CONTENTS

Omega

Copyright

About

Dedication

Title Page

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

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XX

OMEGA

Book One of

War of the Alphas

SM REINE

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

This book is sold DRM-free so that it can be enjoyed in any way the reader sees fit. Please keep all links and attributions intact when sharing. All rights reserved.

Cover model photos sourced from Taria Reed at The Reed Files.

Copyright © SM Reine 2015

Published by Red Iris Books

1180 Selmi Drive, Suite 102

Reno, NV 89512

SERIES BY SM REINE

The Descent Series

The Ascension Series

Seasons of the Moon

The Cain Chronicles

Preternatural Affairs

Tarot Witches

War of the Alphas

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ABOUT OMEGA

Ten years ago, Deirdre Tombs died. When she was reborn the next day, Deirdre had become a shapeshifter who can’t shift shapes. Nobody knows what animal she’s supposed to be. She’s definitely not a werewolf. The Alpha, Rylie Gresham, can’t force her to transform like other members of her pack.

Now Deirdre is considered an Omega, the weakest shapeshifter in the pack—a vulnerable position when Everton Stark demands tribute from Rylie. He wants to be the dominant Alpha. The only Alpha. And he plans to make her pack submit whether they want to or not. Stark can make every shapeshifter obey him by force of will alone.

Every shapeshifter except Deirdre.

The shifter who can’t shift is the only hope for Rylie to win the war against Stark. It will take everything Deirdre has to survive undercover in his den. But can an Omega’s will be stronger than that of a charismatic, deadly Alpha like Everton Stark?

For Garion,

My Alpha and Omega and everything in between.

—I—

Montreal, Quebec—May 2025

It was a gray, drizzly day, and Deirdre wasn’t looking where she was going. Her gaze was focused on the ripples her boots created as she strode through inch-deep puddles slicking the sidewalk.

When she bumped into a man heading the opposite direction, she muttered an apology and kept going. She didn’t look at him until he grabbed her by the arms so tightly that she thought she would bruise through her jacket.

Deirdre lifted her head and found herself staring into a pair of golden eyes.

“Kill them,” the man said. “Kill them all.”

And he continued walking as though he expected her to obey.

She turned to watch him go. The sheer mass of his body forced the crowd to part around him like a river surging around a boulder. His hair was tawny brown, his arms tree trunks, his stride purposeful. He could have been any of the city’s indigent shifters, driven to insanity by life on the streets without a pack.

Deirdre pulled her hood over her eyes, slid her hand into her pocket, and stroked the comforting firmness of the Ruger LCP .380. It was the tiniest handgun she had ever owned. It didn’t even leave a visible bump when she carried it in her jacket.

What could the stranger have meant? Kill “them?” Kill whom?

She couldn’t stop to puzzle his instructions for long. She needed to move. After all, she was still being trailed by a man named Colin Burgh, and he had almost caught up.

Deirdre wanted to reach the privacy of home before Burgh tried to kill her.

He’d been on her heels since she left the office. For the moment, her would-be assassin was pretending to window shop at a shoe store. His eyes were shifty, lips tight—nervous about his upcoming kill.

It was impossible to know who had turned Burgh on her. It could have been the Redshank family, though. She’d repossessed their car the other day—stolen it, if she was being honest with herself—and they’d caught her in the act. The Redshanks weren’t rich, but even they could afford a clumsy thug like Burgh.

But instinct told her that Burgh had been hired by her boss, Gutterman. Their business relationship had been strained lately, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d used Burgh’s services. Gutterman didn’t hate Deirdre or anything. He just didn’t want to have to fire her and pay into unemployment.

Once Deirdre took care of Burgh, she’d go back for Gutterman.

Deirdre resumed walking, eager to get out of the rain even if it meant having to defend herself against a murder attempt.

She really hated the rain.

As she continued, Deirdre watched the reflections in the windows she passed for Burgh. He was easy to spot in that blue jacket and orange scarf. Practicing the art of being subtle by not being subtle at all, she imagined. Who would imagine an assassin could be so obvious?

But Deirdre didn’t see his ugly jacket in the reflection. When she stopped at the intersection, she watched that window for a good thirty seconds, and Burgh never showed up behind her.

Deirdre risked a glance over her shoulder.

The broad-shouldered man with the tawny brown hair held Colin Burgh’s arms now, just like he’d held Deirdre’s. Burgh seemed transfixed by whatever the hulking man had to say. It figured that the creep on the street would have something to do with Colin Burgh.

She pressed the button for the crosswalk again, knowing that it was a placebo and wouldn’t hurry the signals. The rain was growing heavier. Cars blew past, sluicing through the shallow stream of Rue Metcalfe and splashing mud over the sidewalk. She didn’t step back in time. The water soaked through her shoes and froze her toes.

Finally, the light for the crosswalk changed. Deirdre was two steps into the intersection when the screaming started.

Instinct took over. She drew the Ruger and dived behind a parked Mercedes.

The screams spread like an infection, sweeping along the street.

Peering over the car’s hood, she watched as a delivery van launched into the air and flipped end over end. It crashed into the wall of a DKNY. Bricks showered onto the pavement, pulverized on contact.

“It’s just a random moon-sick wolf,” she whispered, trying to convince herself. “It’s nothing personal.”

The moon sickness had been getting worse lately. It was spreading throughout werewolf communities worldwide, turning ordinary people savage for brief minutes—long enough to slaughter those close to them and deliver a huge shock when they regained sanity. A horrible tragedy, but a brief one.

Another car flipped, its hood punched in half. Deirdre couldn’t see where it ended up. She knew that the car-flipper was drawing nearer, though. The third car to go flying was on the opposite side of the street from where she hid.

This was starting to look personal.

She’d loaded her gun before leaving work, but she checked the magazine again. It had a six-bullet capacity—seven if she kept one in the chamber, which she didn’t. Getting her hands on three silver bullets had practically required a jumbo loan. She’d gotten the three iron bullets by swearing her firstborn to Gutterman. There was no seventh bullet to load.

Another scream shattered the air, and a body splashed to the pavement beside Deirdre. Blood misted over the sidewalk.

The Mercedes groaned as it was lifted behind her. Colin Burgh jerked it over his head, fists clenched in the aluminum.

She stared up at the man in the flapping orange scarf, which was now stained with blood. There was no nervousness in his eyes anymore.

He also wasn’t furry, so it couldn’t be moon sickness.

Three silver bullets won’t be enough.

Deirdre threw herself away from the car, rolling behind the corner of the bistro.

Burgh whipped the car in a wide arc like a shot put. The Mercedes cartwheeled through the window of an Ethan Allen. Veins bulged on his forehead and neck as he roared, spittle flying from his lips.

He hadn’t aimed the car at Deirdre.

This wasn’t an assassination.

Burgh pounded down the street, moving almost at werewolf speed. People fled in front of him—everyone who hadn’t been smart enough to disappear when he’d thrown the first two cars.

He caught a woman at the tail of the escaping crowd, wrapped both of his hands around her jaw, and tugged hard. Her head separated from her shoulders with the wet sound of tearing flesh, spraying her fluids onto the brick wall beside her.

Burgh hurled her severed head into the wall. It erupted.

This time, Deirdre screamed along with everyone else.

Once that woman dropped, he reached into a shattered window and yanked someone else onto the street—a girl no older than ten, his bloodied fist tangled in her hair.

The girl kicked at him. She might as well have been kicking at an avalanche.

Deirdre stood and lifted the Ruger.

“Hey!” she shouted, loud enough that her voice carried across the street.

Burgh didn’t seem to hear her. He closed a hand around the girl’s throat.

Deirdre squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the gunshot was like a spike in Deirdre’s unprotected eardrums, instantly muting the pattering of rain and pounding of feet.

The bullet entered Burgh’s neck on one side and exited through the throat, just below the jaw. He bellowed as blood gushed down the breast of his jacket.

The Ruger was a tiny thing without much stopping power. But it was enough to force him to drop the girl. When she landed on the sidewalk, she was squirming and alive, unlike the headless body beside her.

One silver bullet down, two to go.

Now she had Burgh’s attention.

Too bad she hadn’t given any thought to what she would do once she had it.

“Great idea, Tombs,” she whispered to herself.

Burgh broke into a run. The pounding of his feet dented the asphalt on impact. Blood streamed from the holes in his throat. Silver ensured that he couldn’t heal quickly, and it might poison him eventually, but for now he wasn’t dropping.

Deirdre bolted, cramming the Ruger back into her pocket holster to free her hands.

Burgh’s fist closed on the hood of her jacket and yanked.

She struck the asphalt on her back. Her head ricocheted, the street whirled, and moisture soaked through her jacket.

Meaty hands descended on her. She threw herself to the right, rolling away from Burgh, and she allowed the momentum to carry her to her feet. His fist slammed into the street where she had been lying.

I need an escape.

A block away, rain streamed from a drainage pipe attached to the side of a bank. It was bolted to the cement. Looked sturdy enough to support her weight. Didn’t matter if it wasn’t—Burgh swung at her again, and she had to run.

Deirdre leaped the bank wall, wrapping both hands around the pipe.

“Just like practice,” she whispered.

And she hauled all one hundred twenty-seven pounds of her body up the pipe, one hand over the other, feet seeking traction on the brick. Her boots scrabbled for purchase. Got traction. Her shoulders protested at the sudden weight.

Parkour had been a hobby at first—a way to get exercise outside the boring confines of the gym. Deirdre had scaled a hundred drainpipes like that one.

But never with a bloodthirsty shifter on her heels, and never when everything was so wet.

Deirdre was level with the third-story window when fingers dug into her ankles. He jerked her leg away from the wall. She gripped the pipe tighter, burying her fingers between the metal and wall, back muscles crying out.

The ground was twenty feet below, but Burgh had easily leaped to grab her without needing to climb. With his face tilted to the sky and the cloud-veiled sun shining on him, she could see that his pupils were dilated until the irises were a thin rim of gold. He wasn’t even looking at her. It was like Burgh was operating on programmed instructions and pure, unfocused hatred.

She stomped her heel on his face, once, twice, a third time.

He slipped. Dropped back to the sidewalk.

Fresh adrenaline flooded Deirdre. She climbed the rest of the way to the roof in seconds.

She hurtled across the rooftops, vaulting over an air vent, sliding underneath a pipe beyond it.

Judging by Burgh’s roar, he reached the roof behind her within seconds—maybe with a single leap.

He was so much faster than she was.

“Whatever I did to deserve this,” Deirdre panted, “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure whom she was talking to. All the gods were dead, after all.

She still uttered a prayer as she raced toward the edge of the building, roof trembling with the vibrations of Burgh’s pursuit. She prayed that there was another building behind the bank. She also prayed that there would be something soft on its roof to catch her.

Burgh’s fingers scraped her spine.

And then Deirdre flung herself off the roof.

Her arms spread wide, hands grasping for something—anything. Her knees were drawn to her chest. The jacket flapped behind her.

For an instant—one serene, weightless heartbeat—it felt as though Deirdre was flying.

But then she fell.

The roof of the next building approached at shocking speeds. There was no soft landing waiting for her. Only concrete.

Deirdre protected her head with her arms, extended her legs, and screamed all the fear out of her chest.

She hit heels first. Tried to bend her legs to absorb the impact.

Her ankles shattered.

Deirdre slammed into her side and skidded six feet, shredding the arm of her jacket.

“Damn,” she groaned.

That had been her favorite jacket.

She tried to stand, but her broken ankles wouldn’t hold her. She bowed her head, eyes screwed tight as the bones knitted. The healing fever swept over her—the rapid-fire restructuring of muscles, bones, and nerves that all shifters underwent when injured.

Deirdre had timed how long it took for a broken wrist to heal once. It had been five minutes from greenstick fracture to wiggling fingers.

She didn’t have five minutes for her ankles to mend.

Burgh slammed onto the roof behind her. His landing was neater. He didn’t break anything.

“Damn!” she swore again, jerking the Ruger out of her pocket.

He gripped Deirdre’s ponytail and whipped her head against an air conditioning unit. Pain gonged through her skull. Her vision blurred and doubled. The healing fever raced to correct the damage he inflicted, but her energy was already focused on her ankles—she couldn’t heal everything at once.

Deirdre scrabbled away from him on hands and knees. A foot smashed into the center of her back, flattening her to the roof.

She aimed the gun blindly over her shoulder and fired.

Burgh didn’t even twitch.

She’d missed. Thousands of dollars in the hole and an insane werewolf assassin on her back.

Deirdre would have wasted a hundred silver bullets for a way to kill Burgh. She wiggled, seeking leeway to aim at center mass, but couldn’t turn enough to get a clean shot.

He kneeled on top of her, pinning her arms with his knees.

A metallic glint caught her eye.

Colin Burgh was wearing a knife on his belt.

That was how he must have originally planned to kill her. A silver knife worked on most shifters. A sharp blade was enough to prevent important limbs from regenerating, and it would certainly stop her heart if buried in it for a few seconds.

Deirdre bent her arm back and yanked it from his belt.

Burgh didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t need to. His hands closed on her jaw, just as they had with the woman he’d decapitated, and he began to clench.

She drove the knife into his wrist. The blade scraped bone and emerged from the other side. Hot blood dribbled onto the roof beside her head, splattered on her hair.

Burgh released her with a howl.

Deirdre stabbed at his right knee, his thigh, anything—but he had already backed off, getting out of the range of the knife.

One bullet left.

She rolled onto her back. Aimed the Ruger with her right hand.

Deirdre shot straight into his eye.

Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t—she had no idea. Burgh smashed into her. Deirdre’s head bounced. She saw an instant of stars, and then nothing.

There was no healing fever in the darkness.

—II—

Deirdre awakened on a couch with a throbbing headache and ice packs on her ankles.

She groaned and kicked the ice packs to the floor. She was cold—so very cold, deep into her bones, like she might never be warm again.

“Burgh,” she hissed, teeth chattering. Where is Burgh?

“You’re awake!”

Deirdre sat up to look around. She definitely wasn’t in Canada anymore. The sun streaming through the windows was warm and bright, untouched by cloud cover, and the bedroom’s decorations screamed America. The wainscoting was white, the wallpaper gold, the carpet a lush blue. An American flag hung in the corner between two paintings. It was an old flag, too—the kind with fifty stars rather than the crescent moon design they’d instated last year.

The bedroom was so fancy that it seemed to belong in a museum, although the rumpled bed had obviously been used.

A woman stood by a full-length mirror, suitcase open at her feet, and beamed at Deirdre.

“What’s going on?” Deirdre asked, edging over to sit directly in the sunbeam. Her whole body was trembling with cold.

“Sorry to have you brought all the way here,” the woman said. “I really wanted a chance to speak with you, but my schedule was too tight to fly to Quebec.”

Deirdre wetted her lips with her tongue. “Where am I?”

“This is the White House.” She turned back to the mirror, smoothing her hands over her suit jacket. She didn’t seem to like what she saw. She fluffed up her hair and picked at her eye makeup with a fingernail. “What do you think? How do I look?” The woman faced Deirdre, arms spread wide.

She looked fine. The cream skirt suit did favors for the peach undertones in her skin. She looked professional, mature, almost matronly. In fact, there was something very motherly about the woman. Like she could have been swapped out with any of the foster parents Deirdre had lived with through the years.

“I thought the White House was destroyed,” Deirdre said.

“Parts didn’t come back after Genesis, but some areas are fine. They’ll have the West Wing restored next autumn.” The woman dropped her arms. “I’m sorry, I should probably introduce myself. I’m—”

“Rylie Gresham,” Deirdre interrupted.

Now that she’d had a moment to clear her head, she recognized the werewolf Alpha. Rylie Gresham was known for avoiding public appearances, but she’d held a few press conferences over the years, and every shifter watched them.

If the gaean species—like shapeshifters and the sidhe—had a president, it would have been Rylie Gresham.

She was responsible for the social programs benefiting victims of Genesis. Everyone who had lost something when the world ended a decade earlier had been given jobs, homes, and healthcare because of Rylie Gresham. The dozens of group homes Deirdre had suffered in as a child had also been established by this woman.

Deirdre wasn’t sure if she was supposed to bow, kiss her ring, or punch her in the face.

Her ankles felt better, so Deirdre settled for standing up. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Gresham.” The words felt awkward coming but of her mouth, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Unless the title was wrong? “Um, Alpha Gresham?”

“Rylie. Just Rylie. Thanks.” Her smile was tolerant, as though she dealt with people fumbling over formalities every day. “And you’re Deirdre Tombs. How do you feel? Did you finish healing?”

“I think so.” Deirdre fingered the back of her head. She remembered Burgh smashing her into the roof hard enough that something had cracked, but there was no injury now.

“You had my guy worried. He thought you weren’t going to make it. I’m glad to see that wasn’t the case.”

Mention of her “guy” made Deirdre take a second look around the bedroom. It seemed wrong that someone like Rylie Gresham would meet a stranger without guards.

Of course, Rylie was capable of transforming into a massive, beastly wolf within heartbeats, so she was probably her own best protection.

“So…what can I do for you?” Deirdre asked.

Rylie slapped her forehead. “Right. Okay. Where did I put that?” She dug through her suitcase and came up with a laptop. She set it on the desk underneath a portrait of President Carter. “I’m going to show you a recording of what you experienced in Montreal. Do you mind?”

Deirdre blinked. “Uh…I guess not.”

“Great.” Rylie opened a video file on her laptop and clicked “play.”

The video had been taken from a security camera. Deirdre watched herself enter from the right side of the frame—a girl wearing a peacoat, jeans, and combat boots, with all of her straightened black hair hidden by the hood. Her posture made it obvious that she hated the rain. Deirdre hadn’t realized she projected her misery so obviously.

As she watched, the broad-shouldered man stopped her in the middle of the sidewalk and grabbed her arms. The camera didn’t show his face. But there were a lot of little details that Deirdre hadn’t noticed on the street that she now saw in the video. The backs of his hands were hairy. There was a tattoo on the side of his neck, something inky-dark and complex, but the camera’s resolution was too low to show it. He also had the telltale bulge of a firearm at the small of his back, barely concealed by a jacket.

In the video, the man spoke to Deirdre, then moved on.

Rylie stopped the playback.

“Is that all you wanted me to watch?” Deirdre asked.

“We don’t need to review the fight,” Rylie said. “I just want to know what Everton Stark said to you.”

“Who’s Everton Stark?”

Rylie plucked at the hem of her skirt, then smoothed it over her thighs again. The leader of the preternatural world was awfully fidgety. “He’s a threat. A significant threat. It’s important that you tell me what he said, Deirdre.”

“He told me to kill them,” Deirdre said. “He wanted me to kill ‘all of them.’ I don’t know who he was talking about.”

“Did you do it?” Rylie asked. “Did you kill anyone?”

Deirdre folded her arms tightly over her chest. “No.”

“I understand that you work for someone named…” The Alpha grabbed a report printed on White House stationary. “Gutterman? Is that right?”

“Yeah, Gutterman.”

“He’s a nightmare demon. Did you know that?”

As if Deirdre could have missed the way that her skin crawled every time he entered the room. It wasn’t just because he was a disgusting person. That was his power. An aura of terror followed Gutterman everywhere he went. “I know,” she said.

“He has a lengthy record with the Office of Preternatural Affairs. He’s flaunted the law since well before Genesis.” Rylie’s eyebrows knitted with concern. “Gutterman is a murderer.”

It was probably best if Deirdre didn’t admit that she knew that. “I’m not a killer. I repossess things when Gutterman’s debtors don’t pay their dues. That’s all. I’m good at sneaking around.”

“I saw your attempt at escaping the werewolf,” Rylie said. “You’re really good.”

“Thank you?”

The Alpha clasped her hands together. Her eyes were bright and the corners of her mouth were lifted in a smile. “I believe that you didn’t kill anyone. In fact, you drew Colin Burgh’s attention away from the people he was hurting, led him somewhere isolated, and put your life on the line trying to stop him.”

“Yeah, well, he would have killed me if I hadn’t,” Deirdre said.

“You didn’t have to fight him. He was distracted.”

Annoyance crept through Deirdre. “He was killing people. What’s the problem?”

“You’re not a problem at all,” Rylie said. “In fact, you might be the solution to my problems. I’d like to offer you a new job. It will require you to break your ties with Gutterman, leave your home, and join me at the shifter sanctuary. Are you interested?”

Leave Gutterman, who had probably tried to kill her? Get a job that didn’t involve repossessing cars from lowlifes? Live somewhere that it didn’t rain three hundred days out of the year?

Was she interested?

But Deirdre’s moment of excitement shriveled. She clenched her fists. “I’m not eligible for sanctuary residency.”

Ten years earlier, Genesis had destroyed the world. Most people had come back to life afterward—but many of the survivors came back different.

People who had once been human had woken up as sidhe, shapeshifters, and a hundred other strange creatures. Deirdre was one of those who had been turned into a shifter. She passed all the tests that qualified her as a shapeshifter, anyway—the rapid healing, improved reflexes, and aversion to silver.

But she couldn’t shift shapes. Where most people turned furry every full and new moon, Deirdre stayed human. And she didn’t have animal instincts, either.

Nobody knew what Deirdre was supposed to be.

Because her breed was a giant question mark, she hadn’t been allowed to live with the orphaned shifter children at the sanctuary. She was considered too dangerous.

“I know that you don’t shift,” Rylie said gently. “But that’s okay. I’ll name you my Omega. You’ll be in my inner circle—practically a member of my family.” She took Deirdre’s hands. Rylie’s blood was heated by the power of her inner wolf, making her skin warmer than sunshine.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Deirdre had been called Omega. Various foster siblings had gifted it to her as nickname, taunting her for the weakness.

An Omega was the lowest of the low, no better than the dirt underneath a werewolf’s paws.

Those momentary fantasies of being liberated from her life in Quebec vanished all too quickly, leaving a hollow, bitter core within Deirdre’s heart. It was a familiar sensation. It was the way she had felt every time she needed to be moved to a new family, a new boarding school, a new orphanage.

It was the sensation of painful inevitability.

“No,” Deirdre said. “I’m not interested.”

She would never allow herself to be some pack’s Omega.

Rylie dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, scraping lines into the lipstick. “Will you think about it? Please? I could really use someone like you.”

“I’d like to go home,” Deirdre said.

Rylie sighed. She plucked a tube of lipstick off the desk and reapplied it. “I’ll have my guy take you back as soon as the press conference is over. Ten minutes. Okay?”

Deirdre nodded mutely. Her stomach knotted in on itself, twisting with immediate regret. She ignored the sick burn of shame.

Better an outcast than Omega.

When Deirdre opened the bedroom door to leave, she was greeted by hands shoving her aside, a clamor of unfamiliar voices, and so much motion that she didn’t know where to focus.

Everyone outside Rylie’s room wore business suits, so Deirdre felt trashy in her t-shirt and jeans. If she’d known that she was going to be knocked out, dragged across the border to the White House, and seen alongside an important politician, she would have dressed better.

People closed in to speak to Rylie. There were a few people with huge cameras, armed guards, a woman with a tablet rattling off a list—“express your sympathies, reassure people that moon sickness isn’t contagious or permanent, then move on to what we plan to do”—and some interns in pack-branded t-shirts that said “Our Sanctuary, Your Safety.”

The crowd was overwhelming, too much for Deirdre’s senses. She tried to retreat into the bedroom.

“Move it,” someone said, barring her entry. He was short for a man, about on eye level with Deirdre, and built stocky. His white skin had olive undertones and his head was shaved. His rain slicker didn’t match the sunny weather in Washington, DC.

Deirdre knew a shifter when she saw one. She squared her shoulders and stood tall, refusing to show submission. “Let me past.”

