

Shifters

The Jade Forest Chronicles

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Vivienne

Neas

Blue Shelf Bookstore

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The Jade Forest Chonicles

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  1. ## Chapter 1 – Amber

The cemetery was gloomy, even when the sun was bright overhead. We'd been warned to stay away as children – the ghosts could drag you under and you'd never see the light of day again. With what we knew of magic, we believed them. Now the stories seemed ridiculous.

Gray tombstones sprouted from the ground like weeds, mossy and overgrown, most of them so old the wording was indecipherable. A few scraping indentations suggested someone wanted to remember the life of someone else.

I picked my way along the narrow footpath that was now only a trail, so overgrown with grass that I lost it now and then.

A thin man with graying hair and round glasses waved at me with a hand over his head when I reached the top. He was standing under a lone tree that had grown on the top of the hill, the only tree left in the whole cemetery. The rest had been removed to make space for the dead.

I lifted my hand in a wave, and then touched it to my hair. I'd pulled it back to look professional. I made sure my glamour was still in place and smiled. Fae take on different forms. Some of them look very human, with just a few differences. My eyes are naturally purple. My hair is white like snow. My skin is the color of caramel. If I use my glamour, I become a brown-eyed blonde.

"Miss Vale," Mr. Williams said, staying where he was until I reached him. "Good of you to meet me here."

He looked around himself as if he was unsure where to stand. He was only human. He couldn't feel what I could feel now that I was on higher ground. A ripple traveled through the ground and shivered over my skin. Maybe this was what they were talking about.

"Please, call me Amber, Mr. Williams."

He nodded and held out papers to me. They were some kind of will stating that the cemetery was part of the land that was now mostly occupied by the fae reserve where I lived. The cemetery was on the edge of the reserve, but it still fell in our land. And there was power here. The power that I expected others were trying to get their hands on, now that it didn't belong to anyone.

"And you say the last descendant has passed away?"

Mr. Williams nodded. "I've searched the archives everywhere."

I nodded and read the papers again. This piece of land, this age-old cemetery, had belonged to a human. He'd been about ninety when he died, and the land had been transferred from one generation to the next.

"Has Mrs. Bluegrain contacted you?" I asked.

Mr. Williams nodded. "Yes."

I saw him roll the word around in his mouth, tasting it before saying it out loud. Fae had strange names, and sometimes humans sat up and took notice.

"Mrs. Bluegrain mentioned that she doesn't want the land to stay in the public domain."

I could understand why. The wind had picked up, and it carried a scent. I breathed in. It was the scent of a living being, but I couldn't place it.

Mr. Williams looked at his wristwatch. "If you will excuse me, Miss Vale, my next client is on his way up here."

He turned his head and looked down the hill on the other side. Someone was walking up toward us. He didn't pick his way among the tombstones the way I had. He walked past everything, cutting the straightest line, making his own path.

Mr. Williams glanced at me. I had the feeling he wanted me to leave. The wind shifted, and that scent drifted toward me again. This man's scent. It was stronger now, and decisively inhuman.

He had dark hair and a tan that would look to the human eye like he spent a lot of time in the sun, or that he was a specimen with great genetics. I knew that wasn't what it was. His presence reached us first. Heat rushed over me, and then his eyes fell on me. Cerulean, like a pair of sapphires. He was a werewolf.

Fae and werewolves don't mix. Werewolves lust after power. They're all about aggression and loyalty, and they fight to maintain their pecking order. Fae believe in peace and the good order of nature. We don't fight unless we need to defend ourselves, and even then we don't counterattack. We do what we need to do to survive.

The hair on my skin stood on end when the werewolf stepped into our discussion circle.

"Not the only buyer, I see," he said.

"This land isn't for sale."

He looked at me. His eyes flashed, and I knew that he knew I was fae. He couldn't see through my glamour, but he would be able to feel me. Fae had natural talents that showed up on the magic radar. Mr. Williams seemed to be oblivious to the species clash, though. There were only a few humans who knew about preternatural creatures. The rest of them lived in ignorance, and it was an unspoken rule among us to keep it that way.

"What she means to say, Mr. Kerr, is that the negotiations are still underway." Mr. Williams looked nervous, like he'd been caught cheating.

I glared at him. "This land is not available until Mrs. Bluegrain has taken a look at the paperwork," I said.

Mr. Kerr chipped in, "By law, Miss Vale, anyone can show an interest."

I bristled. He was right, by human law. But Kerr wasn't a human, and I wasn't either. And the cemetery wasn't on human land – although Williams wouldn't know that. This land was not available. There were preternatural laws that overrode the human ones.

When I looked at Mr. Kerr, his eyes were on me. I had the feeling he could see right through me, through the glamour. I didn't like it. I glared at him, too.

His face was square and well-defined, with a nose as straight as an arrow and lips that looked like they were on the verge of a smile all the time. An arrogant smile.

He was good-looking, and he knew it. Muscles bulged under his shirt, but his power wasn't just natural strength. A lot of preternatural power oozed out of him, spreading across the hilltop, making my breath catch in my throat. He was the opposite of everything I'd grown up with – wild, reckless, raw.

"Mr. Williams, I believe Mrs. Bluegrain will be in touch," I said. "Just let me get this paperwork to her."

"Very well, Miss Vale."

"Amber."

"Right. There's no reason not to show this gentleman the property, though. Speed up the process once it's on the market, eh?"

He winked at me as if we were sharing a personal joke. I glanced at Kerr. Could he feel the magic here, too? He should have. If he knew what I was, he was strong enough to know what was in the earth.

"If you'll excuse us?" Mr. Williams looked at me with a polite smile.

Kerr grinned. That same heat I'd felt when he'd arrived washed over me again. Power and... something else.

I walked away. I had no business staying behind, minding business that wasn't my own. I had to get to Muriel and tell her what was happening. The werewolf was a strong one – the alpha's second or third, if I'd read his magic right. That meant that Raphael knew about the land. And if the alpha of the wolf pack knew about the power that was available, there had to be other creatures that knew.

We couldn't afford any of the preternatural creatures getting their hands on whatever was in that ground. It was a cemetery, and I was starting to think that whatever was buried there hadn't been human. It was the only way power could have flowed into the ground that way.

I got in my car and drove on the narrow road that led around the fae reserve. The road had been built ages ago as a route between cities that were far from here in both directions, and it had never been meant for this much traffic. Prumm Brook was on my left, wide and powerful after the summer storms. The water chattered as it flowed downstream. The water users understood what it said.

The sky was a bright blue, with not a cloud to be seen. I breathed in deep, smelling and feeling nature all around me. Fae were nature people. We believed that nature took its own course, and we were only travelers on a journey that would end up where we belonged.

I thought back to the werewolf – Mr. Kerr – and his defiant nature. Oh, how glorious would it be to be so rebellious by nature and be rewarded for it? The wolves were allowed to be difficult. As long as they were loyal, that was all that mattered. My stomach turned and I gripped the steering wheel, trying to push away the envy that pushed up into my throat. Usually, I believed in the concept of fate and the path that nature carved out for us. There were a few times, though, when I felt like I was stuck in a gilded cage, forced to be someone and unable to figure out who I really was.

I turned into the driveway that led to the reserve's gate and swallowed my stupidity. I couldn't think like that if I was going to see Muriel Bluegrain and my father. Maybe I would even have to face more of the council, and being bitter about my life would only make things hard for me.

The reserve was old, but it had only recently been assigned to the fae. The few humans who knew about the preternatural world had carved out space for us where we could live in peace. They were the governing body for the preternatural community, and they lived in a joint estate on the other side of the river. It was just outside the human town of Milford, a self-proclaimed government property named Forechester Keep.

That was the last place any of the fae wanted to go. Humans loved war and famine and poverty. They always said they despised it and fought for peace, but fighting is an active verb, not a passive one. No one has ever achieved peace by fighting for it.

Hocus came to the gate as I drove up. He was the gatekeeper. If you couldn't get past him, you didn't get into the reserve. He was a tall man, broad in his human form, about a head taller than I was. His hair hung to his shoulders. Only the flash in his eyes suggested he wasn't human.

That was all glamour, in case a human took the wrong turn. When he was in his true form he was colossal, easily three times my size, with teeth that protruded from his mouth and hands the size of wheelbarrows.

"Back from your trip, Miss Vale?" He smiled. Hocus was a gentle soul. He only looked terrifying, and that was enough to scare trespassers away.

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Amber?"

"Council Member Vale's daughter? I don't think so."

I smiled back at him and watched him as he walked to the gate. He opened it for me, the words In Caelum splitting in half to let me through.

The reserve was a big place, a town in its own right. I drove through the different neighborhoods where fae with different talents and powers lived. We covered the elements – water, fire, earth, air, and spirit. My family was fire. The houses were all spectacular. We were all in the same class – we all had enough, no more than we needed and no less. The houses were all the same size, decorated in roughly the same way. We were all equal besides the governing hierarchy we'd set up to keep order. If no one had anything to envy, there would be no fighting, no jealousy, no unfairness, and no argument.

I drove past our neighborhood to the city hall, where I had to meet with Muriel. My father was going to meet me there. City Hall was a place that spoke of justice and wealth. It was a stern place, but everything was decorated with glittering gems, shimmering paints, and plants that bloomed with the brightness of jewels. Here, in the middle of the reserve, all the elements came together in a celebration of life.

I parked and walked in through the tall front doors. The secretary, a timid water user, glanced up at me over her round little glasses. She had a shimmering skin, the lightest blue. Her eyes changed between blue and green. I always forgot her name.

"She's expecting you," she said.

I smiled at her and pushed into the conference room. Muriel Bluegrain was there, along with my father and another council member that neither of my parents really liked.

"You're late, Amber," my father said. A gentle voice, hard eyes.

I nodded. "I was held up. Mr. Williams had another meeting that overlapped with mine."

Muriel raised her eyebrows. She was a spirit, and she downright terrified me. Her skin was a healthy bronze, her hair a very dark brown. When she smiled, it didn't reach her eyes.

"Raphael sent a wolf."

My father and the other council member murmured under their breath. Muriel held out her hand and I walked to her, handing over the file. She flipped it open and read over the first page.

"Thank you, Amber," she said. I was dismissed. She turned to my father. "North, would you object to your daughter being more involved in this case?"

My father shook his head, his face stating that he minded very much. She nodded and turned her back to me. I wasn't needed anymore. Not yet. Not right now.

But I would be, and that was something, at least. There were very few times I was actually needed, and that ate away at me on bad days. As long as I had a purpose in this place, I could keep going.

## Chapter 2 – Balfour

The land was full of power. The bones in the earth had spoken to me the moment I set foot on it. Mr. Williams, the agent, didn't know what he was talking about. He was in over his head. Raphael had been right to send me – he wouldn't come on his own, of course, but he was right not to send Aryn. I was his second, and it was only right that I be here.

Besides, Aryn, as strong as he was, wouldn't have been able to handle himself with so much magic calling out to him.

That little fae had left almost immediately after I arrived, and I was relieved. She was a distraction. Her magic was stronger than she let on, and the two of us clashed.

"What have you learned?"

Aryn was on the phone. I'd traveled the distance to the far end of the fae reserve, all the way from the Jade Forest, to see the land, and it hadn't been a waste of my time.

"I need to go back tonight. I think the land kept its secrets in the presence of the human."

"What do you want me to me tell Raphael?"

Nothing. I didn't want Aryn running to Raphael, sucking up while I was gone. He was a good wolf, but he wanted a promotion too badly, and he didn't have what it took to be the alpha's second. Raphael leaned on me more than he liked to admit, and Aryn didn't have that kind of strength.

"Tell him that I'll report back in the morning. I need to get out there while the moon is still in the sky."

I hung up. I hadn't given Aryn much to say to Raphael, but it was enough to stop him from saying anything he shouldn't be saying.

Milford was bustling with humans running their last errands before nightfall. I had a room at the Crown Inn in the town across the river from the cemetery.

I looked up at the sky, then closed my eyes and turned my face to where the moon was. I couldn't see it yet, but I felt it. I could hear its song anywhere. It wasn't a full moon yet, but it was close enough for me to know what was in the ground. If it was a wolf, it would answer the moon's call, and I needed to know before we moved in. Raphael wanted that power. If it was a wolf, we could handle it better.

If it wasn't, we needed to know what we were up against. There was going to be a war over this piece of land if word came out about the power in the earth. Who knew if the fae female was going to be able to keep that information within the reserve? I needed to find out while it was still a secret.

When night fell, I left my room and crossed Prumm Brook at the south bridge. I followed the road to where the dust track wound away from the roads and up the lone hill. I parked in the cemetery parking lot – just a patch of dry ground now – and got out.

Magic wrapped itself around me like a blanket and made it harder to breathe. Familiar magic. That was a good sign.

The moment I stepped into the cemetery, magic prickled on my skin, rising from the ground upward. The moon was rising too, a giant white orb on the horizon, and suddenly the place came to life. There was power everywhere, the energy of the long dead and forgotten hanging in the air, waiting for someone to reminisce.

I breathed in. It was like breathing in water. Then I walked up the hill where I'd met with Williams earlier. The magic got stronger the farther up I went, until the beast inside of me was fighting to get out. It was threatening to take over, but I wasn't going to let it. I was in control. I wasn't the alpha's second for nothing.

The source of all this power was buried under the tree. It wasn't the only source of magic, but it was definitely the catalyst for the rest of it. The rest of the corpses were just being pulled along, part of the whirlwind of power that was starting to build.

They'd been buried here for that purpose. Collective magic was stronger than magic from a single source. No matter how strong you were, as soon as there was more strength to be had, you could beat anything.

