." Of course, one of the few lepe I didn't trust. "That's all I know right now," Darien sounded deflated. His muscular frame slouched, elbows on knees. "I would have gone myself, but it took all of us to handle you."

I nodded. "I was what happened to my bedroom."

He shook his head.

"And Joshua," Gage blurted.

"What's wrong with Joshua?" Could I be any more shattered? Joshua was one of the gentlest shifters I knew.

"He's missing some meat off his back."

"It's not bad," Joshua offered.

I walked over and lifted his shirt. Underneath were two large gouges, red and puss-filled, running from his right shoulder blade to his left side. Hugging him gently, I apologized.

"It's nothing," he assured. "It'll heal when I shift. I just haven't had time yet."

Darien leaned into the couch cushions. "It's been a crazy day for all of us."

"Day?" I panicked. "I've lost a whole day?" I ran to the window and jerked the curtain back.

"The sun will be down in an hour." Darien sounded as though the burden of the missing hadn't escaped his attention one bit. He viewed it as a race we were losing. Not only would we lose our lepe's children, as well as others', but the failure would leave us open to attacks from those seeking to overthrow the weak.

"I'm gonna take a shower." I walked up the stairs to the destruction of my making. Sifting through the debris for my black pants and silver tank top, the anger grew so monumental I thought I'd become undone by its venom. It inflated like a monster scaling the basement stairs one ugly footstep at a time.

When it was too much, I picked up the broken wreckage of my room and broke it some more. I wasn't driven by the poison in my veins this time, but by the poison in my heart. The dire treachery resting on my lepe forged a steel spear tearing into the inner makings of what I thought shaped my life.

Nothing I was touching meant a goddamn thing anymore. The sentimentalities lacing my room, and the memories they held, meant nothing without a strong future for my lepe. Those were the thoughts ruling my heart, anyway, when I ran a side table through the second story window. When the sound of shattering glass satisfied the raving lunatic I was in that moment, I heaved my iron vanity chair out the other window. It bounced off the walkway to be eaten by the multicolored rose bushes.

Gripping the sides of the empty window, torso bowing outward toward empty air, I vowed, "This will end tonight."

# Chapter Ten

The showerhead sprayed in a wide umbrella, the equivalent to standing under a year-round spring rain. Moisture clung to the mirror and blue counter, creating a frosted appearance. The scene would have been soothing if not for the scalding water to nix the last of my shivers. They had almost subsided completely until a faint breeze swept past the ocean-spray checkered curtain.

Someone was in the bathroom.

"I'm feeling better. You don't have to check on me every minute."

"Yes I do," said the man that couldn't stay in my past.

In one swoosh, Blaire stood naked behind me and the curtain fell back into place. Water ran down his golden chest to one of his best features, if it were possible any part of him could be outdone.

"Why are you hijacking my shower?"

"We need to talk. Alone." His fingers played across the tender flesh between my shoulders and scalp.

_Hawaii. Our one-year anniversary. That was the last time he touched me like that. Delicate. Sincere. Nothing to do with sex. Just us together in a moment. I remembered thinking it was so unexpected, a kind of perfect I never thought would be ours. The evening sky was beautiful, and the water ran across our bodies from one to the other like there was no divide. We stood under that showerhead on the side of our little bungalow as long as we could, until the world turned out the lights and the bugs found us too tasty. Then we went inside and the fighting started. I can't even remember what we argued over._

Back to the present, I muttered, "What do we know?"

"I sent Conrad to the field today." Closing my eyes as he continued, his words became a beautiful sandstorm in my head. "He saw nothing unusual, but the shadows reported recent activity." I leaned until my back rested against his chest, relishing the moment. It wasn't Hawaii. It didn't mean anything to Blaire, and shouldn't have registered in my heart.

"Traps have been set."

"By whom?" I asked, wistfully.

Blaire rubbed his face through my hair. "Everyone."

Nodding, I shared something I had yet to repeat to anyone. "I saw something before she... Before." The shiny flash that caught my eye before Lucy's demise. "I'm going back."

His hands moved back and forth across my arms. "I figured as much." How solemn he sounded.

"I'm not coming back without them."

Taking a moment to rub his lips across my hot flesh as light as an angel's wings, he whispered, "I figured that, too," in my ear.

The water sounded like tiny soldiers trying to free a great machine when I turned my ear to his chest. When I spoke, it was as if I heard my voice coming from the machine instead of myself.

"You won't stop me?" It was a question in the guise of a fact.

Something, maybe a feeling I knew too well, drew me away from his chest.

He wrapped his right arm tightly around me, forearm lying across my breasts. Kissing a line to that sensitive spot just behind my ear, he sighed, "No one can stop you. It helps that I don't want to this time. As acting leader, I'm also forced to remind even myself that the welfare of many cannot be sacrificed for the safety of one."

A faint smile played on my lips.

We left Hawaii early when Blaire received a call. When his father first fell ill. Immediately, the fighting stopped and we packed for home, never having to ask each other what we should do. Blaire and I were in perfect alignment. Hard decisions weren't decisions at all for us. We know what is best for our lepe, the ones we love, no matter the personal cost. After we broke up, Blaire's father commented that it bordered on blasphemy to waste such a natural phenomenon. From years of debating with Blaire's mother over every lepe move, he viewed our harmony as a gift. I viewed it as a reminder of what the rest of our relationship wasn't.

Blaire must have been reminiscing, too, because he laughed, "You would be the perfect woman if you didn't make it a habit of eating fire before letting someone make a decision for you."

I turned, ready to dispense a snarky comment about one of his many harlots when he grabbed me. Pulling me in, his arms coiling until air couldn't fit between us, Blaire kissed me like it was our first and last slammed into one sensational end to the universe as we knew it.

When I was jelly against the shower wall, his lips retreated. Resting his arms against the tile to the sides of my head, I stared into those blue eyes, so serious, so bare, and realized he had spent just as much time as I wishing one of us was less combative, more understanding, different enough to make us work. But we had to be true to ourselves.

More than half of me willed him to say, "Fuck it, the world can burn as long as I get to kiss you like this again."

Instead, he said, "Leave word with the shadows and we'll come for everyone."

"Will do, Blaire."

Flinching, he rubbed his forehead against mine. "Why won't you call me Cale?"

Just the barest shake of my head and he gave me space. A lot of space.

"You have to earn that."

Something flashed over his expression. I expected his tough exterior to take over. The soldier. The leader. The leopard. He stepped out of the shower, and a part of him that used to soar seemed fallen somehow. Not weakened. Just...not the same.

"Do as I ask. Use the shadows. They're our allies in this." I nodded but refused to talk. Looking me in the eyes, Blaire swore softly but with conviction, "I will come for you."

Then the bastard ripping my heartstrings out and using them as dental floss was gone, and I spent the next ten minutes washing his scent off. He had been purposely marking me the entire time. If it hadn't felt so damn good, I would have called him out. Blaire was hoping any shifters I ran across would smell him—a dominant male—on my skin and think twice before messing with me. It annoyed me to admit it was a good idea. However, it would seriously fuck up my plan and I just couldn't have that. Not when so many lives depended on the non-fucked-up version.

After getting dressed in the silver tank and black pants, I realized no one had said a word about Nash. If I were the last to see him when he and Lucy left her house to feed, then no one realized he was missing. Or maybe he helped set me up. _Shit, shit, shit._ Going to Lucy's was on my agenda anyway, so I would look for clues. I crossed my fingers that he was as alive as, well, as alive as he gets, partly because I didn't think I could withstand a second nearly dead-dead vampire encounter and, admittedly, because if he did betray me, I wanted a chance to give him a 'Thank You' stake.

Had I been forewarned, however, I would have crossed my fingers for a heart made of steel.

# Chapter Eleven

Night fell by the time my dilapidated Mustang pulled into Lucy's driveway. Sitting in the car for a minute, staring up into dark windows, even the mood of the yellow shutters had degraded from sunshine to sallow.

There was no malevolent smell, only fresh blooms and the heat of the day clinging to the veil of darkness, a child unwilling to turn in for the night. My eyes transitioned to kitty sight with ease.

Listening to the gravel crunch underfoot, I debated walking _in_ the house or past it. When a figure emerging from the woods, a hiss escaped my throat. A stark white young man stood ten feet away in ripped jeans and an old shirt bearing an indiscernible logo.

Shadowshifter.

"Hope I didn't startle you," said the voice that saved my life in the woods.

"You!"

"Shane," he offered with a smile. When I didn't run screaming, he took it as a sign to advance. "I was really relieved to hear you were—err, are—recovering well. I've never witnessed anything so malicious." He sounded unsure, like the nerd trying to talk to the cool girl, only I wasn't picking up on any 'feelings' other than pure nervousness.

"Yeah, apparently I turned psychopathically kooky for a day. Wish I could have been there." After a beat, staring into his mesmeric red eyes, I confessed, "That's a lie. It sounds like it was a goddamn nightmare." He just smiled, but it was the fallback look that people give when they're trying to sympathize and can't think of an appropriate response. "Why were you and the other 'shadows' in the woods, anyway?"

"We're always in the woods. Not always here, but somewhere." Shane's hair was short, and it never moved. His shoulders were almost broad, and the closer he stood, the rosier his complexion, like a pink reservoir trapped under the natural winter of his skin. It was the total opposite of Blaire's bronzed landscape, but somehow just as captivating.

"Do you live in the woods?"

He laughed again. "No, but it has the best shade no matter the time of day. We can't shift if our environment is too bright." The way he explained it prompted a mental image of little pale lizards scurrying in the shadows of an amphibious habitat.

"How did you know to take me to Blaire?"

Able to look modest, Shane noted, "We pay attention to all the shifters in our area, even if they don't. And," he took his hand out of his pocket, "we have cellphones. We're not cavemen." After showing me his cell, he put it away. The side of his mouth curled when he added, "But sometimes I have a hard time finding somewhere to plug it in."

I apologized. He did save my life, and in return, I envisioned him like a caged lizard living like a caveman. However, he seemingly held no ill will as he offered up valuable information.

"As far as we can tell, they set up multiple snares to the east and south of the property, a nasty looking bear trap on the west, and an-"

"Blaire mentioned your cooperation. Why?"

"Why should you trust us, you mean?" I didn't correct his assumption or try to apologize. "Have we given you a reason not to?"

It was my turn to laugh. "Blind trust gets people killed. The way I see it, these Dissenter bastards followed Rush Stevens here, but someone's been tipping them off. Someone in our community is helping them."

Unfazed by my accusations, Shane shrugged, "I'm not surprised."

"Really?"

"If you're not a lion, why give a shit about a lion? If you're not a leopard, why give a shit about a leopard? If you're not a 'were', why not spit on them? If you're not a shadow... Well, we know where we stand."

He was beginning to piss me off. "Where do you stand, Shane?"

"In the dark."

Frustration twisted into a low growl. I kicked a pile of gravel in no particular direction, and a second figure stepped from the darkness. This one, I knew.

"Where the fuck have you been?" I yelled.

Nash stopped walking, the pleasantry wiped from his expression. "Is this a bad time?"

"The opposite, actually." I stalked him until we were face to face, my stance less than friendly. "Where were you?" He knew I was referring to the other night.

"Lucy and I were lured away, made to believe we were closing in on them. Once we realized their trickery, there was no time to return to Lucy's cabin. We sought shelter for the day."

"Lured or a willing participant?"

His fangs descended faster than a rattlesnake striking. "It would be a mistake to turn on me."

