Only their pack leader’s presence was preventing the crowd from turning into a mob intent upon tearing me to pieces. So this seemed like the perfect opportunity to raise my voice and announce: “I fight for myself.”
Just like that, the few males who had stood when Ransom asked for takers promptly flopped back down onto the ground. “What, nobody?” Ransom laughed even as he raised one eyebrow. “Well, if none of you are brave enough to fight a kitsune, I’m game. No weapons, though. Skin and fur only. I’ll beat you fair and square, little vixen. Then you’ll scream with pleasure inside my tent.”
I GLANCED AT NEITHER Gunner nor Kira, knowing the horror that would be displayed on both of their faces. Because Ransom had placed me in an impossible position. If I won, the pack would assume I’d used kitsune powers and disembowel me...and my sister also. If I lost, I’d be forced to sleep with a male I found distasteful—a matter worsened by my sister’s wide eyes and Gunner’s apparent inclination to tear his brother apart.
Buying time, I descended slowly, letting my sword dissipate into a ball of glowing magic and noting in the process which nearby werewolves stood their ground and which fell subtly back before my approach. There were more of the latter than the former...but winning still didn’t seem like the smartest path to saving Kira’s life.
For his part, Ransom was shucking off his clothing as if performing a strip tease, one slow article at a time. His eyes were on his brother instead of me, however. And as Gunner’s color rose, I hastened my own steps.
“I’m ready,” I told the nearly naked pack leader upon reaching the recessed stage. I hadn’t shifted...I didn’t particularly want to wave my fox tail in front of a pack of wolves when so severely outnumbered. Instead, I spread my legs and braced myself, lowering my weight a little and preparing for whatever attack Ransom chose to dish out.
I’d braced myself...but I still wasn’t ready for the speed of my opponent’s charge. One moment the pack leader was stepping out of boxers, the next he was spinning toward me, four-legged and covered in fur. I barely had time to leap out of his path before he barreled into the spot where I’d been standing. Then he twisted sideways and bit at my leg so unexpectedly that I only had one second to ponder whether to cheat and use my star ball for protection or not.
No, I decided. A fox would. A wolf wouldn’t. So, instead of materializing the metallic cuff that could have saved my skin quite literally, I leapt upward and kicked out at my opponent’s face.
Of course, magic aside, the move was the only one at my disposal. No wonder Ransom was prepared for my evasive jump. His head whipped sideways even as he flung himself airborne after me. And I yelped as sharp teeth bit into the skin of my hip.
Gunner’s growl rent the air even as Ransom released me. And I knew without being told that, the next time my enemy’s teeth contacted, the younger brother would join the fight.
Which couldn’t happen. Not when Gunner was doing everything he could to maintain a relationship with his brother. Not when I was still unsure whether my instinct was right and the male I fought against was the Master and the solution to Kira’s malaise.
But I couldn’t turn fox or utilize my magic. So what alternative did I really have?
For his part, Ransom was enjoying the hunt. Rather than attacking again directly, he pushed me backwards subtly but unerringly, guiding my footsteps toward the first line of seating in an effort to trip me up.
Despite knowing what was happening, I had no real alternative. So I took another step backward...then something seared across my stomach like a combination of ice and fire. As if the magic guiding me here had rematerialized three times stronger than when it had left me. Only, tiredness now dragged down my body rather than the euphoria of wolf blood buoying me up.
“What?” I murmured, glancing down at my own belly. Ransom was too far away to have done the damage, but whatever had hit me was sharp and effective. Because a thin line of blood now pushed up through my clothing. Meanwhile, behind my back, the audience’s reaction was out of proportion to the minor wound.
While my attention had been focused elsewhere, whispers from the crowd had turned into a cacophony. A man grunted, a woman screamed.
Leaping sideways, I bought enough leeway to peer back at the watching shifters. To my surprise, it wasn’t the prospect of a kitsune fighting their pack leader that had the werewolves riled up. In fact, they weren’t even gazing in our direction at all.