My beast wanted out really bad. It thrashed around inside me, crying for the moon. I wouldn't let it out. The full moon was going to come soon, and then I wouldn't have a choice but to let it break free and howl. The moon was my mistress for at least one night a month, sometimes two. I didn't want to give in to her when I didn't have to.

I closed my eyes and let the magic pull me along. It was like standing in a tide pool. The power washed back and forth over me, through me.

Another source of magic appeared, and it felt different from the rest. It was almost like a spike of frost in the heat of the magic all around me. It drew me. It was magnetic, something strong but gentle, all at the same time.

I followed it. It was attractive, a magic I wanted to know. And at the same time, my wolf was clawing and scratching to get out and back away from it. The conflict I felt was as fascinating as the power itself, and I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to know what had been buried in the werewolf cemetery that wasn't a wolf.

An apparition appeared at the edge of the cemetery. She was thin and delicate, like she could break, but the power that came from her suggested otherwise. She had hair past her hips that was white as snow, and her eyes glowed the color of whiskey into the night. This was the source of the power I'd felt. She wasn't dead. She was very much alive.

"I had a feeling you would come back," she said.

Her voice sounded normal, contrary to what she looked like. Normal and familiar. I narrowed my eyes and studied her. Was this the little wisp of a fae who had been at our meeting earlier? It was hard to bring together the blonde waif and this spectacular creature, ripe with power.

"You were here earlier," I said, just to be sure.

She smiled, but it didn't reach her fire eyes as she nodded. It was her. The blonde. She certainly wasn't blonde now. She'd been wearing her glamour, but in light of the magic all around us, I was willing to bet she was as exposed as I was.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I was about to ask you the same question, Mr. Kerr."

Kerr. The surname I used when I was around humans. I despised it. "Balfour, please."

She nodded. "Balfour. This cemetery is not in the reserve, but it falls in fae land and you are trespassing."

Magic crawled over my skin as she spoke. I was sure that she had more tricks than just that. I didn't know a lot about fae, but I was aware they used the elements. Which one did she use?

"You can't deny that the power calls what it yearns for. This is werewolf territory now. You have to admit that this magic belongs to us."

It was almost impossible to deny that the corpses buried here had to be wolves. This had been a power circle once upon a time, a place where the packs of old had met with each other, had buried their dead, drew power from each other.

"And yet, here I am."

"Are you saying that this power drew you, too, Miss..."

"Amber. Please."

Right. Like her eyes. She was mocking my earlier tone. I tried not to mind. She was a quick one, and part of me still wanted to get away from her magic. I took a step forward, and then another. Although part of me was driving me away from her, a much larger part was drawn to her.

Her looks were deceiving. Even without her glamour, she was hiding her real power. I wanted to taste it. I was drawn to sources of power, and she was high up in the ranks.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave, Balfour."

Her tone was serious. She didn't move as I stepped closer and closer. Fae didn't like werewolves because of our aggressive nature. We had different outlooks on life. If fae weren't so passive, we might have been enemies, but we reserved that kind of label for witches – the humans who had the power and the balls to actually attack us from time to time.

I was almost right in her face when I saw the first signs of discomfort. A change in the atmosphere, the skin around her eyes tightening.

Those eyes... they were spectacular. Up close, they were three-dimensional, with a depth to them that made me want to fall into them. Her skin was a caramel color and as smooth as marble. I wondered suddenly what it would feel like to touch her.

As I thought it, the atmosphere changed again. She must have felt it too, because she gasped. The cold magic that had surrounded her like a fence fell away, and something hot seared through me. This was her true magic, I realized. Scorching heat. I was willing to bet my hide that she was a fire user.

And she'd been tricking me with the lick of frost. Even with the power in the ground that called out to me, she was able to practice illusions. She was fantastic.

I lifted a hand slowly, so I wouldn't scare her. She watched my hand, following it with her eyes as I brought my fingertips up to her cheek. I lightly brushed her skin. The next moment, fire burst up all around me, flames threatening to consume me. They didn't actually touch me, but the force was enough to drive me backward. I lost my balance and stumbled to the ground.

She was a couple of feet away from me now and breathing hard.

"Stay off my land," she said.

Her voice was calm, but her eyes had changed from amber to the color of molten gold, a mirror of the fire that had blasted all around me for a second. She turned and walked away, her hair wafting in the breeze. I watched her go, wanting to run after her, but I didn't dare.

She was a force of nature, and God, I wanted more. I wanted to see her again. Just before she'd shoved me away from her with all that power, my fingers had tingled like I'd touched a live wire. There was something about her that I wanted to experience more of, and I wasn't just talking about the fire and the magic.

I had to see her again.

## Chapter 3 – Amber

I'd known he would be there – his magic had spoken to me, and I'd felt him enter the cemetery. The moment he arrived, my skin came alive and every breath I took was filled with magic.

I'd gone there to tell him off. He had no right to be on our land until it had been legally arranged with the human government. Preternatural creatures had to play by human rules. That was a rule that the governing body had set out so that we could coexist in peace.

It wasn't really coexisting, of course. We avoided each other because it was safer that way. If we didn't, wars tended to happen, no matter how safe Mr. Gray was trying to make the world.

Hayden Gray was the speaker for the preternatural community. He made sure that all our complaints were heard. But he was a human, and he hid in Forechester Keep along with the rest of his group. He said that he had our best interests at heart, but he was terrified of us. It seemed wrong that a human – the weakest of all the species – would be in charge over us, but that was how it was right now, and the human military fought with weapons that only a great deal of magic could overcome.

If the preternatural creatures could all stand together to fight the humans, we would easily win, but that would never happen. Witches and werewolves were enemies; they would never unite. Vampires were out only for personal gain, and fae didn't fight. There were a few shifter types that didn't belong anywhere and wouldn't side with anyone. Which meant that we would be ruled by humans for the foreseeable future.

When Balfour came to me, heat came with him, and it wasn't the kind of heat I was used to as a fire user. I was used to being burned, but the heat that came with him was something I wanted. That heat spoke to me in a different way.

I'd answered his heat with my own, and it had sent him flying. I hadn't meant to fight him. With him so close, my magic had flared, and with power already on the loose in the cemetery, I hadn't been completely in control.

I would never admit that to him, though. Werewolves weren't to be trusted, and whatever I felt with him, I had to push away. I couldn't feel anything good around him; it was wrong. No matter if I wanted to explore it, feel it again.

I had bigger problems. The wolves were after our land, and Balfour had said that it was filled with werewolf magic. I'd known it was something other than fae magic – there was a reason the cemetery wasn't a part of the reserve. The fae rejected anything that wasn't theirs. It was safer that way. But if the wolves were going to come and claim their land, they were going to be our new neighbors, and that wasn't going to work for anyone. Not for the fae in the reserve, and not for the witches in Hollow Grove, the woodlands a couple of miles to the south. There was a reason the witches lived all the way in the hollows to the south, and the wolves belonged in the Jade Forest to the north – if any kind of war erupted, it would bother the humans who knew us and the humans who didn't.

If I spoke to Muriel about it, she would reprimand me for minding business that wasn't mine. I was only the daughter of a council member, after all. I wasn't a member myself. I couldn't speak to my father, either, because I wasn't allowed out of the reserve at night unless I had been invited to Forechester Keep. And there was no one else I could talk to.

"What was he like?" Fern was lying on her back on a branch, pressing her bare toe against the tree trunk and watching the small climbers curl up the tree. She was a leafbinder, an earth fae who specialized in plants, and she was my best friend. Reckless and wild, she made being fae look like fun.

"You know I'm not allowed to talk about it."

"But you're the only fae who's dared to leave the reserve to meet a werewolf. Come on. You can't keep this kind of secret from me."

She sat up. Her hair was cut short, a pixie style that suited her sharp face. She had dark brown hair, freckles, and eyes the color of new leaves.

"You leave the reserve too."

She snorted. "To poke around the humans now and then. Yeah, that sounds ridiculously dangerous."

I rolled my eyes. Fern was unpredictable. She hated her home life for some reason and made a point of never being there. She challenged the rules only because she could. She had stricter curfews than I had because she was a loose cannon, but the more rules they made for her the more rules she broke.

Would she go out and do something crazy?

"He was powerful." I shuddered. "Very powerful. But his magic was different than I expected."

"What was it like?"

She jumped off the branch and landed on the grass, her bare feet hardly making a sound. The grass turned greener where she stepped and faded again when her foot left the ground. She sat down next to me on the grass. Her skin shimmered in the sun, but it was pale, the color of human skin when they didn't spend a lot of time in the sun – the pale European sort. It was one of the few times she wasn't wearing her glamour. She looked less out of place than I did; fae but she rejected her fae side half the time. It seemed tiring to be so conflicted, but it worked for her.

"It was hot."

She giggled, and the laughter skipped around us. "Everything you do is fire-based, and you want to tell me his magic was hot?" She rolled her eyes.

"I know." It sounded ridiculous. "I don't know who to go to about the cemetery, though. I can't just leave it."

Fern lay back on the grass. It seemed thicker where she was lying than where I was sitting.

"I say you should just leave it. It's not your problem, and Muriel isn't exactly going to let you get more involved than handling paperwork. You know how she is. No one knows you were out – you rebel, you – but other than that, it's nothing you need to worry about."

"You define rebel," I said. She pulled a tongue at me. She was right, for the most part, but I was the only one who had felt what that cemetery felt like during the day, and how much more powerful it became at night.

"Are you going to see him again?"

I lay back, too. My grass was definitely not a thick carpet like hers. I turned my face to her, and her evergreen eyes met mine.

"Of course not."

Liar. Of all the fae in the reserve, Fern would understand if I was going to see him again. She wouldn't judge me. I just didn't want to admit it out loud. I was the daughter of a council member. I was Amber Vale. I had to be perfect.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "You are, aren't you?"

I shook my head. She gave me a look that said 'yeah, right', but she left it.

I did have to go to someone about the power, though. I couldn't just leave it until Muriel sorted out who the cemetery would belong to. It was more urgent than that, and Muriel, as a spirit user, didn't work on the same clock the rest of the world operated on.

There was only one place to go, and I had to do it before dark. I wasn't going to be able to sneak away two nights in a row.

The drive to Forechester Keep took longer than I'd thought it would. It was just across Prumm Brook from us, but South Bridge was farther downstream, so I had to make a detour. When I finally got to the gate, the sun was heading toward the horizon. I was starting to panic that I wouldn't make it home in time.

I stopped at the gate to the keep. I could see Milford's skyline – tall buildings, a church tower, and some chimney stacks against a backdrop of orange and purple created by the sunset. I'd never been to the human town.

I wished I could go.

A guard came to the car window, and I wound it down.

"I'm here to see Mr. Gray," I said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

I shook my head. It had been a last-minute kind of thing. "It's an emergency, though."

The guard looked suspicious. He narrowed his eyes at me, pulled out a phone and took a step back. He mumbled into the receiver.

"Name?" he asked a moment later.

"Amber Vale."

He repeated the name into the phone. After he ended the call, he nodded and opened the gate for me. Thank the powers that be, I thought. I drove through and got out of the car.

Forechester Keep was like a world removed. It was a mansion surrounded by stretches of garden that shut out the real world. There were clusters of buildings against the perimeter walls, houses for the government body. The mansion itself was reserved for functions, meetings, and so on.

Mr. Gray came out to meet me personally. Every time I saw him – which wasn't very often – he looked older. His hair had turned silver since I'd last seen him. His eyes were watery now where they had been clear before, and he walked hunched over. Still, his personality preceded him and I was under no illusion that this man was old.

"Amber," he said, and held out a hand. I hesitated, and he retrieved it. "Of course. I forget."

Fae didn't touch humans. Our magic was unpredictable sometimes, and we didn't like to give too much away to the humans.

"How is your father?"

"He's well, thank you. He sends his regards."

That was a load of bull, of course, but I couldn't tell the preternatural spokesperson that I was here without Muriel sending me. She was the fae leader, and all human-fae interactions were arranged through her.

"What can I help you with?"

I took a deep breath and looked around. I didn't want anyone to eavesdrop, but it was clear Gray wasn't going to invite me inside. Maybe that was better – I didn't want to be trapped within the walls of a human building.

I explained the situation with the cemetery and the meeting I had had with Mr. Williams.

"I'm worried about the werewolves' involvement before we have a chance to deal with the legal side of it," I said. "And, of course, the power is volatile, too. We can't afford a mistake at this point."

Mr. Gray nodded, looking off into the distance, thinking. "I see what you're saying, and you were right to come to me. Werewolf involvement at this point will interfere with our peace structure, and that's the last thing we want."

He lifted his hand as if he wanted to put it on my shoulder, and I stiffened. He stopped before his hand came down on me, and he cleared his throat as if he was embarrassed.

"I will discuss this with the board, and we'll come to an agreement. I'll let the reserve know what we decide."

"I'll drive out here again to speak with you."

He shook his head. "That won't be necessary, Miss Vale. I'll speak to Mrs. Bluegrain directly."

I hesitated. The sun was very low on the horizon now, and long shadows were reaching across the grounds like fingers.

"Please, Mr. Gray. If you don't mind, I'd rather hear from you myself. Mrs. Bluegrain has her mind occupied with the paperwork. She isn't aware of the implications."

Mr. Gray looked at me for a moment, putting the pieces together. "Ah," he said, understanding. "Well, let me see what we can do, and we'll take it from there. But I don't have to remind you how dangerous it is to get involved with another species without your superior's knowledge. You are separated for a reason."

I nodded. It was to keep us calm, like children who were forced to stand in their corner and think about what they'd done, so that we wouldn't upset the poor humans with our wars and rules.