I lunged, but Shane stepped between us. Shifters are stronger than average humans, but only shadowshifters have unnatural strength rivaling vampires. That's why my lepe relied more on learned defenses and natural senses.

Even in the blaze of anger, Nash had the courtesy to step back, giving Shane and I space to grapple. Finally, I reached past him, pointing a steady finger at Nash. "If you've had anything to do with this, I'll slice you into pieces with my claws. I'll save your eyes for last so you can watch every fucking piece burn."

"I heard you know what that feels like now." I was about to lunge again until he added, "And I had nothing to do with that."

"How do I know that?"

Nash stepped forward in a blur, shedding his calm demeanor. "Because mortal affairs are no longer my concern! As you have ungraciously been unable to overlook," he hit his chest with open palms, "I'm dead, Fray. What befalls your lepe, or any beating heart, is-"

"Below your undead purpose?"

"I was going to say out of my realm."

"You're not gods." I was close to yelling.

"Are we supposed to be? If a nail in the supernatural world needs repair, it's our doorstep you come to for a hammer. _Ours_ you come to for answers and assassins."

Damn it, he was right. With the gust blown out of my sails, Shane stepped aside.

"What are we to you, Nash? Are we just wildflowers cluttering your way?"

He shrugged. "Mostly."

"Then why are you here, our willing assassin?" The pitch of my voice dropped. "I need to know why."

Not just for the sake of suspicion. I needed to understand why this vampire, whose mere presence trivialized my existence, answered his door, hammer in hand.

"I like what I am," Nash offered unapologetically. "But I like to be reminded that I was once something different. And whether my heart beats or not, I've never been one to pass by a good fight."

"So donate your efforts to baby seals and orphaned orangutans."

"They have something far more imposing than vampires. They have PETA. So I offer my services to the temperamental shifters of the Ararat River." Nash smiled. Shane chuckled. God help me, the sides of my mouth twitched. I blamed it on stress.

When the joke ran out, I shook my head, accepting his help. Soberly, I said, "Then call for backup."

"Menendez?"

Nodding once, I turned to Shane. "Can you track me without being seen?" He gave me a "no shit" look. "Good. Nash, be a sport and call Blaire, too."

"Is your phone broken?"

"No." I bent down and removed my shoes. On my way up, I added, "But I'm about to be pretty busy."

"Doing what?"

My sense of urgency appealed to Nash. There was almost color in his cheeks.

"Getting caught."

I took off running through the woods, headed north.

# Chapter Twelve

Shane was a strange blurb beside me, a distorted silhouette doppelganger matching my haste pace for pace. The trees flashed by so fast they could only impress on my sight green and brown strokes, way-be-gone elements of an oil painting. Rocks, twigs, and brush convoluted the destructive path. Yet my bare feet shifted instinctively to grasp the right footing and avoid hazards.

If I had traveled through the field instead of the cloak of branches, I would be too exposed, and Shane, unable to blend well in the open space and tall grass, might lose me.

I knew I was growing close when the faint stench— _that_ stench—waltzed into my life for a second dance. I stopped running and fought the urge to puke on a grouping of hostas. Bewildered by my own actions, I didn't answer Shane, who was nothing more than a shadow, when he asked if I was okay. Honestly, I wasn't fucking sure.

"Are you up to this?"

Before "Yes" passed my lips, I growled and snapped the air between us, expressing my displeasure at being second-guessed.

"I know what you're planning. Will you have the strength to shift or are the herbs still too thick in your system to allow it?"

He wasn't pointing out anything I hadn't already thought of. Truthfully, I wasn't sure if the herbal effects were passed, but no matter my fate, it would inevitably lead to the children. And to the bastards that needed their throats ripped out.

"I'll shift." Not quite a lie. And I didn't give a shit if it was.

Shane sounded skeptical when he whispered, "Right," but left the bulk of his reservations unspoken. He was a pure outline of his clothed human form. Apparently, shadowshifters can alter material touching their skin as long as it's made from natural fibers.

Realizing I was in the right area bordering the field, I said, "They came through here."

"How do you know?"

I searched the tree limbs and brush. "One of them had something reflective. I saw it before..." Shit! I still couldn't say it out loud or even admit silently to myself that I was affected by the death of a vampire.

Shane filled the void, either picking up on my squeamishness or not wanting to relive it, himself. "One of our shadows found a necklace in this area, snagged on a limb. The clasp was broken." A hefty pendant manifested out of Shane.

Silver cat's claw.

"Motherfucker!"

I grabbed Conrad's pendant and ran. In a matter of seconds, a net catapulted through the air, ensnaring me. Branches sped past on my way up, whipping my limbs and torso. It wasn't until I hit that weightless plateau, the one that warns, 'What must go up must come down,' that I foresaw the fall over the embankment. There was no time to calculate the high speed at which I plummeted. That was probably for the better since it already hit the top of the 'Oh fuck!' meter.

Without the use of my arms or legs, which were wrapped close to my body by the net, I bounced off boulders, slid across discarded tree bark, flipped through briers, and landed hard in a shallow ravine. Quick and messy.

A noise accompanied my fall. I thought it was just the sound of solid weight hitting an equally solid surface. After I tried to move, however, it was clear that it had been the crunching of my bones. My left arm and right leg, regretfully.

Between the lightning strikes of pain and dizziness, Shane whispered, "I tried to tell you there was a heinous threat to the north. Quick, change. Heal before they find you."

Through gritted teeth, I explained, "They won't take me unless I appear weaker than them."

"Oh. You're doing a good job, then."

I searched the Shane cloud and, settling where I thought his eyes were, ordered, "Get away from me."

Further discussion averted, he blended into the real shadows.

It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before the assholes came to collect, but in that span I found myself reconsidering if I had the energy to shift at all. And when they bagged and hoisted me like a prized deer on a hell-ride by foot, jarring every bit of broken me, the weak act was no longer an act. I had lost the upper hand in the situation.

The blistering pain lessened when they dumped me out onto a floor so warped and tilted I wondered if we were in a funhouse. Arching my head to peer behind us, I saw nothing but splintered boards exposing, to my horror, water.

Something stirred in one of the corners of solid floor, but two of the Dissenters moved to stand in front of it.

In the dimly lit shack, I memorized everything about their appearance—singular—because there was no individualism. All wore black Renaissance blouses with brown leather lacing, black muslin pants tucked into shin-level brown leather boots with wraparound lacing and gold buckles, and long hair pulled into tight bands at the base of their necks. Not the pilgrims I had imagined in my head. Not by a long shot.

They circled, sniffing the air like hyenas playing with a meal. And when they got really close, I couldn't look away from the black saucers of their eyes. No whites, no color, no distinct pupils. Just infinite darkness stared back, and it scared the fuck out of me.

A creaky door swung open, framing a fifth figure. Only, this one talked.

"I wondered how long our traps would lay empty. It pleased me to discover you were the prize. I detest loose ends."

Trying to swallow the pain, I looked up at the tall psychopath, countering, "And I detest boy bands with cult fetishes. Give me a reason not to kill you."

Kneeling down, he grinned. "Give me a reason to spare you." His voice vibrated with some pent-up force as he emphasized 'you.' Still tangled, I couldn't move away as he stretched across my body, too close for comfort. His chin navigated a path from my bellybutton to my chin. Our lips almost touched as he whispered, "It's a shame when I have to kill my own kind."

"You're not my kind." Embracing anger instead of panic, I narrowed my eyes, nostrils flaring. "You prey on children," I accused.

Laughing, he shook his head. "No, no, no, we _experiment_ on children. We would never eat them." The others scoffed like I was an idiot.

"But you would kill them. You do. Kill them."

The lunatic snapped his teeth a centimeter from my face. He smelled like dog. Maybe wolf.

"We give them a sympathetic end to a damned fate."

"You're not their judge!" I was incensed.

"In here," he looked around, "I am. Every species earns a spotlight in the zoo. As well as on the dissection table."

"Do whatever you want to me. It better be worth it, though." I stretched my neck until the tips of our eyelashes rubbed, facing that alien gaze. "Because I plan to spit on your carcass before sunrise."

"Consider it a date."

With shifter force, he stood and threw me in the air. I braced for a rough landing but gasped when my weight created a huge splash. The icy water consumed all that was left of me.

As I sunk, watching the light shrink until it was the size of a pen point, a second shape ruffled the liquid. I fought the mounting pressure of panic pulsing behind my skull. Even if I wasn't in a net, I couldn't swim to help the figure. Or myself. I had never liked the water. Not because I'm leopard. Plenty lepe enjoyed lazy days at the river.

Fidgeting in the claustrophobic net, the necessity of fresh air burned through my lungs and convulsed my chest. The urge to inhale dominated my thoughts until they became a steady stream of mayhem.

_I need to breathe to escape why didn't I learn how to swim why didn't I call my mom today I need air freedom don't panic change break the net are they coming to help us?_

Of course, damn it! I needed to shift. If I could just focus and stop being a pansy ass, I would live. At least long enough to run outside and possibly die there instead of here.

Embracing that calm energy, I burst into fur, savoring a moment of miraculous healing before shredding the ropes and flailing to the surface. Even unfettered, bulky paws splashed and it made it difficult to keep the water out of my muzzle. I swung for the edge of a board but missed by a few feet. Slipping under, gulping too much water, I shifted back. In human form, I had a chance at reaching one of those boards and escaping before I drowned. I couldn't drown.

I had a date to keep.

Just as I sputtered close to the surface a second time, something close shifted in the water. It moved toward me. Instinctively growing still, I focused on the figure as it floated high enough underwater to be illuminated. Barely. And what I saw made me scream: fur, rows of oversized, gangly teeth, and elongated fingers that ended in pointy claws. The water created a levitating quality.

Bubble after bubble surged to the surface, robbing my lungs of the precious oxygen I had left. Scrambling backward, the monstrous thing awakened and realized, to my dismal fate, that it was hungry. Claws slashed out in slow motion. I struggled to break the surface, though it was continuously just out of reach. But when air brushed past my fingertips, a ghostly face greeted me.

Lucy splashed into the deadly scene and wrestled the hairy thing into the darkest recesses until there was no sight of them. A hand reached in and pulled me to the surface. Choking on stagnant water and debris, I wretched on all fours, inhaling whenever possible. Simultaneously, Nash checked my vitals as efficiently as a nurse.

When it was possible to speak, I blurted, "Wait, Lucy's dead! She blew up."

"No." He unbuttoned his shirt and handed it to me. I took it without reserve. "Her roommate blew up. Candace was supposed to be out of town. Lucy didn't realize they took her until word arrived of her death."

Buttoning the brown bowling shirt, I was stunned when I muttered, "So Lucy's alive? Well, do you think she might not be now? What the fuck is down there?"

He peered over the edge, unflustered. "Her boyfriend. I'm sure she can manage."

"That's Rush Stevens?"

A second later, Lucy and her waterlogged animal-turned-human surged onto the boards beside us. Her left cheek was already healing a gnarly gash, and Rush reached up to cradle it in his hand.

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." Her words dripped with sincerity. "You're alive."

He pulled her in for a long, gentle kiss. Rush's skin was pale from keeping Lucy's dark hours, and her smile hardened from keeping his dark secrets. Yet, together, their souls beamed. And I think I saw a flash of Jane peak through.

When they parted, he sat up and looked at me. "Sorry I tried to eat you."

I shrugged. "It's not the worst thing that's happened to me today."

Nash opened the door and scanned the yard. "Leave. Take him back the way we came."

Lucy nodded.