Instead, shifters batted at themselves wildly. First they hit their own arms and legs as if trying to squash a biting insect. Then they pushed against each other, descending into an unruly snarl like dogs with cans tied around their tails.
One male turned to face the forest, revealing a long line of blood dripping through his shirt much like mine was doing. Meanwhile, at the edge of the stage only twenty feet distant, Lucinda leapt out of Gunner’s arms and onto the grass.
Or, rather, she appeared to have been pushed out, slung sideways by a being we could neither smell nor see. I could sense the spirit, though. Could almost taste its barely contained anger....
So Mama had been the one guiding me after all. The unexplainable wound in my belly matched the location of the instinct that had led me to this location in the first place. Had her daughter’s blood been sufficient to turn her corporeal? Was that why she was now able to come to my aid?
Whatever the nuts and bolts of the matter, I appreciated Mama’s attempt to break up the fighting. It was just too bad she’d chosen to show herself so thoroughly right in front of a pack of angry wolves.
Chapter 16
“Stop!” I yelled, forgetting I was supposed to defend myself from Ransom as I instead dove toward the younger Atwood who appeared to be next in line for my mother’s wrath. Because I wasn’t so sure Mama understood who was and wasn’t her enemy. And I couldn’t bear the thought of harm coming to the alpha who had protected me and my sister for so long.
Only...I appeared to be moving in the wrong direction. Because Ransom—now human—roared like a stuck pig, slapping himself in the face as a scratch rose along the side of his jaw. Then another cut opened up the skin half an inch away from his eyeball, which raised the pitch of the shifter’s roar into a scream.
“Mai, grab it!” Elle yelled from the top step of the amphitheater. Kira was gone—one glance told me that—hopefully spirited away by one or all of the guys we’d lived with back in the city. But my mentor was trying to push her way toward me...an attempt doomed to failure given the state of the milling crowd.
Her words, however, were enough to provide direction. If Elle thought grabbing my mother would make a difference, then I’d do everything in my power to touch Mama’s spirit self.
Unfortunately, the ghost in the amphitheater was still invisible. And her attack upon Ransom was so erratic—hitting his feet, his head, and his buttocks in short order—that I didn’t even know where to begin my defense.
Or my human self didn’t. Sliding out of my clothes and into my fox skin, however, opened up new avenues to explore. Whiskers twitched with shifting air currents. Superior nostrils caught the faintest hint of my mother’s favorite jasmine perfume winding around my nose.
She was hovering in a tornado of fury around the pack leader’s head, I gathered. Too high for me to reach even if I regained my human stature.
On the other hand....
Leaping onto Ransom’s shoulders was the work of a single second, fox paws spreading to catch my balance even as the werewolf attempted to bat me aside. Mama was close enough now that I could have reached out and touched her. But there was one more thing I needed to do first.
Because blood, I gathered, was the key to kitsune powers. Good thing I just so happened to be standing atop a bleeding werewolf.
I lowered my head and licked up a scarlet trail oozing out of Ransom’s scalp, the first sustenance I’d imbibed in nearly twenty-four hours sitting rich and salty on my tongue. The effects, however, went far beyond squashing the low-blood-sugar woozin
ess in my noggin. Instead, a jolt of energy flowed through me like lightning, empowering my muscles and also providing a sixth sense I’d never experienced before.
Abruptly, I knew exactly where Mama was without needing to twitch my whiskers and make wild guesses. She’d slid lower in preparation for another strike to Ransom’s belly. But before she could scratch, I leapt.
I shifted as I fell, landing with arms around my mother’s neck as if I was once again a child. And in response, her face materialized before me, so familiar that it seemed like merely a day rather than over a decade since I’d seen her last.
“You’re all grown up. My beautiful daughter.” I wasn’t sure if the words came out of her throat or simply flew into my head without the need for sound waves. Either way, almost-tears squeezed my throat so hard I could barely speak.