He didn’t look intimidated. He spoke to Rylie over Deirdre’s shoulder. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Rylie looked like she’d forgotten about Deirdre during all the commotion. “Oh, sorry. Deirdre Tombs, this is Gage Cicerone. He’ll take you home after the press conference.” She slapped Gage lightly on the shoulder. “Be nice to Deirdre, okay?”

“Who, me? I’m always nice,” Gage said.

Rylie rolled her eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Don’t let him give you trouble, Deirdre. He’s wonderful once you get to know him.”

“Alpha! Over here!” shouted a White House staffer, flapping a folder above his head so that he could be seen over the crowd.

“Sorry, have to run.” Rylie pecked Gage’s cheek and then disappeared into the throng, tailed by interns trying to brief her on the upcoming speech.

Where the Alpha went, the crowd followed. It only took five seconds for the hall to empty.

Deirdre was alone with Gage Cicerone—as alone as they could be at the White House. There were still people clustered around the door through which Rylie had disappeared.

Her gaze skimmed from his beat-up shoes to his scruffy jaw. “Who are you, exactly?” Deirdre asked. “My handler?”

“I’m the guy who saved your life,” Gage said.

She gave him a second look. He looked like any shifter she might have known in the group homes: tough with way too much attitude. And an apparent inability to shave his face properly. She never would have guessed that he could have taken down the raging beast that had almost killed Deirdre.

“What happened to Colin Burgh?” she asked.

“He’s dead.”

“Good,” Deirdre said. “I’ve never seen a guy moon-sick to that degree.”

“And you never will. Come on, this way. We can watch Rylie’s press conference.”

He dragged Deirdre around a side hallway where fewer staffers were gathered. A guard wearing a black suit and an earpiece stood beside a door that had been propped open.

Through the door, Deirdre could see the immense crowd waiting to hear Rylie speak. The walls were draped with banners in the colors of the werewolf faction: gold and blue. An enlarged portrait of Rylie, looking regal and serene, hung on either side of the stage. Her appearances were so rare that it was more than a simple press conference. It was an event.

The sheer size of the auditorium awed Deirdre. It must have been able to fit thousands, and every seat was packed.

When Rylie stepped onto the stage, she wasn’t the fidgety, unassuming woman that Deirdre had met in that bedroom. She was straight-backed, confident, and proud. A leader of wolves, just like on the banners bordering the stage.

A familiar sense of grief rolled through Deirdre at the sight of Rylie.

The last time Deirdre had watched one of the Alpha’s public speeches, it had been two years after Genesis. She had been living in a group home and there hadn’t been anything else to do. The pain of everything Deirdre lost had still been so fresh. Now it was a wound that had scabbed, but not healed, aching just under the surface.

She turned from the door. Gage’s eyes weren’t on Rylie. He was watching Deirdre with a curious expression.

“What’s your problem?” she asked.

“You look better now that you’re awake,” he said. “What are you?”

Deirdre’s spine stiffened. “I’m an Omega. Haven’t you heard?”

“Funny. But really, what are you?”

“What are you? I assume you must be a wolf if you’re in Rylie’s inner circle.” Wolves were the most common breed of shifter. Before Genesis, they had been the only breed of shifter.

“Assume away,” Gage said. “I’m just wondering how you resisted Stark.”

That was the name that Rylie had used to identify the creepy guy Deirdre met on the street. “Guess I just wasn’t in a ‘kill them all’ type mood.”

He leaned in too close to stare at Deirdre. She stared back without yielding an inch.

“Weird,” he muttered.

He’d be the one calling her Omega next.

She didn’t like this line of conversation. Or any line of conversation focused on her, for that matter. “So are you, like, Rylie’s boyfriend or something?” Deirdre asked. “Beta consort? Mate?”

Gage barked a laugh. “She’s practically my mom. I’ve lived with her since Genesis, along with all the other kids.” That meant that he had gotten to spend his youth at the sanctuary. Not sent to boarding schools for wayward gaean children.

Deirdre hated him immediately. She hated his smile, the way that Rylie had kissed him, and how he said the word “mom” without any hint of pain in his voice.

Rylie’s voice echoed throughout the auditorium now.

Deirdre didn’t stick around to watch the press conference.

—III—

By the time Deirdre got home, they were still airing the press conference on every channel. It had been on the radio in Rylie’s private jet. It played in the cab on Deirdre’s drive back from the airport. And her roommate had it on TV when she walked through the front door.

“Where have you been?” Jolene asked. She lounged on the couch upside down, feet propped up on the back, russet braids draped across the floor. She tossed another piece of popcorn into her mouth and crunched it loudly.

Deirdre dropped the shredded remnants of her peacoat on the side table. “I was at Rylie Gresham’s press conference in Washington.”

“Crazy, huh? A cure for moon sickness. That’d be something.” Jolene fumbled blindly for the remote on the couch. It was out of her reach. “So you were working late, huh? What’d Gutterman have you repo this time?”

“My sanity,” Deirdre muttered.

She took the Ruger out of her pocket and checked the magazine. Only the three iron bullets remained. She was surprised that Gage, who had returned both the jacket and the gun, had let her keep the illegal ammunition. Iron was the only surefire way to kill the sidhe, after all.

Stuffing the gun into the belt at the small of her back, Deirdre snagged the remote and flipped the channel.

“Hey, bitch!” Jolene protested. “They were about to show the press conference again!”

“I know.” Deirdre wasn’t sure which channel she had switched to, but it was showing commercials, which was an inoffensive alternative to the news.

She took the remote into the kitchen, which was really just the half of the living room with linoleum. All the appliances were pre-Genesis by at least a decade or two. The refrigerator was a sickly shade of pink and the microwave had a dent in the door, probably from getting dinged by debris during the end of the world. Deirdre and Jolene were lucky to have it. Some public housing didn’t have a microwave at all.

“Rylie Gresham announced that she’s going to open the sanctuary for a town hall meeting,” Jolene said. “Try to get feedback from the community. About time! You know it’s been four years since the Alpha made a public appearance?” She drummed her heels on the back of the couch. “I was still at St. Joseph’s last time she came on. We did a whole unit on her biography in history class because of it. Where were you?”

Four years earlier, Deirdre had been on the run from a disastrous boarding school experience.

It was hard to be the only shifter who didn’t have an animal. It was, apparently, natural for shifter children to establish their social hierarchy with physical conflict, but Deirdre hadn’t been able to compete. She’d already owned a gun, but she couldn’t shoot her classmates.

It had been easier to run. Easier to get a job, sign up for adult benefits, and join the real world.

Turned out the real world wasn’t any kinder to an Omega than the juvenile system had been.

“We studied her biography, too,” Deirdre lied.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Jolene said. She flashed teeth that looked like a mouthful of needles as she spoke. “You know, how the Alpha survived being moon-sick and silver poisoned. She ate something like five mundanes. Awesome.”

Jolene thought that anything involving the death of mundane humans was awesome. Most vampires did.

Her specific breed of vampire—an asanbosam—was naturally murderous, much the same way a trapping spider is murderous. Jolene’s instincts told her to lurk somewhere high, in trees or the roofs of skyscrapers, and wait for someone delicious to pass, and then…well, do what asanbosam do best, which involved the silver teeth and vicious claws on Jolene’s feet.

As far as Deirdre knew, Jolene had never gotten to satisfy her killing urges. She had only changed into an asanbosam after Genesis, the same way that Deirdre had been turned into a shifter. There was too much oversight to be able to get away with murder these days.

Many preternaturals did kill, but they also didn’t get government benefits. Jolene was smart enough not to endanger their free housing and food by going on the hunt.

Thinking of food, Deirdre opened the refrigerator. It was empty aside from a couple of thawing roasts. Gage had offered to feed Deirdre on the private jet, but she had declined. Now she regretted succumbing to pride.

Deirdre leaned her forehead against the freezer door and sighed. “What do you want for dinner, Jo? Meat, meat, or…meat.”

“How about meat?” Jolene suggested. “Or meat! Meat would be great!”

“Ha ha. Do we have any cash left on the benefits card?”

“Not for takeout we don’t. We’ve got to make that cash last for another week and a half.”

And if Gutterman was trying to fire Deirdre, there was no way she’d be getting her next paycheck.

Meat it was.

Deirdre grabbed a roast, turned on the oven, and dropped the meat on the counter to finish thawing.

The selection of groceries they were offered by food stamps was intended primarily for werewolves, who were strict carnivores. They craved meat and they craved it rare. The proportion of cheap beef they received through their benefits was insane. Jolene didn’t mind, but Deirdre always ate their paltry allowance of nuts, dairy, and grains in less than a week.

The commercials on the TV ended. The Alpha’s press conference started to play.

“The moon sickness isn’t contagious like the flu or measles,” Rylie said. “It’s a social sickness spread by solitude. It takes shifters who don’t have the loving support of a pack, pride, or flock. It preys on the most vulnerable and makes murderers out of the innocent.”

Deirdre muted it. Rylie’s mouth continued to move soundlessly.

She looked so different on the television than she had in person—so much loftier and inaccessible. But there was a spark of warmth in the tilt of her head, the way she gestured, her eye contact with the camera.

“Turn the sound back on,” Jolene said, flipping off the couch. “I want to hear it again.”

“Whatever.” Deirdre shoved the roast in the oven. “I’m going upstairs while dinner cooks.”

“Grumpy, grumpy. Did Gutterman spit in your lunch?”

He’d done much worse than that. And Deirdre doubted that he was going to give up after one failure.

She headed up the creaky stairs. There were two bedrooms at the top, along with a bathroom that had no insulation and rust-browned water in the winter. Deirdre had the bedroom on the right. It was next to their neighbor’s bedroom, so they woke her up with their active sex life two or three times a night.

Their townhouse used to be half of a single-family home. A wall had been built down the middle when it had been renovated for shifter occupancy, and that had been pretty much the only modification made to the old building. So it was noisy. It was always cold. And Deirdre could hear dripping through her window whenever it rained, which felt like every day it wasn’t snowing.

She hated the rain.

Her clothes felt damp and gross. Deirdre peeled her shirt off and tossed it in the hamper.

She glared at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her door. There was no sign of her injuries other than the angry scrape of strawberry from elbow to shoulder. It was better than it had been earlier. It wasn’t bleeding. But any other shifter would have already healed it.

“Omega,” she whispered.

Deirdre shouldn’t have let herself hope, even for an instant, that her life was going to change.

The lights flickered and dimmed.

A black mood oozed over the bedroom, penetrating the edges of Deirdre’s consciousness. Her reflection twisted. She was gaunt and bruised, the color sucked from her golden irises, cheeks hollowed with hunger. Deirdre touched her face. Her fingertips told her that what she saw in the mirror was real, but Deirdre knew that her senses were lying.

Rain dribbled down her walls, puddling around her feet. Where the water touched, mold spread, making her walls crumble and leaving her bleached bed sheets looking rotten.

Within seconds, the temperature had plummeted thirty degrees. Deirdre sighed, and her breath came out as a gust of silver mist.

“Damn,” she said.

She grabbed a dry shirt and went back downstairs. The creaky steps rotted around her boots. The wallpaper peeled free, turning to ashen flakes that drifted as gently as snow.

The only light on the first floor was on the oven—a little amber dot telling her that the roast was still cooking. In its faint light, she could see Jolene squeezed into the corner, arms hugged around the bowl of popcorn. Her eyes were wide with terror.

It was black by the front door. Blacker than night, blacker than the emptiness of space, blacker than the eyes of a demon.

Gutterman had arrived.

“Hey boss.” Deirdre resisted the urge to wipe the rain from her arms. It wasn’t actually raining inside. It was just a nightmare demon’s thrall shooting illusions into her brain. “Want something to drink? We’ve got water, soda, snifter of kerosene…”

The shadows vortexed into the shape of a man. Gutterman’s stomach hung over his belt, his arms like pork roasts gone rancid. “You left work early.”

“The hell I did. I clocked out at noon, just like always.” Deirdre took the popcorn bowl gently from Jolene. “It’s okay, sweetie.”

“But the fire,” her roommate whispered. Her voice was harsh, as though her throat was torn ragged by smoke. Jolene’s family had died in a motel fire when she was a kid. She relived that childhood horror every time Gutterman came around.

Deirdre would have killed for a little fire to burn away the illusion of rain. But that wasn’t how it worked. Nightmares weren’t called “pleasant dream unicorns” for a reason.

“There’s no fire, Jo. You know that. Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll be up in a few minutes.” That was probably a lie. Gutterman had arrived without warning or invitation.

He was there to finish the job that Colin Burgh had started.

Jolene edged along the wall to go to the stairs, evading invisible flames. She whimpered all the way to the second floor.

It would seem to be burning up there, too. It would keep burning until Gutterman left or died. Deirdre didn’t feel very picky about the outcome.

“What are you cooking?” Gutterman asked. “Are you going to share?”

Deirdre folded her arms. Shivers coursed down her spine, so hard it felt like it might rattle her vertebrae apart. “Where’s my last paycheck?”

“Last?” He peeled free of the shadows, stepping toward her. His swollen belly jiggled with every motion. “You quitting?”

“You’re firing me.”

The black pits of Gutterman’s eyes seemed to take up half his face. His jowls wobbled. “Honey. Peaches. Deirdre, dear. Why in the world would I fire my very best repo girl?” His voice dripped with saccharine and venom.

“The last repo went south. I got spotted. Now everyone knows what I look like and I won’t be good for future grabs. That’s why you sent Colin Burgh to kill me today.”

Gutterman smiled. His lips spread across his face, severing his sagging, bloated cheeks into hemispheres. His gums were brown and rotten where teeth should have been. “I thought you would be more surprised.”

“The way my life’s been going, nothing surprises me anymore.” Nothing but job offers from the werewolf Alpha, anyway. “You don’t have to use me for repossession. I could do more in the office. Loan issuance or something.”

“You’re no good for that. Everyone knows what you are—or rather, what you aren’t. You’ll drive business away.”

Slimy green mildew slithered down the walls. Ice water rose around Deirdre’s ankles, and it sloshed as Deirdre moved into the kitchen. She had a Taser in one of those drawers somewhere. Couldn’t remember which one. The chill slowed her thoughts to the rate of a sludgy ice floe.

“It’s not my fault I don’t shift,” Deirdre said.

“You sure? Didn’t you ever think the gods made you Omega for a reason?” Gutterman asked. “Like, maybe they’re punishing you for what a piece of shit you are?”

Deirdre planted her hands on the counter behind her. In that position, her fingers were only inches from the Ruger at the small of her back. Iron wouldn’t do anything fatal to Gutterman, but it might slow him down. “There are no gods left. If there were, they could have wiped nightmare demons off the face of the planet when they remade the world. It’s the sick humor of fate that made me what I am.”

“Either way. Can’t have you screwing with business.” The threat echoed, resonating through Deirdre’s marrow.

Gutterman was bloating, bulging, growing. He filled the cramped confines of Deirdre’s living room until she couldn’t even see the illusion of rotting walls. Just the vastness of his turgid girth.

He wasn’t really that big. The nightmare was a small thing at the core of his illusion, no bigger than a man.

She’d worked for Gutterman long enough that she considered herself immune to his day-to-day thrall. It was like living with a constant sense of nausea—unpleasant, but survivable. Now he was putting on a real show for her. Whipping out every one of his powers and focusing them on Deirdre so she wouldn’t be able to fight back.

Deirdre whipped the Ruger out. “Cut the thrall or I’ll shoot.”

“Your gun won’t do a thing, Deirdre dear. Not to me.” The words were like oil dripping into her ears, wet and slimy. His presence was sucking all of the oxygen out of the room.

“The Ruger might not hurt you,” Deirdre said, fumbling through the drawers behind her, “but I have something else that will.”

Her fingers brushed smooth plastic.

The Taser.

Deirdre aimed her gun squarely at Gutterman’s swollen belly, right where she imagined the real demon would be hiding, and she fired.

The iron bullet vanished into his gut. The impact created ripples through his fat, like hurling a stone into the stillness of a marsh.

Gutterman slowed. Took a step backward. Clutched sausage fingers to his belly. Inky-black ichor dribbled over his hands and wrists where most creatures should have had blood.

The rain roared louder, soaking Deirdre’s hair, freezing her core.

And she suddenly remembered dying.

She tried not to think about what had happened when Genesis struck ten years earlier, but the nightmare’s thrall brought it back to her as vividly as though she were reliving it.

Deirdre had been only ten years old. She had been playing hopscotch with her friends, pelting them with pieces of chalk, and screaming as loudly as she could. She’d screamed out of joy, not fear. The fear came later.

It had seemed like a normal day. No different from the hundreds of days that had come before.

Then the sun had vanished, consumed by a black sky, and the teachers took everyone inside to keep them safe.

The kindergarten classes were farthest east. They were the first part of the school to be devoured by looming shadow, which crept toward Deirdre’s classroom inch by rapid inch.

Deirdre hadn’t known what was happening, but she knew she would die if she didn’t escape. She broke out of the classroom and tried to run. Even then, long before she practiced parkour, she had been great at running. Her dad used to say she practically had wings.

Her dad didn’t say anything about her anymore.

“He died,” Gutterman taunted.

The words echoed through the darkness surrounding her.

He died, he died, he died…

She felt like she was running again. It wasn’t possible for her to run in the townhouse—there was nowhere to go. The sensation of fatigue in her leg muscles was yet another of Gutterman’s illusions.

Ten years later, she still remembered the acid taste of fear as her school’s walls were chewed into dust a few hundred feet behind her. She remembered realizing that the school was gone with her friends inside of it. And she remembered searching the horizon for the mountains, only to discover there was no horizon left.

The roaring of the darkness was a terrible sound that Deirdre had never heard before or since. Nor had she ever felt the choke of such helplessness as when she realized she had nowhere to run. Her neighborhood was already gone, taken by the same shadow that devoured the school.

Gutterman had wrapped her in the darkness again, entombing her in the hopeless void.

“Let me go!” she shouted.

Never.

There had been blackberry bushes by town hall that Deirdre liked to eat from during the summer. Nobody else knew they were there—they grew in a hidden place behind a sign. She ate herself sick every year when those berries came in.

That was where she had chosen to die, hidden under the thorny bushes.

Deirdre was back under those bushes again. She was staring up at the leaves as the darkness closed in on her. Knees hugged to her chest, eyes squeezed shut, she listened to the other people in town as they screamed.

And she listened as those screams terminated one by one.

Her hands had still been dirty from throwing chalk. The taste of apple juice from her morning snack lingered on her tongue. The blackberry bushes shivered as darkness came over Deirdre. It roared and roared and roared, and she opened her mouth to roar back, tears burning her eyes and blood hot with bitter grief.

Then she had died.

She remembered it perfectly. Deirdre wished that wasn’t the case, but it was, and that was just something she had to live with.

Ten years since Genesis and she still couldn’t forget.

It’s not real. None of it is real.

The shock of reliving her death was enough to make her tear free of Gutterman’s illusion, just for a moment.

She wasn’t under the blackberry bushes—she was still in her kitchen. Gutterman pinned her to the linoleum with his bulk.

Deirdre thrust the Taser blindly upward and pressed the button.

Electricity sizzled. Gutterman screeched.

For a heartbeat, Deirdre could see the townhouse as it truly was. The walls weren’t mildewed. The floor was dry. The television was still playing Rylie’s speech, and the Alpha’s lips moved without making a sound.

The heartbeat passed and she was blind again. Engulfed in the depths of Gutterman.

The roar of the Genesis void thundered through Deirdre.

“Come on, asshole,” she grunted, swinging the Taser wide, seeking physical contact. “Get out of my damn house!”

She pressed the button again. Lightning arced between the metallic prongs without reaching anything, and the darkness only grew thicker.

Fear weighed heavily on her chest.

It crushed her. She couldn’t inhale. Her head was spinning.

“Move, Deirdre!”

She wasn’t imagining that voice.

Light blazed around her, brilliant and white. Electricity snapped through the air. Deirdre’s arm hairs stood on end.

Gutterman screamed, and it was a thousand voices at once—every bully who had ever taunted Deirdre, every family member and friend who had died in Genesis, every furious victim whose belongings she’d repossessed.

She fell to her knees, hands clapped over her ears, and tried not to hear. She tried not to let it hurt.

It’s a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare.

And then it was silent.

Deirdre lifted her head. The apartment was back to normal—but she had new company.

Gage Cicerone dropped a spotlight the size of a briefcase to his side. He was wearing a battery pack slung from one shoulder. Metal wire looped between the battery and light, providing the electricity that had destroyed Gutterman.

Deirdre looked down at her body. She was completely dry. The Ruger was on the linoleum a few inches away.

Gutterman was nowhere to be seen.

“Is he dead?” Deirdre asked.

“Probably not. Nightmares are hard to kill.” Gage thumbed the switch on the battery pack off. “But I don’t think he’ll be bother you again any time soon.” The timer on the oven dinged. He grinned. “Can I stay for dinner?”

Long after Gutterman had vanished, Deirdre still had no appetite. Being cold and wet had a way of doing that to her. She pushed a forkful of meat around her plate, drawing a hash mark with the juices on the cheap white plastic.

“In our house!” Jolene fumed, waving her fork through the air like it was a sword. “In our damn castle.”

Deirdre snorted. “I take it you’ve never seen an actual castle before.”

“Well, it’s not a castle, but it’s our castle. You know what I mean. Right, Gage?”

He was eating the meat with enthusiasm, though it was a cheap cut with more gristle than meat. His cheeks bulged with roast, so he nodded vigorously.

Deirdre sighed and propped her chin on one hand. “Castle or not, one thing is for certain: I need a new job.”

Gage swallowed. “I’ve got one for you.”

“I’m not interested. But while we’re talking about that, I couldn’t help but notice that your timing is suspiciously impeccable. Did you stalk me back here?”

“Security footage showed that you were being pursued even before Colin Burgh went on his rampage,” Gage said. “I figured whoever’s out to get you would try again once you got home. I’m under instruction to make sure you’re safe, so I stuck around.”

She did feel a lot safer with the lantern and battery pack in the middle of the dining room table. It was an odd centerpiece, but a reassuring one. She wondered if Gage would let her keep it. She’d run the damn thing all night, every night.

“So you stalked me,” Deirdre said.

Gage shrugged. “Stalked, protected, whatever.” He shoveled more meat into his mouth. “Good thing I did, too.”

“I had it under control.”

“You shot at him with an iron bullet,” Jolene said. “An iron bullet against a nightmare. What were you even thinking? We were both toast and you know it.”

“I’m sure you would have had plenty of time to escape, Jolene,” Gage said cordially. “This gravy is fantastic, by the way. Can I get the recipe? I’d love to serve it on the next night I have to make dinner.”

Jolene brightened. He’d hit her in the soft parts by complimenting her cooking. “Do you make dinner a lot?”

“Everyone in the pack has to. We take turns. There’s enough of us that we only have to work the kitchens once a month, but I bet this gravy would knock the socks off of my Alpha.” He tilted the plate so that the juices trickled into his mouth. “Not that she usually wears socks. That was great, ladies. Thanks for feeding me.”

“Any time.” Jolene leaned back in her chair to take a lingering look at Gage’s body. “Seriously, any time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He checked his watch. “For now, I have to get back to the sanctuary. Other people need to use the jet. Will you come with me, Deirdre?”

She grabbed his plate and stacked it on top of hers. “I’m going to do dishes.”

“Why aren’t you going to run off with him?” Jolene’s voice hissed from between her sharp teeth with a faint lisp. “If you don’t, I will. He looks delicious.” The odds that she was being literal were about fifty-fifty.

“Neither of us are going to run off with him,” Deirdre said. “Much as I appreciate his help, I’m sending him home. Alone.”