"Thank you for taking the time to see me, Mr. Gray," I said tightly.

He nodded and turned. I was dismissed, even though I'd been the one to end the conversation.

I got into my car and backed out so that I was facing the gate, which was already opening for me. Dusk was starting to set in, and I had to hurry if I wanted to get back home before my curfew. The one consolation was that regardless of age, all fae were encouraged to stay inside the reserve after dark. The rule was just a little stricter in my case.

A little while later, I drove into the reserve. Hocus had let me in through the gate, promising me that he hadn't seen me leave or come back after sunset. He really was a pal.

There was magic in the air again. Magic that made my skin tingle, magic that didn't belong in the reserve. Fae power was distinguishable. It felt like the elements, and I could tell where it was coming from and what kind of element we were working with.

This magic wasn't fae magic.

That meant someone had made it past Hocus. Someone was here, within the confines of fae land, within our rules and our justice system. Nothing like this had happened before. I wasn't sure what the response would be, what the consequences were. Fear had always been enough to keep all the others out. The combination of Hocus and a spectacular display of our magic created enough fear to keep intruders away. It was another form of glamour.

I turned into my neighborhood feeling like I was being watched. Or followed. When I parked, whatever it was was looming behind me. Something dark. Something with power that felt familiar, but I couldn't place it.

I hurried toward the house. The porch light was already on, triggered by the setting sun, and I told myself that if I could reach the light that flooded out from the little lamp above the front door, I would be safe. It illuminated the white boards that wrapped around the house, making it seem warm, homey, safe.

Darkness couldn't exist in the presence of light. Right?

I didn't make it. The shadow was next to the porch now, waiting for me.

A scream built inside my chest. My hands went numb, and I felt cold. Cold was a bad thing to feel when your element was fire. I needed my father – the Great North – to come and save me. I needed...

"Don't scream," a rough voice said. A voice I recognized.

I swallowed my fear, and my mind flipped through all the people I knew, trying to find the one this voice belonged to.

"I just want to talk."

I frowned. "Balfour?"

It couldn't be. Not here. Not in the reserve. He was a werewolf – the epitome of a 'hell, no'. But the moment I called him out, I could see him. It was as if the darkness had lifted enough for me to recognize him even though he hadn't moved.

"How the hell did you get in here?" I demanded.

"I followed you into the reserve. Your buddy out there is distracted when it's you. I think he likes you."

The words were soft, like a purr, but they irritated me as if they were a screech.

"Hocus is a friend."

Balfour shrugged. I could make out most of his face, but his eyes were deep and dark, pits of black that threatened to suck me in.

"What are you doing here?"

He shrugged again. It was an annoying habit, taking the place of words. "I wanted to talk."

"About what?"

"Your little visit to the keep."

I rolled my eyes and took a step closer. Closer to the darkness. Closer to the light.

"I had to point out that we might have a problem on our hands. You know what will happen when there's more than one group that wants a piece of land."

The night felt heavier, natural darkness setting in. Balfour blended with it until it was difficult to see him.

"That won't happen."

"You can't be so sure." I didn't take another step toward him. I wanted to stay closer to the light rather than seeing his face. Although his face was very pleasant to look at.

Balfour came to me, instead. He abandoned his spot in the shadows to step into the light.

I looked around. Someone else might be able to see him. But the road was deserted. The houses, all similar to ours, were quiet, with lights on in the front room windows suggesting that all the fae were obeying the rules and were safe at home after nightfall. I was the only one who was breaking the rules. I was the only one who was talking to a werewolf.

After dark.

A shiver ran through me. It wasn't fear; it was excitement. The thrill I felt every time I did something rebellious was a problem. I shouldn't feel this good about doing something bad.

"You're conflicted," he said.

"Don't read my mind."

He smiled, one corner of his mouth pulling up in an unbalanced grin that made me feel just as off-kilter. "I can't read minds. I'm just sensing your emotions."

Whatever. I didn't have time for this. I shouldn't be out here.

I started toward the front door, but Balfour stepped in front of me. He was in the circle of light with me now. He was risking so much.

"If my father finds you here..."

"He'll what?"

His smile was arrogant, his eyes challenging. And he was right. What was my father going to do? The fae were peaceful. They would never punish a wolf. They would throw him out and make our security stronger, lock us up tighter in our own little cage, make the rules more intense. If anything, they were going to punish us.

I swallowed. "You can't be here."

"Don't walk around spreading rumors about the power in the cemetery."

I opened my mouth in surprise, wanting to argue but failing to find the words. The nerve! How could he order me around in my own territory?

Balfour lifted his hand and grasped a strand of my hair. He moved his hand down, sliding the strand between his fingers. "Your hair is magnificent."

Our sudden closeness jarred me. I realized I didn't have my glamour up. He was seeing my snow-white hair and fire eyes. He was seeing me as I really was. I realized how close his body was to mine. When I breathed in, I smelled him, so very male, with the woods clinging to his clothes... and something else, something wild. It was intoxicating. I had to fight the urge to lean in to him.

Something about his being here, about my sneaking out, about the power last night and the power now made me reckless. I wanted to break the rules. I wanted to be out of hand. I wanted to be everything I wasn't allowed to be.

The heat grew between us and washed through my body. This was the heat I knew, except that it pooled between my legs and the atmosphere became electric, sexual. Balfour felt it too. He leaned in to me. I should have stopped him. I should have shoved him away, the way I had last night.

Except I didn't want to. I wanted him this close. I wanted to know what it would feel like if I pushed the limits.

Balfour inched closer, and suddenly his lips were on mine. I didn't know how it had come to this. A moment ago, everything had been about arguing, about fear. Then he put his hands on my elbows and pulled me back with him into the shadows. It was safer there, I knew. I went with him. I didn't want this to end.

Balfour turned me so that my back was against the wall and pressed his body against mine. He was so much bigger than I was, and all muscle. I felt him against me, hard and taut. I melted against him.

I felt his sex against my lower abdomen, felt his hunger and his lust. He was ready. I could have him now if I wanted. His hands were in my hair and on my neck and sliding down. This was it. He was touching me, and I felt like I was on fire. Without magic.

What was I doing?

I pushed Balfour away.

He looked confused. He was breathing hard. I realized I was, too, like we'd been running.

"You can't be here," I said.

"Don't stop this now."

I shook my head. This had to stop, right now. He was a wolf. He wanted the land, our land.

I summoned that heat, the fire that was all mine, and I knew my eyes were glowing. Balfour's face closed. I didn't want him to withdraw, but this... this was trouble.

The front door opened.

"Where is that girl?" my father said.

"Go. Now," I hissed.

I turned and left Balfour standing in the shadows.

"I'm here," I said, stepping into the light.

I touched my hair, hoping it looked fine. A wave of magic rippled over my skin, and then it was gone. And I knew Balfour was, too.

## Chapter 4 – Balfour

I had to go back to Jade Forest. I'd managed to keep Aryn off my case about the land, but I wasn't going to be able to ward off his curiosity for long, and Raphael wanted news.

Besides, Amber's little visit to Forechester Keep had put a time limit on the wolves. We needed to secure the land before anything went wrong, because the humans would get involved and then everything would be a mess.

Werewolves and humans didn't mix. We had to obey them, because the ones who lived in the Keep make it easier for the wolves to live in this world without being hunted down, but that didn't mean we liked them.

Amber had been stupid to go to them at all, but that was typical fae: suck-ups, the lot of them. Even Amber, although I had to admit that she was different from the general fae.

I shook off the thought of her. I didn't need a girl like that to mess up my mind so much that the plan would fall through.

The journey back to the mountains took almost three days. Most of it had to be done on foot. There were roads that led from Milford to other human cities, but the town was isolated and the mountains weren't accessible to humans. That was to keep our two species apart.

The weather changed the closer I got to home. The warm, sunny days turned cold, with an icy wind cutting me to the bone.

The moment I stepped into the forest, I relaxed. This land was ours. I was at home among the trees. Their trunks stretched up to the sky, and an evergreen canopy of leaves blocked out the sunlight so that it only fell in dapples on the ground. There was magic among the trees, the overflow from our power circle at Onyx Point, way up in the cliffs.

"You're late," a voice said from between the trees.

I stiffened for a second before I realized who was speaking. Aryn appeared a moment later. His blond hair was shadowed in the dusk, and his blue eyes had the jewel-like quality to them that all werewolf eyes adopted when the animal was close to the surface.

"Were you sent to meet me, or are you just curious?"

Aryn rolled his eyes and fell into step next to me. He was the alpha's third, below me in the pack hierarchy, and I didn't have to respect him.

"Curious," he admitted.

Good man. Wolves could smell lies, and they just made you look like a kiss-ass when you did it, anyway.

"I'm here because we're going to run into trouble if we don't act now."

"The fae?"

"Idiot." He flinched when I insulted him. "The fae don't fight. They have rights to the land, but there are others who will learn about it soon, if they haven't already."

Aryn curled up his lips, showing his teeth. It looked a little silly with him in human form, but his sentiment was clear, and wolf habits died hard.

I nodded.

Raphael appeared before us, and I stopped. I looked him in the eye only for a second before averting my gaze. He was my alpha, and I had to submit.

His hair was copper and his eyes an emerald green. He was a lot more wolf than the rest of us, even in human form.

"What news from the reserve?" he asked.

"The land is a burial ground. Wolves rest there."

Raphael's eyes shimmered, something raw flickering through them. "This is good."

I nodded. "The fae have reported it to Gray, though. We don't have much time."

Raphael swore loud and long. He put his hands on his hips. The power that came from him in his anger rippled over us, and my wolf shook itself out, attentive now.

"The power is strong. They'll want it."

There was no need to elaborate on who they were. The witches went unnamed if we could help it. We didn't like speaking of the enemy – it put everyone in a bad mood.

"We'll have to travel down there, then, and claim it." When Raphael looked at me again, his eyes were all wolf.

I shook my head. "We should plan this instead of rushing in."

He narrowed his eyes at me. Aryn took a step back. He was always quiet unless spoken to in the alpha's presence.

"It's a suggestion," I added.

Raphael's wolf was at the forefront, which meant he took almost everything as a challenge. The fae saw werewolves as aggressive creatures who acted without thought or mercy. In Raphael's case, they were accurate. We weren't all like that, but the fae weren't wrong to keep their distance, much as I hated to admit it.

"What else do you have in mind, then?" Raphael's voice was dripping with sarcasm, and his power – irritation, bloodlust – crawled over my skin.

"I have a man on the inside." A woman, really.

"Fae don't trust wolves."

"This one does."

Raphael narrowed his eyes. His irritation faded, but his bloodlust still hung thick in the air, metallic on my tongue, almost like blood itself. And there was a hunger for power in it too, an ache that I knew belonged to the alpha.

"Is there a reason your man is betraying his own?"

The words shocked me. Betrayal? I hadn't seen Amber's reaction to me as a betrayal, but if she chose a wolf over the laws of her own kind, what else could it be?

"They just don't want a war so close to their turf." That wasn't an answer, but it wasn't a lie, either.

"And this man only trusts you and no other wolf?"

I nodded again. That was also true, but it wasn't the reason I didn't want Raphael to go there. I didn't want someone like him close to Amber. I knew what she had – some kind of magic that was damn attractive. I didn't want anything else to come close to her. God help me, I was possessive. Already.

Raphael stared at me until I lowered my eyes. I wasn't going to challenge him, and he was at the top of the food chain.

"Let's get back to camp," he said a moment later, and turned his back to us.

We followed him through the trees.

The werewolf camp wasn't exactly a camp. We'd upgraded considerably since the time when it had just been a place on the ground for us to rest our bones. We'd built cabins from logs, and our 'camp' was really more like a village. We existed alongside each other as a community.

When I stepped into the camp, the wolves who were around us stopped what they were doing and turned. I was higher up than all but the alpha, and they respected me. I nodded at them as I passed, and one by one they turned and continued what they were doing.

It was good to be home. After a good meal and a talk with the inner circle – the top eight wolves after the alpha in the hierarchy – I went to bed.

Dawn woke me, and I rolled out of bed. I opened the door and breathed in the crisp mountain air. The mountain spoke to me. I loved it here. I hated having to leave.

Aryn was jogging toward my cabin, his cheeks flushed from the exercise, his breath escaping his mouth in small puffs. He stopped in front of me, breathing hard.

"The alpha has left," he said.

"Left for where?"

He didn't have to answer me. I knew where Raphael had gone. He didn't have to follow our suggestions or let us know what he was doing. There were seven wolves who were able to protect the pack if he left the way he had this morning. He didn't have to answer to anyone.

"Dammit. We have to go after him."

"Why?"

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to search for him, pushing my power outward, looking for a hit. He was far away already, out of range. He must have left just after we'd gone to bed.

"If the witches find out about the power, he's going to run into trouble, and alpha or not, he's going to need backup against them."

Aryn nodded. Witches didn't travel alone, and they didn't fight alone. If a wolf met them alone, even if it was the all-powerful alpha, he was going to die. The alpha needed other wolves to draw power from if it came down to a fight, and he had none.

"What do you want to do?"

Raphael was gone, which meant I was in charge now. Aryn was waiting for my command.

"We'll go after him. Get Dawn ready. We'll leave as soon as possible."

Aryn nodded and set off to find his mate.

Dawn was fourth in the hierarchy. She was a female, but her mating to Aryn had inserted her into the hierarchy, and the male wolf who was number five – Kurt – had had to move over for her. It never went down well when a female – regarded as the weaker sex – was above a male wolf in the hierarchy, but this was pack law.