Before they snuck out, Rush offered, "Some of the kids are in the tool shed next door. I don't know where the rest are." He was limping, and his body was covered in revisited memories.

"Did anyone come with you?" Nash recounted my list. All there. "Good," I breathed. "Where are we?"

"A discarded quarry."

I raised my nose. "Granite," sniffing, "And...children." I smiled.

Exiting my near-death experience, I saw that it had been a two-story shed. Though, so close to the quarry, the main floor flooded years ago.

We slunk in the cloak of shadows to the large tool building. Standing so close, our shoulders brushed. A large scar was very noticeable across Nash's chest.

"What's that from?" I whispered.

He looked at the pale, raised slash. "A sword fight."

"Who the fuck attacked you, Blackbeard?"

"I wish."

Inches from the door, far off voices and violence broke out.

"Check on the children." Nash was gone into the night, fighting a fight that wasn't really his, making me think that maybe I hadn't given vampires their proper due.

Moving through the large shed, the smell of dust, granite, and blood was thicker than syrup. Tools of all makes and models lined the walls. Blood coagulated on most of them. Some old, flaking like baked paint under a scorching sun. Some so fresh I stopped thinking altogether.

A faint rustle came from behind a barred door.

I flung the gargantuan steel rod to the floor and exploded through the door. Small bodies winced and tucked into themselves. "Oh my God." The overwhelming smell of feces and vomit assaulted every humane quality my mother instilled in me.

Rachel, Genevieve, Ena, and Brian huddled together, banding into a quivering wall of terror. They looked up and it didn't register, at first, that it was me. That someone was here for them. Tears lined my eyes, but I wouldn't let them fall. I blamed the dust.

Squatting slowly, I checked to make sure no one was behind us before I asked, "Are you okay? Did they...hurt you?" I tried to emphasize 'hurt' because I was a coward. I didn't want to ask if these children, babies in someone's arms at one point in time, had been violated. The girls, no older than sixteen, knew what I was asking. What did that say about our lepe, our society, that they already knew they were someone's prey before the monsters actually came and took them? I was disgusted.

Brian was oblivious and yelled back, "Yeah, they motherfucking hurt us! They didn't invite us here for a birthday party. If so, where's the cake?" Under the layers of slashes and oozing punctures, his voice cracked. "Where's my fucking piece of cake?"

Ena, Brian's girlfriend, shushed him gently before answering, "No," shaking her head over and over again. "They didn't hurt us...like that..."

There was a "but" locked behind years of therapy and a lifetime of night terrors sure to keep the experience as fresh as an open wound dipped in salt water.

Rachel, the youngest in the room, couldn't stop shaking. Not much louder than a breeze, she stuttered, "I told them—told them the people in my family don't sh-shift until they're sixteen. I told them I'm only thirteen, Fray, and-and they didn't care." Tears welled in her eyes. "Why didn't they care?"

Her chin felt so tiny in my hand as I met her fear with hard facts and reassurance. "Because some people are born to hate or worse, not care. Don't worry, Rachel. You guys are leaving now, and we're going to kill them for you. I promise you."

The edge of her lips drooped all the way down, but she whispered back, "Thank you," like a little child.

"Do you need help?"

We all jumped, and Genevieve let out a squelch.

Lucy smiled apologetically. "I did not mean to scare you."

The far off voices broke out again. This time, they were much closer.

"It's okay. Can you take the kids?"

Ena's back straightened. "You want us to go with her? But she's a vampire." Days ago, her outrage would have mirrored mine. Now it just seemed annoying.

"Ena, she will not eat you. Go with her. Go silently and you'll live to tell everyone how crazy I am to trust a vampire."

"Thank you," Lucy said warmheartedly, which was still unsettling. "The shadowshifters are waiting to conceal us."

Unsure, but sure unwilling to stay where they were, the children huddled together and followed Lucy out of the bowels of Satan's toilet. Ena spared a final glance, and I shook my head to reassure her. Worry tattooing her expression, she snuggled Brian closer, turned without further complaint, and followed a vampire into the dark unknown. She would make a good leader one day.

Still standing under the small bug light by the tool shed, an unnatural roar tore through the night. I rounded the corner to see Nash, the Menendez siblings, Darien, and Blaire tearing into a multitude of Dissenters in the distance.

"Fancy meeting you here, said the spider to the fly."

# Chapter Thirteen

I turned and smiled into those empty eyes. "You're early."

"I apologize," said the man who tried to drown me. "But I brought something for you." He pulled a board from behind his back and slapped me across the face with it. "I'm not a candy and flowers man. I hope you're not disappointed."

I slid over smooth, convexed granite, but rolled and bounced to my feet as if my life depended on it because, well, it did.

"I'm going to beat your pilgrim ass!"

We charged one another. A surge of great satisfaction overcame me when his nose crunched under my elbow. Almost as swift, however, he knocked my feet out from under me with a blow to the stomach.

"We are much older than you think...Madison." A patronizing element accompanied his tone. "Puritans were so easily manipulated. Such puppets." He drew out every sound until each was somehow deranged.

"I don't give a shit if Mary and her lambs chartered your little cult. I'm not here for a history lesson. I'm here to end it."

"And you actually think you can. How cute."

I hit him a few times in the jaw, delivering the moment of silence I needed. Sprawled over him in a killing position, however, he said, "Ask me how I know your name." Ignoring his request, I raised a rusty shovel, readying to slice and dice his head from his shoulders. "Trust me. Time is of the essence. Ask."

Begrudgingly, I did. "How do you know my name?"

A smirk bragged, "Little girls don't keep secrets." He moved and held out a large set of pliers that must have been tucked under his shirt. "For long."

There was blood on it. One whiff made me think Marisa, Tatum's fourteen-year-old sister.

I picked out her scent from the rest of the blood on the wind and tossed the shovel. Running over granite slopes, past conveyors, shakers, and other machinery, I reached the bulk of bloodshed. Everyone, good and bad alike, started running towards me—no—past me when a small explosion rocked the night.

Jose yelled, "It's going to blow!" but he wasn't running like the rest.

"What's happening?" I asked Darien, because he was the only shifter in human form.

Blaire was in the middle of a pile of broken bodies, snarling. His leopard eyes darted to each man standing, inviting more. An untamed thrill spiraled up my back to see him so wild and ready to eat anyone who stood in his way. He was in his element.

Nash had gone vampie, tearing into chests and slashing throats. Even Shane manifested into the force of a ghostly anaconda, squeezing the life out of a Dissenter.

Oddly, most of the Dissenters remained in human form. The few that did change were...not right. They didn't resemble one specific animal, yet they didn't take on any type of 'were' form. They looked malformed, misshapen, deformed. Not. Fucking. Right. Something was definitely troubling their genetics, but I wasn't stopping to map their genome.

Two jumped me from the side. Their fighting techniques sucked, so it didn't take long to snap a neck and break a back. I wasn't taking rain checks. I wanted them to pay with everything they had.

Darien grabbed my arm and pointed to a small lean-to. "Old dynamite caps! Get away!"

The side of the building caught fire.

"Who's in there?"

"'Were!'"

He tried to resume running, but I whipped him around and shook my head. "We're in this together. There is a half to all of us that's human. Let's think with that half, okay?"

Hesitating for a moment to acknowledge his shame, we ran to the aid of the Menendez siblings. And it was a sight.

Jose granted our entry and remained at the door, guarding for Dissenters. Rose and Dominick stood in front of...Mira? It was after midnight, Mira's eighteenth birthday, and it was quite apparent that their history was no joke. Listening to bones crack and pop out of joints, I was sorry for ever doubting their curse.

Mira, no larger than a sixth-grader, was bound by silver chains. She screamed into the air and convulsed as her flesh writhed and rippled from shifting particles beneath the surface. I watched her kneecap dislocate itself and shift. Bile rose behind my tonsils when her chin quivered and tears streamed over sprouting hair and bulging cheekbones.

Dominick's skin burned repeatedly as he tried to break Mira's shackles. Rose, engulfed in loud sobbing, reached out to her sister. Flames flickered behind them.

Darien and I grabbed some discarded rods and leapt to help Dominick. Sweat laced his brow, and the stench of burning flesh made us cringe. A second cap on the far end of the building exploded. Metal shards and miscellaneous shit flew everywhere. Rose jumped in front of a large disc, deflecting it from Mira's head. We worked twice as fast when the flames engulfed a whole new area. An area closer to our tender flesh.

Together, we broke Mira's bonds. Her siblings snatched her up and we hauled ass. Clearing the building, we instantly smacked into a wall of night the color of blood and death. Surrounded by dead trees and crumbling buildings, I'd never felt such Hell on earth.

"Follow me!" I yelled to Darien and started running, even as the other dynamite caps took off like shooting stars. We ducked behind a dump truck when the roof shot off, but I didn't wait until it landed to take off again. Darien scrambled to keep up.

When we reached yet another decrepit repair building, I started screaming, "Marisa!" and charged through the doorway. The actual door was long gone. Hinges, too. Taking a deep breath, her scent led to a back room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the low light. Someone moved in the corner, hiding behind a three-legged table.

The quiet was too unnatural. It was hard to tell there was a war raging outside at all.

"Marisa?" A short echo followed. "Is that you?"

I knew it was. Blood doesn't lie. But the scent of fear had strengthened when my feet crossed the threshold. Signaling with a low, flat hand to Darien to stay out, he decided to keep watch for trouble.

I maintained a low, even tone. "Marisa, I know that's you. I'm here to take you home."

"I can't go home," a timid voice replied.

"You don't want to stay here."

"I can't go home," she repeated. I thought she was responding to me, but I realized, after a few ginger repetitions, that she was chanting under her breath.

Creeping closer, I asked, "Can I sit next to you?"

"No!"

I settled on the floor at the end of the table and pleaded under the dying low-wattage bulb. "Please, Marisa, please come with me. Your mom's waiting for you to come home."

Tears wove through the shadows. "I don't want her to see me like this." Sniffles hiccupped as she tried to silence them.

"Show me, Marisa." I took a deep breath, though none could push away the dread. "Show me what they did to you."

"How long have I been here?"

"Twelve days, I think."

"Is that all? It feels longer."

"Show me, please." I couldn't stand waiting. A tightness formed in my chest, anticipating so many horrors.

Still in her nook, two shaky hands appeared halfway in the light holding something. "They told us everything they were going to do before they did them."

"What is that? I can't see."

"They said it was for research, but we could see how much they liked our fear."

"They're nuts, Marisa. What is that?" The spike in my voice paralleled the panic in my heart.

"They said we were abominations never meant for this world."

"Marisa, show me."

"They said there was only one way we could be useful."

"They lied. What. Is. That?" I grabbed her wrists as she thrust her hands into the light.

"My tail," she said so innocently. "That's why I'm in the dissection room... I changed."

I stopped breathing. They cut off her tail. It would never grow back. When we're damaged in animal form, we stay that way no matter how many times we shift. It would never grow back. She would never be allowed to forget these bastards or what they did to her.

They mutilated her.

Letting go, I moved a hand over hers, brushing the soft fur with my palm. It wouldn't shift back because it had nothing to shift back to. There's no human equivalent for a tail.

"You're a snow leopard, like me."

"See why I can't go home?"

I pulled her into my arms. Brunette hair stuck to her head in a pile of sweat and worse things, and her hazel eyes never met mine. "Our lepe will never turn its back on you. You're too precious to lose." She cried in my arms for a few minutes before I reminded her that we needed to leave.