That last part was directed at Gage, who had been pretending not to listen to Jolene. It must have taken willpower of steel to ignore her. Fanged mouth aside, Jolene was hot. Her measurements were the highly coveted thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six, with ridiculously long legs.

Hollywood agents had tried to recruit her for movies until she opened her mouth. There still wasn’t a market for asanbosam headlining blockbusters. They weren’t one of the “sexy” vampire breeds.

Gage polished off his glass of five-dollar wine, then wiped his mouth with the paper towel. “Hear me out first. You owe me that much.”

“You do,” Jolene agreed.

Deirdre glared daggers at her roommate. “I know where this is going. Gage wants me to be the bitch of his pack. Officially an Omega. I wouldn’t be interested even if he saved my life a hundred times.”

“Rylie felt bad about using that word,” Gage said. “She knows she hit a nerve. She wants to apologize personally.”

“Apology accepted. Done talking?”

Jolene lifted her hands. “Wait, let’s rewind this conversation a couple of seconds. Rylie? Rylie Gresham?”

“I told you that I was at the press conference today. It’s not my fault you thought I was being sarcastic.” Deirdre dropped all of the plates in the sink with a clatter. “Look, Gage, it’s not just the Omega thing.”

“What, you like being here? No offense, but this place is a dump,” Gage said.

“It is totally a dump,” Jolene said.

Deirdre glared at the plates in the sink, since glaring at her roommate didn’t seem to actually help. “Whose side are you on here?”

“I’m on the side that gets you out of the city, away from Gutterman, and into a pack. A real pack. I’ve always been worried you’d go all moon-sick, hanging out here with me.” Jolene slammed a fist on the table. “And not just any pack. The pack! I’d be Rylie’s bitch if I had shifter parts.”

“The pack is the reason we live in this dump in the first place,” Deirdre said. “They’re in charge of the benefits system. Heck, they created the system.”

“And we’d be homeless without it,” Jolene said.

Deirdre started rinsing off the plates and tossing them into the dishwasher, maybe a little too vigorously. “I don’t want to be part of it. I want life to go back to normal. I want to find another job, make enough money to rent a normal apartment, and—”

“Wait,” Gage said suddenly. He grabbed the remote and turned the volume up on the TV.

Riley’s face had been replaced by a man’s. Deirdre was shocked to realize that she recognized him.

Everton Stark—the man who ordered her to “kill them all”—was handsome in a frightening, intense sort of way. His neck was as thick as his jaw. His shaggy beard gave him the look of a man who had lived in the wilderness for years. His nose was long and hooked, almost too big for his features.

He was speaking. “Your Alpha has lied to you. She has lied to all of you. The rash of shapeshifter murders hasn’t been because of the moon sickness. They have been because of me.”

Deirdre’s hand crept to cover her mouth. “Oh my gods…”

“Unlike your current Alpha, I will not lie to you. Those so-called moon-sick people have been killing under my command. I have the ability to compel other shapeshifters to do my bidding, even things they wouldn’t usually do—like murder. Every person I’ve directed to kill has been innocent. Yet every person I’ve directed to kill has still done it.”

Deirdre felt Gage looking at her.

She didn’t look back at him.

“I’ve done this to make a statement—to prove a point.” The camera crept closer to Stark until his face filled the frame. There was a hint of scarring on his right temple and bolts of red hair through his beard. “Rylie Gresham colludes with the Office of Preternatural Affairs to oppress our people. Shifters are treated as cattle by a merciless system. I will tear that system apart. I will make a better world for shifters. A more genuine world that does not deny we are beasts.

“My name is ever Everton Stark and I am challenging Riley Gresham as Alpha,” he went on. “Those of you who side with me will enjoy a world without the idiotic rules that the current Alpha has created. A world where you don’t have to subsist on scrap and live in shacks. A world where shifters rule.” Anger flashed in his eyes. “Those of you who are against me…well, you won’t be for long.”

That was the end of the video. The news anchors came back on to discuss it, calling it a declaration of terrorism.

The words rattled within Deirdre’s skull.

Terrorism. Oppression. Alpha.

Deirdre felt numb. “What did he mean when he said that those who are against him won’t be for long? Does that mean he’ll kill everyone who doesn’t align with him?”

“Worse,” Gage said. “He wasn’t joking when he said that he can make shifters obey every command. He’s completely literal about that. His command is irresistible.”

“That’s not true. He told me to kill and I didn’t,” Deirdre said.

“Exactly,” Gage said. He pushed back his chair and stood, gazing down at her with a sudden seriousness that he hadn’t shown before. “And that is why Rylie needs your help to win this war.”

—IV—

Deirdre and Gage arrived at the sanctuary at first light. The private airstrip was guarded by several shapeshifters—some in their beast forms, others carrying automatic weapons. The werewolves were almost as big as horses, and they looked like far more of a deterrent than the guys with the guns.

She had seen videos and pictures of the sanctuary before. It was always shown as some kind of Eden. A safe place for shifter children to grow up.

This looked more like a war zone.

Deirdre was reluctant to step out on the tarmac, knowing what Everton Stark could do. If any of those burly-armed guards had been compelled, then there was no way to know they wouldn’t shoot her on sight.

But she did emerge, nobody shot at her, and Deirdre took a first breath of fresh mountain air.

The landing strip was on top of a mountain looking down into a verdant valley with a city too perfect to be real. A waterfall frothed nearby, and the lake at the bottom was ringed by cottages, each of which had their own vegetable garden.

Mundane cattle grazed in a field at the southern end of the city while other animals frolicked on the north end. Those ones weren’t normal animals, but shapeshifters. Deirdre could tell that their minds were human even at that distance. They moved like men playing around on four legs, graceful but purposeful.

Gage stepped up beside her. The musk of his scent was as strong as the pine, the damp earth, the cool morning wind. “What do you think?”

Deirdre thought that she could’ve grown up there. She could have spent her childhood in some peaceful shifter Mecca instead of living in group homes with other preternatural children.

But she hadn’t.

“I’m ready to see Rylie,” Deirdre said.

His mouth slanted into a sad smile. “Don’t want a tour first?”

“Not especially.”

“Then follow me,” he said.

The armed escort followed them down into the valley. Reaching the sanctuary from the airstrip required traversing a steep, narrow trail along the waterfall. Gage walked at her side, agile on the rocks. The shifted werewolves took the lead. The men with the guns took the rear.

Deirdre understood that they were all there to kill her if it became necessary.

That was how she’d been treated her entire life—dangerous. As if there was any animal she could turn into that would be able to take down four giant wolves and three machine guns. As a child, she’d found the fear baffling. It had even made her cry a few times, wondering what kind of awful thing she had become. Now she found it exhausting.

“I’m not stupid enough to attack Rylie,” Deirdre said. “And I don’t have motive.”

“I know that,” Gage said, leaping from one boulder to the next.

“Then what’s with the bodyguards?”

“Everyone’s protective of our Alpha. Especially now. That’s all.”

Deirdre eyed the wolves at the front. They didn’t look to be paying any attention to her, but as Colin Burgh had shown, they would be fast and brutal once their attentions turned. “Can you get rid of them?”

Gage’s expression was somewhere between amused and confused. “You need at least one escort. Do you think it’s better to be alone with me?”

She shrugged. He hadn’t tried to kill her yet, and she didn’t think that he’d been compelled by Everton Stark—he didn’t have the crazy dilated pupils look. Almost as importantly, he didn’t seem to be afraid of the unknown animal lurking inside of her.

“Okay,” Gage said. He reached out and snagged a wolf by the tail. Deirdre’s heart skipped a beat when the beast whipped around, focusing its golden eyes on Gage. “I’ll take care of this visitor. The rest of you can go back to what you were doing.”

The wolf snapped at his hand, but didn’t bite. It was a gesture of annoyance, not aggression.

One by one, the shifters peeled off, leaping down the trail or clambering back up the mountain, skipping the trail to tackle the slopes directly.

When Deirdre looked behind her, the armed guards were already gone.

She was alone on the trail with Gage.

Deirdre burst out laughing. He laughed along with her, somewhat more weakly. “What?” he asked. “Did I miss a joke?”

“You grabbed a werewolf’s tail,” Deirdre said. “You’re nuts.”

“You won’t think I’m nuts when you see how completely harmless the pack is.”

The pack could have been populated by the nicest, happy-go-luckiest people in the world, and Deirdre still wouldn’t have called them that. Nothing that had razor-sharp teeth and lightning-fast reflexes could be harmless.

When they entered the sanctuary along the north end of the road, though, she kind of saw what he meant. All the open fields were occupied by shifters at play, and she realized that they were much smaller now that she was on their level. There weren’t any wolves the size of horses enjoying playtime. Most only reached her hip.

Shifter children.

They were supervised by a cluster of older kids in human form—young teenagers, really. They lounged in hammocks while sipping from drinks with umbrellas.

It looked nice. Really nice.

Gage caught her looking. “Those aren’t shifter kids, in case you’re wondering,” he said. “The ones in the hammocks.”

“What are they?” Deirdre asked. Not who, but what. Everyone was defined by what they could do or become in a place like this.

“Well, Dana over there is mundane. She’s the dirty blond. Dana’s sister is the one with all the brown hair—she’s a mage,” Gage said. Deirdre tensed all over. Mages were half-angel, half-human witches, capable of casting vicious magic. “The two of them visit every spring as soon as school gets out. And then Benjamin’s the boy. He’s Rylie’s kid. Another mundane.”

The news that Rylie had birthed a human child was almost more shocking than the presence of a mage.

“Werewolves breed shifter pups,” Deirdre said.

“Yeah, usually.” Gage waved a hand over his head. “Hey guys!”

The two girls ignored him. Only Benjamin waved back. He was making his hammock swing by kicking his legs. Some kind of big cat—maybe a mountain lion?—lounged between the roots of the tree, swatting at his feet with paws the size of dinner plates.

Big cats, angelborn, mundanes.

Everyone was welcome at the werewolf sanctuary…except Deirdre.

She turned from the field of shifter children and hurried up the main street. Gage picked up his pace to remain at her side. “You’ve got two mundanes and a mage at the sanctuary,” Deirdre said. “What else do you have? A full-blooded angel?”

“Nah, Nashriel’s been too busy with the school,” Gage said. Deirdre nearly tripped over her feet. He laughed and caught her arm. “I’m not joking. We do have an angel in the family. He’s married to one of Rylie’s daughters.”

“He’s married to a child?”

“Rylie’s got adult children. It’s hard to explain.”

Deirdre imagined that an adult “daughter” must have been Rylie’s child in the same way that Gage was one of her “sons”—a foster child of the pack. And she was married to an angel.

That was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Angels were the worst of all the non-human species. They could warp minds, fought like soldiers who’d been in a thousand wars, and were impossible to defend against. They’d had problems with ethereal uprisings in Europe. Deirdre hadn’t realized any of them lived on the same continent that she did, much less that he would have been tangled with the pack.

“For what it’s worth, I agree with you. I think this is a horrible idea,” Gage said, even as he smiled and waved at a wolf loping past.

“My visit to the sanctuary? Rylie’s supposed apology?”

“The fact that Rylie thinks you’d ever want to help the pack out. I watched your face when we arrived at the sanctuary. You hate us.” He didn’t say it in a mean way, but it still hurt Deirdre somewhere deep inside to hear him say that. It wasn’t all that different from saying she hated other shifters. And that wasn’t true.

Well, it mostly wasn’t true.

“My first home after Genesis had about two hundred other kids in it,” Deirdre said. “We lived in an old hospital. It was funny—the storerooms were fully stocked with medical supplies, even though that building hadn’t been used as a hospital in, I don’t know, twenty years. Like someone knew there’d be a ton of orphans after Genesis and wanted to make sure there’d be enough to take care of us.”

Gage rubbed his jaw, scratching his fingers along the stubble on his chin. “I remember that. I went to one of those places, too.”

“And then they came through to categorize us.” She remembered the werewolf who had done it—a black man with a goatee and a scarred face. He came through, smelled them one by one, and separated the kids into groups by species and breed. “The ones he picked out as shifters went to another home. A holding place. And when the full moon came around, they figured out what animals we were and sent everyone to the sanctuary or one of the other pack ranches.”

“Except you,” Gage said.

She probably didn’t need to finish the story. All the kids who used to be human had gone through the same thing, whether in group homes or when their parents volunteered them to the government. So Deirdre said, “I went off with the other preternatural orphans, like Jolene. The ones who weren’t demons or shifters or sidhe.”

“So you’re angry, right?”

How could she possibly have been anything but angry? The sanctuary was gorgeous. It was perfect for shifter kids, who would never grow up feeling lonely, or out of place, or scared that the moon might someday drive them crazy. They were with pack.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s a bad idea for Rylie to bring me here. I’m not going to stay.”

Gage lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I get it.”

“Going to try to change my mind?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Because you got walled out for the safety of all shifters. Because Rylie had a good reason for setting up those policies. And because we need your help, and I can tell you’re good enough to give it to us.”

“Easy for you to be optimistic,” Deirdre said.

He rubbed a hand over his chest. The look in his eyes wasn’t optimistic—it was haunted. “It’s a choice. You can make the same choice.”

“I don’t think I want to,” she said.

Rylie was waiting for them outside one of the cottages near the lake, indistinguishable from the hundreds of others like it. The windows were decorated with pentacles over their arches, the flowers were well tended, and its yellow paneling looked like it had a fresh coat of paint. There was nothing to declare that the Alpha lived there other than her presence.

Away from a political setting, Rylie looked much less like a world leader and more like a neighborhood mom from down the street. She wore a long white dress with her hair in a loose bun. Her bare feet were dirty. A toddler played in the grass between her legs, clad in nothing but a sagging diaper.

“Deirdre!” Rylie rose, lifting the child with an arm hooked around his tummy. “I didn’t think you were going to come.”

“Neither did I,” Deirdre said. “The message from Stark was pretty convincing, through.”

Rylie dropped the child into Gage’s arms. “Lucas’s diaper needs to be changed.”

“Why are you telling me that?” Gage asked, tickling the child’s feet. Lucas giggled, kicked, arched his spine. Deirdre noticed that the toddler had shockingly silver eyes—all the more shocking because of his dark brown skin. The contrast was striking.

“I’m telling you because you’re going to change him while I talk to Deirdre,” Rylie said. She slapped Gage on the butt. “We’re not going anywhere. Go ahead.”

“Why do I have to change your stinky diaper, Luke?” Gage asked.

Lucas jammed a foot in Gage’s face. “Stinky!”

Deirdre wrinkled her nose as Gage passed. The child was very smelly. Luckily, the smell vanished when he went inside the cottage. “How many kids do you have, exactly? Biologically.”

“Seven,” Rylie said. Her cheeks were pink. “I like kids, and my mate and I… Yeah, anyway, we have seven.”

“You know how babies are made, right?”

Rylie laughed. “Yes. Definitely.”

“Right. Well, if you want me to join the pack so you have another babysitter, I can tell you to save your breath. I swore off changing diapers when I aged out of my last foster home.”

“If you were to join the pack, watching kids would sometimes be your responsibility. Everyone in the pack helps with everything,” Rylie said. “We take turns doing chores, watching all the children, cooking dinner…”

“Gage mentioned that.”

“I hope he also mentioned that I want to apologize for insulting you.”

“Yes. He did.” Deirdre folded her arms, lifting her eyebrows expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” Rylie said. “I should have known that the word ‘Omega’ would have sensitive connotations for you. I didn’t think, and you were hurt by my thoughtlessness. I was too excited to meet someone who does what you do.”

“Doesn’t transform, you mean.”

“Doesn’t bite when ordered by Stark.” A group of shifters in human form passed nearby. Rylie waited until they were out of earshot to continue speaking. “Do you want to have this conversation in private?”

Deirdre had already crossed the border for the conversation. It was probably too late to go home.

“Yeah, fine,” she said.

Inside, Gage was wrestling with a now-naked toddler, who seemed uninterested in being diapered. Lucas flung himself onto Gage’s face, punched little fists into Gage’s gut, slobbered on his shirt.

“He’s killing me,” Gage said. “Help.”

Rylie scooped Lucas up again, rolling her eyes. “Do you want him to pee on you again?” She set the child on a changing table by the window, holding him down with one hand while the other deftly diapered him. Alpha strength was useful for many reasons, apparently.

Deirdre wandered around the living room, looking at all the pictures and trinkets on the shelves. There were a lot of ugly crafts made by children, even more family photos, and one painting of a couple that she didn’t recognize. The woman had sleek black hair, pale skin, black eyes. The man matched her coloring, but his eyes were blue.

“Who’s this?” Deirdre asked, pointing at it. The painting was positioned above something that looked strikingly like a witch’s altar.

Rylie didn’t even glance over. “Just a couple of friends.”

“You worship your friends? This is an altar, right?”

“I only worship some of my friends,” she said lightly. “There. Now Lucas won’t pee on the floor.” She opened the front door, and he bolted outside to play with other shifter children on the trail between cabins. She watched him go with a sigh. “He’s going to shift out of that diaper in five seconds. Just wait.”

“So what do you want from me?” Deirdre asked. “I know you don’t want to grow your pack by another member. There are thousands of other shifters you could recruit if that’s what you wanted. Or you could just have another baby.”

“I’ll show you what I want,” Rylie said.

She pushed the bedroom door open. It was a small room, even smaller than the living room, with barely enough room to fit a queen-sized bed inside. If it hadn’t been for the array of dry-cleaned pantsuits hanging in the open closet, Deirdre never would have believed that bedroom belonged to Rylie Gresham. Not with the scattered toys kicked halfway under the bed, the laundry in the corner, and the crayon marks on the doorway.

The bed was currently occupied by a man for whom a king-sized bed would have been too small. His feet hung off the end. He took up more than his fair half of it.

He also appeared to be comatose. There was an IV pole and a heart rate monitor squeezed into that little room.

Deirdre gazed down at the man in the bed. His face was scarred on one side, with deep crags over his cheekbone, ridges on his jaw, a chunk missing from his ear. Half of his eyebrow wouldn’t grow in.

The intact part of his face was handsome, in that older guy kind of way. He must have been in his mid-thirties now. When Deirdre had last seen him, they had both been about ten years younger. And he had been telling the person who ran the home for shifter children that Deirdre was too dangerous to move into the sanctuary.

This was the man who had performed the first screening she underwent during Genesis. His face was branded into memory by the burn of hatred.

“This is my mate,” Rylie said. “His name is Abel.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Deirdre asked. She couldn’t think of a nicer way to ask it.

“Elena,” Gage said, hanging back in the living room.

Rylie bit her bottom lip. Her hand tightened on Abel’s. “Elena.”

“Everton Stark got to one of Rylie’s personal guards,” Gage explained. “This was before he was releasing statements on social media. I think his Plan A was a quick, quiet assassination so he could just take over. He didn’t anticipate Abel.”

Rylie’s fingers smoothed along her mate’s hairline, smile faint and sad. “Nobody anticipates Abel.”

“Elena had a silver knife. She gutted him.” Gage’s jaw clenched. “I was right there, and she got to him.”

“You’re not that fast,” Rylie said. “It’s not your fault.”

“But I’m supposed to guard you guys.”

“So was Elena.” The Alpha sighed, rearranging the sheets around Abel. “Anyway, she got him good enough that his body shut down. Anyone else would have died. Abel’s strong, though. He just needs a few moons, a little time, and he’ll wake up. Soon. Very soon.” That sounded more like a prayer than an actual statement of fact.

Deirdre folded her arms tightly across her chest. “What happened to Elena?”

Rylie’s steady gaze said it all.

She’d killed Elena. A member of her guard.

“This won’t be the last time he sends someone after me. He’s recruiting, building his forces, and becoming bold. I believe that he’s going to strike at my upcoming town hall. It’ll be the perfect time, since we’ll be open to all visitors and I’ll be easily accessible.” Rylie clutched Abel’s limp hand. “If we’re going to survive this, we need people who are immune to Stark.”

“So…what? You want me to hang out with you at the town hall? Get ready to take a silver knife to the gut?”

“We’ve got to do better than that,” Gage said. “We have to get ahead of him.”

“As I said, Stark’s recruiting. He’ll want willing members. He can’t compel every shifter all the time. Now that he’s made this public statement of his, it should be easy to get in touch and volunteer.” Rylie stood from Abel’s bedside. “Deirdre, I want you to join Stark. I’m not asking for you to assassinate him—we don’t work like that. I just want you to hang out with them and pass information back to me.”

A lump formed in Deirdre’s throat. It made it hard to breathe.

She remembered the way that Colin Burgh had flung those cars around. The relentless way he’d pursued her, even up the side of a building and across two rooftops. And then she thought of Everton Stark himself, looking like a force of nature squeezed into the shape of a man.

Deirdre hadn’t even agreed to be part of the pack, and Rylie expected her to risk her life to take him down.

“What’s in it for me?” Deirdre asked.

The question only seemed to make Rylie sadder. “I don’t suppose that you’d find the good of our kind to be a compelling reason.”

“Not really.” The good of their kind didn’t seem to be good for Deirdre.

“We’re not short on money here. I could pay you.”

“How am I supposed to spend my money if I’m dead?” Deirdre asked. “Sorry. This sounds like a suicide mission. I’m not interested.”

Gage stepped into the room. With three adults standing around the bed, the room felt tiny, almost suffocating. “How’s this? We’ll figure out what kind of shifter you are. See if we can’t unlock your beast.”

Now that was an offer that got Deirdre listening.

But the Alpha’s mate hadn’t been able to sniff out Deirdre’s species, nor had dozens of other social workers and witches.

“How?” Deirdre asked.

“Brianna,” Gage said to Rylie. “We could get Brianna.”

Rylie nodded slowly. “She’s a friend of ours who works out of an office in Las Vegas. They do private investigation, some police consultation. She has an unusual magical skill—a skill that means that she can identify any preternatural creature as long as she’s run into another one before.”

Deirdre frowned. “So if she’s met another shifter with my animal…”

“She’ll know what you are instantly,” Rylie said. “If we know your species, we can probably find someone to help you transform, too.”

“And all I have to do to is join a murderous shifter rebellion.”

“And survive,” Gage added.

It was a tempting offer. Money would be great—money would mean getting out of the townhouse, maybe even out of the city, moving to somewhere that Gutterman wouldn’t be able to find her again.

But discovering her beast…

The idea was as exciting as it was heartbreaking. She’d been Omega for so long, Deirdre wasn’t sure what she’d do if that changed.

Gage must have taken her silence for reluctance. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Rylie said immediately.

“Oh, so you’ll risk my life, but you won’t risk the life of one of your favorite pack members?” Deirdre asked.

“It’s not that.” Rylie glanced at Gage, then back to her feet. “I can’t explain. Gage needs to stay close to me, though. He absolutely cannot go out to face Everton Stark. Especially when tomorrow night is the full moon.”

“I might as well,” Gage said. “Someone’s got to keep Deirdre alive.”

“Chances are good that Stark already knows you work for me,” Rylie said.

“So I’ll tell him I’ve defected.”

Deirdre’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What makes you want to come on this mission? It’s insane.”

“It’s worth it,” he said firmly. “It’s his fault Elena’s dead. His fault that Abel got gutted. His fault that all these shifters were driven to murder, and his fault that the victims are dead. Who knows what he’ll do next?” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “Only problem is that I’m not immune to him. Pretending to volunteer for Stark might not be pretending for long.”

“That’s not the only problem and you know it,” Rylie said.

So Deirdre would be babysitting Gage as much as she would be undercover.

On the other hand, he’d make pretty good collateral. Rylie couldn’t just abandon her to the not-so-metaphorical wolves if Deirdre had Gage.