I got dressed and set off to find Kurt. His cabin was empty, but I found him in the forest behind the village. He was moving among the trees, tracking deer. When I arrived, they skipped away, and he looked angry. He didn't mention the deer. Instead, he nodded at me and averted his eyes in respect.

"We have to leave," I told him. "The alpha needs us. I'm taking Aryn and Dawn with me. That leaves you in charge."

Kurt nodded, and when I turned, he walked back to the village with me.

"It will be a full moon soon," I said, "and we might not be here to control the pack when it happens."

"I can handle it," he said.

And he would. With the top four wolves gone, the power would automatically fall to him and give him the ability to control the pack. I didn't know exactly how the magic worked and why that was possible, but it did work, and that was all that mattered. I left him in the village center.

When I reached Aryn's cabin, they were ready. They were dressed for travel. Dawn's long brown hair was pulled into a braid down her back, her midnight eyes human but anticipating. Aryn nodded at me, and we set off without another word. I hadn't even been home for twelve hours, and I was headed back to the reserve.

Maybe I would see Amber again. I knew it was a mistake getting involved with her, but a part of me hoped I would run into her again. If we followed the magic, she might be there too. She was everywhere that power was, as if it drew her, too.

The three days it would take to return were too long. If something happened before that, we could lose Raphael. We would know, though, if something happened to him. The mantle of power would come to me, and I would know. But that hadn't happened. That was my only consolation. Still, traveling on foot was too slow.

When we finally arrived at the edge of the reserve, magic tingled over my skin, but it wasn't the good kind. It wasn't the fae kind, either. There were witches around. Not around us, but around Raphael. I felt it inside of me, in a part of me that didn't belong to me but to the alpha.

"They found him," I said.

I started stripping. The change ripped clothes, and we hadn't brought extra for the journey – we'd left in a hurry and had traveled light. When I was naked, I brought on the change. I wasn't going to face a witch in human form, not if they meant to fight. And they never meant to walk away in peace.

I crouched on the ground, the magic crippling me for a second. It washed over me, consumed me, nearly drowning me as it called out the animal from within me. A growl emanated from my throat. It was dangerous to change out in the open where humans could see us, where other creatures could attack. Wolves were vulnerable during their change – a moment where they couldn't fight.

The change didn't last long. The wolf broke free. Fur covered my skin. My bones shifted, my body rebuilding itself, and then I stretched out into my wolf body. Power immediately passed from me to Aryn, who was shifting and needed the help. I pushed as much as I could spare into him. He would do that for Dawn, in turn, as soon as he was ready.

The three of us took no longer than a minute to change, but when you're exposed and vulnerable like that, a minute can be a hell of a long time.

After we were ready, we moved fast. The reserve was about four miles in length and we ran along the wall, trying to stay out of sight. Urgency built inside of me. Raphael could keep the witches occupied for a while with small talk – witches were humans, essentially, and small talk was what they did. But it wouldn't hold them for long.

We reached Raphael the moment the conversation turned ugly.

A handful of witches were standing at the edge of the cemetery. Raphael was facing them, calm, human.

"Ah, you've brought your friends, after all," one of the witches said. She was tall and skinny, with pitch-black hair and eyes that sliced through me.

Raphael looked at us and nodded. "You didn't really think I'd come alone, did you?"

Right. Big man, now that backup was here.

The witch laughed, and it shattered the air around us like breaking glass. It crawled under my skin, and I fought the urge to shake myself like a dog. I watched the other witches. There were more females than males – witches seemed to think that women were stronger. Maybe, with their power, they were. The men were standing toward the back, like their hierarchy expected it from them, and there were only two.

Magic built in the air around us. The atmosphere became thick with it. It pushed down my throat, flattened against my coat. This fight was going to be tough. The witch at the front with the creepy eyes looked at me. She smiled as if she knew something, and I shivered. I didn't want to know what she knew.

The power kept building, and there was a point when I couldn't breathe. Surely we could pull from the land, call on the corpses buried beneath the ground, borrow power from them? I reached out to the dead. Yes, there was something there to be had – I could feel it. This was what everyone was after, after all.

Then new magic arrived, magic that wasn't supposed to be here, along with the sound of a muffler. I spun around. A gray car pulled up, the back door opened, and Mr. Hayden Gray, the spokesperson for the preternatural community, got out. His humanness screamed against all the magic, and a moment later it faded. The witches had noticed him, too, and cut short their attack.

Another person got out – the source of the magic that didn't belong. She was tall, with hair cut in a bob that ended just above her shoulders. Her hair was the color of dark wood, starting to gray at the roots. She was fae, and high up, judging by the strength of her magic.

"Ah, a welcoming party," Mr. Gray said. His voice was light, but his gaze was serious when it skipped over Raphael and the three wolves, and then the witches.

The fae pursed her lips and glanced at us, too. Then she looked at Gray. "I believe this is what you were talking about," she said.

"Indeed, Mrs. Bluegrain."

This was the woman Amber had talked about. The council member. She looked like a pain in the ass.

"Seeing that you're all here," Mr. Gray said, addressing us, "I might as well tell you what we're doing here. We have received word that this land is a source of disagreement, and I want to decree that until Mrs. Bluegrain legally sells it to whomever makes the highest bid, this land is private property. It belongs to the fae, and anyone who trespasses will be prosecuted."

It was ironic: the one with no power at all was so full of himself around us. We had more magic in each of our teeth than he would ever feel in a lifetime. We could just take him out.

I glanced at Raphael. The look on his face suggested he was thinking something along the same lines. But we couldn't touch Gray. He wasn't the only human who had the power of the laws that allowed us to exist in the human world in peace. There were others, and we would be banished if a human died by our hands.

All of us.

Gray glanced at the fae as if he was checking with her that he'd said the right things, and she nodded.

"It appears that Amber Vale was right to approach you. She is involved with the case, but I'll be sure to kick up her involvement up a notch." Her eyes were a watered-down blue and her face was wrinkled. Apparently she was used to smiling, even though she wasn't doing it now.

Gray nodded, too, and walked back to the car.

Amber. On the case, and involved with the council. This was better than I'd thought.

"Shall I give you a ride back to the reserve gate, Mrs. Bluegrain?" Gray asked.

She hesitated, looking like she wanted to say no, but then she nodded. Good for her. She was out of line being here. The magic would be too much for her – too much aggression. She got into the car after Mr. Gray, and the door closed with an expensive-sounding clunk. The car purred to life and pulled away.

I turned my attention back to the witches.

"Well, a game of politics," Miss Creepy said. "Not our forte, but it's never too late to branch out."

Politics and mind games belonged to the vampires. Thank God they weren't involved yet – that could get really ugly. We had to make sure it stayed that way.

The witches turned and left. It was dangerous for them to turn their backs on werewolves, but we were outnumbered and they knew that Raphael wouldn't attack unless he had power in numbers.

He turned toward us.

"Thank you," he said.

It was a rare moment. We squirmed at his feet, rubbing against his legs like overgrown cats, deferring to his authority despite the fact that he'd been a fool to come out here alone.

"The power is magnificent," he breathed after a moment, patting me on the head. "You weren't exaggerating."

Raphael left us at the cemetery. He was going to Milford, where he would book rooms for us at the Crown Inn, where I'd been staying. We had to stay behind until we could shift back. Wolves couldn't just shift back and forth at will – it took a lot out of us, and after we changed, we stayed like that until the magic regenerated itself enough for us to shapeshift again.

By the time night fell, we were all able to shift back again. We traveled to the place where we'd shifted to retrieve our clothes before we changed back to human form.

After we'd shifted back, I took a deep breath and blew it out. It was a little like the change from being underwater and not being able to breathe, to breaking the surface and taking those first gulps of air. I didn't know which part I preferred – both the wolf and the human were parts of me.

Magic started up again around us, and I groaned. I was tired. There had been enough magic floating around for one day – Raphael, the witches, the fae council member.

"Balfour?" a voice said behind me, and I turned.

She had her glamour in place. Her hair was shorter and blonde, not white, and her eyes were a normal brown. She was still more beautiful than any other woman I'd ever seen. And she was outside the reserve. At night.

Her eyes flicked from me to the other two.

"What are you doing out here?" It was a shock to my system to see her. I felt magic vibrating from Aryn and Dawn, but I didn't know what they felt toward Amber, whether it was hostility or curiosity.

"I bribed the gatekeeper to take a quick break." Her cheeks colored for a moment. "I felt you close by before nightfall, and I've been trying to get out."

Was she as attracted to me as I was to her?

"There was a tussle at the cemetery earlier," she said. It was a statement, not a question. "Muriel told me."

"The lady who arrived there?"

She nodded. She glanced at the other two again. I looked at them, and Aryn and Dawn fell back without a word. There would be questions later, but right now they were going to give me space.

"Why are you out here?"

Amber shrugged. She didn't know? Or she didn't want to say? I stepped closer to her, and it was comfortable. Warm. Familiar. Other species' magic wasn't supposed to feel like that, but it did with her.

"Gray and your council member—"

"Leader," she cut me off. "Muriel is the council leader."

Right. That was even better. "The council leader arrived and cut short a battle that would have settled this once and for all. I really wish you hadn't gone to speak with the humans."

"What do you think would have happened if they hadn't arrived? It was an accident that it happened at just the right time, but the fight would have taken place."

There was nothing wrong with that. I wanted to say as much, but of course Amber wouldn't understand. She was different from the rest, but she was still fae. War was still unacceptable.

I took a deep breath.

"You're right."

She narrowed her eyes at me. I didn't agree with her, and maybe she would figure that out, but I wanted her to think I was on her side. She was in Bluegrain's pocket. I'd been making shit up when I'd said I had a man on the inside, but this was an opportunity to make it true.

"I didn't realize you knew the council leader that well."

She shrugged. "My father is on the council. That's why I was sent to meet with Mr. Williams."

She glanced over my shoulder, like it might be a mistake to mention something like that out loud. I looked at the other wolves, too. Aryn and Dawn were in conversation, pretending not to listen.

"Thank you for looking out for us," I said. If she was on my side, we might still be able to get the land.

She shrugged. "I should get back. I'm not allowed to be out here in the first place."

I lifted my hand and touched her hair. It wasn't as striking as when she was in her true form, but it was still beautiful.

"When can I see you again?" I needed to find out more.

"I don't know."

I leaned forward and kissed her. She stiffened for a moment, maybe thinking about the other wolves, but then she relaxed against me. I pushed my tongue into her mouth and tasted her. She was sweet, and the power that lived under her skin wrapped around me for a moment, an intoxicating heat.

She broke the kiss and looked at me.

"Please try," I said.

She didn't nod or shake her head. She just turned and walked back to the gate. When she had disappeared down the driveway that led up to it, I turned back to Aryn and Dawn.

"You didn't tell us that you're that close to a fae," Aryn said.

"Business and pleasure, right?" Dawn smiled at me – a knowing smile. A mocking one.

I shrugged, pretending not to care that they were mocking me about Amber. "It's the only way I can keep her on our side, and get some information out of her. Besides, there's nothing wrong with a bit of fun, right?"

Aryn guffawed. "You are so dead when Raphael finds out."

I stepped up to him, pushing my face in to his, chest on chest. I shoved some of that werewolf aggression the fae hated so much down his throat and growled low and long.

"Good thing he won't find out."

Aryn nodded, accepting the threat for what it was. When I looked at Dawn, she just shook her head. She answered to Aryn first after the alpha, and if he had a rule, it applied to her too. Pack hierarchy was a wonderful thing.

"Let's get to the Inn. Raph is waiting for us."

## Chapter 5 -Amber

Muriel called the meeting to order, and the room quieted down. My father was sitting at the table with the eight other council members, with Muriel at the head of the table. I was standing in the corner, hands behind my back. I was allowed to sit in on the meeting because of my going to Mr. Gray, even if Muriel had been furious at first.

"First order of business, the cemetery," she said. "I have received a considerable offer on the land."

"Who from?" A woman at the other side of the table cleared her throat after she spoke.

Muriel lifted a page and scanned the next document. "Chandre Crowe."

Chandre Crowe was the high priestess. Everyone knew that. There was a collective gasp, followed by a ripple through the council members.

Muriel glanced up at them. "She is an eligible member of society, and we can use the money. Selling the land will take the power and the war away from us."

"How?" I asked.

Muriel paused midway through the start of her next sentence and turned to look at me. The other members did too. My dad's eyes shot fire at me.

I swallowed, realizing I was out of order. "I just don't understand how selling to the witches will remove the power. From what I can tell, it's drawing the fight to us."

Muriel shook her head. She was irritated with me, but she opened her mouth to grace me with an answer nevertheless. I glanced at my dad. He was watching Muriel, too, waiting for her to admonish me for speaking out of line.

"It's getting rid of property that, right now, we own. The power is drawing the fight to us because it's still our land. Once we don't own the land anymore, whatever happens on the land won't be our problem."

No admonishing, then. My dad exhaled slowly.

"But it's right next door to us. It's on the edge of the reserve. Do we really want a war between werewolves and witches right next to us?"

Muriel narrowed her eyes at me. "Who said anything about a war with the werewolves and the witches?"

I swallowed.

"Why do you think there will be a war?" she persisted. "Why will the werewolves want what belongs to the witches?"

I wasn't supposed to know about the power in the ground. I wasn't supposed to know that the werewolves would do anything to get it because it belonged to them – because the corpses had werewolf magic that drew them. No one knew what the power was.

"I just thought that there'd be a war considering that they arrived when I was talking to Mr. Williams."