Wiping away tears and cradling her fluffy tail to her heart, Marisa's dirty hair shifted in a clump from shoulder to shoulder. "We can't leave without Jack."

"Who's Jack?"

"A pride boy."

"Where is he?"

She pointed to a smaller room. "They got angry when he tried to help me."

"He shifted already, too?" I knew the answer, but she confirmed it. "Stay here. Darien's outside, but stay hidden in case someone gets through."

She slunk back into her cubby.

Cautiously approaching the door, I spoke soft and slow. "Jack? My name is Fray. Your leader, Jared Tomas, sent me to help you." No answer. "Jack?" I cracked the heavy door. "I'm coming in," I warned, pushing the door all the way open.

"Jesus Christ!"

I rushed to the nude, thin boy hanging from the ceiling by meat hooks. Blood dripped from a collar around his neck lined with barbed spikes that were designed to burrow into his flesh every time he struggled. His arms bent backward at a sickly angle. The way they were tied tightly together suggested the Dissenters used his own body weight to break them. And the weaker he grew, the more they'd pull until something sensitive gave.

His flesh was supple under the pressure of my fingertips as I pushed him upward in an attempt to free his body. Blood trickled over my face. It was still warm.

"Darien, help me!" I've never screamed so desperately. "Help me! Jesus, help me!"

I thought his eyes fluttered open. "Jack! Jack!"

Darien rounded the door. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Get him down!"

He slipped in the giant pool of blood and grabbed a stool lying to the side. "Hold him higher, Fray." Darien worked as fast as his hands would move.

I pushed with everything I had to give. Suddenly, Jack's slack weight fell on top of me, driving us both to the floor. I rolled him over and cradled his head in my hand. "Jack? Do you hear me?" Frantically, I felt for a pulse. His neck, his wrist. His chest...

Were quiet.

Someone was weeping softly. Marisa stood in the doorway. "They punished him for helping me. I killed him."

"No," Darien placed an arm around her. "It is a great honor to die for someone. He chose to take your place. That will mean a great deal to his pride."

Holding Jack in my arms, we wrapped Marisa's tail in an old piece of cloth and emerged to find Blaire, naked in human form, holding Conrad by the throat. Bodies littered the old quarry around them.

"Look who I found," he seethed. His glare warned of carnage.

"Don't kill him." Everyone turned like I had sprouted twenty heads. "There's somewhere he needs to be."

Blaire tilted his head, trying to hone into that level we clicked so well on. Maybe he saw my thoughts as clearly as I did. Or maybe he couldn't see past the blood staining my hair and the dead boy in my arms. Either way, he packaged Conrad up so well I expected a bow.

Blaire and Nash stayed to burn the bodies. Darien had brought my car to the quarry since it was already a rolling parts store, which worked out. Blaire gave him the use of his car to return most of the children to their parents. I took Marisa home. She wasn't ready to talk to anyone yet. Her mother cried when we showed her Marisa's severed tail, but she cried more out of pure euphoria that her daughter was still alive to hug at all.

Once again, I found myself idling in the pride neighborhood. Before turning the engine off, I reached my hand to the backseat and rested it on Jack, wrapped in a clean white sheet Blaire had pulled from the trunk of his car.

I anticipated the emotional reception of a lynching.

# Chapter Fourteen

When I opened the back door, I noticed how pale and dirty Jack's forever-young face was under the streetlights on the empty lane. Sitting on the doorframe in front of the floorboard, I wet a tissue under a bottle of water. The early morning air should have been soothing, but I found myself crouched over the boy, babbling as I compulsively cleaned his face.

I tilted my head, speaking low. "We failed you, Jack. I failed you. If I had gotten to you sooner, a minute earlier... Did you open your eyes and see me? Did I imagine it?" Grabbing the sides of his cheeks, I closed the distance between us save an inch. "Did you look at me, Jack?" Nothing. Did I expect an answer? For him to sit up and speak? To actually see those brown eyes and golden hair animated? Exhaling, I sat up and resumed wiping smudges from his brow. "You saved Marisa. She'll remember you until the day she dies; the pride boy named Jack who showed her loyalty and empathy. Quite the legacy, right? I'm sure it'll keep you warm in your grave." I shut my eyes to trap the tears. "God, I wish you could answer me."

Someone's foot scuffed against loose gravel and I looked up, met by a wall of people staring at me. They were everywhere, standing in yards, the middle of the street, doorways, peeking from window curtains.

It was Jared Tomas who scuffed the gravel, standing almost an arm's length away. I had been so focused on Jack that an entire neighborhood snuck up on me.

I jumped to my feet.

"I'm sorry I didn't knock when we arrived." Looking into stricken faces, I asked, "How did you know we were here?"

"Your brother called ahead and...we smelled his blood."

"I'm sorry. I wish I could have brought him to you properly cleaned."

He shook his head, looking at the ground. "We smell it on you. You're covered in him."

My expression blanked, but behind my eyes I was looking up at Jack's helpless body as the blood showered over my hazelnut skin, sticking to my scalp and the undersides of my fingernails.

I started to say I was sorry, but he interrupted with a wave of his hand. Then he waved to someone else. Two large men, one with skin rivaling the brilliance of a raven's dark wings and one almost my color, carefully pulled Jack from the seat and carried him into the heart of the mourners. Sighs and gasps escaped, and a guttural moan grew to a chorus.

The mass of tears and moans parted like a macabre ocean as the men rested Jack's body across the lap of a red-haired woman with a petite nose and thin lips. The sheet shifted, exposing his ashen chest and legs. Enough remained to leave his dignity intact.

Under the streetlight, the woman held him, wordless. Her eyes scrutinized every particle of dirt, every injury, every inch of once-perfect flesh. Though she never cried. Never frowned. Never moved. The scene evoked Michelangelo's Pieta; Mother Mary cradling a wilted Jesus in her lap. And, I swear by God, I felt my heart drop and snap in half.

In a strained voice, I asked Tomas, "Is that his mother?"

"Yes."

"Please tell her that his death saved a young girl from being butchered alive... Please relay to his family that Jack's actions under such malevolence were truly exceptional."

"You just did."

"What?" I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat.

Tomas pointed to the woman. "That's my wife. And that's our son in her arms."

"God, Tomas, I had no idea!"

"Calm down." He started to pat my shoulder but stopped short, shying from his son's dried blood on the brown shirt I was still wearing. Lowering his hand, he repeated, "Calm down. Everybody did what they could and we're grateful. He's home. That's the most important thing. You brought him home."

"We should have done more. I should have brought him home alive, Tomas."

"Plenty of folks go to their graves wishing they could have done more for others. That's not failure. That's the mark of a good soul."

I disagreed silently before explaining Conrad's part in all of it, which turned out to be pivotal. He spied on all the shifters, choosing which children were taken based on age and vulnerability to abduction. Conrad handpicked each child. Unforgivable.

"Blaire wanted to end him, burn him with the rest of the bastards."

He gritted his jaw back and forth.

I popped the trunk. "But I thought you might want to say your peace." Tomas leaned over to see Conrad tied and gagged like the pig he was. "We can't heal your pain, but I thought retribution might be a start. Blaire plans to issue a formal apology, as well, since it was one of ours that defected."

Tomas shook his head. "This will do. Tell Blaire the situation's righted." He looked into my eyes. "Thank you for not letting him burn."

The same two men as before hauled Conrad into the crowd turned mob. He flailed helplessly, trying to scream through the material in his mouth.

"Send him to the hell he deserves." Slamming the trunk, I requested, "Slowly."

"Do you want his remains back?" he asked in all seriousness. It was an unspoken rule between shifters that a fallen be returned to his rightful people under most circumstances. After contemplating my expression, he said, "Or we can piss on him and flush him with the rest of the shit."

"Every bit of him belongs to you." I hopped in the driver's seat through the window. "No returns."

"Appreciate it."

"I'll be in touch."

I drove away listening to Conrad's curdled screams. They had taken the gag out.

On many levels, I couldn't believe what I'd just done. Or, more so, what I was about to do.

# Chapter Fifteen

I thought about going home, taking a shower, ignoring the shambles and sliding under my sheets for a few months. It was a good plan...if the last ten hours had never happened. If I could just not hear their voices like shattered glass in my head. If I could erase Jack's face and the question his open eyes branded on my dirty soul.

Sunrise wasn't far. I should have met it victoriously. But that didn't feel right. All I could think about was how much I wanted to be clean. I smelled like shit and death. A part of me never questioned my hands on the wheel, while another part grimaced, sneaking a peek through gritty fingers.

I drove the Mustang right up the front lawn, past the various animal topiaries. Cursing wildly under my breath, the keys shook as I flipped through them, stopping at one I hadn't anticipated using ever again. Then why keep it, right? Yeah, I asked myself that every motherfucking time I looked at it.

The excessively adorned mahogany door attached to the equally glitzy white house swung open without so much as a creak. Sarcastically, I muttered, "I'm home, honey." The words fell on empty space.

When I walked past the foyer mirror, my mouth dropped open. There I stood in a soiled bowling shirt that barely covered my ass, staring at a face I didn't recognize. Not because it was covered in gore laced in a granite sheen. It was my eyes I couldn't look away from. They looked defeated. Tired.

Haunted.

I wanted to believe I was staring at someone else.

I unbuttoned the shirt carefully, never breaking eye contact with myself. The rag slid to the floor. It was left there. After showering in the guest bathroom that could have been the interior of a hotel, I searched the closet for an extra dress or robe. Blaire's mother didn't venture to this wing past midnight or before breakfast. But some nights—bad nights—required that she stay close to his father. She no longer shared a bed with him. For a number of reasons, I imagined. I wasn't judging.

Thankfully, the closet was full and I knew Amita wouldn't mind, wherever she was. I swished past the white, red, and black hues, finding my hand on a blush sari with gold threading. Pink wasn't one of my signature colors, but it would do. It was the only material that didn't remind me of a wedding, funeral, or spilled blood.

When I walked into the old man's room, the oversized windows were flooding us with a new day. Fuck that! I pulled the thick curtains to, turning my back on time.

"You don't mind, do you?" I asked. Of course, his night was continuous, no matter which way the curtains were pulled. He hadn't been conscious in weeks. Or so Darien mentioned.

There was already an empty chair sitting vigil, but it was hard and uninviting. I switched it for one of the curved armchairs by a grotesquely golden armoire. Within minutes, I was settled in, staring at Old Man Abram, Blaire's father who used to be addressed as 'Fierce Abram.'

I leaned forward, crossing my arms on the bed and resting my chin on them, glancing upward at his thin white beard and closed eyes that drooped on the outer edges.

"Well, old man, I could have gone home or called a friend, or your son. But here I am. You always have the perfect thing to say, so... I guess..." I sighed. "I guess I just need something perfect right now." He remained unmoved. "So, if I could just sit here for a while, that would be really nice.

"I brought something for you." I set the silver cat's claw pendant on the side table. It had been carried out of the quarry to safety in my shirt pocket. I gushed about the night's events like we were sitting in a bar rather than a musty bedroom under grim circumstances. A lot of cursing was involved. Abram always appreciated a good rant. But I stopped talking when my voice grew hoarse.

It was hard to believe he wouldn't wake up any minute. He looked like he'd sit up and say something inspiring in that booming voice of his. Hair combed. Salt and pepper strands lying side by side. Peachy complexion. Not waxy at all. Pillows propped behind his head. A man of leisure. The only physical indication that he wasn't merely sleeping was his dry lips. They were cracked and stuck together in one corner.