“I’ll think about it.” Deirdre moved to leave the cottage, but hesitated. “Let me ask you a question: If you didn’t need me, would you have ever invited me into your pack?”

Rylie bit her bottom lip. “Yes.”

Deirdre was pretty sure the Alpha was lying.

—V—

Deirdre was given a guest cottage to sleep in for the night, along with reassurances that she could leave once she was well rested. Which was kind of a problem.

Being given a cottage to herself was nice. It was like the cleanest hotel room she’d ever been in. She had a great view of the waterfall and all the shifter children who played in the lake until well after dark.

The cottage wasn’t the problem. It was the “rested” part.

Deirdre didn’t bother trying to sleep. She was wired, jittery, all too aware of all the other shifters in close proximity to her. Their presence seemed to scream at her. Even in a bedroom of her own, it was too much like being stuffed into a group home with other gaeans.

She didn’t do well in groups.

Once evening fell, Deirdre slipped out the back door. She was too antsy to hold still and curiosity had finally gotten the better of her. She’d declined the official tour of the sanctuary, so she would just have to explore the werewolf city alone.

There wasn’t much to see. The sanctuary was very much like any other town Deirdre had lived in. It had all the same amenities—a community pool, lots of parks, some shopping downtown. The only difference was that the city center was deserted after dark. She was the only person exploring the various restaurants, shops, and public buildings.

That didn’t mean she was the only one awake, though. The forest, black in the depths of night, felt like it was alive. Like the trees were watching her.

All the nocturnal shifters must have been out exploring. The ones who hunted by the moon and preferred to catch a deer rather than eat with the pack at the dining hall in the mornings. She’d heard that they kept the forest stocked with prey animals, each of which was carefully tagged so that nobody would accidentally eat a stag shifter.

That was a luxury exclusive to the sanctuary. Elsewhere, there were federal laws against free hunting. Most shifters couldn’t afford the required licenses from the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

One more way the sanctuary shifters were dripping in privilege that the common people didn’t share.

It didn’t really matter to Deirdre. Not on a personal level. She felt no urge to be awake at night, so she didn’t think her animal was nocturnal. Nor did she long to hunt deer. She didn’t seem to be a predator.

But it was indisputably crap that someone like Gage could satisfy his animal instincts, whereas Jolene could not.

The rich nightlife of the sanctuary didn’t take place downtown, in any case. There was a bar—a “lounge,” according to the sign, which was probably meant to make it sound less trashy than a bar—but even that looked quiet. Deirdre couldn’t even hear music from the sidewalk outside. She was willing to bet that they wouldn’t have served her drinks there anyway. Everyone who was anyone was playing in the forest.

She didn’t see a single soul as she wandered around the city, unsure what she was looking for.

Deirdre didn’t want to socialize. She didn’t want drinks. She didn’t want to eat, either—Rylie had made sure she was fed.

She found herself by the dorms, which were a cluster of tall buildings constructed in the shadow of the mountain. They were gated in with black iron bars. The fence was about as friendly as wrought iron could look. It was obviously meant to protect shifter children from outsiders, just in case.

But there was still something very hostile about the dormitories. Even with the laughter of kids coming from the grounds. Even with the warm glow of lights from the windows.

Deirdre stood outside the gates and glared inside, hands jammed in her pockets.

Even the sanctuary’s group living facilities were nicer than the places she’d grown up.

She passed the fields where the shifter kids had been playing and finally found what she’d been looking for on the other side.

A gymnasium.

“Sweet,” she said, testing the doors. They were unlocked. No point in locking doors in shifter Utopia.

The sanctuary’s gym was big enough to hold a professional football game indoors, with a floor mostly covered in blue foam mats. There were a few pieces of exercise equipment around the room, like a couple Smith machines and some squat racks.

But the most interesting feature of the gym was the obstacle course that began with a fifty-foot climbing wall, near which harnesses were piled.

Everything a lonely Omega needed to distract herself.

Deirdre ignored the harnesses. She chalked both of her hands, patted them off again, surveyed the wall.

Fifty feet wouldn’t be bad. She could do fifty feet.

Pulling her t-shirt off over her head so that she only wore the tank top underneath, Deirdre did a couple of short stretches and then raced toward the wall.

She built momentum by crossing the room, then leaped at the wall and caught a handhold ten feet up. She lifted herself by the strength of her arms, which was good for a woman her size—enough to lift her body weight and then some.

Deirdre kicked out, got a new foothold, and scrambled up the wall.

It was a lot easier to climb without Colin Burgh chasing her. Without the fear, and without the wild adrenaline, her focus was razor-sharp.

Her vision narrowed to the colored handholds higher on the wall. It looked like they were coordinated to create different routes to the top, but she didn’t use those paths. Deirdre made her own.

She was on top of the wall in a minute. From up there, she could see the whole gym. There were a few platforms built along the wall, as well as a few parallel bars near her level. There must have been people in the pack who practiced parkour like she did.

Deirdre sized it up within a moment. Then she was running again, heart pounding in her chest, air blowing past her ears.

At the edge of the rock wall, she leaped, stretching her hands out toward the nearest of the parallel bars.

For one exhilarating, frightening second, she thought that she’d undershot.

But then her hand touched metal. She gripped it and swung in a loop, watching the floor and ceiling flip positions.

On the down swing, just as she started to flip up again, she released. Deirdre caught the next bar, and the next.

Finally, she threw herself to the floor. She hit on her knees and rolled. It was the maneuver she’d failed to do while escaping Colin Burgh—the exact move that had broken her ankles.

This time, she landed it smoothly.

Her ankles still hurt. Deirdre rubbed them with a grimace.

The door to the gym opened, and she straightened, concealing her pain.

Rylie entered. She wore denim shorts and a yellow t-shirt, her damp feet covered in cut grass. Her hair was in a milkmaid braid and decorated by flowers. It wasn’t a very good braid. It looked like one of her kids had done it.

“Don’t you sleep?” Deirdre asked.

“I have seven kids. Sleep is overrated,” Rylie said. “I think we agree on that, since you’re working out at…wow, almost four in the morning.” Deirdre was surprised to hear the time. She hadn’t realized she’d been drifting through the town for so long. “Or are you having problems sleeping?”

Deirdre shrugged. “I’m sore from fighting Burgh. I just wanted to limber up.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Rylie frowned. “You didn’t heal?”

“I healed. My ankles aren’t broken anymore and I’m not bleeding.”

“But you’re sore,” Rylie said.

Even with her limited exposure to other shifters, Deirdre knew it wasn’t normal for her species to ache after a workout or fight. Everything was supposed to heal rapidly. Everything except damage inflicted by silver.

Nothing about Deirdre was normal.

Rylie sized her up again, like she was trying to decide what Deirdre could be on the spot. Deirdre had gotten used to earning that look from other shifters.

“Let’s go for a run around the sanctuary,” Rylie said.

Deirdre planted her hands on her hips. “Doesn’t the Alpha have something better to do?”

“At three forty-five in the morning?”

Good point.

Deirdre eyed the climbing wall with covetous longing. She would have preferred to stay in the gym.

But Rylie was the Alpha.

“Make it a race and I’m sold,” Deirdre said.

A smile spread across Rylie’s face. “A race, huh? Okay. From here to the waterfall. Whoever reaches the top first wins.”

“What do I win when I beat you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You can pick if you win. But I’m pretty fast.”

“No shifting,” Deirdre said.

Rylie crossed her heart. “Fair’s fair.”

“Top of the waterfall.”

“That’s right.”

Deirdre stretched out her limbs again. She was still sore, which wasn’t prime condition for racing an Alpha werewolf. But she didn’t plan on beating Rylie with speed.

“Deal,” Deirdre said.

They moved outside. The breeze was picking up, a little chilly because of the altitude. Deirdre sized up the path to the waterfall. It was all the way on the other side of the sanctuary. The main road connected to the trail on the cliff, so it was an easy route to figure out, but circuitous.

It would be much faster to go to the waterfall directly.

Rylie stepped up to the edge of the trail. Deirdre took position beside her.

“Ready?” Rylie asked. “One, two, three…go!”

Deirdre exploded into motion.

Her feet slammed against the dirt, fists pumping, breath loud in her ears. She hit top speed within seconds. It was a downhill trail into the valley—great for starting out. Deirdre threw every ounce of energy into it.

Rylie did, too. And she vanished around the corner within seconds.

Even outside of her wolf form, Rylie moved like lightning.

Deirdre was a good ten seconds behind her when they reached the main road. Rylie was already halfway to town, a blond blur flying over the asphalt.

She didn’t follow Rylie.

The nearest building looked to be some kind of warehouse. Deirdre launched at the trash can outside, leaping onto its lid and bouncing off onto the wall. She caught a windowsill, heaving herself up to the next floor, and then the next.

She reached the roof and kept going.

The next building was even taller—a food processing facility. Deirdre vaulted onto an air conditioning unit and used it as a springboard to leap at the brick wall.

Uneven stones gave her handholds to climb to the next roof. The bricks were rough against her fingers, chafing her skin, scraping her shins.

Deirdre sprinted across the sloped roof, following the lower edge, carried by the wind. Now that she was above the streets, Deirdre was in her element. The watching forest didn’t feel like such a pressure. It felt like she had an audience.

When she reached the rear of the building, she spotted Rylie running on the street below.

Deirdre had caught up.

She backflipped off the building, arms crossed over her chest. She landed neatly on the opposite side of the street from Rylie. Her throbbing ankles took it well.

The Alpha pounded past. She didn’t even sound out of breath.

Deirdre’s adrenaline climbed, bringing the dark city into sharp focus.

She didn’t think, didn’t plan a route, didn’t let herself experience fear. Deirdre was flying. Instinct pulled her from one movement to the next, jumping and falling and rolling and vaulting over the next thing.

The world was a series of images—nothing more than glimpses. Easier than the climbing wall. More fun, too.

She’d reached the cottages. Her feet were sure on the white picket fence in front of one, giving her a platform to reach the roof. Each of the cottages was set near enough that she could leap from dormer to dormer.

Still, Rylie wasn’t far behind her. She was so unbelievably fast. Every inch the Alpha at peak performance.

Deirdre threw herself off of the cottage, swung herself on a tree branch, and landed on the beach.

She sprinted to the cliff, dirt spraying under her sneakers.

The trail winding up the waterfall was long and steep enough that it would slow even Rylie down—who had reached the bottom just as Deirdre hit the cliff. A cliff that was only a few hundred feet tall.

“Easy,” Deirdre panted.

She jumped onto the rocks.

They were slick with moss, wet from the spray of the waterfall. But the rubber treads of her shoes found purchase. Her fingers did, too.

And her body knew exactly what to do.

Deirdre climbed as easily as though she were running on all fours. She barely grabbed one rock before hurling herself to the next. Her legs dangled half the time, swinging to give her extra momentum.

The waterfall thundered. The wind blew harder. Rylie’s pale figure reached a turn in the trail not far away.

But the top was close. So close.

Deirdre forced herself to tune out Rylie’s presence, focusing on the stars above. She didn’t look down. Didn’t look at the ground so far below, or the choppy black waters of the lake. She looked at the stars and at the clouds and felt weightless.

And then she reached up, and her hand found nothing above. Deirdre gripped the edge of the cliff. Heaved herself onto the top.

She got to her feet at the trailhead.

Three seconds later, Rylie appeared among the trees.

Fast. Insanely fast.

But not fast enough.

Deirdre flung her arms into the air. “Ha! Made it!”

“Holy crap, that was amazing!” Rylie smashed into her, gripping Deirdre in a tight embrace. They were both sweaty and laughing and out of breath.

Deirdre had won. And for a singular, giddy moment, she didn’t regret going to the sanctuary, nor did she regret volunteering to help a bunch of strangers with whom she had nothing in common but a species.

But only for a moment.

They relaxed on the edge of the cliff, drinking water from the river by scooping it out with their hands. Rylie recovered much faster, of course—she looked like she’d be able to race again five minutes later, when Deirdre was still soaked in sweat and breathing hard.

But Rylie didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere. She kicked back on the grass and Deirdre flopped beside her, letting the cool breeze wick away her sweat.

Now it felt like she could sleep.

Too bad she was supposed to leave in a couple hours. Orange touched the edge of the mountain as approaching sunrise lightened the velvety darkness to violet.

“What do you want as your prize?” Rylie asked. “Since you won and all.”

Deirdre chuckled breathlessly. “You kidding? I beat the Alpha in a race. I’m claiming bragging rights for the rest of my life.”

“Come on, you can do better than that. Get creative.”

She couldn’t think of anything that she could realistically demand. Nothing that Rylie could give her. “I’ll get back to you,” Deirdre said. “But I’m still bragging about this.”

“Fair,” Rylie said. “I honestly didn’t think you’d win.”

Neither had Deirdre.

“So what’s the lumpy thing over there?” she asked, waving at a grassy hill not far from the waterfall. It was covered in flower buds that looked like they were about to open, and it reminded Deirdre of a hobbit hill. A really ugly hobbit hill.

“It’s a memorial,” Rylie said. “I built it in honor of someone who was very important to me.”

And Deirdre had called it lumpy. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”

To her surprise, Rylie laughed. It was a bright, cheerful sound, considering they were talking about grieving the dead. “It’s okay. The man who died came back after Genesis. I just haven’t had the heart to tear it down. Plus, it’s been enchanted by about a million witches, so it’s incredibly safe on the inside. It could probably withstand a nuclear blast at this point.”

The enchantments weren’t as interesting to Deirdre as the person the hill memorialized. “This man came back after Genesis? Did he die because of Genesis?”

“No,” Rylie said. “We lost him a few months before.”

“Then why did he come back?”

“I don’t really know.” She shrugged. “I think someone felt like they owed us a few favors.”

Annoyance pricked at the back of Deirdre’s neck.

Nobody had owed her any favors. Nobody she cared about had come back in Genesis.

It was too beautiful a morning for such gloomy thoughts, so Deirdre let out a long, slow breath, relaxing into the grass again. But the reminder of her grief was a taint on the mood. Sickly disappointment writhed in her heart.

They relaxed for a few more minutes, watching the stars inch overhead and dawn slowly brighten the mountains.

When sunlight touched the tops of the trees, Rylie spoke. “Can I tell you a story?”

Deirdre didn’t sit up. She was still too exhausted to move. “I don’t think I can stop you. You’re the boss.”

“Please don’t think like that.” Her fingers crept over to pat the back of Deirdre’s hand. “I’m not anyone’s boss. I’m not a dictator. I’m the Alpha responsible for the pack. If anything, people like you are the ones in charge—I’m just trying to keep everybody safe.”

Deirdre rolled her eyes. It was so cheesy, the whole “the people are my boss” thing. But she said, “Okay. You can tell me a story.”

“When Genesis blindsided us with thousands upon thousands of new shifters, I found myself in a weird position. I used to be in charge of werewolves—a nearly extinct faction. Now people were looking at me to take care of everyone. But the sanctuary’s capacity was already maxed out at around a hundred occupants. What was I supposed to do with all the other shifters? Or all the gaean species who weren’t werewolves?”

“Group homes,” Deirdre said. “Obviously.”

“That was one part of the solution. Another part was expanding the sanctuary, of course. I made the city you see now, with new houses and dorms that raised the capacity to ten thousand souls. Even so, I couldn’t keep everyone.”

“That must have been quite a conundrum. I can’t imagine how you dealt with it.” Deirdre couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Rylie seemed to miss her tone. “It was hard. How was I supposed to pick who went to the group homes and who stayed with me? I had to think of the safety of the children first.”

“So you only took shifters you knew to be safe,” Deirdre said. “You sent the rest of us away and forced the Office of Preternatural Affairs’s gaean benefits system to take us.”

“I wanted to believe that some shifters would be happy with the other gaeans. You’re special, Deirdre. We don’t know what you are, which means you could be anything—and some shifters are closer to the sidhe than werewolves,” Rylie said. “They’ve got a lot more magic in their blood, I guess. You wouldn’t believe some of the creatures I’ve heard of people turning into. You could be anything. Literally, anything.”

“Like a Smith machine?” Deirdre deadpanned.

Rylie gave a little laugh. “Okay. Almost anything.”

Deirdre finally sat up, brushing grass off of her shoulders, picking a few pieces out of her long black hair. “Look, I get it. You put a lot of shifter children into a tough system because you couldn’t take care of us all. You’re only human. A bleeding heart. I don’t need to hear the story. You’re telling me about my own life here.”

“I was wrong,” Rylie said.

“Excuse me?”

“It was a mistake to shut anyone out. To say that we could take all the werewolves, but not the unknown shifters like you. To take the orphaned children, but not adults who had been changed in Genesis. To allow families, but nobody with a criminal history.” Rylie bit her bottom lip, staring hard at her feet. The rising sun highlighted her blond hair red along the edges. “Everyone was scared and confused after Genesis, and I let them down.”

Deirdre folded her arms, jaw clenching. It was something that she’d thought a hundred times herself—that the system had let her down. It didn’t help to hear it from Rylie.

It certainly didn’t take the anger away.

“A lot of cities were abandoned at the time. I could have left the sanctuary and taken one of those. Somewhere big enough that we could have included everybody.” Rylie stood up, wiping the seat of her shorts off. “My decision to abandon shifters left a void. Someone like Everton Stark was inevitable—someone who would take care of those I left behind.”

“What are you going to do about him?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out. Whatever needs to be done, I know I won’t be able to do it alone.” Rylie offered a hand to Deirdre to help her to her feet.

Deirdre wanted to hate her. The emotion broiled fiery hot inside of her.

But she’d always assumed that the decision to kick her out was financially motivated, or a selfish decision, or just because they didn’t want her. But Rylie’s intentions weren’t bad. She had just failed to do the right thing. It was an accident.

It didn’t feel like an accident to Deirdre.

My whole damn life…

She stood without taking Rylie’s hand.

“I’ve got a suggestion for where you can start,” Deirdre said. “The food stamps for shifters are terrible. It’s all red meat. Some of us want more variety in our diets.”

Rylie bit her lip and smiled. “I can probably help with that.”

“Great.” Deirdre hesitated. “My roommate back home, in our townhouse, is vulnerable without me. I’ve got enemies back that way. People who might go for her. She’s not a shifter—she’s a—”

“We’ll get in touch with her and see what we can do.”

“Well, she’s a vampire,” Deirdre said. “An asanbosam.” Vampires were new after Genesis; they hadn’t existed before the world ended. They didn’t have a structured society in place like werewolves did to support them. And werewolves definitely hadn’t reached out to fix that.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rylie said again.

“You really think you can save everyone, huh?”

The Alpha grinned. “Maybe. If I have help.”

Deirdre couldn’t refuse that smile. It was easy to see why Rylie was in charge of the gaeans. Despite all her flaws, she was incredibly convincing.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll help you with Everton Stark.”

—VI—

Gage was waiting on Deirdre’s doorstep at six o’clock sharp. When he saw her emerge from the forest with Rylie, his eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Didn’t you two sleep?” he asked, hitching a backpack over his shoulder.

“Sleep is overrated,” Deirdre said.

“Yeah, especially when you’re going on a deadly secret mission and you’re not sure when you’re going to be able to sleep again without getting stabbed in the back,” Gage said. “I get it. Lookin’ good, ladies.”

Deirdre looked down at herself. Her shirt was stained from all the sweating she’d done racing Rylie.

“Go ahead and take a shower,” Rylie said. “I’ll hold your car.”

“We get a car?” Deirdre said. “I feel special.”

Rylie laughed. “Don’t say anything until you see it.”

Deirdre went into the guest cottage, showered briefly, and then packed. She hadn’t expected to find much worth packing—she had only been able to grab a few things from her townhouse before leaving with Gage—so she was surprised to find that someone had visited the cottage overnight.

Several shopping bags were waiting for her on the coffee table. One of them included a brand new backpack that matched Gage’s.

She picked through the presents. There were a lot of nice, rugged clothes in various sizes, all pretty close to Deirdre’s actual size. Someone had been guessing at what she’d wear and done a good job of it. They’d given her everything she would need to last a month without laundry.

Deirdre tossed most of it onto the couch, picking out a few leather items and shoving them into the ratty backpack she’d brought with her.

“Don’t like Summer’s picks?” Gage stood in the doorway, shoulder leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. He was a picture of relaxation. Utterly unconcerned about the suicide mission to come. If anything, he almost looked giddy.

“Who’s Summer?” Deirdre asked.

“One of Rylie’s daughters. The one married to the angel. She went shopping for you.”

“How did she know what size I wear?”

“She looked at you,” Gage said. “Summer’s a woman of many talents.”

“I didn’t see this Summer lady anywhere.”

“Another of her talents. She was hanging out in her animal form with the shifter kids yesterday. You wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Well, she has good taste,” Deirdre admitted. “But she’s stupid. Stark’s trying to recruit people who are down and out. The castoff shifters who’ve been loosed into society without support from the pack. They’re not going to be able to afford this crap.” She shook a pair of designer jeans at him, which had been artfully distressed around the knees and thighs.

“Oh? But society’s castoff shifters can afford fine leather biker gear?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Deirdre’s mouth as she tried on the jacket. It smelled delicious and felt like butter. “It’d be a shame to put this to waste. I’ll just have to throw myself down a few rooftops wearing it so it looks aged.”

Gage laughed. He thought she was joking.

Deirdre finished rolling up her clothes and zipped the backpack shut. “I’m ready to go.”

“Not quite yet.” Gage tossed her a box.

Inside was loose silver .380 ammunition—perfect to fit her Ruger. Deirdre gave a low whistle as she counted.

Ten of them. Ten.

It had been hard to get the ones she’d wasted on Burgh, and for good reason. Silver bullets were incredibly illegal. Just joking about being in possession of them was like asking for the Office of Preternatural Affairs to knock on your door.

Now a werewolf was handing her enough bullets to take down ten of their kind.

“Another gift from Summer?” Deirdre asked.

“From Rylie. She said they’re your prize. What does she mean by that?” Gage asked.

Deirdre had meant to shout that she’d beat Rylie from the rooftops, but the enthusiasm had gone out of her. She closed the box’s lid. “What’s a werewolf Alpha doing with silver bullets?”

“They belonged to Abel. They’re pre-Genesis work—plated with pure silver, better than any of the crap you might have gotten off the black market. The alloys that get sold these days are weak. These bullets, on the other hand, were cast back in the day when silver was easier to get.”

Which meant that they were basically priceless.

“Rylie’s putting a lot of trust in me with these,” Deirdre said, adding them to her bag. She would have to load the magazine later using pliers. She couldn’t touch the bullets if she wanted to be able to use her fingertips any time in the next few weeks. They’d burn her skin right off.

“Rylie’s putting all her trust in us,” Gage said.

So Rylie was just as stupid as her daughter.

Nobody in the pack knew Deirdre. Nobody knew who she was, what kind of things she’d done, or where she’d come from. And they were handing her a way to kill a lot of people.

It itched at her, that trust. Treating her like she was already a beloved member of the pack when she was a total stranger.

“Can we go now?” Deirdre asked. The less time she spent thinking about those bullets, the better.

Gage stepped outside, and she followed him. “Theoretically, yes, we can go.”

“But what?”

“So there’s a little complication with this whole ‘infiltrate Stark’s evil pack’ thing,” Gage said. “Tiny, bitty, insignificant problem.”

“You don’t know where to find him,” Deirdre said.

“And you don’t sound that worried about it.”

She sighed. “Not at all.” She’d come out of the preternatural foster system, after all. She knew hundreds of bitter gaeans who’d be dying to hook up with Stark. And one of them was sure to know where to find him.