Muriel looked at me for a moment longer before speaking, like she wasn't sure I was telling the truth. Then she laughed. It was a high-pitched, condescending laugh, the kind that you hear when you're trying to be a grown-up but you're just a child and you don't know what you're talking about.

"You don't need to worry about that, dear," she said. "It was kind of you to inform Mr. Gray, even though it would have been wise to come to me first, but your involvement isn't necessary from here on out. We know what we're doing." She turned her back to me, facing the council again. "We will proceed with the legalities."

There were nods all around, except from my dad, who was still looking at me like I was going to be in trouble later. After a moment his gaze slid to Muriel, and he nodded as well.

"What if it does turn into a war?" I asked.

Muriel's back was to me, but I saw her stiffen. "What?" She didn't turn around to talk to me.

My father shook his head at me, trying to get me to stop.

"What if a war does happen? How will that affect us? How will that affect the werewolves?"

Now Muriel turned. She frowned. "Why does it matter what will happen to the werewolves?"

My father went from shaking his head at me to looking at the table. He wasn't going to get up and raise his voice. He wasn't going to get involved. Wasn't that just brilliant of him?

"I'm just saying," I went on, "that if we offer the witches power like that and it backfires, causing problems for other species, wouldn't that be something on our conscience?"

Muriel's arms were hanging at her sides. I knew that she was accessing her element. Then her eyes changed. They had a glassy quality to them, and the atmosphere in the room became so heavy it was hard to breathe.

"We do not involve ourselves with other species. We do not care for them. We look out for our own, and if the rest perish because of their ways, that's not our problem."

I nodded, feeling like I was choking. I wanted to raise my hands to my throat, but they were pinned across my chest where I'd crossed them. I looked around the table, where the council was sitting quietly. They were frozen, too, but they didn't look distressed. Just me, then.

"That's enough out of you," Muriel said, the line that should have belonged to my father.

The atmosphere changed abruptly, and a second later it was as if I had never been frozen. But I'd gotten the message. I groaned inwardly and left the room.

They didn't care about other species. They believed the way forward was to isolate the fae from those who were aggressive, to keep us all safe. But if we didn't know how to defend ourselves, it was a problem. And I knew that we were all going to be in trouble if something wasn't done soon.

Besides, I cared about other species. About werewolves. About one wolf in particular.

"Where are you going?" Fern appeared next to me.

"I have some personal business to attend to."

She put her hand on my shoulder, stopping me from marching on. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, if I can help it."

She looked at me, her eyes deep green and expectant. I waited for her to tell me I was making a mistake. She was fae, after all, and fae stuck to rules. That was how we lived our lives. We were cowards, dammit.

Of course, Fern wouldn't tell me something like that. She would encourage me. She was a hell of an influence. Just when I needed to talk sense into me.

"And if you can't?" she asked.

"Then there'll be a war."

"How do you know?"

I hesitated for a moment. What was I going to say to her?

I looked up at the sky. I was running out of time. I had to get to Balfour, and back before sunset. It wasn't just because of my curfew. The magic coming from the cemetery was worse at night, and the witches weren't going to wait for a legal document to claim it. Neither were the wolves. They didn't sit around and wait for paperwork. Just the fae did that.

Useless.

"I'll tell you later," I said. "I really have to go now."

"Let me come with you."

Oh no. "I can't. This isn't a game, Fern."

"Which is why you need backup."

I groaned on the inside. This was getting too big for me.

"Stay here. Cover for me when you can. I need you here."

Fern opened her mouth to argue. I gave her a quick hug and walked to my car.

I paused just before getting in. "If they stop me before I get to him, all hell will break loose."

An I-knew-it look came over her face.

"Him?"

I didn't have time to explain. I got in the car and turned the key in the ignition. Time was running out, and I still had so far to go.

I had never been to Milford. The human town was a place fae avoided. We knew where it was, and we knew what humans were, but we never went near them.

The town was a lot like the reserve. It was laid out with the same kind of structure, but when I drove into town a sense of freedom struck me. The reserve felt restraining. Maybe that was because of my life and the fact that I was always just another number. We were all so damn equal, there was nothing about any of us that made us individual.

Here, everything was different. The humans were rich and poor, well-dressed and ragged, upbeat or depressed, and they all lived together in the big tangle that was life. And it was beautiful. I wanted it.

But I had to focus. I needed to find Balfour.

The wolves had to be here. It was the only place that offered accommodations, and I knew the wolves wouldn't have gone back to the Jade Forest. Not yet. Not until the land was theirs. The upside of wolves being in a human town was the fact that they would be the only living creatures with a power signature. I would be able to find them with no interference at all.

I pulled to the side of the road and closed my eyes, focusing on what I felt, what I sensed. The humans all felt like white noise – a great span of nothing. I picked up the wolves fast enough. They weren't far away, either.

I put the car in gear and followed my senses. They brought me to a building called the Crown Inn, a tall, beige structure with a red roof and narrow windows.

I walked into the lobby. The desk clerk looked important behind a tall counter. I walked up to her.

"I'm looking for... ah..."

What was I going to say? Who was I going to ask for? The wolves kept low profiles around humans. Did they check in under different names? It would seem strange to ask for someone by the name of Balfour.

She looked at me, frowning. Her fingers hovered over a keyboard, ready to type in a name.

A throat was cleared behind me, and when I turned he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands in his pockets, looking very casual. But no matter how casual Balfour tried to look, his eyes were sharp, blue like the sky, and intense.

"Never mind," I said, and smiled. I mentally checked my glamour just to be sure the person the desk clerk was seeing wasn't the woman I really was. Then I turned away from her.

"You're here," Balfour said.

I nodded and stepped closer to him. The atmosphere changed almost immediately. I'd come here with the intention of talking to him about what was going on, but that all melted away. I was painfully aware of his body, the way his shirt stretched over his muscles. A shiver ran through me when his gaze slid from my eyes to my lips. He felt it too, then. My breath caught in my throat.

"Why did you come?" His voice was hoarse.

"I needed to see you."

That had come out wrong. I needed to talk to him. This was supposed to be about business.

"Come up to my room?"

It would be a mistake to go up there with him. The right thing to do would be to sit in the small seating area I'd spotted off to the side and talk to him there. Going to his room might make me do something I would regret.

I swallowed hard. "Okay."

He held out his hand, an invitation. I took it. It was like I had touched a live wire. Electricity shot through my body, and I saw it reflected in his eyes.

We barely made it into the room before his lips were on mine. The kiss was raw, full of forbidden passion. He stepped forward, guiding me until my calves hit the bed. We didn't have much time, but we didn't need it. His hands were under my shirt, and then he got rid of it. Somewhere along the line I lost my glamour, and then his hands were in my hair. His body pressed up against mine, and I felt the length of his hunger for me pressed against my lower abdomen.

I wanted him. I wanted him to take me, all of me.

He growled deep in his throat, as if he knew what I was thinking. His shirt was already off. I wasn't sure when that had happened. I fiddled with his belt buckle and pulled down his pants, and his erection sprang free. He made quick work of my pants, too, and got rid of my underwear before he laid me on the bed.

I didn't have time to think, but I didn't want to. He crawled over me, and my thighs fell open, and then he pushed against me before he slipped inside.

I gasped at the feel of his sex, the size of it, the intimacy. He was so close to me now, his face right up against mine, his eyes boring into my soul, almost reaching deeper than his body did inside of me.

For a moment I wasn't sure where his body ended and mine began, and then he started moving. With the friction came the power. It built up in the room, hot and fierce, and I drank it in. An orgasm built inside of me as he moved his hips faster, pushing into me and pulling out, leaving me breathless and writhing.

I was like a cup, filling up with hot water. He was going to push me until I spilled over.

An orgasm shattered through me, and I dug my nails into his shoulders. That set him off, and he released inside of me. I curled around his body as my core contracted around him, and he clenched and grunted against me.

And then it was over. He slid out of me, and we lay on the bed panting.

"What was that?" he asked between breaths.

I swallowed and tried to rebuild myself. "I don't know."

Whatever it was, it had taken us by surprise and rocked through us.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

Right. "They're going to sell the land to the witches."

Balfour propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me, his eyes searching mine. What was he looking for? Truth?

"Why did you come to tell me?"

Why, indeed. I wasn't sure it was just because of the fae and their safety.

"If the witches get hold of the land, we're all in trouble," I said. "I know the land rightfully belongs to the wolves – I've felt the power. Do with the information what you will." Then I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "I have to get back before sunset."

I got off the bed and balanced on wobbly legs, getting my clothes together.

"You're like a furnace," he said as I got dressed.

I stopped and looked at him. "Fire is my element."

"I wasn't talking about your power. I was talking about you."

I blushed. When I was dressed, I looked in the mirror and forced the glamour back into place so that I was the blonde-haired, brown-eyed girl anyone could forget.

Anyone except Balfour.

## Chapter 6 -Balfour

She was in and out of the room like a whirlwind. I stayed behind after she'd left, feeling satisfied and craving more of her all at the same time. There was something about her that I just couldn't resist.

I'd felt her the moment she'd stepped into the lobby. In a town where there was no magic at all, there was very little to feel, but even if there had been magic all around me I would have been able to pick up her signature. She was like a scream in a room full of whispers, a splash of color in a grayscale world.

Even when she had that face on that hid her real identity, there was no way I would be able to look past her. Something about her was like nothing I'd ever felt before. I'd never met a fae before, but I was sure that she was the only being in the entire world I reacted to like that.

The sex had been spectacular, and afterward I felt like I needed another fix. She was addictive, and if I didn't get my fill, I was going to do something drastic.

Someone knocked on my door. Luckily, I was dressed again, the bed was made where the covers had been rumpled, and I'd sprayed some deodorant to cover the smell of lust that somehow wouldn't go away – because the vibrating energy on the other side of the door told me it was the alpha.

I opened the door and stepped aside, letting Raphael walk in. His very presence pushed me aside. I turned my eyes to the floor, submitting to him.

He took a deep breath and looked at me. "You're getting distracted."

"I'm not."

He looked at me blankly for long enough that I began to fight the urge to squirm. I'd challenged him directly, but, dammit, I was second, and if it wasn't for me he wouldn't be here or have any of the information he did.

"Are you going to give me a good explanation for this?"

His eyes were light green with black flecks in them. Soapy, like the real jade. I didn't like it. The lack of jewel tones meant either that his animal was completely absent – highly unlikely – or that he was pissed at me.

"The fae are selling to the witches."

His mouth opened, but he didn't speak. I watched the natural color slowly come back into his eyes. My escapades were forgotten.

"If they get it, we'll lose everything. They'll have the upper hand. We won't be able to stand up against them."

I nodded. I knew what that meant. In the right hands, that power in the ground was unstoppable, but in the wrong hands it would be volatile, and what better way to destroy the wolves than with their own magic? The witches hated us. They wanted a monopoly on magic. They wanted a monopoly on everything. They were selfish beings.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

Raphael turned to the window. The sun was a glowing orb sinking toward the horizon. I wondered if Amber was already home, or if she was still fighting time to get there.

"Get Aryn. We're going to them."

"At the burial grounds?"

Raphael shook his head. "They don't own it yet, and neither do we. We're going to call them out."

Raphael walked out of the room, taking all his confidence and recklessness with him.

The witches were south, past the reserve and the cemetery, in the Hollow Groves, woodlands that clustered around the river. It was a dangerous place for anyone to go. The stories went that no one ventured in there and came out to tell the tale.

We wouldn't be stupid enough to go in there, either. We would go to the meadow. It was the only neutral ground, absent human interference. We often went there to settle old grudges. It happened surprisingly often.

The meadow was on the other side of the river, a couple of miles outside of Milford and practically abandoned by all human life. That was why we liked it so much. I didn't know why the people of Milford kept to themselves so much and refused to explore or expand, but it suited us fine. The fact that they were surrounded by preternatural creatures on all sides was a good reason for them to move altogether, but of course, they would have to know about us to start off with.

Mr. Gray and his associates at Forechester Keep made sure that that would never happen. He couldn't move them any more than we could – they were humans, and they had a say only over us. That sounded wrong, and on a lot of levels it was, but what were we going to do?

The meadow was the kind of place you wanted to take a photo of and stick it on a postcard. Knee-high wheat-colored grass wafted in the wind in rolling waves, surrounding a lake that rippled and reflected the sky. The trees of the hollows opened out onto the meadow, giving it a lovely backdrop.

It only looked lovely. It was the place where bloodshed happened, where war was declared, where creatures died.

Raphael had managed to get more wolves here. The pack was still in the camp at the foot of the mountains, and they needed the inner circle wolves to look out for them, but Raphael had sent for a handful of the bottom-rung pack members. They weren't good fighters or very much in control of their magic, but strength would make up for the former, and Raphael could guide them in their magic if need be.

I stood at the edge of the lake with Aryn. The sun had already set, but there was still light to be had and everything had taken on the silvery quality that foreshadowed the night. The air was alive. Anticipation hung around us, and I could taste the bloodlust drifting on the breeze from the other wolves.

Cold air rippled on top of the lake and pushed toward us when the wind picked up. It was colder than usual. I had goosebumps on my arms.

"What do you think of this?" I asked Aryn.

He shrugged. "I don't think it's a good idea, but what are we going to do? You know how Raph is."

I nodded. I did know. He was power-hungry and driven by his constant yearning to be stronger. He sacrificed his wolves whenever he needed to, but they stayed loyal out of fear and necessity.

Two things happened when you betrayed Raphael. Either he came after you, which never had a happy ending, or he just left you. The first was a painful death. The other meant being an outcast. It was worse being a lone ordinary wolf – having no guide for your magic when you were a werewolf. Both outcomes were horrible.

Loyalty was the easiest option.