"Here." I reached for the ChapStick on the side table and applied it to his slack mouth. "Where's that bitch of a housekeeper, now? She wants to be a nurse so bad. Where is she? You can afford a gold armoire, for Christ's sake. The least you could have is an attendant to keep your lips from falling off." I was just talking under my breath to fill the space. But honestly, his home had wings and an eight-car garage. "And your bedroom is too big. Too drafty." I pulled the covers up to his shoulders and curled back into the chair, winding my legs and arms into a secure, comfy position.

I felt as safe with Old Man Abram right then as I did when he was Fierce Abram and I was a simple child staring in wonder. Locked away from the world for a short eternity, I basked in the serenity. Mostly, our lepe viewed his bedridden state as the final stop. But maybe we were seeing it all wrong. Maybe it was just a stop before a start.

Smiling, I remembered a story Mom told me after I cried every night for a month when Dad left. In the seclusion of Abram's personal infirmary, I recounted it for us.

_There was a young little cat with a cream and white coat. (I had one that color growing up.) She played all day and lounged in the sun. A day came when her mother told her she must grow up. Little Cat refused. But with each passing day, she noticed her paws getting wider, her coat thicker, and her whiskers longer. Little Cat became angry. Vowing to outsmart Father Time, she began walking backward and stopped growing older. But everywhere Little Cat treaded, she saw only where she had been rather than where she was going. All the while, the world changed around her. A day came when Little Cat told her mother she wanted to grow up. She wanted to change with the world. Her mother laughed. "Well then, Little Cat, turn around. It is as simple as walking."_

I smiled at Abram. "I guess it wouldn't be fair if we got the world _and_ our own way." My eyes were scratchy, eyelids heavy. Before leaving them shut, I said, "Thank you, Fierce Abram. Even now, you have such strength to affect me."

My breathing slowed until it almost matched his, and maybe we dreamed together.

# Chapter Sixteen

The next day was a welcomed haze. After waking with all kinds of sore muscles from being beaten to a pulp and then sleeping in a tiny chair like a housecat, I vowed to Old Man Abram that I would visit more often and then ventured home. A few hours and a few garbage bags later, my room wasn't the shit hole it was the day before. It helped that someone had boarded up the window, and the roses lining the walkway outside were furniture free. Little bits of glass still sparkled here and there, though.

Successfully avoiding Lydia's psychopathic need to console until the consolee breaks like a perp on a high-profile crime drama, and skirting Darien's need to "debrief," I actually accepted Gage's offer to lift weights in his room.

It was sort of perfect. The godsend appeal of Gage's room was that the music was so fucking loud and he was so fucking ecstatic to have company, I wasn't expected to say a word. That didn't stop his mouth from moving, of course. And his gestures were crazy overboard. At one point, he jumped off the top of his dresser swinging a boot overhead, gyrating his hips and smiling. I wasn't sure if he was asking about the fight or recalling rowdy sex he may have had with a cowgirl. I was able to see him mouth, "Thank you Mother!" before giving him a thumb's up and leaving soon after.

Later, I found myself shopping for some new clothes. I bought a bunch of crap and a new black dress. When the day came to a close, Nash found me on the doorstep of his townhouse. Darien had his address on file.

"You make house calls," he grinned, wearing a gray polo that sparked the silver hue in his eyes.

"I'm bringing your shirt back." I shoved a black plastic bag at his chest.

Nash peered inside and lifted the tag. "This isn't my shirt."

"Yeah, I spilled something on the other one."

"Thank you." He set it inside and shut the door, sitting in one of the wicker porch chairs rather than invite me inside. Not asking questions, I sat in the other one.

He lived smack in the middle of the busiest part of the city, so we people watched for a bit: people walking dogs, walking each other, arguing on their cell phones and, my favorite, texting while walking.

"Can I ask you something?" He didn't look at me when he said it, just tilted his head, watching a redhead scold her Pomeranian for sniffing another dog's ass.

"I totally hate it when someone asks me that, but go ahead." I was slouched down in the chair, hands in the pockets of my jeans, legs stretched out so the bottoms of my black flip-flops could push on the ivory banister.

"The first time I offered my shirt when we were with Tomas' people, would you have accepted if your trunk wasn't full of clothes?"

Not even pretending to think about it, I answered, "No."

His head bobbed up and down silently before rationing, "That's okay. Yesterday, you did."

"Why is that so important?"

"Exactly."

Not wanting to tread deeper into Nash's Sesame Street moment, I asked, "How's Lucy and her shaggy pet?"

"Healing nicely. I'll tell her you asked."

"No. Just thank her for her part. For watching over the children."

"You mean for not eating the tasty morsels after their harrowing ordeal."

My eyes squinted, and I could have lit him on fire with my mind.

"No, assface, I meant thank you very fucking much for helping us out after all the leopards thought you were dead and didn't give a shit except me, who didn't have enough balls to say dick to anyone about it." I stood up. "That! Is what I meant!"

With his vampire speed, Nash cut off my progress, holding his hands out. "I apologize." After shaking my head, he dropped his voice. "I apologize." There was such sincerity in those two words, it made me want to punch him in the gut... Just because.

Looking at my toes, I said, "Tomorrow's Jack's death walk."

Not so much an actual walk as it is a gathering of our beasts to run and hunt a tract of land the deceased favored. Every shifter has 'that' place where he or she feels most at home in nature's grip, even before we shift. The land becomes quilted into our hearts until we can't discern the difference between the muscle and the matter. We know it so well we can walk it with our eyes closed and still recognize every step like a freckle on our own bodies. We know it so dear it might as well have a face and a beating heart to love us back.

For those reasons, a death walk is very personal.

The inevitable "Ah!" look crossed Nash's face. "Are you walking?"

My brow crinkled. "I don't know. I'll be graveside, but I don't know if I should walk." Bouncing my back lightly off the side of the house repeatedly, I said under my breath, "I don't deserve to walk."

"Have you talked to Tomas about this?"

"Briefly, over the phone."

"And?"

I nodded, confirming the invite.

"Then walk, damn it." He dropped into the wicker seat with the weight of a feather. "You have your whole life to torture yourself, but you're being given a chance to lessen someone else's. If Tomas asked you to walk, it's for a reason. Don't let him get caught in the crossfire of your self-loathing."

"I don't even recognize my own world, Nash. So how can I just drop in on theirs?"

I was pissed at the world for changing too much, too fast. And it confused me.

"Fray, there is always a new day for you. Let tomorrow show you a different world. It might be a better one than the world you know today. And it may be more important than the ones you had for all those yesterdays."

Gripping the porch rail and leaning forward, I pushed back before quipping, "You're awfully smart for a 'dead' guy. How is that?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't a very good 'alive' guy. Guess I have to make up for that by becoming your guru."

"You wish!" I laughed.

But he was right about one thing. I couldn't refuse Tomas' request. That might not translate well, meaning tension between his pride and my lepe could escalate pretty fast from the overabundance of manic emotions.

Plus... A new world was starting to sound good to me.

So Tuesday arrived with the fire of the devil. The last time the household moved with such caution was right after I went crazy from the herbal bomb in my system. This time was very different. I knew I was tyrannical, threatening anyone I set eyes on. Even Joshua wasn't immune.

"So we're supposed to walk for any cat, now?" he spat.

I stopped searching for my heels and glared. "No, I've said this five hundred times. You don't have to walk, but I better see every face at the funeral site afterward." I pointed at Gage. "Every face."

"Hey," Gage flung his arms out to the side, "Joshua's got a point. If it had been one of our lepe, do you think we'd expect the pride to walk with us, to stand next to us at a grave?"

"I don't give a good goddamn, Gage!" I found my black pumps under the entry table and threw them in my tan woven bag with the black dress I had purchased the day before. "And wear a suit. Buy it, rent it, steal it. I don't give a shit."

Gage would have said something bad for his health if it weren't for Darien stepping out of the kitchen. Hanging a row of pressed suits in the doorway, he barked, "You're going," and pointed. "I already bought the suits so shut the fuck up."

Calmer, Gage simply asked, "Why all the trouble for a pride?"

Shutting my eyes, the barest smile touched my lips. "Because he was just a boy, Gage. And we're just animals trying to live as people, mostly. So why not do it together?"

I didn't wait for his response. Instead, I slammed the door behind me and ran right into Blaire.

"Great! Are you here to talk me out of it, too?"

Swathed in black like a dream you hate to love, he acted like I never asked the question. "You came over last night."

"To see your father."

As unwilling to move as two statuaries for a minute, Blaire finally broke our standoff when he held out an open palm. "I found this on his dresser."

The pendant.

"It gets around faster than you on a Friday night, Blaire. Take it back. I gave it to Abram."

Trying to walk around, he cut me off. "Yes, you did." His head hung low as he moved in, the tips of his black curls taunting my skin. "Why?"

I didn't want to get into family history, but I had the impression Blaire wasn't going anywhere until he had a full explanation.

"Years ago, my father left because your father thought it would defuse the damage from his infidelity. Afterward, Abram spoke to the entire lepe of loyalty and the importance of justice. I was so pissed I walked out before he finished the speech."

Blaire started to interrupt, but I waved him off. Shifting my bag to the other shoulder, I continued. "I hated both of them for a while. And it took a long time to realize Abram wasn't attacking my father. He was protecting the rest of his people, no matter how difficult the choices he had to make.

"I gave him Conrad's charm because I want him to know that, even though I walked out, I heard the message." Quieter, I requested, "So please return it." Blaire agreed, and I was thankful he saw the truth in my words...

Even though it was only a half-truth.

# Chapter Seventeen

I was the only lepe in the clearing. Actually, I was the only non-pride in a seventeen-mile radius. Toasty.

Burnt rather than warm.

There was a shit load of pride. They gathered from every region for Jack, who would have been the next pride leader for the entire state if Linay couldn't earn the honor. Even elderly folks stood naked, waiting to shift. There comes a point in each shifter's lifetime when turning is dangerous. Heart valves can burst. Aneurysms have been known to occur. Not to mention shift-locks, when someone becomes stuck in a half human, half animal form. Rare, but gruesome enough to remind even the most stubborn shifter to use caution. Yet twenty-five graying shifters, at least, stood willing to sacrifice their health to honor Tomas' fallen boy.

Feeling the prickly energy ripe in the air, I rocked from one foot to the other restlessly. Deflecting snickers and whispers with my head high, it was a surprise when a man stopped beside me and looked down.

"That's a nasty bite."

He was referring to the gnashed up meat on my thigh, the leftover outcome of my last pride visit.

"You looking to make something of it?" I asked, readying.

"Naw, just wanted to apologize." He was a solid mass of beef so thick and rich I practically blushed. And his Southern accent complimented the package.

"Drey?"

"That's me." His smile was a swirling fusion of gratification and pain. I could tell he was trying not to smile, but he needed to. He was a happy motherfucker by nature, but the turn of events challenged him to the core.

"Well, hell yeah. You nearly tore a chunk out. I wouldn't have looked right in a mini-dress ever again."

I would have said he smiled, but it was more of a 'happening.' One small pull of his lips caused his cheeks to rise and totally change the shape of his eyes and chin. Unable to stop myself, I beamed right back, listening to his roiling voice say, "That would'a been a goddamn shame."

"You don't have to tell me." We chuckled, but as I looked around, the unfriendly glares chased away the last of the moment. "So this was Jack's run?" The trees were full, bursting with green and movement; a giant umbrella to cast out God and his flying creatures. The grass was more like a type of moss. And it smelled of earthly pleasures only shifters know.

"That boy spent more time here than on his mother's teats."