The car was waiting for them at the end of the trail. It was the first vehicle that Deirdre had seen in the city. Shifters moved so quickly in their animal forms that confining themselves to a car didn’t make sense. Rylie was standing beside a pre-Genesis Honda Accord, which looked like it had survived a few werewolf attacks.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that the car would be cheap, but it did. They had a private jet. They had government funds and the wealth of the whole pack.

“You’re joking,” Deirdre said.

Rylie handed her the keys. “It’s discreet. Nobody will look twice at you.” She wrapped her arms around Gage and squeezed him so tightly that Deirdre thought she heard bones creak. “You could wait another day if you want. Until after the full moon.”

“If Stark’s going to attack you at your town hall, there’s no time to waste,” Gage said. “I’ll just hit up one of the safe houses on the way. I promise.”

That didn’t seem to set Rylie’s mind at ease at all. “God, Gage, you better come back. Okay? Two weeks.”

“As long as it takes,” he said gently, planting a kiss on her forehead.

“No. Two weeks. Before the next new moon. That was the deal.”

“That was your deal, Alpha,” Gage said. “But I’ll be in touch.”

Rylie sniffled. Wiped her cheeks. “Yeah. You better.”

Deirdre moved to get into the car, but before she could, Rylie hugged her as well. And almost as tightly. Rylie smelled like the trees, the icy runoff that poured off a mountain during spring melt, the warmth of summer sunshine. She smelled like everything good about shifters packed into a woman.

Deirdre didn’t hug her back.

“Thank you both,” Rylie said. “Look out for each other.”

Gage got in. Deirdre did, too.

Rylie was still waiting on the trail when Deirdre turned the corner, leaving her line of sight.

Gage and Deirdre drove for hours. To be precise, Gage drove for hours—Deirdre spent that time making phone calls.

She finally reached someone late in the afternoon.

“Found him,” Deirdre said, leaning against the car as Gage pumped gas. The numbers on the pump ticked higher and higher. At six dollars a gallon, they were going to use half of the money that Rylie had given them just trying to get out of the state. “We’re headed for New York City.”

“How did you do that?” Gage asked. “We’ve been searching for this guy for weeks and have barely gotten any sniffs.”

“You’re obviously too respectable,” Deirdre said.

He hung up the nozzle and they got back into the car. Deirdre had picked up snacks in the station while making her call—trail mix for her and jerky for Gage. She hadn’t bothered asking him what he’d want to eat. Werewolves loved jerky. They’d become such a huge part of the market in the last few years that some companies even sold werewolf-branded meat snacks now, which Deirdre and Jolene liked to call “kibble.” The actual brand was called “Natural Beasts,” but “kibble” was funnier.

She managed not to laugh when Gage dug into it, but it did make her longing for Jolene lodge in her stomach like a rock.

Gage texted on his cell phone with one hand while driving with the other.

“Who you talking to?” Deirdre asked, trying to see the screen. “Chatting with Rylie?”

Gage tossed his phone in the cup holder. “Actually, I’m reading Marion and Dana’s status updates.” At Deirdre’s look, he said, “Those were the kids hanging out with Rylie’s human son.”

“You stalk teenage girls on the internet?”

“Yes, please try to make me sound as perverse as humanly possible. It’s not like they’re practically family and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before leaving today.”

“Holy defensive reaction, Batman,” Deirdre said. “I was just teasing.”

Gage pulled out onto the road. His shoulders were taut. “Sorry. I know. It’s almost the moon. I get like this.”

She’d forgotten what day it was. Deirdre had spent so much time away from other shifters that she’d completely lost track of the cycles of the moon.

“We’ll have to toss our phones before hooking up with Stark anyway,” she said. “We can’t have him looking through our contacts and realizing that you’ve texted Rylie’s kids and their friends. It’s a major security issue.”

Gage grunted his reluctant agreement. “Well, the phones don’t have to go yet. We won’t make it to NYC before moonrise. We’ve got at least another six hours of driving and I’m bushed.” He sighed. “I need a shelter.”

“We could just pull over. Rylie’s influence can reach you from the sanctuary,” Deirdre said, spilling a handful of cashews into her mouth.

“No, I really need a shelter,” he said. “Trust me.”

If that was his preference, then Deirdre wasn’t going to argue with him. She’d prefer sleeping in an actual bed anyway, and she didn’t want to pay for a hotel. The shelters were government subsidized, which meant free places to sleep on the moons, even if Deirdre couldn’t shift.

“There’s a shelter up that way.” Deirdre pointed at the big yellow sign on the side of the road.

Gage’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. His smiles and charm were gone.

“Got a problem with that one?” she asked. “Ex-girlfriend runs it or something?”

“I don’t have any ex-girlfriends,” Gage said.

Deirdre snorted. “Okay, so pull off over there. We should get checked in before it fills up.”

If she hadn’t known what she was looking at, the shelter would have passed for an unusually secure parking lot in the middle of the city. But she knew that there was a reinforced bunker underground, accessible only by the booth at the rear of the lot. All the shelters were the same.

Each of them only had a few rooms, since almost all shifters had let themselves get called to Rylie’s pack, and she gentled their transformations. Most everyone Deirdre knew just slept through the full and new moons.

The people who used the shelters were the ones who didn’t want to or couldn’t fit into Rylie’s pack. They didn’t want to adhere to her rules. Or they’d committed too many crimes and gotten kicked out.

Those were the kinds of shifters who were dangerous on the moons. They were the man-eaters, the moon-sick.

And Gage.

“You’re looking kind of green.” Deirdre bumped the car door shut with her hip and headed toward the booth.

Gage swallowed the last of the kibble. “I’ve never stayed at a shelter before.”

“What? Really? Not at all?” Deirdre frowned. “Then why do you want to stay at this one?”

“I promised I would. That’s all.”

It was still early in the day, but the check-in booth was already staffed, and there was a short line of shifters waiting to get checked in. The witch behind the window wore so many enchanted pentacles on her rings and necklaces that she could have stuck out the night through a tornado if she needed to.

Deirdre and Gage only had to wait a few seconds to get their turn at the window.

“Good afternoon,” the witch said cheerfully, pushing the sign in sheet through the slot. “One room or two?”

“Two,” Deirdre said.

She wrote her name on the page and put “wolf” as her animal—easier than trying to explain the truth. Gage wrote his information and returned the page to the witch before Deirdre could peek at what he’d written.

“It’s good you got here when you did. Seems like we’re having a lot of busy nights as of late.” The witch typed their information into the computer, fingers flying over the keyboard. “You would never guess how many shifters I had to turn away last week. There’s talk of building an overflow shelter.”

Gage scowled. So many loose shifters could only mean increasing numbers rejecting Rylie.

“Probably a good idea,” Deirdre said. “I bet it’s only going to get worse with all the moon sickness.”

“You want to sign the petition to have the overflow shelter rushed?” the witch asked. “I have a copy back here with me.”

Deirdre glanced at the sky. It looked like it was about to start raining. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’ll hold you to that! Here are your keys. Have a good night.” The witch buzzed them into the booth.

Deirdre headed downstairs. She hadn’t spent the night in a shelter in months—not since she’d moved in with Jolene—but the sensation of close quarters and unmoving air was unforgettable.

They tried to decorate the shelters like they were spartan hotels, with clean paint and fresh carpet and doors that were designed to minimize the fact they were all made of silver and steel. Yet there was no ignoring the fact that there were no windows. No emergency exits. And only one big floor with two dozen rooms.

“Rooms nineteen and twenty,” she said, stopping in front of her door. She unlocked the other one for Gage.

All of the rooms in the shelters were the same. The beds were made up in cheap linens that could be replaced when shredded. The desks were metal and bolted to the floor. The bathroom doors were adorned with signs asking people to contain their changes in the bedroom.

Everything was painted and warmly lit to make it as hospitable as possible, but it still felt like a prison cell.

Deirdre ran her hands along the paint. It was bumpy from all the shifters who had tried to claw their way out on previous moons, but the actual gouges had been painted over.

Gage dropped his bag on the bed.

“Cozy,” he said.

“The underside of the bed is a lockbox if you want to stick your stuff in there,” Deirdre said. “Or you can just leave your bag in the bathroom.” She pressed the lock on the door handle and jiggled it. “See how I can’t unlock this now? You have to get at a switch under the desk to open the door. Keeps you from accidentally opening the bathroom with your paws.”

“What about the hall door?”

“They lock automatically an hour before moonrise and unlock at sunrise.”

“Nice,” Gage said. “Real nice.”

“Some shelters will drop off water bottles and some kind of protein in the morning, too. In case you wake up hungry.” She hung back by the door, wondering how long she had to pretend to be nice to him. “Yeah. Uh, what are the moons like at the sanctuary? What do you guys do with shifters when they’re having a bad night?”

“Everyone roams loose. It’s more like a buddy system. Older shifters take care of the younger ones.”

Deirdre nodded. “Sounds pretty good.”

She was eyeing the bed. It was hard, with an entirely unforgiving mattress, but it was looking pretty good after her night racing around with Rylie.

“Thanks,” Gage said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Thank the gods.

“See you,” Deirdre said.

She locked herself in her room and stretched out in bed. The sheets were even worse than the last shelter she’d stayed at with one of her friends. They were scratchy, more sandpaper than cotton. The faint smell of bleach lingered in the air around her room.

But any horizontal surface was good enough for the moment.

Deirdre was asleep in moments.

Deirdre woke again so abruptly that it felt like she hadn’t slept at all, but her watch said that it was already ten o’clock at night.

And her walls were shaking.

She flopped back against the flat pillow, flinging an arm over her face.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

Someone in the shelter was having a rough change. The studs in the walls were reinforced with silver, but that didn’t stop her from feeling it when people slammed their bodies all over the place. And it wasn’t nearly soundproofed enough.

She’d slept through a lot of bad nights, though. Deirdre shut her eyes and tried to pass out again.

But whoever was banging around in their room was worse than bad. They sounded like they were trying to tear their way out. Her bed shook with the force of it.

Deirdre got up, went to her bathroom, splashed some water on her face. The thumping was even worse in there.

She pressed her hand to the wall between her room and Gage’s.

A body smashed into the other side. Her mirror rattled.

Yeah, that was Gage all right.

Deirdre hesitated, then pressed her ear to the tile, trying to hear the sounds his animal made underneath all the thudding. It stood to reason he was a wolf—they still outnumbered every other kind of shifter. But she didn’t hear any of those familiar growls.

To be fair, she couldn’t hear much of anything under all the slamming.

Deirdre went back into the bedroom, pacing the floor as she waited for Gage to stop changing. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. Even moon-sick shifters got through it pretty fast.

But he kept going and going and going, until Deirdre thought there was no way he could still be transforming.

Gage was just that violent.

She started to climb back into bed, but the mental image of Gage breaking through her wall and killing her was far too vivid.

Deirdre locked the steel-clad bathroom door before lying down again.

He didn’t stop banging around until the sun rose and the doors unlocked.

And Deirdre didn’t get any sleep.

—VII—

Deirdre’s friend Niamh met her in New York City—disturbingly close to Rylie’s sanctuary. It was no real shock, though. If Stark was out to kill the Alpha, it made sense to position himself as near the Alpha as he safely could. And a big city would be perfect for hiding in.

Niamh showed up wearing a thigh-length band t-shirt with fishnet tights. She was probably wearing shorts underneath the shirt¸ but Deirdre couldn’t tell. Niamh was so damn tall that most shorts were no better than underwear on her anyway. The wild red hair, frizzy enough that it looked like she’d jammed a lacquered nail into a light socket, was good at distracting from her pantslessness.

The feathers were distracting, too.

All the glossy white feathers interspersed through her hair made her look like she was ready to fly away at any moment. In fact, Niamh couldn’t fly at all in her human shape, but Deirdre had always been convinced that Niamh’s brain was one hundred percent bird. She was always somewhere in the clouds, metaphorically speaking.

“Dee!” She leaped on Deirdre with a squeal, lifting her off of her feet. “Oh my gosh, it has been years!”

“Months,” Deirdre said, face smushed against Niamh’s chest. “Around Christmas.”

“Oh, I guess I forgot about that!” Her giggle was almost more of a honk—a really unattractive laugh for such a gorgeous woman, although Deirdre had always found it endearing. “I can’t believe you’re enlisting with me!” She was so perky about the idea of joining a rebellion.

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about that on a street corner,” Deirdre said.

Niamh dropped her. Her hands fluttered over Deirdre, rearranging her hair, tugging on her shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. She even leaned in close to inspect Deirdre’s makeup. “Teeth?”

Deirdre obediently peeled back her lips to show that she hadn’t gotten lipstick on her teeth.

“Flawless, as always.” Niamh linked her arm with Deirdre’s. “How do I look, Dee?”

She didn’t need to check. “Flawless.” Niamh’s wild hair and patchy tights were a carefully constructed fashion statement. Everything looked exactly the way she wanted it to look.

Niamh had dragged her halfway down the block before she remembered that Deirdre hadn’t come alone.

“Come on!” Niamh shouted over her shoulder.

Gage hurried after them.

He’d been quiet and withdrawn ever since they left the shelter that morning. Considering how his night had gone, Deirdre was surprised he was even walking. She was curious to know what kind of shifter spent the entire full moon ricocheting off of his walls, but not curious enough to ask.

Gage looked different that morning. Maybe even dangerous.

Niamh took them to a comic book shop called No Capes. Appropriately, the comics displayed on the other side of its dirty, barred window were from Vertigo and small publishers—no caped heroes. Niamh had taken a stance on Marvel versus DC and it was a very firm “neither.”

“I’ve got the new Godslayer issue.” Keys jingled as Niamh unlocked the front door. “It doesn’t come out for three weeks, but I have it.”

“How did that happen?” Deirdre asked. “You moving up in the world of comic book stores?” It didn’t really look like it. No Capes was still in a tiny, miserable closet of a store, with no sign that customers had darkened their doorway at all that week.

“I’m dating the artist,” Niamh said. “He said he wants to draw me into the next issue. Wouldn’t that be a riot?”

The bell over the door chimed when they entered. No Capes was a relic of the old paper publishing industry, its comics lovingly arranged in boxes and on shelves. Niamh also sold collectible figurines and cosplay gear—although all the costumes were in her size, and the figurines were her favorite characters.

Niamh stepped over her couch to reach the cash register. It was the same furniture she’d been carting around since Deirdre met her as a teenager, along with the posters on the walls, the easy chair, and even the hideaway bed.

The whole shop was more like a tiny studio apartment than a place intended to sell comics. Which was exactly what was going on. There were many grants and tax breaks for preternaturals who owned businesses, especially those who had come out of the foster system. If one were willing to go through the effort of filing licenses, maintaining a storefront, and keeping stock, the influx of government cash was greater than benefits for people like Deirdre and Jolene.

Considering that she lived in her store, Niamh was probably doing well without selling a single comic.

Gage picked up a figurine of a muscular woman with auburn hair and twin swords. “What’s this?” He tried to reposition the model’s arms.

Deirdre smacked his knuckles. “Don’t touch that!” If Niamh saw a werewolf pawing her collectibles, he’d be on his ass in the street in a heartbeat.

“Whoa, okay.” He set the figurine down. “What is it, though?”

“Main character of the Godslayer comics. It’s geek stuff. Don’t ask.”

Niamh lovingly extracted a comic book from behind the counter. It was already entombed in acid-free cardboard and a UV-resistant plastic envelope. “Behold!” She lifted it so that Deirdre could see. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah, looks great,” Deirdre said without really looking at it. “You must be stoked.”

“Beyond stoked. Over the freaking moon.” Niamh stroked the edge of the envelope.

Gage squeezed through the shelves. He wasn’t a particularly huge guy, but the aisles had been arranged so that Niamh could traverse them easily, and she was a wisp of a woman. “Is this where Stark’s hiding?”

“Don’t be silly,” Niamh said.

“But you know where he is, right?” Deirdre asked.

“Well, yeah. You know how the unseelie sidhe wanted access to the sewers through my basement?”

“You mentioned that at the Christmas party, yeah.” The unseelie sidhe were the dark half of the fae. They’d done well after Genesis, much better than their “lighter” counterparts. But they were also far more violent, with twisted urges that the Office of Preternatural Affairs didn’t approve of. They’d gone underground in a lot of places to avoid the law. Literally.

“They built a portal to the Middle Worlds down there. It doesn’t take up much space, and the rent they pay is awesome.” Niamh got a dreamy look. Her fingers continued stroking the Godslayer comic mindlessly.

“What’s that got to do with Stark?” Deirdre asked.

Niamh snapped out of her reverie. “Oh. He heard through a friend that I’ve got covert paths in my basement, so he offered me a similar deal. He’s got a route to his house under my shop.”

Gage grimaced. “He lives in the sewers?”

“Just travels by them, sometimes,” Niamh said. “It’s cleaner down there than you’d think. So many demons and sidhe use them that they’re swankier than an uptown condo.” She carefully returned the Godslayer comic to its hiding place under her counter. “I’m not sidhe, by the way. Just in case you were worried.” She said that directly to Gage. Men were particularly susceptible to the unseelie sidhe’s unsavory charms.

“No, you’re a swanmay,” Gage said. “Right?”

Niamh flipped her hair over her shoulder, flashing the glossy white feathers. It looked like they’d been woven into her curls, but really they grew directly from her scalp. “That’s right. Swanmay. Have you met my kind before?”

“I learned about your kind at the Academy,” he said.

The beginnings of flirtatiousness vanished instantly. Niamh’s expression shuttered. “Oh.”

Only kids from the sanctuary could attend the Academy.

Niamh, like Deirdre, couldn’t shift. Swanmay weren’t like werewolves, waiting for the turn of the moon or the whim of the Alpha to take their animal forms. They had to don a swan skin to shapeshift. Each was born with a single skin and had to protect it in order to maintain their ability.

Though she’d never said exactly what happened, Niamh had lost her swan skin. She couldn’t change.

And she couldn’t live in the sanctuary.

Deirdre elbowed Gage hard. If he shot his mouth off about the sanctuary among Stark’s followers, they’d get killed before their first day ended.

Gage understood. He switched topics instantly.

“You’re incredibly beautiful,” he said.

Niamh wasn’t impressed. “I know.”

“Nice save, Gage.” Deirdre was getting a headache. “Sorry, Niamh. My friend is kind of an idiot.”

“Where’d you find this asshole anyway?” Niamh asked. “I mean, I get why you’re here, Dee. I’d be surprised if you weren’t. But what’s sanctuary scum doing looking for Stark? Your guy is drenched in privilege. He probably sniffs the Alpha’s ass and piddles himself for treats.”

“It’s love,” Gage said, slinging his arm around Deirdre’s shoulders.

She stiffened. “What?”

“Love. We’re in love.” He grinned at her. “I saved Deirdre from her nightmare of a boss—literally, he was a nightmare. And we fell in love. Which was when I realized what she had been through, along with many other preternaturals, and I became sympathetic to the cause.”

“Oh,” Deirdre said. “Yeah.”

“You could try to sound more convincing.” Niamh rolled her eyes. “I can’t even smell lies and I smell them all over you.”

“Our relationship is mostly about the sex,” Deirdre said.

“Now that I believe.”

Gage snorted. “I am pretty good.”

She elbowed him again, harder this time. “You’re lucky you’re pretty or I wouldn’t keep you around.”

“I’m pretty?”

He was hot as far as insufferable “sanctuary scum” went, actually, but Deirdre wasn’t going to inflate his ego by telling him that.

“You guys are cute together,” Niamh said grudgingly. “I just never thought Dee would go for the muscly type. She was always after the nerds when we were kids. Same nerds that I was after, as a matter of fact. Like Wil Cornet.”

“Wil Cornet,” Deirdre said at the exact same time Niamh had. “I tried to forget about him. He always wore that stupid Star Wars t-shirt.” The nerdy guy thing wasn’t a matter of taste. They were just less likely to be repulsed by the fact that Deirdre couldn’t shapeshift. But even Wil Cornet had been grossed out when he’d discovered that Deirdre was Omega.

“He smelled like Doritos, Mountain Dew, and way too much Axe body spray.”

“But he was cute.”

“So cute.” Niamh didn’t feel like she was settling for nerds. She genuinely loved them.

“Is that how you met Deirdre?” Gage asked. “Fighting over some guy with a Star Wars t-shirt?”

“You’ll never believe me. Get this,” Niamh said. “We met because we both competed in the same beauty pageant.”

Gage burst out laughing.

It was exactly the reaction Deirdre would have expected. She didn’t blame him. She felt much the same, though with less laughing and more groans of regret.

“You’re right, I don’t believe you,” he said.

“No? I’m pretty sure I have pictures.” Niamh pulled out her phone.

Deirdre tried to grab it. “Stop. Don’t you dare.”

Niamh held the phone above her head. Stupid leggy swanmay—Deirdre couldn’t reach the phone without leaping for it, and her pride was already dented enough.

Luckily, Niamh didn’t manage to find the pictures before the bell over the door jingled and a trio of men entered.

Deirdre was shocked to hear the bell. She hadn’t expected to see any customers at No Capes.

But that was because the visitors weren’t customers at all.

The delight in Niamh’s face drained away, taking the color in her cheeks with it. “Stark,” she whispered.

Deirdre’s heart clenched in her chest.

The man who stepped through the front door of the shop was bigger than Deirdre remembered, and she remembered him being pretty big. He was broad, much too broad for the confines of comic book shop, and flanked by a pair of men that Deirdre could only imagine were guards.

His hood was pulled up to hide his face, but she could still feel the weight of his golden eyes upon her.

“Niamh.” His voice was a tenor, not as deep as Deirdre remembered. He must have been playing up the growl for his video.

The swanmay stepped out from behind the counter. She fluttered her hands at Deirdre and Gage. “These are the people I was telling you about. The ones who called yesterday.”

Stark glanced at the sidewalk through the shop window as if checking to see if they were being watched. For an instant, the gloomy light fell on his face, highlighting the shock of red in his beard and the dark gems of his irises.

“We’ll talk about this downstairs,” Stark said.

He brushed past Deirdre on his way to the back of the store. She was so tense that she thought her quivering muscles might make her bones snap in half.

She couldn’t breathe until he was past her again.

Niamh tried to smile as brightly as she had earlier, but a shadow had fallen over her features. “This way.”

One of Stark’s guards locked the front door.

The basement for No Capes was a concrete box with a door on each wall. One of the doors had an inverted horseshoe hanging over it; another of the doors was painted blue.

The third door stood open, revealing a hallway on the other side.

That was where Stark led them—through that open door.

After hearing about how he was hiding in the sewers, Deirdre expected to find squalor on the other side of the door, but instead she found a tidy tunnel with water stained walls and a few puddles gathered on the floor. All the water was clear. Not sewage; just runoff from the rain.

Still, she balked at the door.

“Problem?” Gage asked.

The tunnel was dark, enclosed, and wet. It was a big problem.

Deirdre squared her shoulders and entered anyway.

She tried to make sense of the route as they went, imagining how it would correlate to the city above, but there were too many turns. All she knew was that Stark’s home wasn’t far from No Capes. They reached a set of stairs after only ten minutes of walking.

There was another basement at the top of those stairs, this one much larger than Niamh’s. It was filled with bookshelves, crates, and weapons’ racks. It looked like Stark was a gun collector.

Green light filtered from the narrow windows on the surface, diffusing the sickly glow over the cluttered basement. Deirdre thought it looked a little bit like a museum with the mosaic floor, the dark wood wainscoting, the high rafters.

“Now we can talk,” Stark said. His guards automatically flanked him. The way they moved almost looked military, with measured strides and rigid posture. “Take their bags. Inspect them.”

One of the guards moved forward to seize Deirdre and Gage’s backpacks. He tore through their belongings, dumping them out on the floor. It looked like he enjoyed the search way too much.