Aryn nudged me with his elbow and nodded in the direction of the trees. The witches had arrived. More women than men, as was their custom, but there were two men among them. Warlocks, we should call them, but they weren't the manly type, in my opinion. All witches looked the same – thin and precise, like they were trying too hard.

Raphael came toward us, and the younger wolves clustered to the side. They didn't look like frightening warriors; they looked like sheep in a pen.

I recognized the black-haired witch with the eyes that made my skin crawl. She had two more witches with her, a man and a woman. They came out in a triangle. Three witches? We were ten wolves. I doubted that these few had come alone – I was willing to bet that the trees were crawling with witches.

"Raphael," the creepy one said.

"Chandre."

He knew her. Shock rippled through me. Was it suspicious to know your enemy by name, or was it clever?

"You've brought a posse with you this time."

"You've brought an entourage, too. Let's not pretend." Raphael's voice was calm, but I could hear the tension in it. I felt it in my blood. I wondered if the witches felt it too.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm claiming the land."

She laughed, and it was that same horrific sound that had made me want to cover my ears and rock back and forth. "It's sweet of you to see me as an opponent worthy of such a..." She looked at the wolves, looking for the right word. "Sacrifice."

Shit.

"But it's not necessary. Really. We've just come from a meeting with Mrs. Bluegrain. I don't know if you know who she is"

The blood drained from my face. They'd sold the land, then. Amber hadn't been quick enough to warn me. Or the fae had been quicker to get rid of the land than we'd thought. They didn't want the land in their possession.

Why not?

The fae were cowards, but they weren't stupid. Maybe naïve, but survival was their top priority. That either meant that they knew what was in the land... or that they really didn't.

Either way, we were screwed now.

I felt power. It was like a wave of heat, and it was out of place. We weren't fighting. There was no war. I focused on it, just before I felt a part of me open up and start leaking out. That was Raphael. He was getting ready for a fight, and he was tapping power from us.

"What are you doing?" I asked in a low voice. Witches' hearing was like that of the humans. Dismal at best.

"Finishing this." Raphael's hands were balled into fists.

"But it's already done. You can't fight for it now."

"Shut up. If you're not going to join me in this, you'd better take the pack and leave."

Was he sending us away?

"It will be a slaughter if we stay."

Why wasn't he thinking about the wolves?

Why was I? Because as second, and apparently as the only leader thinking clearly right now, that was my job. Raph wasn't doing his. I glanced at Aryn. He looked bewildered.

Before we could take the next step, it started. Everything grew dark. Clouds rolled in out of nowhere, dark and foreboding. The wind picked up and whipped around us, whispering through the trees.

I looked at Chandre. Her black hair was flying around her face, making a halo of darkness around her head. Her eyes had gone black, the empty void eating at the white so that there was nothing human left about them. Her face had hollowed out, cheekbones showing like a skull's.

She was standing perfectly still, hands at her sides, but she was the image of death now, and it showed all around us. Darkness had set in earlier than it should, and the temperature had dropped.

That meant trouble.

"Raphael!" I shouted, my voice blowing away.

He looked at me, and his eyes glowed a deep green. He was on the verge of the change. The younger wolves milled around each other, feeling the pull of Raphael's change and fighting not to be sucked in.

Raphael shifted. It was a quick shift, a seamless move from one form to the other. His wolf was enormous, copper-colored, with those glowing green eyes. Curled-back lips showed sharp fangs.

Chandre laughed, and it echoed like we were in a small, closed room, not an open field. I rubbed my arms. Her voice was dancing on my skin, and the hair at the back of my neck was trying to march down my spine.

The younger wolves were losing it. I could feel their magic, and it was unstable. Raphael wasn't going to pull them through, so I had to do it. It was my duty as next in line.

I stepped around Aryn and opened myself up, shoving power into them. There were seven of them – a lot of wolves to steady, but I wasn't the alpha's second for nothing. I felt them stabilize the moment my magic hit them, and they drank it in like water.

Raphael jumped into a sprint and ran right at Chandre. She had expected him, though, and lifted her hands. When he lunged at her, it was like he was hitting a wall. He let out a yelp and fell to the ground. He was up a second later, shaking himself off.

Chandre laughed again. God, I wanted her to stop doing that. It was a sound that was going to haunt me for a long time.

I was losing the wolves. One was so close to changing, his teeth were sharp in his mouth and his arms had gone a little furry.

"Aryn," I called out. He snapped his head around. "I need your help."

He looked at the young wolf who was already more monster than human. He swallowed, looked at Raphael and then back at me.

"It's a death trap. If you go after him—"

A loud crack, like a strike of lightning, sounded behind us. We both spun around.

Raphael was at the neck of one of the other witches. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and there was blood on her neck where Raphael's teeth had sunk in. She should have been on the ground, but she was still standing, waving her arms around. It was a bizarre dance, the witch with a wolf almost the same size hanging off her neck.

Chandre turned her gaze on me. Suddenly, I felt like I was open wide, and she sucked everything out of me. Magic, willpower, life. I had the sensation of falling, and then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was a clear sky and a million stars. Pinpricks of light covered the night sky, and it was beautiful.

"Balfour?" Aryn's voice drifted to me like he was far away.

I turned my head and focused on his face. He looked like death, pale and worried. This wasn't right. Why was I lying down, looking up at the stars?

I pushed myself up, and the world tilted on its side for a moment before straightening itself out. We were in the meadow. Some of the pack was here, seven wolves running through the grass and playing.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, man. She stared at you, and then you just collapsed."

I frowned. I didn't remember... Then the memories crashed down on me like they'd been hovering around and had now finally found a home. The witches. The war. The wolves. I looked at them running through the grass, all grown wolves playing like pups. They'd all lost control.

"I couldn't hold them alone." Aryn sounded apologetic.

"No one expected you to. This is all on Raphael." I looked around. "Where is he?"

"They took him." Aryn's face was slightly ashen in the night, and his eyes were deep and scared. "That woman is a beast. After she did whatever she did to you, she attacked him, and she fought like a wolf. She managed to get Raphael down, and then she did something to his mind so that he was out. They dragged him into the woods."

"How long ago?"

"Four hours."

Shit. I'd been out for a long time. I did a quick body check. Everything seemed to be working fine; I wasn't injured. I just felt tired, like I'd fought a hard fight and had shifted twice.

"I think she stole my power," I said.

Aryn scrunched up his face, and he looked like a child for a moment – scared and confused.

"I think she drained my power and used it against Raphael," I went on. "Witches have special talents, too. I think that was what she did."

"She can drain power?"

"Wolf power."

The realization hit us at the same time.

"That means that with the burial ground in their possession..."

"She's going to be able to tap the power and use it against us."

"But Raphael is alive. I didn't feel the shift."

I nodded. Whenever an alpha died, the hierarchy shifted, promoting each wolf to the next position up, and the second to the alpha. It felt like a stab and a pull, and it involved a lot of pain. But it definitely hadn't happened.

"We need to get those wolves home," I said. "And then we need to talk to the fae."

"They'll never listen to us."

"One of them will."

## Chapter 7 – Amber

"You know that if this comes out, you're in trouble."

Fern twirled the hair at her temple around and let it loose only to twirl it again, going through a little rhythm that drove me crazy.

"They can't find out."

I had told her everything about Balfour – everything except the sex. The kissing she could know about, but I wasn't about to tell her that I had gone that far with a werewolf. Fae only dated fae. Fae only married fae. Fae did not stray away from decorum or tradition, and even looking at a werewolf meant trouble.

"I'm not going to tell."

A part of me relaxed. "Come on, if anything I'll deny it for you. You should know that about me by now." This was true. "If they find out, though, you're screwed. What if something goes wrong?"

"Something has already gone wrong. Muriel sold the land to the witches."

Fern shrugged and lay back on her bed of luscious grass. I was sitting cross-legged next to her, pulling a sprig of leaves apart.

"And? It's not your problem. Each to his own and all that."

"There's a lot of war going on outside the walls of the reserve. The others look for it, and they find it. All the time. We can't allow something like that to happen."

"Why not?" Fern turned her gaze to me. Her eyes were the color of spring. "It has nothing to do with us what they do outside the reserve. That's why this place exists in the first place."

"You hate the reserve."

She nodded. "I do. I just don't see the point of making someone else's problems your own. That's what the fae stand for. Peace when everyone's fighting, right?"

She was right, in a way. It wasn't our problem. Except that I had made it my problem by getting involved with Balfour. There was going to be trouble with the witches and the wolves, and it was going to happen right on our border.

I argued, "You can't tell me you don't think it's going to spill over at some point if they're fighting right here where we can see them. Feel them."

"You know, Amber, I don't really think about things like that at all. The reserve has functioned the way it does for years and years and it has done nothing to add to our lives. There's just a whole lot of taking away. I don't see why you should worry so much about what the fate of the reserve is. You're not Muriel's daughter. You're not going to inherit the reserve one day. You like it here, you like the system. Stop thinking about being a rebel – leave that to me."

I sighed. I couldn't sit here and waste away, thinking about things that would get us nowhere in life other than in the same passive, stagnant way. I wanted more. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be me.

Whoever that was.

Ironically, I wanted what Fern had – freedom – even though my opinions clashed with hers.

I felt them before I saw them. There was a prickle on my skin, and then two shadows appeared in the thicket against the far wall from where we were sitting. I held my breath and then looked at Fern. She frowned and pushed herself up, looking around.

"Did you feel that?"

I groaned inwardly and got up. I walked toward the shadows, and Balfour stepped out into the sun.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Behind me, Fern's breath caught in her throat. She'd followed me.

"I have to talk to you."

The other shadow moved, and then another werewolf stepped into the sun.

"Do you have any idea what will happen if you're seen here?" I asked Balfour.

"Is this him?" Fern asked. She stood next to me, not in the least afraid. Anyone else would have been.

"This is Balfour. And a friend. Who shouldn't be in here." I directed the last part of my speech to Balfour.

He looked at me, his eyes electric, and I melted a little. "Take us somewhere we can talk."

It was a demand. I glanced at Fern; she had her arms crossed over her chest and just shrugged.

"I'm out of here. This is not my game."

I shot her a pleading look – "Please?" I added when she still didn't move. She hesitated, then rolled her eyes and dropped her hands. "Fine." She glanced at the two werewolves again, her face arrogant, before she left.

"Will she tell on us?" Balfour asked.

I shook my head. Not Fern. Then I looked around. We were alone, by some miracle.

"Anyone who comes close enough will know you're here. Fern felt it, too. You're not as good at this as you think you are."

I looked around and decided that their hiding place was the safest place to be, so I stepped with the two wolves into the bushes. There was a hollowed-out space there, as if it had been planned that way, and it was big enough for us to stand and talk as long as we didn't mind being very close to each other. I was fine being close to Balfour – I liked it, in fact – but the other wolf scared me.

"This is Aryn," Balfour said.

I nodded at him.

"And our alpha has been taken."

He told me the story. Everything that had happened since I'd left the hotel.

"Muriel had the documents sent out for signing," I told him. "The messenger returned the same time I did last night. I was too late."

Balfour nodded. "The land belongs to them now. If we don't do something, we're going to lose the pack. All of them."

Someone came closer. I felt the ripple before I heard the footsteps.

"Oh, no."

I stepped out of the bushes and came face to face with Hocus. He was in his fae form. He was three times my size, a colossal creature. His dark hair was hanging over his shoulders in strands, and his eyes were flashing red.

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded. His voice was deep, his lips forming the syllables around teeth that were too big for his mouth. "I don't want to turn you in, but I can't let something like this go."

He looked over my shoulder. He knew the wolves were there.

"Hocus, please. This is about our safety. All of us."

He shook his head. "I know all about safety. This is my job, remember? I've let you out against the rules too many times. If they find out I've been helping you and this is what it came to, I'm going to be in as much trouble as you are the moment the council finds out you're hosting werewolves in the reserve."

Balfour stepped out of the shadows. Aryn followed, but he was scared. I could tell by the way he hid behind Balfour and kept his eyes glued on Hocus's enormous hands.

"We mean no harm," Balfour said.

"You're a werewolf in the fae reserve without permission or appointment. It's my job to assume you mean harm."

Balfour looked up at the fae towering over him, and he didn't show a lick of fear. That was impressive. Either he knew that we weren't as big and scary as some of us looked, or he was hiding his fear very well.

"Aryn," Balfour said, his voice calm. "You should leave."

"I'm not leaving you."

"If I'm captured and Raph is missing, you're in charge of the pack. Get out of here."

Hocus narrowed his eyes. "I can't let him leave."

I put my hand on Hocus's arm. His skin was hot and sweaty, and it felt like leather under my fingers. "Please, allow one of them to look after their own, or the witches will obliterate them."

"Not my problem," Hocus said, but he nodded at Aryn anyway.

The wolf – frozen with fear a moment before – didn't waste any time getting away. He disappeared into the thicket, and a moment later I felt his magic fade.

"Thank you," Balfour said.

"I didn't do it for you."

Hocus was as gentle as the rest of us, but his power was spectacular. He took Balfour by the shoulder and frog-marched him toward the hall. I walked next to him.

"You'd better get out of here before Mrs. Bluegrain—"

"Before I what?"

Her voice sliced through me. She was standing in front of us. I didn't know where she'd come from, but she'd seen me and she'd heard Hocus and there was no getting away now.

"Take him to the cells," she said to Hocus. Then she turned her gaze on me, and in her eyes I saw disappointment and irritation. "You can come with me, Miss Vale."

I looked at Hocus. There was an apology in his eyes. Then I looked at Balfour and found only determination in his, but we didn't say anything to each other. After a round of nods, I followed Muriel into the hall as Hocus led Balfour away.