"God, you have a way with words, like restroom poetry."

Drey didn't find my sarcasm offensive. "Jack never turned away from this land, 'specially if a good storm brewed overhead. We always joked he was a natural born lightning chaser. If he was ever scared, he never showed it."

"I wish I could have known that Jack."

He studied my face, mulling my words before saying, "I don't understand it, but I believe you."

Jared Tomas appeared from the shadows and leapt up onto a large boulder. His voice carried as well as a secret to an ear.

"First, thank you all who have come for my boy's death walk. I'm sure everyone's noticed our guest." He didn't physically point, but all eyes shifted to me. "And she is a guest." There was a threat in his words. "It is an honor to know that Jack, in his short years, changed a piece of the world beyond his pride... Jack never got the chance to walk his favorite piece of land in true pride form, so we'll do it for him. Run as fast as his ghost and as light as his spirit."

Jared Tomas shifted into the largest lion I'd ever laid eyes on. His mane bushed out, his coat pure gold. Still on the boulder, he was a grand sight to behold. If a human happened upon such a sight, it might look out of place to see a lion in the middle of the thick North Carolina woods. But I guess that was part of shapeshifter charm. We could seem so out of place and feel so unexpectedly right at the same time. We were beautiful oddities of nature's grace.

Taking Tomas' cue, we shifted. It was bizarre to see nothing but lions through leopard eyes. But I reminded myself, again, that we're beautiful oddities of nature's grace.

No matter our form.

What the hell. I looked into Drey's deep eyes in the middle of his gigantic fuzzy face and took off behind the rest of the pride. Drey followed my rear, closer than I was comfortable with, honestly. But I can't lie. I never experienced such an exhilarating feeling. Shifting and running with strangers in a strange place cut loose a hidden wild piece in my heart. It was irreversible. It was clearer with each panting breath and galloping paw landing beside a different type of paw.

The older shifters chose a slow gallop, remembering when Jack fell from the crooked tree branch when he was five and a half. Others—even older—sauntered slowly, tails swaying, noticing the missing bark on many trees where Jack had peeled it away during an annoying phase when he was five.

Cutting new pathways between slower pride and hard trunks, we created pox in the earth under paw faster than cheetahs. Drey and I pushed ourselves to the limit. For the thrill. For the pain. For Jack. Because he couldn't.

And when it came to an end, too fast for my taste, no one stared. No one questioned, any longer, why I was there. I had run with them, and I was grieving in my own way, too. Sometimes that's more personal than crying on a friend's shoulder.

Tomas walked up as I was leaning against my car, slipping heels on to match the funeral attire. He was dressed in the customary color, as well.

"I'm glad you came." He rested against the edge of the trunk.

"I almost didn't. Decided to take some good advice, though."

"Well thank your friend for me."

My lip pulled tight to one side. "I don't know if I'd call him a friend."

"You trust him?"

"Yeah," I shrugged, "I guess so."

"It's not holding hands or borrowing money, but trust has gotta count for something."

All I said was, "Mm-hm," and nodded. The subject of Nash proved to be a conversation killer, so I asked, "How is your wife?"

Tomas crinkled his nose for a minute, pondering a slew of emotions and possible answers. But what he said was, "I'm scared to find out." A long sigh filled the air. "She won't leave him. That's why she isn't here. She hasn't spoken since he came home. I've caught her singing to him under her breath, but that's it. I don't know what to expect tonight. Tomorrow..."

Having no words of wisdom or comfort, I hugged him. And behind the scent of shaving cream and shampoo was a deeper, ancient smell. One that naturally repulsed me. Up close and personal, it was my cat smelling his cat, recognizing we weren't a matching set. I ignored my senses and squeezed him a bit tighter before letting go.

When we parted, I said, "I'm sure she's stronger than either of you know."

"I'm counting on it." He turned, speaking too low for the others to hear. "You're in uncharted territory and I'm worried someone might try to bite your ass for it."

"Other than Drey?" I was trying to make light of his point, but he was too serious to let it go.

"Shifters don't help each other. Keep to your own. It's how we're raised. You blew that shit out of the water, and people are talking. Not just pride. I shouldn't have invited you today for your own good, but a change needs to be made. If our communities had been aware of the missing kids sooner...we might not be going where we're going."

"I don't understand."

"I'm saying," he closed the gap between us, "You're the person to make those changes. My pride will back you."

"Do they know that?"

"They do what I say." Jared Tomas was completely earnest.

Comprehending his suggestion, I tried to let him down gently.

"Tomas, I'm not that woman. I'm just a fighter who got wrapped up in a nightmare." He stared into my eyes. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I belong in the ring."

"If you believe that, you really don't see it."

"See what?"

"People are genuinely enraged by what you did, but some are starting to talk like you're a hero. A legend."

"Well, that's bullshit!" I caught the attention of some pride close by, so I dropped my tone. They resumed their conversations before I said, "Look," between gritted teeth. I held out my hands. "Look, Tomas. That's your son's blood stuck under my fingernails. Are these the hands of a hero? Not in the fucking least, so drop it."

He flinched at the sight of the blood and I felt bad, but not bad enough to become some marauding savior for his pride and the future of shapeshifters everywhere.

Under a few layers of depression, Tomas found the energy to say, "Think about it."

Shaking my head like a robot, I said, "No, I'm going to pretend we didn't have this conversation," and turned my back to him.

Walking away, he repeated, "Just think about it." Then he disappeared into a group of naked shifters.

The pride did stare when I hiked up my dress and hopped through the broken window of the Mustang. At least the engine started. I picked Marisa up at her home and headed to the funeral, all the while trying to forget my conversation with Tomas like I swore I would.

Marisa wore a black button-up blouse, black shorts, and a pair of black and white sneakers. There was a small bundle resting on her lap. She didn't say a word.

It was my turn to stare when we pulled into East Memorial Park and saw Darien, the house crew, and—Christ almighty!—Blaire. It wasn't a cozy reunion. The men, adorned in the dress suits from the house, stood like the hangers had been inserted up their asses. Gage appeared as natural as a bulldog in a sweater vest. Warren and Joshua looked like they expected someone to beat the shit out of them at any moment. And Lydia twitched with the need to counsel the grief-stricken. No matter their shifter backgrounds, she had a sick need to comfort. We adopted a stray cat a year ago. She decided to care for it. When it died for reasons unknown, the joke in the house became that she had enough love to kill anything.

Blaire stood on the other side of Darien, not sparing a glance. What an ass. Maybe he hadn't bought the explanation I spooned him earlier. Choosing to ignore him, I turned as Tomas, his wife, and a handful of others approached, sitting in the only chairs. The chairs reserved for family. I noticed there were no other children present.

There was even more pride at the funeral than the walk. The gravesite was in a massively open area of the cemetery, though, so everyone had room. The sun fell behind the trees, giving us a minor break from the heat of the day. Truthfully, though, no one gave a shit. The pride probably would have boiled alive before leaving Tomas and his family to close their affairs alone.

A balding man in glasses rambled for some time, shuffling through a novel of notes in hand. It was the usual "too young," "too soon," "what a shame" speech that ended with the clichéd "But his spirit lives on" shpeal. Then the oak coffin was lowered into the ground.

When Tomas stood, I straightened, ready to listen. But he didn't address the crowd this time. Uninterrupted, the birds chirped and the wind blew as he grabbed his wife's hand and led her to the hole where she dropped two roses from the tips of her willowy fingers. They stood there, heads down, drawn into silence. It was their chance to convey what they felt in their hearts. Maybe they were silent because their hearts were being buried in that casket. Words wouldn't save them from the long darkness ahead.

After returning to the white folding chairs, a few pride members stood to share memories and teary goodbyes. As they came to a close, Marisa anxiously approached the pit. A buzz fired through the crowd before Tomas lifted a hand. Silence.

Marisa's auburn highlights outlined her round face, ending right above her shoulders. Her eyes were impossibly round as they peered at each person standing on the lawn.

Swallowing, she released a breath and stared down at the coffin until the action was borderline awkward before looking up again. Her voice was meek. Her words, anything but.

"Jack was my friend. A lot of you probably don't like that, but I don't really care." Tomas had to flag a few outraged gasps before Marisa continued. "He died trying to help me because we were friends." More voices rose from outrage. Tomas stood to find the culprits. "That's why I wanted to bury this with him. With Jack." She held out the bundle, but Linay sprung from the crowd and knocked it from her hands.

"You're not burying any piece of lepe trash with my nephew!" Linay wasn't even dressed for the funeral. She wore a pair of ratty cut-offs and a baggy poppy seed shirt. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail.

Marisa withdrew, visibly shaking. That's all it took. I jumped in front to block her from Linay's rage.

"So you think it's right, now, to pick on a traumatized teenager? Are you that fucked in the head, Linay? This is a funeral."

"Yeah, a pride funeral. You got no place here, leopard."

Tomas stalked toward his sister, struggling with the urge to choke her. "You have no place to question my decisions. You didn't run with us, and now you think you're dominant enough to make demands at my son's funeral? This has already been decided, and it will happen."

She scoffed, "I didn't run because of her!" and pointed at me.

"No!" He was becoming unhinged. "You didn't fucking run because it was your decision not to fucking run! Lepe or not, you should have been there. You're my sister. You're his blood! What kind of person are you?" Veins were popping from his forehead and neck. This was the first time I ever thought it wise to consider Tomas a dangerous man.

His wife never left her seat, never looked up, never bothered with any of us. She was in a different version of this world. One where butterflies and tears cohabitated.

When Linay refused to stand down, and others were beginning to protest our presence and close in, Blaire and our lepe began physically backing them off. Things were getting out of control very fast. Voices got louder. Bodies threatened to shift. And in the midst, Marisa began rambling, unsure of what else to do.

"I was really, really scared when I was with them." Tears threatened to overwhelm her, but she carried on, eyes shut. "Jack let me talk about stupid things, like how much my sister gets on my nerves and the time I cheated in History and almost got caught. It was only that one time. It's not a habit or anything. I'm not a cheater..."

People were starting to take notice as she talked, but they weren't listening. Not at first.

Staring at nothing particular, she continued, "We figured out we both liked math, so we made a game out of who could recite the times tables from one to twenty the fastest. I won a lot. When it got too easy we started doing fifty to ninety-nine. And after we were there long enough, we did it to keep our minds off the pain. When they were there with us, we tried to see how far we could get before we screamed. Sometimes I only made it to fifty-four." Smiling, she bragged, "But Jack made it to seventy-seven once." Suddenly, she looked startled as if just realizing she had been talking out loud.

Now people were shushing others so they could hear her better. Tomas nodded his head, signaling her to continue.

"Jack held my hand at night so I could sleep because it was dark and we never knew when they would come back for us, to do these horrible things to us." Her voice cracked, but still, she kept talking. "And I would get so, so scared that I couldn't sleep, so he would hold my hand and stay awake so I could sleep. He did that for me.

"I had never met a lion face to face before Jack so I was even scared of him at first. He thought that was funny." There was a new glow to Marisa's face as she reminisced. "But after he changed, he let me pet his mane. It felt kind of course like the long grass that grows on the dunes at the beach. When I rubbed it against my nose it smelled like pressed daisies. I was surprised by how tall he was, too. But I wasn't scared of him anymore."

No one breathed. Marisa, unaware of the impact she was having, was giving Jack's pride the only description of his lion self they would ever know. They were memorizing every word, visualizing every detail, thankful that someone had paid enough attention to share such a treasure. Linay just looked pissed, realizing she had lost another battle.