There wasn’t anything to find. Deirdre had gotten rid of both their cell phones that morning, after one last text from Gage to Rylie’s kids.

As the guard ransacked the backpacks, Niamh touched Deirdre’s arm. “This is my friend, Deirdre Tombs. We grew up in the system together.” She scowled. “And this guy’s named Gage. He’s Deirdre’s boyfriend.”

This time, Deirdre managed not to flinch at the lie. They really should have talked about cover stories earlier.

“I take it that you saw my video,” Stark said.

“Yes, sir,” Deirdre said. “Everything you said—everything about the Alpha—you were right. We need to fix it.”

Stark strolled around them, looking at the pair from every angle. Deirdre tried not to squirm, even though she was certain that he had to recognize her. She had stared straight into his eyes not two days before.

But for the moment, Stark seemed more interested in Gage. “You look familiar.”

“I don’t know why,” Gage said. “I’ve only ever seen you on video.” He didn’t sound afraid enough. He should have sounded more afraid.

Stark turned to Deirdre. “How was it?”

She stared straight ahead, not meeting his eyes. “What are you talking about, sir?”

“Killing people. How was it?”

Stark did recognize her after all.

Deirdre searched for words, hands clenched into tight fists. The fact that he thought she’d killed at all meant that he had seen the results of Colin Burgh’s rampage on the news. He thought that she had been involved.

How would she feel if she had obeyed Stark’s murderous demands? How would she have felt when she woke up to find blood on her hands?

“It felt awful,” Deirdre said.

Stark stood in front of her, and there were those eyes again, boring straight to Deirdre’s soul. She fixed her gaze on the floor and fought to suppress a surge of panic that beat within her ribcage.

“Look at me,” Stark said softly.

Deirdre wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a compulsion. She didn’t risk defying him. Her gaze met his, and she let herself sink into the cold golden pools of his eyes. It was amazing that irises so similar to Rylie’s—which were warm and welcoming on the Alpha—could look so chilling on this man.

“I won’t compel you again unless I have to,” Stark said. “I want volunteers. I want you to want what I want. I want us fighting together, side-by-side, to achieve the same goals.”

Now he was starting to sound a little bit like Rylie, too.

“Good,” Deirdre said. “I don’t want to be compelled again.”

Stark surveyed her closely. “Were you angry when you realized what you had done? What I’d forced you to do?”

The lies came to her more easily now. “I was furious.”

“Then why come to me now? Why volunteer?”

“When I saw your video, I realized what had happened to me in Montreal. I stopped being angry at you and started getting angry at the system that screwed me over. Screwed us over.” She clasped Niamh’s hand in hers. The swanmay squeezed back.

“We used to talk about what we would change if we could,” Niamh said. “Back when we were stuck at the boarding school.”

Deirdre grew more heated. “I’m force-fed werewolf food. I live in a condemned building. I’m given an allowance for clothes, treated like a child, and now this? As if all of that wasn’t insulting enough, the Alpha lies to us?”

“It’s cheap,” Niamh snapped. “Rylie Gresham is a traitor to gaeans everywhere!”

Deirdre didn’t look at Gage to see if he reacted to the insult. She built on Niamh’s furor, fueling it with her own anger. “They live in paradise while we suffer. It sickens me and recompense is overdue.”

Stark’s expression never changed.

“We have to make everyone realize what we’re suffering through,” Deirdre said. “It’s not going to change unless we make everything change. I hate what Rylie Gresham has done to me far more than what you did to me.”

When she was done talking, she felt breathless.

Weirder, she felt…a little relaxed. Like she’d been waiting to let that out.

Stark clapped his hand on her shoulder. Deirdre jerked at his touch, but it was a friendly gesture—not an attack. “That won’t be the last blood we spill together.”

Deirdre swallowed hard. She nodded. “I can’t live like this anymore.”

She caught Gage’s expression out of the corner of her eye. He looked angry, too. Deirdre didn’t think he was feigning the expression. That anger was directed at her.

Well, he was the one who’d insisted on following her hunt for Stark. He was just going to have to deal with hearing people talk about Rylie in less-than-glowing terms.

“That’s you,” Stark said. “But what about your boyfriend?” He made the last word sound like an insult.

“I go where she goes,” Gage said.

“Where did you come from?” Stark pressed.

“He came out of the sanctuary,” Niamh said. “But him and my girl Dee, they’re tight.”

Deirdre’s shoulders tensed. Tight as near total strangers.

“I don’t like what’s happened more than anyone else,” Gage said. “I remember life for shifters before Genesis. I remember what it was like to be free, unencumbered by law. It was liberating. I want that back.”

That was news to Deirdre. She’d assumed he’d been changed after they died, just like she had.

“And you don’t hold any allegiance to Rylie Gresham?” Stark asked. “You’d obey me as Alpha?”

Gage’s glare was pure insolence. “If you’ve got the rocks for it, then sure, my loyalty will be all yours. I’m just not sure you’re Alpha enough to take her. All I’ve seen so far is a guy who’s happy to claim responsibility for murders others have committed.”

“Gage,” Deirdre hissed. “Shut up.”

“It’s fine. I’ll hear dissent.” Stark’s eyes flashed. “If you want proof, I’ve got it.” He stepped back to the stairs, fixing Gage with a hard look. “Shapeshift. Now.”

That last word was like the crack of thunder.

Gage grunted and doubled over, arms folding around himself.

Deirdre’s adrenaline spiked. “What are you doing?”

“Proving that I’m an Alpha,” Stark said. “Words are cheap. Actions are priceless.”

“He could kill us all if he changes,” Deirdre said, her voice rising an octave.

She had heard Gage in his beast form the night before. She didn’t want a live show while trapped in the basement with him.

“He won’t hurt us,” Stark said. “Not unless I tell him to.”

The snapping of bone echoed. Gage’s head fell back, teeth gritted as the change rolled through him.

He clawed at himself, shredding his shirt from the collar to the hem, baring his chest. He was in good shape, as many werewolves were—muscular with low body fat. He was also scarred. Deirdre had seen the scars of healed bullet wounds before, and those were definitely bullet wounds.

His spine arched, vertebrae grinding against each other as he adjusted to his changing form. He slammed onto his hands and knees so hard that the mosaic cracked underneath him.

When he cried out again, it wasn’t a human sound. It was guttural. Animal.

Deirdre took two steps toward him before remembering there was nothing she could do to help. She was weaker than other shifters, slow to heal, and the change that Gage was undergoing wasn’t normal. She wouldn’t be able to do anything but get her ass kicked.

Stark’s hand shot out to clamp down on her wrist, pulling her toward the stairs. “Just watch.”

Deirdre forgot to be afraid of him. “You’re hurting him!”

“It’s natural for the change to be painful, and your boyfriend will know that, if he was a shifter before Genesis.”

“Forget what’s natural,” Deirdre snapped. “He wouldn’t naturally be changing right now if you weren’t making him. Stop it right now.”

Gage’s cry of pain punctuated her order.

“Are you trying to make demands?” Stark asked.

Deirdre faltered. She had forgotten for a moment who Stark was and what he’d ordered others to do.

But it was hard to watch Gage suffering. His face extended into a muzzle and the sudden eruption of bone nearly tore his skin. The swell of muscle within his arms was just as traumatic.

He surged in size, limbs popping, flesh bubbling. He grew to the size of a werewolf, and then kept growing. His jeans ripped and fell to the ground in shreds of denim.

Coarse brown fur swept over his shoulders. Silver claws erupted from his fingertips.

Gage wasn’t a wolf.

He was a bear.

Werewolves were larger than natural wolves, and Gage was even bigger in his animal form. He would have dwarfed a horse. He must have been equal to small elephants when he was standing upright.

Deirdre didn’t want to stick around to see.

“Good gods!” She sprung back as Gage got to his feet, strings of saliva dangling from his jaws. A growl rumbled deep in his chest.

Stark gripped Deirdre tightly. “Wait.”

The bear reared onto his hind legs. He was so tall that he couldn’t rise up to his full height. The scars on his chest from silver bullets remained, exposed as shiny pink scars where no fur grew.

When he roared, the windows shook.

Niamh squealed and darted behind one of Stark’s guards. Deirdre was tempted to join her.

But Stark wouldn’t let her move.

“Look,” he said.

The sound of his voice got the bear’s attention. Gage roared again, and in two steps, he crossed the basement. Nothing could stand in his path. Crates smashed under his feet, scattering packing peanuts across the mosaic tile. Deirdre shrieked, tried to duck.

Gage lifted a huge paw and swung it at Stark.

“Stop,” Stark said.

And Gage stopped.

His paw froze in midair, lips peeled back to bare huge teeth that looked every bit as sharp as a werewolf’s. The hot gusts of his breath smelled like the forest, musky and earthen.

Those jaws were only inches from Stark’s face.

“Am I Alpha enough?” Stark asked. Deirdre realized he was speaking to her. She straightened slowly, still half-expecting Gage to knock her head off of her shoulders. But he was frozen by the compulsion.

She reached out to touch the fur on Gage’s forearm, then thought better of it.

“I’d sure say you are,” Deirdre said.

“Change back to a human,” Stark said.

Gage tipped backward, collapsing on his side. It was so sudden—so painful.

But Deirdre didn’t get the opportunity to watch this time. Stark rounded on her. “It’s your turn,” he said. “Show me your beast, Deirdre Tombs. Shapeshift. Now.”

—VIII—

The only sound in the basement was Gage’s shift back into his human form—the crack of bone, his pained groans, the splatter of blood as his body rearranged itself.

Deirdre’s heart pounded so hard that she thought her ribs were going to break.

Shapeshift. Now.

The compulsion in Everton Stark’s tone was obvious. But it didn’t touch her. She didn’t feel a damn thing.

A line formed between Stark’s eyebrows. “Shift,” he said again.

Deirdre shut her eyes, praying to the dead gods, whole body trembling.

Niamh cleared her throat. “Um, Stark…?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He gripped Deirdre’s head in both of his hands, and she clearly imagined him crushing her skull between his fingers. “Look at me, Deirdre Tombs.” She opened her eyes. Stark was so close that all she could see was the intensity of his golden eyes again, just like when they’d been on the street. “I told you to change forms,” he said, searching her face. “Why aren’t you changing?”

“She’s Omega,” Niamh said. “She can’t.”

“You can’t shift?” Stark asked. When she didn’t immediately reply, he said, “Answer me.”

Deirdre wished he would release her. He was only squeezing tighter, and it hurt. “I’ve never been able to. I don’t even know what my animal is. Nobody can tell.”

“Jacek,” Stark said.

One of his guards stepped forward, offering Stark the knife from his belt. Deirdre was relieved when he took it. It meant that he had to let go of her skull.

Stark slashed the knife down her arm.

Deirdre jerked back, clutching the wound. “Hey!”

He didn’t let her retreat. He held her wrist, forcing her to extend her arm so that he could watch the cut. It stung—he’d cut deep, and she could feel the itch all the way into the muscle. Blood poured freely down her elbow.

The healing fever swept over her. Her skin heated, becoming so hot that Stark had to release her. He hissed from between his teeth.

Within moments, the flow of blood slowed and the edges of the wound began to mend.

Deirdre clapped her hand over the injury. “What was that for?”

“You’re a shifter, and you can’t shift,” Stark murmured.

“You just summarized my life’s dilemma, yeah.” She peeled her bloody fingers away from the wound. It was completely closed now. “Did you have to cut me to find that out? I could have just told you.”

“Words are cheap,” he said again. Stark sucked her blood off of his thumb, looking thoughtful. “I’ll take you. I want your help, Deirdre Tombs. But I don’t have a use for your boyfriend.”

Gage was human again, shivering on the floor in a puddle of his own sweat. His clothes were shredded and useless. Every inch of his skin, scars and all, were exposed to the cold basement air.

Deirdre was tempted to agree with Stark. It would be an easy way to have Gage sent home.

But she was scared. Even more scared than she had been before leaving to find Stark in the first place. Deirdre didn’t want to be alone with those people.

“I’m not staying without him,” she said.

Anyone else would have said that was fine. Deirdre was Omega. Who needed her anyway?

Stark nodded, though.

“Fine. Niamh, show them to their room.”

Gage took a minute to dress himself, putting on a clean outfit from his backpack. Then Niamh took Deirdre and Gage to a bedroom upstairs. It took three flights of narrow, creaking stairs to reach the door, which was one among a dozen in the hallway.

The doors were metal with narrow windows cut into them. They reminded Deirdre of a prison.

“This is it,” the swanmay said, standing aside so they could enter. “It’s not much, but it’s a home.”

Deirdre stepped into the room. It looked disturbingly like the nightmarish illusion that Gutterman had showed her. The wallpaper, colorless and old, was peeling from the wall to bare water-stained boards underneath. The floor was warped with moisture damage, too. But the furniture looked clean, albeit broken, and they even had an old TV with rabbit ears.

“One bed?” Deirdre asked. It wasn’t even a big bed. Maybe a full size.

“Space is limited. Since you two are a couple, it’s not a problem, right?”

Deirdre exchanged looks with Gage. She expected him to have some speedy quip in response, but his eyes were dull. Exhaustion hung from his bones.

“We haven’t moved in together,” she said. “It’s just a big step.”

Niamh chucked Deirdre on the shoulder. “If you’re joining a rebellion together, I think you’re serious enough to cohabitate.”

“What would they say about us?” Deirdre asked in a mock-Southern accent. “Us two kids living in sin?”

“They’d probably say, ‘hey, have fun in prison for the rest of your lives, because that’s what we do with terrorists and people who sleep in the same beds as their boyfriends.’” Niamh walked along the edge of the room, tracing her finger along the top of the bookshelf. “Vidya was in here before you guys.”

“And now Vidya’s dead?”

“Arrested. It hasn’t been on the news yet, though. Who knows what the OPA’s done with her.”

“What did we get into?” Gage muttered at nobody in particular.

Niamh actually looked sympathetic. “It’s not always like that. Stark’s not a bad guy.”

“He cut me,” Deirdre said.

“You healed.”

“He also forces other shifters to kill people.” Deirdre lifted her hands in a defensive gesture. One palm was still crusty with blood. “Not judging, but I don’t think we can say he’s not a bad guy. That’s all I’m getting at.”

“Then we’re all bad people. But that’s what it takes, isn’t it? Concentrated badness. Things aren’t going to get better on their own.” Niamh stepped back into the hall. “I’ll let you lovebirds get all snuggled in, huh? Probably want to rest after…you know.”

“Thanks,” Deirdre said.

It looked like the swanmay was going to continue speaking, but then her gaze focused down the hall, and her spine straightened.

Deirdre could tell that Stark was coming just by that posture.

Whatever he wanted, it probably wasn’t good.

“Stay in here and get some rest,” Deirdre said, shoving her backpack into Gage’s arms and leaving the room.

He opened his mouth in protest.

She shut the door on his face.

A moment later, Stark arrived. He had washed Deirdre’s blood off of his hands. There was still a smudge on his beard that he didn’t seem to have noticed, though. “What do you think, Tombs?”

Oh, she had a lot of thoughts. Very few of them were favorable. “About the house, you mean? All I’ve seen are a couple of staircases.”

“A tour, then.”

“I’ll take her around,” Niamh said. “Show her the chore charts and the armory and stuff.”

Stark waved her off. “I’ll take care of it.”

Niamh’s eyes widened to saucers. “You’re going to show her around?”

“Should I grab Gage?” Deirdre asked.

“No,” he said.

Her skin crawled, prickling at the back of her neck. Stark seemed to have taken a special interest in her. The kind of interest that could be very dangerous. Maybe even fatal.

Well, it wasn’t like she’d thought she was signing up for a cruise to the Bahamas when she agreed to infiltrate his pack.

He strode away, and all Deirdre could do was follow him.

The weird, prison-like doors made sense as soon as Everton Stark started showing her around.

He lived in an old asylum for the criminally insane.

Deirdre couldn’t have picked a better place for him to lurk if she’d been trying.

The exterior windows had all been boarded up and the doors chained. There was graffiti on everything, and Stark clearly had no interest in cleaning it up. The tags made the asylum look like it was still abandoned. At least, that was how he explained it to Deirdre.

“The chains are to prevent people from stumbling on us when looking for a place to squat,” he said.

“Or to prevent your followers from escaping,” Deirdre said.

She knew it was dangerous to poke at him like that, but he reacted to the jab as much as he had to everything else. Which was to say, not at all. Stark was downright serene as he led her toward the kitchen. “My followers have no reason to escape. But it does help keep people from stepping outside accidentally. Too much activity would make us easy to find.”

Several dining room tables had been crammed into the kitchen, which had industrial fixtures that must have been very modern in the sixties. The tables weren’t being used for food preparation at the moment—they were being used to load guns and sharpen knives. Deirdre gave a quick head count of the room’s occupants.

A dozen. A dozen in one room alone.

“How many followers do you have anyway?” Deirdre asked.

“At the asylum? Almost fifty, now that you’ve joined us.”

“And everywhere else?”

“Not nearly enough,” Stark said. “More are coming.” She couldn’t press him for specific numbers without sounding suspicious, so she dropped it. But if there were fifty in the asylum alone, then she imagined he must have had hundreds on his side.

The problem was even worse than she’d suspected, and she’d suspected it was pretty bad.

“Is that video you released bringing many new people in?” she asked.

“None as interesting as you.”

Shame burned in Deirdre’s gut. “There’s nothing all that interesting about an Omega.”

“We’ll have to disagree on that,” Stark said. “Niamh told me about you. She told me that you lived in twenty different group facilities, boarding schools, and foster homes before you turned eighteen. Twenty different locations in six years. You must have had the highest transfer rate of anyone in the system.”

She was surprised that Niamh had remembered. “It was actually twenty-one different places.”

“That means you know where they all are. You could tell me how to find them.”

“Are you planning to attack?”

“Liberate,” Stark said. “Free the children. Release them into society.”

Deirdre would have loved him when she was a teenager. She’d thought a thousand times about how much she wanted to escape—and she’d attempted it a thousand times, too, only to be dragged back and shoved in another house.

But she had a few more years of life on her now. Releasing the kids didn’t sound as appealing now that she knew what waited for them on the outside.

The people in the kitchen had noticed that Stark was there. They grew silent, turning to face him. They were almost as military in their movements as the guards in the basement, though less practiced. Jacek was there—a hard-faced man with blond hair falling to his shoulders. He wore the knife that had cut Deirdre at his belt, and he hadn’t washed it off.

Deirdre didn’t care if they had an audience. She frowned at Stark. “The facilities I grew up in were hell, but free-range kids isn’t an improvement.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Stark asked.

“Uh, yeah. They’re kids. It’s not like they can go get jobs and feed themselves.” Deirdre had tried that. It had been nearly impossible for her, and she was stubborn. What would the other kids do?

“People won’t let them starve. There are private charities that could handle their care far better than the state-run system.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Like which charities? Don’t get me wrong, I want the kids out of those places. But you’ve got to do something better for them. You’ve got to have a plan for what happens once they’re out other than letting them run free.”

Jacek settled his hand on the hilt of his knife. “Don’t talk to the Alpha like that.”

“Let her continue.” Stark looked amused. “What would be better, Tombs?”

“The setup they’ve got at the sanctuary isn’t inherently bad. The problem is that admission is too narrow. It’s for the privileged—the ‘good’ shifters. We need to expand the existing academy. We need to make sure that all kids are getting the quality of diet, housing, and education the sanctuary kids are.”

“Where’s that money going to come from?”

“I didn’t say I’ve got the whole solution,” Deirdre said. “I just know where things have got to go. We can’t abandon the shifter kids.”

Stark scratched at his beard as he contemplated her. “Abandonment isn’t in the plans.”

“In that case, I’d love to know what the plan is.”

He backhanded her.

Icy pain shocked through her cheekbone, radiating from jaw to forehead.

The force of the blow staggered her. She caught herself before falling over, hand flying to her cheek. Her fingertips came away bloody.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Stark said. Jacek smirked. “The beasts of the forest don’t need a government to support them. Not even when they’re children.” He wasn’t speaking to her now—he was talking to the entire kitchen. “The pack takes care of their own. When we’ve freed the gaean youths from the system, they’ll be looked after by others of their kind. It’s the natural order. The way things are meant to be.”

Deirdre bit back an argument.

Sure, the vampires might get their act together and take care of other vampires. The sidhe took care of the sidhe, after all. In time, many shapeshifters would form packs among their own breed, too.

But who would take in shifters like her and Niamh?

As though Stark could read her mind, he rested a hand on her shoulder. She flinched. “I will be there for those who have no homes to turn to. Nobody will be left out. There will be no privileged once I’m in charge, no outcasts. Not even Omegas.” He pushed her out of the kitchen. “Let’s go, Tombs.”

The last thing she saw before returning to the living room was Jacek’s ugly little smirk.

Deirdre remained silent, jaw clenched shut, as Stark showed her the group bathrooms downstairs, the armory, the supply room. Many of the asylum’s interior walls had been knocked down, leaving nothing but support beams to create an open floor plan. It was a spartan living space.

Once they got outside in the courtyard, Deirdre couldn’t remain silent anymore.

She whirled on him. “What the hell was that back there?” Stark lifted his hand, but Deirdre slapped his arm down. “Don’t even think about touching me!”

He hit her again, moving so fast this time that she couldn’t evade it.

And he wasn’t nearly as gentle as he’d been before.

The ground rose to meet Deirdre’s face. She tried to catch herself on a park bench and only managed to smash into it, cheek bouncing off the corner.

She hit the dirt on her knees.

“What did you expect to find here?” Stark was so damn calm, as though beating a woman around was a normal part of his day. She spat fresh blood onto the ground. “Did you think that a man who ordered the murder of so many people would be kind to someone like you?”

Deirdre glared at him. “I thought I would find a revolutionary.”

“I’m that and more,” Stark said with no hint of pride. His mouth twisted with loathing—loathing that wasn’t directed at Deirdre. “What do you want out of this revolution?”

“If we could have a conversation without drawing blood, that would be a great first step.” Deirdre got to her feet, trembling as the healing fever burned through her, mending the fresh wound on her cheekbone. “I’m not afraid of a man who hits me. I’ve dealt with that bullshit my whole life.”

His mouth twitched. His brow lowered over his eyes. “Don’t talk to me with that tone and I won’t have to put you in your place.”

“Yeah? Is that how this works? It’s my fault you hit me?”

“That’s exactly how this works.”

Deirdre was tempted to hit him right on back. See if she could smack that frustratingly neutral expression into something more revealing. “I came to help you. I believe in the change we need. Right now, I don’t see a lot of cause to believe in you.”

He lifted his hand.

She flinched, turning her head instinctively. Trying to shield her still-healing cheek from the blow.

“Don’t make me hit again,” Stark said. “If you push, I will push back. I don’t have a choice.”

“Bullshit,” she muttered.

“Speak louder.”

“Fine,” Deirdre said through gritted teeth. “I’ll try not to push.”

“I can tell you’re going to be trouble,” Stark said.

She folded her arms and glared. “Then why let me in?”

Stark strolled around the empty courtyard. Every extra inch of distance he put between himself and Deirdre made her relax a fraction, though if he was as powerful a shifter as he seemed, they would have needed miles between their bodies for her to be able to escape his attacks.

“You’re interesting,” he said from behind a tree. The branches hung low, leaves shielding his square features. “You’re a mystery. Rejected from the sanctuary because you can’t shapeshift.”

She rubbed her healing cheek. It still hurt. “Most people don’t find that mysterious. It disgusts them.”

“They’re afraid of it.” He circled the tree, thumbs hooked in his belt. “You represent the worst fears of every shifter. The fear that we will lose our beasts, become weak, the lowest of the low.”