Muriel led me into the conference room with the table where the council members met. It was empty now.

She turned the key to lock the door. That was never a good sign.

"Do you want to tell me what you were doing with a werewolf inside our walls?" she asked.

I didn't, really. Why did people always make that sound like an option?

"He came to warn us."

"Of what?"

"The witches. There's one who has the ability to drain wolf power. The burial grounds – the cemetery – is full of that power. They're going to overthrow the wolves completely."

Muriel narrowed her eyes. "And what does that have to do with us?"

What, indeed. We could turn a blind eye. We always had.

"Why are you happy about seeing someone else perish?" My voice sounded unnaturally loud in the empty room.

"Why are you so eager to help a species that only wants war and destruction?"

"They're not like you say." I kept my hands by my sides and focused on not balling them into fists. I didn't want to look as defensive as I felt – as defensive as I probably sounded.

"And you know this, because?"

I took a deep breath and didn't answer.

"Am I to assume that you've spent more time with the werewolves than we know about?" she asked. "And what about the witches? Are they also not as we say? Or are they exactly so, and it's just your precious friend who's different?"

I saw what she was doing. She was making me looked biased. And maybe I was. But I'd heard what Balfour had said, and I believed him.

"You're foolish, Amber. You're just a child. We have the rules we do and take the precautions we take so that we don't have to pollute our peace with the problems of others. There have been wars before and there will be again, and they will have nothing to do with us because we believe in love and harmony, not death and destruction."

"And in doing so, we care only for ourselves and no one else. I don't mean to be rude, but that sounds awfully selfish. We're so good at being peaceful that kindness and compassion go out the window."

Muriel frowned at me, and I remembered her ability to suck the air out of the room so that I suffocated. I didn't want her to do that again. Instead, she unlocked the door. Hocus was outside, back from his errand of 'disposing' of the werewolf.

"Take her to the chambers," she said to him. "And don't speak of this to anyone else."

Hocus nodded, then looked at me, asking me to go quietly. I did.

"They're not as bad as they sound," he said after a moment of silence as we walked along.

I didn't grace his response with an answer. I disagreed.

The chambers were rooms that stopped whatever talent was within from being used. I wouldn't be able to use glamour or fire as long as I was in there, and I didn't know how long that would be. The chambers weren't that bad because they stopped you from escaping. Today they would stop me from making a difference, from saving lives.

That was worse than anything.

## Chapter 8 -Balfour

What the fae called a 'cell' I expected to look like a dungeon. It really didn't. It was almost more comfortable than the room at the Crown Inn, where we'd been staying until now. It was, of course, still imprisonment, and that took away from the sense of luxury.

Still, my 'cell' was decorated in greens and grays, with an actual bed and a separate bathroom with a toilet and a shower. But the door was heavy metal, like the door of a safe, and the window with a nice view had bars in front of it. I was a prisoner, and I was very aware of that.

I had to get out of here. I had to get back to the pack. They needed me. Aryn was strong, but he wasn't strong enough to do everything alone. He was third for a reason, and he would be panicking. The alpha and the second both being captured in a matter of two days was worth panicking about.

I went through the cell. As a werewolf, I was strong enough to bench-press a car, but I wasn't strong enough to get out of here. The fae must have anticipated something like this – a creature with immense power being locked up in here. Then again, that fae who had brought me here had been a monster – the biggest fae I had ever seen, with hands that could probably kill me with one smack. But he had been gentle.

That had oozed out of him, seeping out of his pores, making his scary image and his colossal size seem almost pointless.

Maybe I was the only one who had noticed it. He was one of Amber's friends. He adored her; that was obvious from the way he looked at her and the regret that had filled the air around him when she was captured.

Where was she now? Were they going to listen to her when she told them what was happening? Were they going to care?

The bars in front of the window wouldn't budge. They didn't bend; I couldn't get them out of the walls; nothing worked. And the worst of it was the fact that nothing in the room was silver – silver and werewolves don't go together – which meant that theoretically, there was no reason for me not to be able to get out of there.

I sat down on the bed and looked around. The cell displayed what I'd learned of the fae. They were gentle people, and everything they did was organized and well-planned. Like the room. But they were terrified of the outside world and had locked themselves inside an impenetrable cage to make sure that nothing tainted from the outside world could get in.

And nothing beautiful from within could get out.

Except Amber. She was fae, and she was different. She wanted more than this restrictive life. I could feel it when I was with her, a burning desire that was so strong it set me on fire, too.

I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. If I couldn't get out of here, I could send out my feelers and see what I could find. I focused on the building we were in, pushing out my power and reading what came back at me, almost like echolocation.

She was here somewhere. I could feel her, but I couldn't place where she was. They were holding her somewhere on the premises, but it seemed like my senses were being scrambled somehow. I was willing to bet that the same thing dimmed her magic, too.

I pushed still farther out. I recognized the big guy and the woman – Bluegrain – and a non-entity that I guessed was a cleaner or a secretary of sorts.

And then the rest of the reserve, buzzing with magic and power.

I couldn't get farther than that. My power was only so strong. There were no other wolves nearby, and I couldn't reach as far as finding Raphael.

The moment I thought about him, something happened.

My skin grew hot. It felt like I was on fire. I rubbed my arms, hoping to ease the heat, but it just got worse. I broke out in a sweat and struggled to breathe. It felt like something had sliced my throat, but I was still breathing, not bleeding out. I was still alive.

I grunted and groaned and rolled around on the bed, and then power stronger than anything I'd ever possessed washed through me and filled the cell until it felt like I was going to explode, like the walls were going to burst open. I couldn't hold it anymore.

And then it was over.

The pain left me, but the power remained, and suddenly I was aware of the pack. Every single one of them. It was like they were attached to me by some invisible thread. I felt them, all the way from the mountain I called home.

I got up. The urge to change was fierce, but I was able to stop it without trouble. A howl ripped out of my throat even though I was in human form, and somehow I knew that all of the pack was howling with me.

I was alpha. I had the power now.

Raphael was dead.

They had killed him, and it was only a matter of time before they came after the rest of us. I couldn't let that happen. The pack was my responsibility now. They'd always been my blood.

I got up and walked to the door. Power coursed through my veins in a way it never had before. I was going to try this again. I needed to get out there.

I braced myself, lifted a leg, and kicked the door right where the locking mechanism was. A crack sounded, and then the whole cell shuddered, the stone cracking with a nauseating sound all the way up to the ceiling. The door groaned and fell forward. It was dented where I'd kicked it. The stone frame had holes ripped out of it where the hinges had been set.

I stepped over the door and walked through the corridors that surrounded the system of cells. I found my way out easily, and opened a door that led into the normal life of the fae.

Amber was here somewhere. I felt it in my bones. I just couldn't find her.

I looked for Bluegrain, too, but she was nowhere to be found. At this point, the power in my body was so strong I felt like I had a fever.

When I walked the way we'd come, I ran into the big guy. What had Amber called him?

He stopped in his tracks and looked me up and down. "I'm assuming you need to leave," he said a moment later. He sounded calm, like it was just a statement.

I nodded. "Where is she?"

"I can't tell you."

I shook my head and pushed past him. My quarrel was not with this guy. He would get into trouble; I understood that. I also got the feeling that being fae and getting into trouble was a lot worse than anyone else being in trouble.

"I can," a voice said to my left. Amber's little green friend was standing there. She was thin and wispy, but her character was strong. "I don't work for her, and no one knows I know."

"Why are you helping?"

She looked me up and down, matching me to some image in her mind. She came across cheeky. "Because Amber trusts you." She walked up to me. "If you hurt her in any way, I'm going to make sure you're hurting for a very long time."

Did we really have time for the best friend speech now?

I nodded.

"Call me Fern."

"Like the plant?" It slipped out before I had the chance to stop myself.

She glared at me. "You're not funny."

I shrugged, and she turned on her heel. I followed her. She led me through a maze of corridors until she stopped in front of a white door that looked like it might lead to a parlor or some other elegant room.

"You have to open this."

I wasn't going to ask for a key. I broke the door down without thinking about it.

"Alpha, huh?" she asked.

"Can you tell?"

"You feel a lot worse than before."

I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but I took it and moved through the doorway. The moment I was inside, I felt my power drain away, like someone had shoved it into a jar and put the lid on it.

"What is this place?" I asked Fern.

"Neutral, so if you get caught in here, they'll have your head. The only reason you weren't in here before was because you weren't alpha before."

"Fern?" Amber's voice came from behind one of the doors.

Fern smiled and skipped to the door. I couldn't break it down now. I was very aware of my lack of power. In here I was just... human.

How long had it been since I'd been human? I shook off the thought. Now was the worst possible time to get caught up in nostalgia.

"How are we going to open that?" I asked.

Fern produced a paperclip from her pocket. "The old-fashioned way."

She picked the lock. It was ridiculous, but effective. When the door opened, Amber flew out and hugged Fern.

"I thought I heard you," she said happily.

"I brought your pet," Fern said.

Amber laughed and turned to me. "Let's get out of here."

We stepped through the broken door again. The moment we were outside that horrible set of rooms, I felt myself recharge. The power was back. I could suddenly breathe again now that I was out.

"Whoa," Amber said. "What happened to you?"

Right. She could feel the power. "The alpha is dead."

Her face fell. "I'm sorry."

Fern looked from me to Amber and back. "I'm out of here. If Muriel finds out I helped you, we're going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. A lot more than before, and I'm not keen on going into the chamber. You know how she feels about me."

Amber hugged her again. "Thank you."

She smiled at Amber, glared at me, and then disappeared.

"Fae aren't as bad as I thought," I said.

Amber snorted.

We managed to make our way out of the hall to a car without anyone trying to stop us. I wasn't sure why, but I wasn't going to stop and ask questions.

Amber started the car and floored it. We made it to the gate. I ducked down, and we were allowed through without a problem.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

I'd wanted to go to the mountains to look after my pack, but I'd been wrong. The danger wasn't there, not yet. Something else was wrong. Now that we were out of the reserve, I felt something else out there, something familiar and strange all at the same time. And it was headed toward Forechester Keep. I doubted it was going for a friendly cup of tea.

"The keep," I said.

Amber didn't ask questions. She headed for the south bridge, where we'd need to get over the river. I was filled with a sense of urgency. I didn't know what we were going to find. All I knew was that we had to get there as soon as we could, if we wanted to keep living our lives the way we had up until now.

## Chapter 9 -Amber

I didn't know where we were going. We were following Balfour's nose – feelings that I couldn't feel at all. Everything was different now. He'd gone into the cells as one person, and when he'd come out of there to rescue me, it was like he was someone else entirely.

The attraction was still there. If anything, it was much worse now. It was like he was vibrating with bloodlust and energy, and the combination made him hot as hell. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Every now and then I glanced over at him before I turned my eyes back to the road.

We crossed the south bridge. The river was fuller than usual, as if it had rained, even though the seasons hadn't changed yet. The chatter was more urgent, even though I didn't know what it was saying.

"Something's wrong." I clutched the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white.

"I know. I feel it too. I don't know what it is."

I believed him. Whatever he was feeling, he hadn't been specific about it, and that scared me. With his senses twice as sharp now as they had been before, the fact that he didn't know what was happening worried me.

"Do we have backup?" I asked.

I knew that we were going in blind, and if we went in there at all we were going to face something we'd need to fight. I knew full well that we weren't just there to be spectators. We were going there with a purpose, and purpose usually developed into bloodshed.

"No."

The answer made me shiver.

"My pack is still up north. I sent the young ones home – the former alpha was wrong to bring them down here, and I can't call on them now. They would get the message loud and clear, but it's a three-day journey to get here."

I nodded. I'd heard that werewolves could call on each other, like they had homing beacons installed in their genetic makeup. It had something to do with Balfour being the alpha now. I didn't know more than that. I didn't feel like I had to.

"What do we do if we get stuck?"

Balfour looked at me like he'd hoped I wouldn't ask. "We don't."

Right. But that wasn't enough of an answer for me. I needed backup. I was fae, which meant going into a fight was already against my nature. Going in solo seemed like a death wish.

The turnoff that led to the keep came up, and I took a left onto a road that looked like it belonged in a different time. Whenever I drove there, it felt like being transported to a different reality. I'd thought it was because of the humans being there, but I hadn't felt the same in Milford at all.

All the time I'd thought that all humans were the same. I was starting to realize that that wasn't the case. Humans didn't have magic, but they had influence, and they had a feeling to them that wasn't always the same.

The road was narrow, winding through a bunch of trees that might have been there first or might have been put in for some sort of privacy. The trees were tall, the trunks clean and straight all the way up to where the branches finally spread out.

Among the trees, the magic was thick. It curled around the roots like a fog and hung in between the trunks like a bad attitude. Whatever was wrong was here among these trees, not at Forechester Keep itself.

I leaned forward. Shadows were moving around between the trees like ghosts. I knew that those shadows were solid, though. Balfour was searching the trees too, and he had a look of concentration on his face that made me think he was focusing on other senses than his eyes or ears.

"Something's here," he said. "I can't tell what it is. It's not a witch."

I frowned. I'd thought that was what we'd come after. "Vampire?"

He shook his head. "I know what those feel like. Vampires are strong, but they feel dead, in here." He patted his stomach just below his rib cage. "This... this is different."

It wasn't fae; I knew that much. I didn't know what else could be out there unless it was another shifter.

"Bear? Leopard?" "Maybe. But this feels... familiar."

I parked the car. Driving farther wouldn't help us; it would just take us past the danger to the keep, where everything was still alright. I didn't know how long that would be the case, but hopefully, we could do something.