Jared Tomas retrieved the small parcel Linay had knocked to the ground and handed it back to Marisa. Standing in the middle of such sorrow, this little girl flattened all of our egos.

Hugging her carefully wrapped severed tail, Marisa, channeling a much older version of herself, said, "Conrad didn't hate anybody. He just didn't like what he was, and they promised him a cure they didn't have. I like being lepe. Jack liked being pride. But that didn't make us hate each other. So why is it so hard for everybody else?" She turned, opening her hand. Her tail landed on top of Jack's coffin, next to the roses. Turning back, she confessed with tears streaming down her face, "I was the last person he ever kissed."

# Chapter Eighteen

For the next few weeks, everyone tried to return to their regularly scheduled lives. I went back to training again. Fighting again. Screwing again. Laughing again. I was closer than ever to Darien and my roommates. My thigh healed from Drey's bites so I looked good in mini's once more. We were eating Sunday dinners at Mom's again. Everything was back to normal. It should have felt right.

It didn't.

I ate, even though I was never hungry. It had no taste. I fought, but the sport was gone. It wasn't fun anymore. I laughed out loud with everyone else. Inside, I was just numb. I shifted, but my leopard refused to do little more than lean from left to right. And Brice didn't know how to please me anymore.

It wasn't until the fifth Sunday dinner after that I realized all involved were struggling silently. We were like soldiers home from war. Everyone expected us to revert to our pre-war selves. They didn't understand that certain transgressions make that impossible. Nightmares and physical reminders make it unfeasible to live like we hadn't danced with evil.

Sitting at my mother's table, I looked around, watching her playfully threaten my sister, Tawny, with a baked potato. Tawny's black hair was straightened in a soft ponytail, and beside our mother, she was considerably darker. But they talked, picked up their cups, and made jokes the exact same way. And Frank always laughed at the table like he'd never seen them act up together. His laugh was a boom, thunder before a much-anticipated rain. Darien usually took part in the show, too, elbowing Frank and rolling his eyes at the crazy women in our family. These things reminded my heart of home, though I lived elsewhere. Even the roomies had a place at the large table. Gage always ate an extra ear of corn because it used to be his mother's favorite, and Mom gave Lydia an extra hug every Sunday. She said it quelled Lydia's anxiety. I didn't know what she was talking about, but who was I to second-guess?

On this particular Sunday, I noticed Darien giving Frank half-hearted nods rather than elbow nudges. A mound of food lay on my plate, untouched. Marisa and her mother were there, too. Marisa maintained a gracious smile the entire time, never wavering. She also never spoke more than to say "thank you" or "please." The smile was a total facade.

After dinner, I found her sitting alone on the back porch, so I sat down, too. I leaned over my knees, not sure what to say. The wind blew our hair. A cardinal landed on the step railing and I imagined catching and eating it. It flew away. Then a bunny hopped into the edge of the yard.

"I want to be like that bunny," Marisa whispered.

I watched the little gray ball of fluff sniff the grass. "No, you don't."

"Why not?"

"You're something better. You can eat that bunny."

"I don't think so, Fray. I'm not like you."

I sat up. "I'll teach you."

"To fight?" She sounded scared but excited.

I nodded.

Marisa smiled. It was a real smile. "Okay."

Before I left to go home, Mom and Frank each gave me an extra hug. And I took them because I was overdue for a real smile, as well. I also promised Tawny a shopping trip with the non-zombie versioned me. Then I gave her an extra hug, pretty fucking thankful she hadn't been one of the unlucky to fall prey to the Dissenters.

Later, at the house, I was searching for my gym bag so I could fit in a few training hours before bed. Finally, Warren told me someone had moved it upstairs, out of the way.

"When is under the table in the way?"

"I don't know, but it wasn't me."

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled, ascending the staircase.

On my bed was the duffle bag with a small black box lying on top of it. Staring for a long moment, I yelled to no one particular, "This better not be another fucking body part!" To myself, I reiterated, "Please don't be anything bad," as I opened the lid.

It was the heirloom pearl necklace I had ruined in the rampaging of my room. Yet, I was holding the intact version in a satin lined box. It only took a second to flip it over and discover a card.

_You'll need this one day._

"Damn it, Blaire! That's such a Cale thing to do. Why can't you just be a bastard and let me get over you?" Though, as I said the words, I slipped the card in the box and shut the lid, already eager to take it out later and read it again.

In the week to follow, I found myself frequently in the gym, but not for training. I was teaching Marisa, Genevieve, and Mira the Werewolf self-defense moves. They had more fun than initially expected. Turned out to be pretty cathartic for me, too.

It wasn't until the following Friday that I did something I swore I'd never do.

# Chapter Nineteen

Savage and I were scheduled for an early fight. Some bullshit about a baseball game later. Fine with me. I preferred to get it out of the way and eat an early dinner at the house. My appetite had returned until it turned right back into the beast it always had been. Yeah, that didn't take long.

While she was busy warming up in one of the empty rooms, I leaned against my locker, flipping through texts under the dim light, reading most recent to last.

Darien: Ribs for dinner.

Mom: Your last text made me laugh.

Brice: Tequila and salt on me. Need a warm tongue. Mirth. 9.

Lucy: Rush is ready any time you are.

Rush Stevens had agreed to sit down and tell me his story, front to back, upside down and back-asswards because I'm not a moron. We didn't extinguish every Dissenter. I'd bet a damn storm of the century on it. One body, in particular, had been missing from the upturned quarry: The one that delivered personal threats and very clearly despises loose ends. The pandemonium of my nightmares.

Lucy sent the text right before dawn. My phone displayed '5:18' in the upper right-hand corner. The main event started in less than half an hour. It was too late to ask someone else to fight Savage.

Staring at ugly paint and smelling old sweat for the five millionth time, I realized in my very core that I didn't give a shit. This place, these fights were no longer a priority. For as much as I had tried, Jared Tomas' words never left my mind. I didn't want to be their hero. I refused. I would always see blood on my hands.

Shifters didn't need a hero. They needed someone to watch over them. A guardian. A bunch of guardians.

Grabbing a pen and paper, I scribbled a short note to Savage—no—to Danica, and returned a few texts. I knew Rush would check Lucy's phone while she slept.

To Darien: Keep it warm.

To Mom: I love u.

To Brice: Sorry babe.

To Rush: On my way.

The Mustang had to be picked up at the shop down the street first. It wasn't completely fixed, but the essentials would be taken care of by six. Blaire, who I refused to speak directly to, had set up an appointment at a very exclusive body shop with a reputation as pristine as God's kiss to correct the rest.

I wasn't ignoring my ex, just avoiding him like a fucking ninja, going so far as barrel-rolling out of the second story bathroom window when he stopped by unexpectedly two days ago. The pearls had thrown me for a loop. It was too kind. I was too suspicious. It wouldn't work. Whatever he was vying for would. Never. Work.

Throwing on a crimson T-shirt with a plunging V-neck that stopped between bare breasts and black jeans tighter than sin's grip, I emptied my locker. Smiling all the while.

With the tan duffle over my shoulder, I slunk past waves of fans in the halls waiting for the show. Little did they know there wouldn't be one. Their amusement was slipping out the door in a pair of sunglasses and fuck-you heels.

As I walked away for the last time, the wind ravaged the crepe myrtle's lining the sides of the street, sucking and blowing fuchsia petals underfoot. I walked into the magnificent torrent and threw my head back, feeling it consume my body.

Nothing had ever felt so right.

# Epilogue

_Danica,_

_Clear out your locker. I found that "something that matters."_

# Read an excerpt from  
A Madison Lark Adventure Two: _Skinned_

##  Chapter One

I had always relished that sacred time alone, when everyone was so busy I could slink about in my own world while the house was empty. But now that empty space was nothing but a spiteful bitch making me look over my shoulder and check the locks on the doors twice as often.

That pissed me off.

Lobbing the keys at the bowl on the side table in the foyer and narrowly missing, I nervously kicked off my sneakers, leaving them in the middle of the rug, and headed upstairs for a shower. A quick one. The way the water drowned everything out was more like a straightjacket than a seductive embrace these days.

I passed my suitcase on the bed, right where I had left it earlier. Everything that I'd need was packed, except for my toothbrush. A sense of exhilaration tingled through me, though it was chased soon after by a weight I understood all too well.

Shifters had always abided by strict rules. While men were free to travel between lepes—the multiple leopard clans that formed our society—women were forbidden to cross boundaries without express approval by their leaders. Which usually meant never. However, since forming whatever the fuck you wanted to call it, our little "good neighbor" group, compiled of every type of shapeshifter in the area, could travel across any boundary unharmed. It was the only reason I agreed to join the Collective. Because I needed freedom. Absolute, borderless freedom for my revenge on the sick group that had ruined so many lives, ending one. And if that revenge came in the guise of goodwill, well then, love and blood never sounded so virtuous.

"Damn," I muttered under my breath. "When did everything become so fucking complicated?"

After a hot shower, I threw on a pair of loose black sweats and crept downstairs to check the empty house for signs of life. A chill foraged my soul when I noticed the empty spot on the rug where my sneakers should have been. Where I damn well knew I left them.

Coercing my feet into movement with silent threats, I immediately regretted telling my roommates so many times that it didn't bother me to be home alone. It didn't bother me that a bitter madman was still out there, waiting for my inevitable downfall, probably stalking my mental degeneration with popcorn and a creepy fucking smile.

Standing in the doorway to the foyer, I eyed my keys, now sitting patiently in the bowl on the table.

What the hell?

Feeling my body tense in anticipation of my fight or flight response, I knew I was about to run. And something about that made my heart sick. There was a time when I never would have considered running. It wasn't even an option. Fight. It had always been fight.

So where was my fight?

Taking an incredibly deep breath, I heard a sudden lurching noise and spun to find my brother standing in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, propping the door open with his palm. His tidy white shirt and wrinkle-free slacks were a welcome sight.

Darien's facial expressions always mirrored that of our father. Of course, I hadn't seen Dad in so long I was amazed I could remember shit all about him to even compare. It had come as a blow to discover that he had deserted his lepe long ago in favor of a nest. A repugnant, cold snake pit. They had been hiding it from me for years, all of them. Cowards. Not knowing how to handle the lies and deceit, I simply ignored the whole damn mess. Including Dad's calls.

My big brother's expression conjured that of trepidation as I eyed him.

"What are you doing?" Darien asked, especially concerned once he realized my heart was ready to burst from my chest like an elephant running from a mouse. A juiced up, rabies-infested, 'I eat killer clowns for breakfast' bastard of a mouse.

"I..." I shook my head, willing my eyes to blink. "I thought I lost my keys." I pointed to the glass dish. "But they're right there."

Inspecting everything about my performance, he wasn't yet convinced.

"I set them where they should be." Carefully, he asked, "Is there something you want to talk about?"

"Yeah," I said, "I'd like to know when you turned into Lydia." Our roommate, Lydia, had no concept of boundaries and lived for sharing feelings. Faking a laugh, I crossed the living room, stopping at the bottom of the stairs, and grabbed the rail. Pausing, I forced the right side of my mouth to curve into a smirk. "I'm fine, Darien. I'm always fine. You should know that by now."

"Well, I'm just grabbing a late dinner before I head out again. Are you sure-"

"I'm fine," I lied a second time, voice flat.

"Okay. I'm sure it won't be long before the real Lydia gets home."

Lydia was studying for her third degree in God only knew, writing research paper after research paper, and never came home without a stack of books tucked under her dainty chin.