Deirdre snorted. “Thanks.”

He parted the fronds of a fern and approached her again. Stark held out a hand. “Let me see.”

She wanted to touch him about as much as she wanted to go skinny-dipping in a volcanic caldera. But she wanted to get struck again even less.

Deirdre braced herself and touched her fingers to his. He ran his thumbs along the bones in the backs of her hands, down to her fingernails, massaging the pads of her palm. His skin was rough with calluses, but the gesture was strangely gentle.

“Are you getting something out of that?” she asked after a minute of quiet probing.

“Sometimes I get a sense of who people are when I touch them. But you—I get nothing.” His thumbs stilled on her hand. “You could be anything. Anything at all. How can we unleash what lurks inside of you? How can I help make you complete?”

Frisson settled over her, a chill that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

Rylie spoke of Deirdre’s hidden animal like it was something to be feared. A thing that might put the shifter children at risk.

The way Stark talked…it was more like Deirdre was buried treasure.

Her mouth was drier than the desert, tongue heavy between her teeth. She couldn’t seem to swallow.

“You should wear the badge of Omega with pride,” Stark said. “You’re unlike the rest of us, and you make the others fear. That is power. That, my new friend, is a wonderful thing.”

Deirdre pulled her hand away from his. “You know, friends don’t hit friends.”

“I did you a favor in the kitchen.”

“You’ve got a funny idea of favors.” She sighed. “But I’ll behave. I’ll try.” If that was what she had to do to avoid being discharged or beaten to death, then she’d have to.

He made a noncommittal sound. “Your tour is over. We’ll be attacking an OPA benefits office soon to make an example of the employees. I want you to come. Prepare yourself.”

“When are we attacking?” Deirdre asked. “Now? Tonight?”

“I’ll let you know,” Stark said.

He headed back inside, and she dogged him. “How do I prepare? What am I going to do?” He shot a look at her, and she remembered her promise. Deirdre took a deep breath. “What am I going to do, sir?”

“You’ll be briefed later.” He checked his watch. “I’m going to meet with my Beta to strategize. Find something else to do—explore the house. Enjoy.”

Deirdre stopped in the entryway and watched him leave.

His movements were eerily graceful for such a broad man. He walked smoothly, purposefully, the way that the big predators did. Everyone in the house reacted to Stark as he passed, ducking their heads, bowing their shoulders, showing submission in the way that shifters always did to a superior werewolf.

Yet he hadn’t scented her when he was trying to figure out what she was. He didn’t seem to have enhanced smell. He wasn’t a wolf.

Everton Stark’s beast was as much a mystery as Deirdre’s.

The meeting was held in a room near the kitchen. Two guards stood outside, and thankfully, neither of them were Jacek. Still, Deirdre could not approach without drawing suspicion to herself.

She had internalized the layout of the asylum during her brief and violent tour, so she knew that one of the shared bathrooms was on the floor above the meeting room. Given the paper-thin walls, it would be a much safer place to listen in on Stark’s plans.

Through the open door, she saw Jacek speaking to Stark inside, both bent over a table. They were looking intently at something on the surface. Deirdre couldn’t tell what it was and she didn’t linger to find out.

She passed two other women on the stairs, both of whom looked like they’d been living in the asylum for quite a while. Their clothes were unfashionable, probably hand-me-downs, so they had done their best to mark them with their personal style. The lead woman had her shirt tied in the back to tighten it around her waist; her friend’s jeans had been artfully slashed to expose long stretches of pale skin. The two of them were probably feline shifters. The way they moved was distinctive.

She heard them whispering once her back was turned. She wondered if their interest was because she was new or because they had heard what she was. An Omega.

Deirdre doubted they would hold the same favorable view of the position that Stark did.

She slipped into the bathroom upstairs and shut the door behind her.

It was a room with little more than a toilet and sink. There were group showers elsewhere in the asylum, which Deirdre wasn’t looking forward to familiarizing herself with.

She lowered herself to the bathroom floor, crawling around to listen in different areas. The floor wasn’t as thin as she’d expected. She could barely make out the hum of distant voices—until she crouched over the air vent. She could hear murmurs echoing from below.

Wiggling her fingernails underneath the edge of the screen covering the vent, she pried it up. Dust puffed into the air. She muffled her coughs into her arm, setting the vent gently on the counter behind her so that it wouldn’t make a sound.

Without the cover in place, she could get her ear into the vent itself. As long as she held her breath, she could make out snippets of conversation.

“…won’t be able to get enough vendor badges for everyone, not if we don’t get someone inside…”

“…compel them?”

“Just sneak in. We don’t have to do it legitimately.”

“…the group, only one assassin…”

Deirdre couldn’t tell whose voice was whose. As entrancing as Stark was in person, he was much less distinctive from a separate floor.

The word “assassin” had piqued her interest, though.

She let out a slow breath, sucked in another, and held it.

“We’ll pull in all the troops. Overwhelm with numbers. You’ve got almost a thousand now if you count those in the west…”

Almost a thousand shifters on Stark’s side? The number was dizzying.

If he pulled a thousand shifters on board for a mission, it would be a veritable army. That wasn’t some small terrorist cell. That was something far more terrifying.

The floorboards in the hallway creaked.

Deirdre didn’t manage to get the vent cover in place again before the door opened.

It was Jacek.

“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” Deirdre asked. “I could have been showering in here.”

“But you weren’t. What are you doing on the floor?”

She touched one of her earrings. “Lost the backing down the vent. Just had to scoop it out.” Deirdre wedged the cover back in place.

As soon as she stood, Jacek shoved her against the wall.

His speed was breathtaking. She didn’t even get to consider defending herself.

The back of her head smashed into the wall.

“What were you really doing, Omega?” he hissed, digging his fingers into her throat.

“Breaking eggs,” Deirdre said.

She drove her knee between his legs.

Jacek shouted, face reddening. The angle hadn’t been good—she hadn’t struck hard enough to emasculate him. Too bad.

It only pissed him off further.

He yanked her across the bathroom. Whipped her head against the bathroom counter.

She didn’t even feel it, at first.

At this point, the pain was just another layer atop what she already had. She still ached from Stark’s blows. And Jacek, even with the help of bathroom fixtures, was no Stark.

But there was nothing fun about the spike of pain that followed once she regained her senses.

Deirdre went limp. Sagged in his arms.

He let go, allowing her to drop to the floor. As soon as she hit, she hooked a foot around his ankle and jerked.

Jacek’s feet went out from under him.

He was taller than her. There wasn’t enough room in the bathroom for him to fall as she had. He smashed into the bathtub, catching himself with the shower curtain. His weight yanked it off the rings.

Deirdre flung the door open and jumped into the hallway.

“You sure hate lost jewelry,” she taunted.

Jacek advanced on her. She was too pleased to see the blood trickling from his temple.

He was two feet away when the feline shifters came back upstairs. They stopped at the top landing to stare at Jacek and Deirdre, both of whom were bruised and bleeding and shivering with the healing fever.

Jacek backed away, rubbing the blood off of his face. The wound underneath had already healed. “I’m watching you.” Jacek said.

She rolled her eyes. “Good to know.”

“Stark’s going to kill you.”

That was looking likelier by the minute. “Next time you touch me, I’ll do a lot more than knee you in the balls.”

She turned and walked back to the room she shared with Gage.

The whole way, she felt Jacek’s eyes on her back. Watching her move. Evaluating her. Finding her weaknesses.

Next time he touched her, Deirdre was certain their fight would be much, much deadlier.

—IX—

Deirdre stood in the doorway to her new bedroom and watched Gage.

He didn’t seem aware of her presence. He was facing the barred window, forehead leaned against the frame as he stared out at the courtyard. He looked too clean, too unbroken, to be in that asylum with all its peeling wallpaper and cracked windows. He belonged somewhere pristine like the sanctuary.

She wished that she could send him back.

Rapping her knuckle on the doorway, she said, “Knock knock.”

“You don’t have to knock to come into your bedroom,” Gage said without turning.

“What, and risk walking in on you naked?” Deirdre asked. “I don’t want to go blind today. Thanks.”

The gentle teasing was meant to provoke him into showing the good sense of humor that she’d seen at the sanctuary. But he didn’t laugh this time.

Gage glanced at her. “What happened to you?”

She wasn’t sure which injury he was referring to. The lingering redness on her cheek from where Stark had slapped her? Or the fresh blood from her fight with Jacek?

“Just making friends,” Deirdre said. She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. “Stark’s planning to attack a benefits office soon. He told me about it today.” She planted her hands on her hips, studying Gage’s profile. “What’s the problem? Already lost your nerve?”

Gage rubbed his hands over his face. “I’ve never been changed like that before. Against my will by someone else.”

Deirdre ran her tongue over her teeth, trying to think of something to say that would console him. Pointing out that the world was a terrible place wouldn’t help—but that was all she could think. The world is a terrible place and terrible things happen to all of us. Get over it.

“You didn’t tell me you’re a bear,” Deirdre said. “Or that you were a shifter before Genesis. I didn’t think that was possible. There were only werewolves before, weren’t there?”

“Mostly. Ursine shifters were rare—my dad used to tell me that we were the only ones. But we existed. It’s genetic. So my dad was ursine, my sister was ursine, and me…” Gage let out a low groan. “We change every new and full moon. Just like werewolves. The fact that it isn’t communicable is a gift, but we’re still cursed with changing on the moons.”

“What else?” Deirdre asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Rylie didn’t want to send you along with me. She thought it was a problem. I figured she was being protective of you, like you’re her son, but that’s not it. Something’s wrong with you.”

Gage gave a short laugh. “You know what bear shifters are called? Like how swan shifters are swanmays, or how seal shifters are selkies?”

“Werebears?” Deirdre guessed, only half-joking.

“Berserkers. Heard the term?”

“Never.”

“You’re lucky. All bear shifters are moon-sick. We snap.”

“I don’t see you as the snapping type,” Deirdre said.

“That’s why I ended up with Rylie. When I hit puberty, the hormones made me nuts. I got violent. Couldn’t stop snapping. Rylie and Abel took me in, taught me to be…not a monster.” He fixed Deirdre with a hard look, an intense look. “They’re good. They’re the best. Nothing they did was meant to hurt you, or anyone else.”

“I know.”

“All those angry things you said to Stark in the basement were convincing,” Gage said.

“That’s because I meant them. Every last bit.”

He turned back to the window. Glared out at the courtyard. “This was a mistake.”

“I’m inclined to agree.” Deirdre pushed on his shoulder, forced him to face her. “The killing thing isn’t right. That’s not how you change the world. Not for the better, anyway. But maybe Stark’s got a point about needing the change at all. Have you considered that?”

Gage started shaking his head as soon as she spoke and kept shaking. “No. No way.”

She didn’t stop. “I know Rylie didn’t do it on purpose, but that doesn’t change what she’s done to so many shifter children.”

“And it doesn’t change what she’s done for me,” Gage said. “For every shifter she’s hurt, there are more who have benefited from her kindness directly.”

“When’s the last time you polled for her approval ratings?”

“If you’re going to turn on Rylie, fine. I get it. I know I can’t change your mind. Defect if you want to. Go back to Jolene. But tell me you’re not going to help Stark.” Gage grabbed her arm roughly. “I need to hear it.”

Deirdre gave him a level look. “You don’t scare me. I’ve dealt with much bigger douchebags than you today.”

“You should be scared,” he said. “I’m one bad mood away from killing you.”

“Could you kill me before I draw my gun?”

Gage slammed his fist into the window frame. It cracked, and the whole room shook. “You don’t want to find out.”

Deirdre sighed, stroking a hand down his shoulder, over the rigid lines of his bicep, all the way to his clenched fist. “Chill out.” She petted him again, and again, and on the third stroke, tension eased out of his muscles.

“Rylie’s saved my life,” Gage said. “I’m not safe without her temperance.”

“Without her Alpha control, you mean. She holds your beast, doesn’t she?” Deirdre asked. He nodded stiffly. “So now you’re away from her, you can change at any moment?” Another nod.

No wonder Rylie had wanted to keep him at the sanctuary.

“Stark hit me twice,” Deirdre said. “His guard, Jacek, cornered me in the bathroom.” Gage looked alarmed, but she said, “I’m fine. It’s what I expected. These people are evil, Gage. You know where my beliefs align.”

He stared at her eyes, as though she were the one with powers of compulsion and she’d caught him in her net. “Do I?”

Someone knocked on the door twice then pushed it open.

Niamh stuck her head in. “Are you having sex?”

Deirdre stepped away from Gage. “No. Why? Should we be?”

“With the kind of thumping you two are making, I was kinda hoping,” Niamh said. “Keep the domestic violence to a minimum.”

“I’ll try,” Deirdre said.

“Great. Anyway, it’s getting to be sundown, which means time for lights out. We’ve got to keep it dark so that nobody realizes the building is occupied. No lights above the basement after sunset. Sorry.”

“No, I get it,” Deirdre said. She flipped the lights off. The moonlight was bright enough to shine through the windows, so she could see once her eyes adjusted.

Niamh pulled a deck of cards out of her back pocket. “We can hang out in the courtyard, if you want. We’ll get more moonlight out there. Play some blackjack like we used to.”

Deirdre glanced at Gage. He was slumped against the wall again, as if their argument exhausted him.

Playing cards sounded better than hanging out with Rylie’s finest, but she had other plans. “Actually, could we go back to No Capes? I want to read that Godslayer comic. I’ll wash my hands and do the white glove thing, I promise.” Deirdre crossed her heart.

In truth, she didn’t care what was happening in any comic book. She needed a phone, a way to tell Rylie about Stark’s location in New York, the numbers that were living in his house. Rylie might even know what to do with the information about the benefits office.

Niamh laughed. “I wish we could go read! You would not believe the direction the story’s taking. Unfortunately, you’re a new recruit. You’re housebound until Stark says it’s okay for you to wander off. Safety thing, you know.”

“How long does that usually last?” Deirdre asked.

“Couple weeks? He didn’t keep me for long, maybe three days. He thought people would notice if I wasn’t at my shop for too long.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s funny how he thinks that anyone comes to my shop, ever. So…blackjack?”

“I’m actually pretty tired,” Deirdre said. “I should probably go to sleep.”

“You just want an excuse to crawl into bed with Gage,” Niamh said.

She had been trying not to think about that. But she forced a smile. “You caught me.”

“Don’t run him too hard. He’s probably beat from the shifting.”

Something else Deirdre had been trying not to think about.

“You’ll be back tomorrow?” Deirdre asked.

Niamh gave her a one-armed hug. “Of course. We’ve got lots of catching up to do. Plus, you know, dismantling the ruthless system that ruined our lives, of course.”

“Of course,” she said with a weak laugh.

The swanmay cupped Deirdre’s cheek in one hand, running her thumb lightly over the redness on her cheekbone. Her sympathetic eyes said that she knew exactly what had happened. “Don’t lose your nerve,” Niamh said. “I get that it’s scary here sometimes, but we’re doing the right thing.”

Deirdre nodded her agreement.

Niamh headed down to the basement, and Deirdre followed her out to the hall, watching her friend’s retreating back. Her feathered hair swayed with every movement.

The swanmay was tough on the inside, yet still so fragile compared to the sociopaths in Stark’s pack.

Deirdre wanted to shout a warning at her. Tell her to run away.

But she let Niamh go.

Deirdre slipped back into her bedroom. Gage was sitting on the floor in the corner. “Going to sleep there?” she asked. “Because I want to take the bed, and that makes my life a lot easier.”

“Yeah, fine,” Gage said.

“Great.” She grabbed her toothbrush. She dry-brushed and spat into the trashcan. Better than risking getting cornered by Jacek in the bathroom again.

“Pretty,” he said.

“What can I say? I’m a goddamn lady.” Deirdre grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. She changed into them with her back facing Gage. She’d lived in enough dorms that she’d never developed a sense of privacy, but she wasn’t quite so bold as to face him while stripping to her underwear.

“What happened to your back?” Gage asked.

“The patchy skin? It’s a birthmark.” A huge, white birthmark that covered her from the ridges of her shoulder blades down to her butt crack. She threaded her arms through the shirt. “A gentleman wouldn’t look.”

“Guess that says a few things about me, doesn’t it? Good thing you’re keeping such a monster out of bed.”

Deirdre laughed. “If you Hulk out while I’m sleeping, I’d have to keep out of the same city as you to be safe, I think.” Gage didn’t laugh back. She immediately felt guilty for bringing it up again. “Sorry,” she mumbled, wiggling into her sweats. She grabbed a pillow and comforter off the bed. “Here.”

Gage jammed the pillow behind his head and bundled up in the comforter. “Thanks.” He slumped on the floor, propping his feet up on the bookshelf. His head was already drooping. It looked horribly uncomfortable.

That wasn’t her problem. She wasn’t going to sleep with a berserker in her bed. What if he had a nightmare and shifted in his sleep? She’d never heard of such a thing happening before, but most shifters didn’t change when they were in a bad mood, either.

Deirdre shut her eyes, rolled over, hugged her pillow.

But even when she wasn’t looking at Gage, she couldn’t get his glassy-eyed stare out of her mind. He wasn’t a man on the brink of snapping. He was a man who’d dived into the deep end and was in way over his head.

There was no way she could let him sleep on the floor.

She sighed and rolled back over. Gage’s eyes were halfway open, staring at the wall.

“I changed my mind,” Deirdre said. “We’re both adults. I promise I won’t feel you up if you sleep in bed with me.”

“I make no such promises,” he said. He didn’t seem to have the energy to smile at his own joke.

“Yeah, right, whatever. Shut up and get in here. You look like you’re going to fall over dead if you don’t get real sleep.” Deirdre flipped the sheets off of Gage’s side of the bed. “Come on. Before I change my mind.”

Gage tossed the comforter away, dropped his feet from the bookshelf. “You sure?”

“Just keep your paws to yourself and we’ll be fine.” Literally, she thought.

He stripped his shirt off over his head, exposing his scars from the silver bullets. Once he was down to his underwear, he crawled into bed and rolled onto his side, facing away from Deirdre. He hugged the edge of the mattress.

She watched the lines of his back as he breathed, slow and deep. Two seconds horizontal, and he was already well on his way to unconsciousness.

“How’d that happen?” Deirdre asked. She didn’t have to say what she meant.

“I’ll tell you later,” Gage said sleepily. “It’s a long story.”

He trailed off at the end of the last word.

Gage was asleep.

Deirdre thought she wasn’t going to follow him. Not with a berserker in her bed, and especially not in a den of rebels who felt that friendship meant tossing one another into walls.

But Gage wasn’t the only one worn out by the day. The sleep debt and tension finally caught up with Deirdre.

The moment that her eyes shut, she was out.

Deirdre used to live in a house. An actual house in a normal neighborhood that wasn’t rent-controlled and owned by the government.

That house had a front yard with flowers and a back yard with a playground set with two swings and a bright yellow slide. Her father had often watched her swinging on it from the kitchen window, sipping sweetened iced tea and smiling.

He hadn’t been the kind of dad who’d play with her, and she’d been an only child, but she never felt lonely. Daddy was always there when she really needed him.

If she skinned her knee, he was outside with Band-Aids and her teddy bear before she could even start crying. And if she jumped off the slide and landed wrong, he always managed to be there in time to catch her. It was like his magic power.

“Any time you fall, I’ll catch you,” Daddy would say.

“I’m never going to fall,” Deirdre would tell him, even though she’d obviously just fallen. She’d always believed she was stronger than she really was. Stronger and faster and more sure-footed.

But when Genesis came, she fell. She fell hard.

Genesis had turned Daddy into a liar. He wasn’t there to catch her when she regenerated as an Omega. A shifter who didn’t shift.

He wasn’t there.

She tried to tell herself she wasn’t bitter about that, but she was. She still hated him for it. Deirdre’s body was missing its heart and she thought she’d never feel full again.

Deirdre woke up to a hand on her shoulder.

The haze of sleep blurred her vision, so she thought it was her father leaning over her for a moment. She forgot the last ten years, forgot dying from the Genesis void, forgot that she was Omega. She rolled over with a hum of satisfaction, smile blossoming on her lips.

But the hand was too hairy to be her father’s, and the arm attached to it was tattooed.

She blinked her eyes clear to find Everton Stark leaning over her bed.

The smile vanished instantly.

Deirdre sat up, sheets falling to her waist. “What is it?”

“It’s time,” Stark said.

She rubbed a fist over her eyes. Her cheeks were damp. Then she realized that there was a warm weight over her thighs, which curved around her body and cupped her hip.

Gage had rolled over at some point during the night and flung an arm over her body in his sleep.

Maybe all the crying she’d likely been doing in her sleep had woken him. It was humiliating to think he could have seen that and chosen to hug her in her sleep to make the crying stop. She barely knew the guy. He didn’t deserve to know her like that.

Deirdre carefully peeled Gage off of her, returning the arm to his side. “What time is it?”

“Three o’clock,” Stark said. “We’re leaving on the mission.”

The mission? Oh. The mission. The one where they were going to attack a benefits office and “make an example” of the people who worked there. Innocent employees who had nothing to do with Rylie’s agenda except executing it, which they had to do in order to pay the bills.

That mission.

Deirdre was tempted to go back to sleep, begging exhaustion or weakness or…whatever it would take to get the guy to go away. Lady problems. Lady problems always grossed men out. And Stark was one of the manliest of manly-men.

But then she worked her jaw around, trying to ease the remembered pain of getting slapped around by Stark.

The ache was a pretty solid reminder of what would happen if she mouthed off.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be right out.”

Stark left her to change. She donned a new outfit within seconds, and even the zippers and rustling cloth and rap of her gun bumping into the side table didn’t disturb Gage.

Deirdre pulled a black tank over her head and squeezed a leather bustier on top of it, lacing it loosely so she’d be able to move. It went well with the leather leggings and boots. She looked badass. Like the kind of rebel who was going to assault a benefits office in the middle of the night.

When she pulled her jacket off the table, she noticed the box of silver ammunition that Rylie had given her underneath.

Deirdre traced her fingertips over the lid.

She didn’t want to kill anyone. Rylie had been pretty specific about the fact that she wasn’t there to assassinate Stark. But the guy had already hit her twice and cut her with a knife once. Their relationship slanted toward the violent.

And she didn’t like the way Jacek had been looking at her.

Glancing at the doorway—nobody had returned for her yet—she popped her gun’s magazine, wrapped her hand in an old shirt, and grabbed a silver bullet with the cloth as protection.

Her nose wrinkled at the stink of silver as she quickly greased the bullet and jammed it into the magazine. It was awkward to do with a t-shirt covering her hand. Took a few seconds too long.

Jacek stepped into the doorway. “Ready?”

Deirdre popped the magazine into her Ruger. “Ready,” she said. “Just loading my gun.”

“We’ve got weapons.”

“I like mine. I’m comfortable with it.”

“Well, come on, Princess,” Jacek said. “We can’t wait all night for you.”

She jammed the Ruger into the back of her belt, holding her head high as she followed him out. She resisted the urge to look back at Gage.

“How do your balls feel?” Deirdre asked. “I hope they still hurt.”

Jacek was on her in a flash, gripping her arm so tightly that the bone creaked. “I don’t know why Stark’s taken such an interest in you, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re nothing. Omega.”

He spat the word at her.

Deirdre couldn’t help but flinch. It was a reflex now—conditioning from all those years of having the word flung in her face by hateful children before they beat the living daylights out of her in the showers.

She wished she could have repressed that reaction. Jacek looked like he enjoyed her fear far too much.