I swallowed. I was being very jovial about the thought of fighting, but the truth was that I was terrified. I had never fought before. We fae developed our talents in case we needed to defend ourselves, but other than that it was just something we did – like breathing. What would I do if I found myself in the middle of a fight? How was I going to handle myself if fear overpowered me and tripped me up?

"We're going to be alright," Balfour said, like he knew what I was thinking. Then he opened the door and got out.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see what's out there."

"Alone?" I was suddenly scared that he wouldn't come back. All of this would be for nothing – and I didn't want something to happen to him. I really liked him – I'd started falling for him – and the idea that he was in danger made me feel sick to my stomach.

"I'll be back."

Those were famous last words in a lot of cases. I didn't want it to be in this case, too.

"Be careful." He slammed the door, and I was sure he hadn't heard me. I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone, then quickly dialed a number. "Hocus?"

"Wait."

I heard something rustle for a moment or two, and then he put the phone against his ear. "What?"

I wasn't sure if he was upset that I was phoning him, or if he was somewhere he couldn't talk.

"If you say no, I'll understand. I've made enough trouble for you already. But I need your help."

I explained what this was all about. I didn't want to be here in the woods alone with Balfour and not know what was coming at us. I felt underprepared. I felt like I was being stupid going out after something that could potentially kill me.

I wasn't ready to die.

"I can't do this, Amber. Muriel isn't happy with me because she knows I was trying to help you. I could lose my job as the gatekeeper, especially with the werewolves coming through. That's on me."

My heart sank. I'd really hoped just for... something. I'd been running around feeling like a big-deal witch hunter when it was about breaking out of the hall and coming here, but now I felt small and stupid, like I'd made a serious mistake.

I wasn't going to ditch Balfour, though. I'd said I would go with him, and I was going to stay put. I had my fire if it really came down to it, and I was sure I could do something with that.

I ended the conversation and tucked the phone back into my pocket.

A shadow appeared between the trees, and for a moment terror grabbed at me and threatened to choke me. I couldn't do this alone. Then the shadow took shape and Balfour was running toward me. For a moment I was relieved, and then I saw his face. Something was wrong. He didn't look scared, but he didn't look happy, either.

"What's going on?" I asked as he whipped open the car door.

"It's Raphael."

My mind took a moment to catch up. "I thought..." But I didn't know what I'd thought. I'd thought we were after the witches. I'd thought Balfour was the alpha now. "How does that work?"

"I thought he was dead. That's usually how it works – if the alpha dies, the mantle passes on. He's just not dead, and I don't know how that works."

I squinted and tried to figure out what was going on. None of it made sense.

"Is it just Raphael?" There had to be witches involved.

"As far as I can tell. I can't feel anyone else out there. Just this magic that felt so familiar. I understand why now. I just don't know how it happened. He's a lone wolf. He's volatile, but he's strong. It's almost like he's been given a boost."

I got out of the car.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Aren't we going to do something about it? It's just one wolf."

He shook his head. "You don't understand. He's a lone wolf. Lone wolves are unstable. Their power is unpredictable, and they lose much of their humanity without an alpha to guide them. And Raphael was an alpha, which means that he has that power. And something else – he's getting this power from somewhere else. Like he stole it from the witches."

It didn't make sense. How could that be? "You can't just steal power," I said.

"I thought so too, but last night I saw it. That's what they did to me. The high priestess took my power and pulled it into herself so she had more."

"And there's no way she could have done that for Raphael, so that he has this extra power?"

Balfour started shaking his head, but stopped himself. "I wanted to say no, but now that you mention it, I can't be sure that it's impossible. If that happened, though, it had to be a deal that he struck with them. He sacrificed something in return for that power."

"Is that something he would do?"

Balfour nodded. "Raphael is greedy for power. He'll give up almost everything to get more of it."

I walked around the car so that I was face-to-face with him. He looked down at me, and I was overwhelmed with how manly and raw and powerful he was. The feeling was definitely a lot more intense than it had been before, but it was definitely that same attraction that had overcome me completely, and the only way to deal with it was to give in to it.

I wanted to give in to it.

"I don't know what's going to happen there if we go after him," Balfour said, his mind still on the fight and not moving in the direction mine was going. "But we have to stop him. He's moving in on the keep, and I have the feeling he's going to try and take out the humans."

"To do what? He won't rule it himself."

Balfour shook his head. "But he might get someone else up there."

"Like Chandre Crowe?"

Balfour froze. "Where did you hear that name?"

"It's the witch who made the offer on the cemetery."

"It's the witch who sucked me dry."

The thought struck us both at the same time. The witches weren't going to use the power in the ground to wipe out the werewolves. They were going to give Raphael the power and let him obliterate the humans so that they could take over. Raphael could have all the power he wanted if he did what they said.

What better way was there to give werewolf power to a wolf who was already powerful? And if that wolf was their puppet? Easy pickings.

A roar burst through the trees, and I was sure a werewolf would come running out at us. A shadow appeared between the trees and grew bigger quickly. I understood now that Raphael was something very different than he would have been before. I could feel how unstable he was, too.

A moment later he appeared – and it wasn't a wolf running at us, but a man. He ran with a speed and a lethal attitude that I'd never seen any creature use before, and his eyes were an ugly red. I gasped for breath when he came close enough that his magic washed over me. It was so strong I couldn't breathe.

Balfour stepped away from the car and met Raphael head-on.

Was he scared too? That was the difference between being used to fighting and always being kept far away from it. The fae were raised far away from any fighting and danger. This was what fighting did to people, I realized. This was why the fae wanted to stay away.

## Chapter 10 -Balfour

"Raphael," I said.

I was standing in the clearing with my hands loose at my sides. There was going to be a collision between us if it came down to a fight, but I couldn't just let him do what I thought he was going to do.

Amber stayed by the car, and I was glad she did. She was scared. I could smell it in the air, a sour smell that traveled to me on the breeze.

"Hello, Balfour." Raphael sounded smug, like he'd gotten something none of the rest of us had been able to get.

"You can't do this."

He started circling me. I mimicked him, circling as he did. He was sizing me up. Maybe he thought that with his new power, he would be able to flatten me.

"How are you liking the alpha gig?" he asked. "I wanted to hold on to it, but there were some things I had to give up."

"I haven't been on the job very long, but I'm sure I'll find out how it's going to work for me."

He smiled again, a smile that reminded me of the witches. How much of their magic was running through him, as well as the magic he'd gotten from the burial ground? How much of it had they used on him to keep him coming back for more? Or was it really all his own choice? I didn't want to believe that he'd chosen to betray the pack and side with our nemeses, but there were things that weren't impossible in this world and Raphael had never been someone I would trust with my life if I had a choice.

"I'm sorry you have to lose it so soon after you've gotten it," he said.

"Why do you think so?"

He shrugged. "We're going to fight, and you're going to die, and it will all be over. Do you think Aryn will be strong enough to deal with everything that's coming his way?"

Honestly, I didn't. But that was okay, because I wasn't going to die.

"Why the witches?" I had to know.

"Because they offered me power. You can't tell me you would have turned it down."

I shrugged. I would have turned it down, but I wasn't going to get into some kind of discussion with him now. The power was building in the air. It rippled on my skin. Any moment, it was going to explode, and talking would be pointless.

It happened sooner than I had expected. Raphael curled his lips back, and his teeth were sharp. The human quality was already fading. I had the feeling that his teeth weren't ever going to be blunt again. His eyes flashed red. The green gems he'd sported were gone.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. In this case, it showed the lack thereof.

I dropped into a fighting stance. I wasn't going to shift until he did. He wasn't the type to fight fair, but I wasn't going to give up my honor just because Raphael had none.

Raphael lunged at me, and in the split second between him leaving his position and making contact with me, he was a wolf. The transition was so quick; it was like he'd changed channels. I didn't have a chance to think before his jaws were around my neck.

Amber screamed.

I managed to roll over and push him off me. I felt heat to one side, and I turned my head to look. Amber had a fireball balanced between her hands and was throwing it back and forth. She looked at me nervously. She was scared she would hit me, but I didn't care. Vampires were flammable as fuck, but werewolves were immune... up to a point. I nodded at her. I needed the time to change while she kept Raphael busy.

She trusted me, and shot the fireball toward us. Her aim was perfect. She hit Raphael in the ribs, and he yelped like a dog and shook himself. His copper fur was blackened, and he pawed his face like embers had gone into his eyes.

That was enough of a distraction for me to change. I pushed into my wolf form. It went a lot quicker than when I was second in line. It was possibly the only thing that saved me at that point.

I was barely in wolf form when Raphael attacked me. His power hit me before he did, and I went down. For a moment we were tangled. I was bleeding out; I could feel it. I needed help. I knew instinctively how I could tap into my pack, but they weren't close enough for me to leech from them.

I managed to get back on my feet and snapped at Raphael's legs. He pulled them back. I managed to break his skin twice. I tasted blood and magic on my tongue, thick and unpleasant.

Another fireball came in our direction, but this time it hit both of us at the same time, and instead of only knocking Raphael out, it knocked both of us. The fire was so hot I felt my fur singe. The air I breathed was dry and hot, lighting me up on the inside. I gasped and felt like I was dying.

This was the end. I knew it was. Raphael would recover quicker than I could with his new magic and my lack of a pack to help pull me through. Amber was worried about how she was going to get it right the next time.

I could feel her fear and her nervousness and her worry, and it did nothing to help me recover. In fact, it felt like her panic was leeching strength from me more than anything else.

We needed help. Fuck, we really needed help or this was going to be all over and life as we knew it would change forever. Of course, if we were all dead, it wouldn't make much of a difference to us anyway.

I didn't want to die.

A strange bellowing sound came through the trees; a sound I had never heard before. I wasn't sure if I should fear it. Something made me think it was help, not an enemy. The magic was warm and comfortable, not laced with terror.

Amber made a surprised sound. I looked up as the gatekeeper charged through the trees. He wasn't wearing his glamour, and for some reason, he looked bigger and stronger and scarier than before, when he was marching me to my cell. He was easily eighteen feet tall, with shoulders that were equal to the length of a car. His teeth seemed longer, pushing out of his mouth and pointing up toward his eyes. His hair was tangled and messy.

I felt Raphael's fear the moment he laid eyes on the fae. Thank God, there was something the son of a bitch was afraid of.

Amber's little friend, Fern, arrived too. She looked determined. I didn't know what she could do. She was a slight little thing who looked like the wind could scoop her up and blow her away. Amber could use some emotional support – that would have to be enough.

Hocus came at Raphael and picked the wolf up in one hand, cradling him like he was a teacup breed of dog. Raphael looked like he was a little lapdog, too, scared, with his ears pinned back and his tail between his legs.

That didn't last long. His power filled him as he remembered who he was now, and his eyes flashed a brilliant red. He turned on Hocus and attacked his arm.

The fae was big and scary, but clearly not used to fighting. Raphael's first bite broke his skin, and at the sign of his own blood he dropped Raphael. The wolf's body hit the ground with an audible thud, forcing the air out of his lungs, but he somehow recovered and managed to get back up on all fours.

Raphael came at me again and this time, he was going in for the kill. He was going to end this now, and when he did and there were only fae left, the battle was going to be over for them, too.

The little willow girl stepped into the clearing. I wanted to get her out of the way – Raphael was going to mutilate her. When she looked at me, her eyes were a brilliant green, a color Raphael's had never been.

She lifted her hands, and for a moment I wasn't sure what she was going to do. Sprout flowers or something?

The ground trembled, and roots broke out of the soil. They curled in the air like snakes, finally free from the earth. She moved her hands, and the trees bent around us until we were in a cave-like structure made of tree trunks.

The roots reached out and went for Raphael. He tried to run, but there were roots everywhere. I didn't move for fear of tripping. They grabbed Raphael and wrapped around him. The girl was stronger than any fae I'd heard of, stronger than Amber and Hocus put together.

Hocus was standing to the side, his arm dripping blood, cradling it against his chest.

Amber conjured up fire that shot out, singeing Raphael the same way it had done to me. I got up and went for Raphael. These fae were going against their nature to save me. I wasn't going to make them kill him, too. That was completely against who they were, and I would spare them that.

I grabbed Raphael around the neck and shook him like a dog. The moment I had him in my grasp, Fern let go, and the roots retracted. Amber had a fireball on standby, and Fern had the roots poised, but the final blow was up to me.

Was it fair to gang up on one wolf? No. But he'd betrayed the pack, and there was nothing that could redeem him.

I felt my teeth penetrate the muscle of his neck and hit his spine. I bit down hard, and it snapped. Raphael's body went limp, and there was a surge of power before it all faded away. I opened my jaw and let the body fall to the ground.

Fern, Hocus, and Amber stood to the side, looking at the dead animal. The roots were back in the ground as if nothing had happened, and Hocus's arm wasn't bleeding anymore. In fact, it looked like nothing had happened to it.

I brought my human back. I was free to do that now. The shift was strange, and I was naked when I was back in human form. I felt like I was coming back into someone else's body. The magic I had now made it feel like that.

Fern looked me up and down and grinned. Amber dove into the car and brought out a coat that she had in the back. It was a lady's coat, but it worked.

"What now?" Amber asked me.

All I could do was shrug.

Did the witches still have the land? Yes. Were the fae going to be in trouble for what they'd done for the werewolves? Probably. And the whole alpha thing was going to need some getting used to.

I wanted to go on seeing Amber, but I doubted it would be allowed. I also doubted that that would stop either of us.

What now? Well, we were going to see, weren't we?

For your convenience, the link to my next book on the Series; click HERE or on the cover:

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