"Whatever. I'm going to bed."

Softly, Darien said, "The nightmares won't last forever."

"I'm not worr-"

"They won't."

Ignoring his tender expression, I barked, "Use the fucking lock when you leave."

"I'll lock up." It was a solid promise. My heightened paranoia hadn't gone unnoticed. Hell, it sunbathed like a cat in a picture window.

Trying to sound upbeat rather than desperate, as if I were watching the last raft float away into the darkness of an alien sea, I blurted, "I love you."

"Don't be nervous, little sister. The trip will go well. I'll meet you there in two days."

His assumption was misplaced, but I let him believe he was right, that he had discovered the root of my angst, because he wasn't all wrong. Although I was elated at the prospect of traveling, I had yet to be convinced that our purpose was necessary. The serpentes—snake shifters—required an impartial eye to oversee an ancient ritual to crown their next king. Were we supposed to polish his crown or signal for the audience to clap? It sounded like a bullshit attempt to waste our time.

Nodding to my brother, I managed a smile and headed to bed. After all, Darien had straightened up behind me: the keys, the shoes. There was no one else in the house. No lurking psychopath, other than myself. And my brother was right, the trip would go as planned no matter how I felt about it. I only wished he had been right about the nightmares disappearing.

They cracked my head open like a tossed salad and paralyzed my memories in a fossilized state of hyperawareness. The damned things also sent me running straight into the solid arms I had fought so hard against.

## Chapter Two

Knocking on my ex's door at two in the morning to cuddle when I couldn't sleep wasn't a copout, it was a goddamn necessity. And not for the typical horny reasons. My massive case of bed-head was a testament to the urgency.

Ever since the Dissenters had kidnapped and mutilated shifter children— _our_ children—the memories were reluctant to fade, and the dreams trailed closer than the children who stacked reality too high and heavy on my heart that horrendous night. But I only drove across town when the nightmares made night terrors look like kittens in drag.

The mammoth mahogany door opened briskly. I hugged my black leather jacket close and hopped from foot to foot in the early morning chill. Until I looked up. Blaire was barefoot, wearing nothing but boxers. _Holy shit!_ His bronzed chest begged to be teased by my fingertips and his powerful shoulders could outperform anyone I knew. Forcing my gaze upward, past the sensual lines of his neck, I stared into perfect ocean eyes that haunted my very best memories.

Us. Hawaii.

_Our leopards frolicked by a lagoon, catching fish and sunbathing from the time the sun rose until it set behind a panoramic view inspiring countless postcards. Blaire's fur receded, his golden flesh compelled by heat and nefarious instincts as he drew closer. Shifting as well, I matched his advances, meeting flesh with flesh. We never spoke, never argued, as my legs hugged his hips._

There was a perfection in that love yet to be matched by any other moment or person. And I was never without it, especially in my darkest hour, which is what gave me the strength to come here, even as I fought to remember one reigning fact: The blue flame is the hottest part of the fire. I was well aware this arrangement, accompanied by the eagerness in those blue lagoon eyes, would char every last part of me if we broke our abstinence policy.

"Aren't we past calling first?" Blaire's voice washed over my spine, tickling all the way down. "I sent the orgy home hours ago," he mused, swiftly ruining the effect.

I shrugged. "You know me, Blaire. I hate to bust up a party."

Inhaling a deep breath, he shook his head. "Still Blaire, I see."

He wanted me to call him Cale. Only, that was impossible due to our non-exclusive, anti-relationship, relationship agreement. Blaire was an oversexed body pillow. That's all. Calling him Cale implied so much more, and that was very specifically off limits.

Trying to ignore the solemn undertone, I teased, "What should I call you, Pussycat?"

"If that's my only choice."

"I can be more inventive, but past experience reminds me that people don't care much for my creativity."

Blaire was a little too sober when he accused, "You've turned my name into a stain."

"No," I protested, "You did. I'm just a reminder. A very tired reminder." Looking at my watch, I shook my head. "Maybe you'd prefer I left? This was a mistake."

His dark curls swooshed as his unbelievably toned body sighed into mine. "You know what I prefer." The heat of his breath graced a delicate region of my neck.

"But dreams only come true for good little cats," I tisked.

After swatting temptation in the ass, I tossed my keys next to his on the delicate armchair, which cradled far too much crap. It wasn't as easy to ignore Blaire's advances as I made it seem, but it was enough to make him keep trying. I hated that part of me that liked the effort and attention. Although, the thought of him never trying again would shut down something inside me.

A yellow halo pierced through the crack of Old Abram's bedroom door off to the right of the entry.

"How's your father?"

He helped me out of my coat and hung it on the rack next to his.

"Dedicated to consistency."

Whether out of frustration or rebellion, Blaire rarely entertained conversations concerning his father. It had been months since the leader of our lepe, Abram Blaire, sat up, let alone spoke. He was comatose. The Western Lepe—the group of leopards I grew up with and considered family—was baffled. Other than a pre-existing heart murmur, there was no medically validated reason for his current state.

I peeked inside the quiet room. Old Man Abram's hair looked grayer, but he hadn't moved. My nostrils flared at the light presence of incense. Amita had prayed with her husband recently. The old man wasn't a practicing Hindu but she was.

"Come." Blaire wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Squeezing me close, we retired to his bedroom.

Sleeping used to be so instinctual. I trained and fought all day, so it was easy to fall asleep before the sheet ever had time to cascade around me. But now sleep was a dragon-tailed whip with enough bite to split fear from common sense and enough power to make me not see the difference.

"Do you want me to rub your back?" Blaire's voice was heavy as we slid between the sheets. So the Sandman _was_ listening to my pleas. Only, he doused the wrong shifter.

I let out a long-held breath. "No."

He rolled over, his head on the satin pillow. In my ear, he whispered, "There are so many things to fight. Why fight sleep?"

"I don't know," I whispered back. "Because I can, I suppose. Maybe because I don't know how else to be right now. I'm sorry it involves you."

"Don't apologize." Blaire rose onto his elbow, casting his drowsy eyes down upon me. "Don't ever be sorry for coming here."

He laid back down. Creeping under the leg of my ratty sweats, Blaire leisurely ran the bottom of his foot up and down my skin. It was a relaxing sensation. So much that I didn't even remember falling asleep.

The wave of nightmares, however, didn't stop just because I was in a different bed. Equally so, the monsters would never stop because they were real and had found their target. Blaire's comfort was simple. My leopard knew his. After a startlingly realistic dream, I could allow my kitty senses to bathe in Blaire's dominance with the satisfaction that together we would rip the glorious fuck out of anything coming for me, imagined or otherwise.

So we slept, we dreamed, and the night almost drew to a close before I woke Blaire with the shrill pleas of, "Help me! Help me!"

He undoubtedly presumed I was screaming for someone to actually help me. Help _me_ from being caught. Help _me_ from being tortured. It couldn't have been further from the truth, though I never made an effort to correct him. I knew who I screamed for.

Jack. Always for Jack. For the boy whose name I no longer spoke out loud. For the pride boy who died for Marisa, one of our own. For the mangled corpse I would never free from the web in my head. The weight of him in my arms was always there. My mind refused to process the sudden loss of someone I had never cared to know before that cruel day.

Barely awake, I rose on all fours. A metallic hint saturated the air. Malevolence abounded, sucking away any shred of comfort. And the screams, they filled the night with such devastation. I had never heard children scream like that, as if every god in every heart had been murdered. Snarling, I prepared to shift and fight for Jack, the pride boy. Feeling my fingernails thicken to points, I sliced through flesh until the assaulting figures blurred together. My ferocious leopard half was angling for the kill, fur roiling under my skin, but a force knocked me off balance. Once it turned into a persistent, familiar voice, I settled long enough for my eyelids to flutter open.

Blaire's weight pinned me to the bed.

"My hands," I mumbled.

"What's wrong with them?"

"The blood won't come off."

"Let me see."

I held them up between us, my eyelids heavy. Blaire's warm fingers traced my palms from wrists to fingertips and washed over my knuckles. When I didn't respond, he insisted I sit up and open my eyes. "There is no blood. See? None."

Working to break the bond between dream and consciousness, I finally shook my head like a goddamn animal. Voice lazy from sleep, I smiled, but it was twisted and out of sorts. "The blood's never gone, Blaire. That's what no one understands. Half the shifters want me to be some type of Messiah. The other half demand more blood, but they ignore the blood that's already been spilled."

"They can't turn you into someone you don't want to be. You're too strong for that." His hand hovered close, like he wanted to touch me but couldn't afford my wrath if I lashed out.

I stared at him. "Who am I now? I'm not a fighter. I quit. If something attacked me, I used to eat it alive. Now I hide, because I remember what it's like to escape death. I used to be strong."

"You _are_ strong."

"Look at me. I run here in the middle of the night and cower in your bed how many nights a week? And I keep trying to make it, to make what happened to all of us, make sense in my head, but my heart"—I beat against my chest—"cannot rationalize it."

"No!" Blaire raised his voice as he sat up, shifting his weight to sit on his shins. "I should have known earlier of the Dissenters and their plans. I should have been leading rather than embracing prejudices passed down from outdated moralities. _You_ fought that. _You_ brought them back."

I sat up. "To what?"

We were essentially screaming in each other's faces.

"To a new way of thinking."

"Well, it's not enough to erase what happened to them. I let them get broken. I watched one break." Tears rimmed my bloodshot eyes.

A piece of me never left the shed with Jack. Something important was permanently missing. It was claimed by the freak trolling my nightmares and savoring the moment we met again. I vowed to myself, Jack, and the other kids to gut the bastard. He was the very devil.

Blaire interrupted my devious thoughts.

"Do not reject the one way I can help." His voice dropped off, exhausted from more than Dissenters and a father with a mystery illness. "Don't invent a new way to reject me."

At that moment, I realized that our arrangement hadn't been a Dutch meal. Blaire needed some cuddles of his own, a respite from the unknowns in our lepe's near future.

"I'm not. I'm just not me anymore."

"Really? Because hiding behind your anger is nothing new."

"That's bullshit." I leapt from the bed, slipping my sneakers on.

"What are you doing?"

I pointed to the alarm on his side of the bed. "It's almost six."

"Come back to bed."

"I've got to finish packing, jog, and leave, so what's the point?"

"Yeah," he collapsed onto the bed, muttering, "What's the point?" before rolling over.

Left staring at his back, I was speechless. And royally fuming.

Of course, it didn't take long to find my voice.

"I leave town in less than three hours, Blaire. So you're just going to roll over?"

"No." He flung the sheets back and crossed the room, closing the distance between us. "I want to give you something to think about while you're away."

Swooping me into his arms, Blaire didn't just kiss me, he ransacked my flesh with his lips and threatened to boil my blood with his aura. Burning inside out would have been a perfect demise if I hadn't already planned out my day. Also, excavating our lust was dangerous. Reckless.

Cruel.

When my lips were mine again, I mumbled, "I'll take that into consideration," and practically ran home. Had I known the rest of my day would turn into a shit fest, I would have stayed in bed with Blaire.

# About the Author

Blakely Chorpenning lives and loves in the American South with the best family a woman could ask for. When she is not writing genre and literary fiction, Blakely enjoys anything shiny, soft, or fuzzy, and has a knack for breaking electronics...with her mind.

For more, please visit her Facebook page

<http://www.facebook.com/blakelychorpenning>

or her official hub/blog

http://indiscriminatewrites.blogspot.com

Please take a moment to leave a review of FRAYED online. Your voice matters.