“Mama,” I whispered after one dry-throated swallow. “You can’t do this. You have to stop.”
Her eyes met mine, so much like peering into my own reflection that I shivered. Then—long before I was ready to lose her—she was gone, disappearing back into the void from which she’d come.
For my part, I was tumbling to the stage, no longer supported by my mother’s barely corporeal body. Was listening to the shifters who—now that it was safe—had converged upon the recent battleground.
“She grabbed herself?” one asked, confused.
“Kitsunes can have two bodies,” another answered, seeming sure of something that definitely didn’t match up with my understanding.
Then the mutters merged into one endless stream of anger. And the sky disappeared above my head as the pack dove as one on top of my prone and winded form.
Chapter 17
“Step back, go to your tents, and stay there!”
The words were clearly an alpha commandment given the speed with which my attackers disengaged from the fight. On the other hand, the alpha tossing around orders was just as clearly Gunner rather than Ransom based on the way my debt tugged at me to follow in the receding werewolves’ footsteps.
“I don’t have a tent to go to,” I muttered under my breath, getting ahold of my body with an effort. And when I was finally able to look around me, I noted that most of the werewolves seemed to be engaged in a similar battle of willpower. Only, in their case, the issue appeared to be whether to accede to the younger brother’s wishes...or to continue protecting their wounded pack leader by killing the obvious kitsune in their midst.
Lucinda alone had no such ambivalence about which action to engage in. She picked herself off the ground where Mama had flung her, marched up to Gunner, and slapped him hard across the face. “You bastard!” the female hissed. “You won me and now you’re angling for fox booty in addition?” Then she stalked out of the amphitheater with a sway to her walk intended to show Gunner precisely what opportunity he’d tossed aside.
And, to be honest, I couldn’t really blame the other female for her anger. After all, from what I understood about the battle I’d walked in during, Gunner had as good as taken one girl to the dance then prepared to leave with another. As the side piece in question, I wasn’t particularly thrilled.
Ransom was quick to agree with my assessment. “Brother, you have a lot to learn about women,” the pack leader noted, blotting at his bloody face with the shirt he’d discarded a few moments before. And he looked so prosaic in that moment that I suddenly doubted the instinct that had made me conclude he was the Master. Could Mama really have broken through her minder’s magical bonds so thoroughly as to attack him if that had been the case?
“On the other hand”—Ransom’s voice broke through my thoughts as his eyes scanned the ambivalent shifters—“my brother speaks for me on matters that don’t pertain to women. This fight is over. Now go.”
I turned to follow the other shifters, my mind already racing with ideas about how to track down my sister. Because finding her had to be my top priority, even above ferreting the Master’s identity out. The guys would have taken her somewhere safe but would have assumed I’d know how to find them. So...
“Not you.” Ransom’s words, while not impacting my footsteps the way Gunner’s had, froze me in place nonetheless. Because what the pack leader might lack in overt dominance, he clearly made up for in wiles....
Only, Ransom wasn’t speaking to me. His gaze was instead intent upon his brother, and now Elle was tugging at my arm.
“Mai,” she murmured, pulling me along behind her until we stopped in front of a nicely dressed male that I’d met once previously. Was he Lincoln, Leonard? Whatever his name, this was the same shifter who’d slammed the door in my face the first time I’d visited the Atwood mansion, the male who had filled Ransom’s goblet while Gunner was fighting...and, apparently, the twin Elle had spoken of so fondly of during our riverside lessons.
Because—“Go with my brother,” my mentor murmured before sliding away from me and back toward the sibling standoff. The electricity in the air was raising the hairs on my arms, but she slid between the duo as if there was no danger, removing the shirt from Ransom’s fist and bringing the fabric up to dab gingerly at her pack leader’s face. “You’re going to have a shiner...” she berated him.
Then I was being drawn up the stairs behind her brother, away from everyone I knew within this strangely combative pack.
“I JUST WANT TO FIND my sister,” I offered once we were out of the amphitheater and away from the danger Ransom’s presence represented. Unfortunately, the male beside me seemed disinclined to offer any direction. Instead, he thrust out his hand in a distinctly unwerewolf-like gesture of greeting.
“I’m Liam, in case you don’t remember,” he said.
“Mai,” I answered, accepting a grip that was firm but not overpowering. Despite the unpleasantness of our initial introduction, Liam seemed less like the stereotypical werewolf and more like his easy-going sister. A definite relief given that he was the sole familiar face in the swirl of werewolfishness that surrounded us both.
“And now I know where Elle’s been running off to,” Liam continued, his words mirroring my pondering. “I’d thought all the secrecy meant she was stepping out on her boyfriend....”
“Her husband, you mean.” I frowned. “Or mate, rather. I thought werewolves chose a partner for life.”
“You’ve been reading too many novels.” Something dark and wounded flickered across Liam’s face as he answered, then he turned on his heel and led me downhill and deeper into the forest without another word.
So—mates, not a good topic. I grimaced, deciding that holding my tongue was a good decision when faced with a prickly shifter whose sore spots were impossible for a stranger to suss out.
After that, we walked for several minutes in silence, signs of werewolves dissipating until we might as well have been wandering through an uninhabited wilderness rather than skirting around the edges of the shifter equivalent of a professional networking convention. Still, there was no sign of Kira. So, eventually, I caved and asked again.
“My sister...” I started, having to speak up this time to be heard over the sound of a nearby waterfall. Rather than answering, though, Liam held up one hand in a request for patience then pulled me off the deer trail we’d been following and straight through a thicket of thorns.
In a minute, I decided, I’d turn back and find someone more likely to lead me to my sister. In a minute....
Due to the dim evening lighting or my own rushed thinking, I didn’t realize we were on a clifftop until Liam paused...then dropped right over the edge. Only when I picked my way to the cliff edge after him did I see that Liam was holding onto the side of the rock face with one hand while leveraging himself down a series of ungainly but apparently human-created steps that led to a flat ledge of rock at the base of a waterfall.
How handy, I noted. To have a hideaway close but at the same time unrelated to the gathering....
The existence of this secluded spot, however, became irrelevant as soon as my eyes drifted down to the cluster
of shifters gathered at the shadowed cliff base. Allen, Tank, and Crow were all huddled so close together that I could barely distinguish one from the other. Then a shifter leaned backwards and I clearly saw the comatose form of my sister lying at their feet.
Chapter 18
“What happened?” I gasped out as I broke into their cluster. Pebbles were still tumbling down the staircase behind me, but I didn’t actually remember working my way through the intervening space. Somehow, though, I’d ended up at the bottom while Liam was still nearly at the top. Meanwhile, the roar of the waterfall must have muffled the clatter of my approach because Tank and Crow responded as if I was an enemy, leaping to their feet and arraying themselves protectively between Kira and myself.
Allen, on the other hand, remained seated, cradling the teen’s sweat-sodden head in his lap. “She collapsed,” he said simply, recognizing me before the others did. Then he scooted sideways and let me take over his position, Kira’s limbs flopping doll-like as she was transferred from his embrace to my own.
“No wonder. She’s starving and thirsty,” I explained aloud, trying not to berate myself for dragging a thirteen-year-old along on a journey that would have stressed a full-grown human. But even while latching onto a rational explanation, I knew there was likely more to it. Because Kira’s stamina, until this summer, had been better than that of a marathon-running horse.
“Here.” A bottle of water pressed into my left shoulder blade, one of the shifters having come prepared for a thirsty and comatose kid. But I lost track of both bottle and companions as my sister’s eyelids fluttered open, the dark orbs below watery with unshed tears.
“Mai?” she whispered, trying and failing to sit up under her own volition. “Ow,” she mouthed as she gave up on the motion, falling back against my knee while cradling her own head.
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