There was murder in his eyes. It wasn’t the impersonal, casual kind of violence that lurked in the shadowy corners of Stark’s mind. This was a much more personal kind of murder waiting to happen. He’d relish his hands around her throat and the final squirms of her body under his booted feet.

Deirdre shook him off. “If you’ve got a problem with my place in this house, take it up with Stark. He loves to hear dissenting opinions.”

“You’re nothing,” Jacek hissed.

“And your breath smells terrible. Just because you’re a terrorist doesn’t mean you don’t need to brush your teeth.”

Stark called to them from downstairs. “Now, people!”

Slowly, Jacek stepped toward the stairs. But he didn’t take his eyes off of her.

Maybe it was only one silver bullet, but Deirdre was glad she had it.

—X—

The benefits office they targeted was in small town in Pennsylvania and intended to service the gaeans who had taken over subsidized farms after Genesis. To reach it, Stark’s team drove along the old highway flanked by walls of trees for hours, their van the only source of light on the road.

Stark was crouched at the rear of the van. He wore a tactical vest over a black shirt, and he loaded ammunition into each pocket as he spoke.

“The staff will arrive at seven o’clock, an hour before the office opens,” Stark said. “The office employs five people. Two are administrative assistants. One is a doctor, another a nurse. The fifth is a manager.”

Each name he said prompted Jacek to click to another picture on his laptop, which was turned so everyone could see it. The admin aides were young and golden-eyed—shifters of some kind. The rest looked mundane. All had been photographed wearing Office of Preternatural Affairs ID badges.

“We’ll release the administrative assistants first so they can notify the police,” Stark said.

“Notify them of what?” Deirdre asked.

“The rest of our hostages.” He stuck something that looked like a hand grenade in a breast pocket and buttoned the flap.

They were going to take the doctor, the nurse, and the manager as hostages.

Deirdre was going to take hostages.

She tried to regulate her breathing, but she couldn’t do anything about her heart rate. The adrenaline made her feel lightheaded.

“Don’t kill anyone without my permission,” Stark said, “but don’t let these three escape, either. We need leverage.”

“We’ll take them down at the end,” Jacek said.

Deirdre bit back a protest.

She was surprised when Stark said, “If I say so. Not a minute before. You got that?”

Everyone nodded.

They were accompanied by three other shifters: Niamh, who apparently hadn’t gotten to return to No Capes; the pack’s Beta, Sancho; and a guy named Geoff, who had identified himself to Deirdre as a werewolf. He certainly had the look of it. He even had the faint scarring on his neck indicating that he’d survived a werewolf attack. He must have been turned by another of his kind rather than being reborn as a werewolf in Genesis.

“How do we get in?” Deirdre asked. “All benefits offices are secured with multiple measures. Electrified fencing, security alarms…”

Geoff stroked the top of his gun. “Why’s that? Isn’t all they got in there records and stuff?”

“And food, and medicine,” Niamh said.

Deirdre leaned her elbows on her knees. “Imagine that you’ve got the only drugs known to counteract silver poisoning. And then imagine that getting these drugs requires paperwork in triplicate, which involves explaining how you got injured. They’re in high demand on the black market.”

“They should be freely available to everyone,” Stark said.

“I agree.” Deirdre had seen too many people suffering from silver poisoning who were too ashamed to admit how it had happened. Some shifters fetishized silver burn—a weirdly popular fetish, considering how seriously damaging it could be. Silver poisoning was also a common result of gang fights.

Niamh gave a sad sigh. “Remember what happened to Wil?”

“The cute guy with the Star Wars shirt? Yeah.” Deirdre swallowed hard. “Yeah, I do.” He’d suffered silver poisoning. He’d gotten it while playing with an illegal knife because he’d thought it made him cool.

Instead, he’d ended up having to undergo an amputation to prevent the silver rot from spreading through his body—and his breed didn’t regenerate limbs.

Jacek scowled at the both of them. “Can we get back to the mission, kids?”

Sancho shoved his shoulder. “They’re just talking. Be nice.” The Beta was a grizzled old man with a fringe of white hair and a shiny bald spot on top. “We get into the office by cutting through the electrified fence. I came prepared.” He waved a pair of rubber gloves at Deirdre.

“And the alarm?” she asked.

Stark zipped up his vest. “We want the alarm to go off. We want the police to respond.” He checked the magazine and safety on a small handgun, a Sig Sauer P226 Nitron, and then handed it to Deirdre. She took it. She didn’t want to fire the Ruger and its silver bullet unless she needed to.

Deirdre’s heart felt heavy as she tucked the Sig in her boot. “This is going to be another statement for the public, isn’t it?”

“Exactly.” He didn’t sound happy about it. More like he was resigned. “My Beta will cut through the fence. We’ll follow him in and enter through the rear window. Once we secure the employees, we’ll wait for police to arrive, demand reporters, and deliver our message.”

She wondered what message that would be. Another statement, like the one that Stark had released on social media? Or the dead bodies of a doctor, a nurse, and an office manager?

“How do we get out once the cops show up?” Niamh asked.

“This benefits office is miles from any OPA squad,” Sancho said. “We’ll get mundane police. They don’t have authority to carry silver rounds in the state of Pennsylvania, so they can shoot all they want and we’ll just walk out.”

Deirdre touched her tender cheekbone, still slightly sore from getting smacked around by Stark.

The others would be able to take a magazine worth of bullets without too much trouble, so long as they were normal bullets. Deirdre couldn’t.

“Five minutes away,” Geoff reported. “Make sure you’re all ready to go. The van’s not stopping for long.”

They were almost there.

Panicked thoughts raced through Deirdre’s mind as she went through the motions of double-checking her Ruger’s magazine.

She’d agreed to go undercover in Stark’s pack knowing it was dangerous. But she hadn’t had time to think much about what she might actually have to do. She was immune to Stark’s compulsion, sure—but what was she going to have to do to convince him that she wasn’t?

If he told her to shoot one of the people at the benefits office, could she actually do it?

Should she?

Deirdre was no stranger to violence. A girl could only get beaten down so many times before she learned to beat back. She was pretty sure she hadn’t killed before, although some of the kids she’d fought with in school probably wished she had. Many preternaturals didn’t heal as readily as shifters did. And Deirdre didn’t stop fighting until she was certain that her enemy wasn’t going to attack again.

Everyone she’d fought before had earned the smackdown. They’d been bullies. Sociopaths, even.

The people at the benefits office hadn’t done anything to deserve the violence.

Niamh rubbed a hand along Deirdre’s spine, like she was trying to rub the tension out of her. “This first one will be hard,” she whispered, “but it gets easier. It stops being as scary. You don’t second-guess as much.”

“Second-guessing, huh?” Jacek asked. “Is it because you’re so weak or because you don’t really want to be here?”

Now there was someone deserving of Deirdre’s ire. “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.”

“Big words from a little Omega.”

“Jacek,” Stark said. “I will let her teach you a lesson if you provoke her. This is your only warning.”

He laughed. “Are you messing with me, Alpha? Trying to warn me off this little girl? She’s practically human.”

Stark just looked at him.

It probably shouldn’t have warmed Deirdre to know that Stark had such confidence in her, but it did. She was even more warmed to know that she’d be allowed to kick Jacek’s ass once the time came.

And it was coming. She was sure of it.

The only question was when.

Franklinsburg was a tiny town that had sprung up around a feed store, a post office, and a gas station that only listed prices for diesel fuel. The benefits office was past a coffee shop that looked like it hadn’t been open since Genesis. It had a big welcome sign out front with a photo of a smiling shifter family that said “We Care Because You Matter”—a stupid slogan that had irked Deirdre ever since they adopted it.

Their driver pulled around behind the office.

“Go,” Stark said, throwing the doors open.

They piled out. The van left quickly and silently, its engine fading into the distance within seconds.

The fence jangled as Sancho worked the wire cutters, slicing from the bottom toward the top. He had shifter strength; it shouldn’t have taken long for him to get through the fence. But he was struggling. “This is some kind of alloy,” he said. “It’s not aluminum.”

Stark checked his watch. “Faster. We don’t have time.”

“As fast as I can,” the Beta said.

Deirdre danced on her toes at the edge of the group, watching the parking lot around the side of the building. Nobody had started lining up for their medicine yet—and hopefully, Stark would be gone before anyone did. She didn’t want innocent shifters caught in the crossfire.

“That’s enough,” Stark said, grabbing the wire cutters from Sancho and tossing them into the bushes. The Beta yanked the hole in the fence wider. It still wasn’t very big—maybe large enough for Deirdre, but probably not for men like Stark.

Niamh wrapped her hair and feathers in a ponytail holder. “My turn.”

She dropped to all fours, crawling through the fence. Despite her height, she was incredibly slender, and built without curves. She slipped through without brushing the electric wire. Jacek openly leered at her ass as she crawled.

Deirdre’s hands clenched into fists.

Not yet. Later. You can have Jacek later.

Niamh slithered between the wires safely and got to her feet. She fluffed out her hair, winked at Deirdre, and whipped a wrench out of her pocket.

The electrical box was on the back wall of the building. It had been bolted shut, but Niamh had it open in seconds.

She flipped a breaker.

“Come on,” Niamh said.

Stark didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the fence barehanded and wrenched the hole even wider, biceps bulging at the effort it took. Surprise crossed his features.

“That is a new alloy,” he said.

Sancho laughed. “Told you.”

They entered one at a time, crawling through the hole with much less grace than Niamh had shown. Deirdre was glad she’d worn leather. The cut metal scraped at her sides and back, digging into her ribs. The hem of her leggings caught. Niamh had to pull her free.

The back door didn’t have an exterior handle, and there weren’t any windows on the rear of the building. They circled around to the shadowed side, where the recycling bins were kept.

“Oh, man,” Sancho groaned.

The windows for the benefits office were barred.

And they weren’t just any bars, but thick black rods that glinted with silver undertones when Deirdre turned her head the right way. A mixture of silver and iron, she was willing to bet. Something to keep shifters and sidhe alike from breaking through.

“That’s not normal,” Niamh said. “I’ve never seen barred windows like this before. Not on a benefits office.”

Deirdre peered closely at the places that they were bolted to the wall. “They tore up some paint when installing them and haven’t repainted. I think they’re new.”

Sancho looked uneasy. “They’re expecting us. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“It doesn’t matter if they’re expecting us,” Jacek snapped. “We have to get the message out today.”

Everyone turned to Stark at the same time, as though their leader had said something. But he was silent. He rubbed his beard as he contemplated the bars.

His eyes traveled up the side of the building to the roof.

Deirdre followed his gaze. By habit, she evaluated how easy the building would be to climb. It wasn’t made of brick, as many of the older buildings in the area were; it was a much more recent construction, and the vinyl siding was smooth. But there were windows on each of the two stories. Climbing wouldn’t be difficult at all.

Furthermore, she hadn’t seen an air conditioning unit around back—it must have been on top of the building. Which meant that there would be some way into the building from the roof.

She was startled to realize that Stark was looking at her.

“Can you do it?” he asked.

“I told him what you can do,” Niamh said. “The running thing.”

No wonder he’d wanted Deirdre on this mission. “Yeah,” she said reluctantly. “I can do it.”

“Get to the front door, unlock it, and let us inside.”

Deirdre squared her shoulders. Looked up at the building. “Okay.”

She holstered her Sig, backed up to the fence, and took a deep breath.

And then she ran.

Deirdre gave herself a few yards to build speed before jumping. She caught the bottom of the second floor window and pulled herself up on the bars.

Her palms stung where she gripped the metal. Definitely some kind of silver alloy. There wasn’t too much mixed in with the other metals—but then, she wasn’t as susceptible to silver as many shifters were, either. She could ignore the burn. Most people couldn’t.

The blinds on the other side were halfway closed. She glimpsed an office through the slats, along with a couple of filing cabinets, generic blue office carpet. It looked like any of a thousand offices that Deirdre had been forced to visit over the last decade.

She didn’t look at it for very long. Her hands hurt too much.

Deirdre clambered onto the roof.

There was the air conditioner she’d been looking for, as well as a trap door leading down to the second story of the benefits office. She couldn’t lift it open. It was locked from the inside.

In the same way that Deirdre wasn’t as sickened by silver as other shifters, her improved strength also wasn’t as good. She hauled on the trap door with everything she had and it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t get the door to budge.

“Damn.” Deirdre leaned over the side of the building. “It’s locked. I can’t open it.”

Stark handed his gun to Jacek. “Wait there. I’ll join you.” He didn’t speak loudly, but the morning was so quiet that she heard him anyway.

He dropped to a crouch…and then jumped.

Stark didn’t need a running start like Deirdre had. Just like that, he launched himself twenty feet into the air, caught the edge of the roof, and lifted himself effortlessly onto it.

She stared.

“Uh,” Deirdre said.

Stark patted his hands off on his jeans. “Let’s go.”

“If you can pull that grasshopper stuff off, why send me up in the first place?”

“I wanted to watch how you move,” Stark said. It wasn’t a come-on. Deirdre had heard enough skeezy lines to know when a guy was checking her out. No, Stark was watching for feline or canine movement patterns.

He was wasting his time. Deirdre had navel-gazed about all her behaviors for years and learned nothing.

Stark wrenched the trap door open with one arm. The broken padlock on the inside clattered to the stairs. It led to a cluttered attic, filled with boxes of files.

Deirdre rested a hand on the Sig. “Do you want my gun?”

“I don’t need one,” he said.

And he dropped through the trapdoor to the attic.

Deirdre’s heart clawed up her throat as she jumped in after him. Her ankles throbbed when she hit.

The attic was dark and empty of souls. With a sweep of his hand, Stark shattered the door leading into the hallway. It was solid wood, about two inches thick, and his fist was like driving an ice pick into a car’s windshield. It buckled under his strength.

Deirdre raced after him as he crossed the hallway, blood aflame with fear and adrenaline and giddy excitement.

Stark slammed through another door. One of the administrative assistants was on the other side. She was filing. What was her name? Shawna? Deirdre was pretty sure that her name was Shawna. She should have paid more attention when they were going over the dossiers in the van.

When she saw them, she dropped her papers with a gasp of shock.

Stark was on her in a heartbeat. He hooked his arm around Shawna’s throat, pinning her in a headlock. “Don’t make a sound,” he said as she beat against his forearm, tears glistening in her eyes.

She was hyperventilating. Her breaths were thready, rasping.

To Deirdre, Stark said, “Clear the hallway.”

She opened the door and stepped out, gun lifted.

“It’s clear,” she said.

Stark dragged Shawna out of the room, moving so quickly that she couldn’t keep her feet underneath her. She kicked helplessly at the carpet. One of her shoes slipped off. Every one of her tiny whimpers was another crack in Deirdre’s heart, threatening to make it shatter in her chest.

Deirdre tried to ignore that feeling. She also tried to look like she wasn’t terrified as she checked each of the second floor offices and found them empty.

“Downstairs,” she said.

Stark tossed Shawna at Deirdre. “Hold her and follow me.”

Deirdre didn’t know how to “hold” a hostage, but she did the best she could. She grabbed the assistant’s arm, thumbed the safety into place, and shoved the Sig against Shawna’s temple.

Stark didn’t bother trying to open the door to the first floor the normal way. He unleashed a kick beside the door handle. It exploded open, latch shattering, door bouncing off of the wall on the inside of the room.

The lobby was nearly identical to every other benefits office in the country. There was a desk behind the window and a door leading to the waiting room. A couple of curtained cubicles were behind the desk. That was where they would draw blood, give injections, check out wounds.

She only had a second to size up the office. And then people were screaming and Stark was shouting.

“Get down! On the floor, hands over your heads, now!”

Most of the office’s staff reacted instantly. The other administrative assistant threw himself to the floor, dragging the doctor down with him. The manager followed suit at the front of the room.

The nurse didn’t get down. He went for the desk.

Deirdre didn’t even think. She tightened her grip on Shawna and aimed the Sig at the nurse instead. “You heard the man! Get down or I’ll shoot you!”

She didn’t recognize her own voice.

The man who had been identified as Roger in the files—the registered nurse—froze where he stood, but he still didn’t drop.

Please get down. Please get down.

A heartbeat passed. Two of them.

He wasn’t moving.

Damn it, why wasn’t he moving?

“Shoot him, Tombs,” Stark said.

—XI—

Deirdre couldn’t tell if Stark’s order to shoot was meant to be compulsion or not. He’d said he wouldn’t compel her unless he needed to. But she couldn’t risk letting him know she was immune.

So she shot.

Her hand twitched right before she squeezed the trigger.

It was a small gun, but in a room that size, it was still loud enough to make her whole skull ring.

Blood splattered from the nurse’s bicep.

He cried out with pain. His other hand plunged into a desk drawer, and Deirdre knew he was armed, knew he would shoot back, try to defend the office. They’d been ready with barred windows. They must have been ready with weapons, too.

Stark seized the nurse before Deirdre could decide if she should shoot again. He hurled Roger across the room. The impact of the nurse’s body cracked the drywall.

He bounced to the floor and he didn’t move.

Stark rounded on the manager, grabbing a fistful of his suit and jerking him to his feet.

“You know who I am,” Stark said.

“Oh gods, oh gods, please don’t hurt me—”

“You’ve seen my face on the news.”

“Yes, I’ve seen you, please don’t hurt me! I just work here!”

“As long as you execute the laws our government forces upon us, you’re culpable, too,” Stark said. “Let everyone in.”

It took Deirdre a moment to realize that he was speaking to her.

She dropped Shawna. The woman collapsed to the floor, sobbing into her arms, whole body shaking.

Deirdre had done that to her. She had helped put the fear into every one of those people.

She rushed to the front door. The rest of their team was waiting just outside; all she had to do was unbolt the door and let them in.

Jacek entered first, shoving her aside. He fired the machine gun into the floor. The chatter of bullets was like driving needles into Deirdre’s ears. “Don’t anyone move!” he shouted.

“We covered that part,” Deirdre snapped.

He swung the machine gun around to aim it at her.

“Don’t be that guy,” Sancho said, ripping the weapon out of Jacek’s hands. He turned it on the office staff and held it steady as he locked the door again. “Barricade this, ladies.”

It took both Niamh and Deirdre to push the waiting room couches in front of the door, piling one on top of the other. They did a great job blocking the narrow windows. Once the police arrived, they wouldn’t have a clear shot at the invading shifters.

Once the police arrived. Holy hell.

And once they were locked down, there was nothing to distract Deirdre from what they’d done.

They had taken people hostage.

She felt so numb that she couldn’t think of what this would mean later—these people carrying her face around in their minds, having nightmares about what they’d endured at the point of her gun, seeking therapy and crying on the shoulders of loved ones.

Hopefully they’d live long enough to need that therapy.

The way Jacek was prowling around the room, Deirdre was starting to doubt that anyone was going to escape alive.

Stark lifted Shawna from the floor. She couldn’t stand on her own because she was sobbing so hard, but he managed to straighten her enough to look into her eyes.

“What are you, Shawna?” he asked.

“Wolf,” she said. “Werewolf.”

“Good. I’m Everton Stark, Shawna. I have questions for you and I need you to be entirely honest when you answer them.” His voice deepened. “Tell me the truth.”

She weakened in his arms. Her crying slowed. “Okay.”

“Does this building have a silent alarm system?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Who does it call? The police?”

“It contacts the vendor we hired to do security. Lockdown Systems. If they can’t reach us within five minutes, then they send the police.” Her crying had stopped completely now. Her tone was almost dreamy.

“Which phone does Lockdown Systems call?” he asked.

“The manager,” she said. “He has a cell phone.”

Sancho patted the manager down, searching his pockets. He came up with an old cell phone—the kind that flipped open with physical buttons. An archaic thing. It was buzzing in his fingers.

“Should I answer it, boss?” Sancho asked.

“Let it ring,” Stark said.

The room fell silent as it continued to buzz.

And then it stopped.

Now Lockdown Systems would be calling the police. They would have company very soon.

“Excellent, Shawna, thank you,” Stark said. “Bring the other administrative assistant to me. Andrew.”

Andrew was a heavyset blond man, and he didn’t fight Deirdre’s grip at all when she hefted him to his feet. It was unusual to see an overweight shifter, but even though Andrew’s eyes were golden, he was thick enough that the buttons on the stomach of his suit strained.

“I’m a cat,” he said hurriedly. “Lion. I’m a lion.” He looked like a lion. A big, cuddly, harmless lion.

“What’s a lion shifter doing in Pennsylvania?” Deirdre asked.

“I was born here?” He phrased it like a question, and as though he were afraid it was the wrong answer. Sweat soaked through the collar of his shirt. “Look, I’ll do whatever you want. I know who you are. I saw the video. I’ll do anything.”

“Yes, you will.” Stark let go of Shawna. “The two of you have serviced a system designed to abuse our kind. Quit your jobs and disavow the government.”

“Okay, yes, anything,” Andrew said. “I quit. Done. And the government? Rylie Gresham? Hate them, scum, whatever.” He spat on the floor.

“Convincing,” Niamh said, rolling her eyes.

Shawna was trembling again now that Stark’s compulsion had lifted. She didn’t seem like she could bring herself to speak.

Jacek shoved the barrel of his gun into the back of her head.

“You heard him,” Jacek said.

“I just work here.” Mascara streaked her cheeks.

“Shawna?” Stark prompted.

“Okay,” she said. “Anything you want.” And then she sobbed harder, shoulders shaking.

“Both of you can sit down.”

Shawna lowered herself to the floor again. Andrew dropped beside her so quickly that it looked like his legs had given out underneath him.

The other two staffers were humans. Stark couldn’t compel them, nor could they disavow any allegiance to Rylie’s pack, since they didn’t have one.

Deirdre stood back and watched as Niamh—her friend from school, the girl she used to fight over boys with—pulled the zip ties out of her pocket and bound the two human men.

“Tombs, put them in the store room,” Stark said. “We’ll need them later.”

“Yes, sir,” Deirdre said. She grabbed both men by the bindings, one in each hand, and hauled them into the storage room.

It was getting to be instinct now, following Stark’s orders. She didn’t have to stop to think about what she was doing or how hard they were quivering. Deirdre tossed them into the corner of the darkened storage room, and they collapsed against the wall.

“What do you people want?” asked Roger, the nurse. “Are you going to kill us?”

She glanced at the door. It had closed most of the way, but not entirely.

“If we have to,” she said. “Don’t give me an excuse.”

Something thumped deeper in the storeroom.

Deirdre drew the Sig again, aiming it at the floor as she slipped toward the sound.

The supplies on the shelves around her were familiar. All families with shifter children received many of those snacks—processed food bars with added protein to help kids grow strong. The sight of the labels gave her an unpleasant jerk of nostalgia.

All the carefully labeled medicine evoked similarly unpleasant sensations. Her pediatrician—a so-called specialist in preternatural medicine—had administered a thousand drugs to see what Deirdre would react to, searching for allergies, inoculating her against diseases they weren’t certain she could catch.

It had been legal, too. The laws surrounding experimental drugs for preternaturals were loose. And with the state as her guardian, Dr. Landsmore had gotten permission to do anything he wanted.

He’d never deliberately tried to hurt her. But she’d still spent years sick from his injections.

Many of those prescriptions had come from offices just like that one.

It wasn’t Dr. Landsmore hiding in the corner, but the man behind the shelves looked essentially the same. He wore the same white coat with the OPA logo on the breast, the same blue latex-free gloves, and heavy-framed glasses that magnified his eyes threefold.

And he was holding a needle in one hand.

The doctor hurled himself at her, syringe raised.

Deirdre wasn’t as fast as many shifters, but she was faster than a mundane man. She jerked out of the way. His hand came slamming down on the shelf. The needle snapped.

She gripped his wrist, holding him steady to inspect the syringe.

“Silver nitrate,” Deirdre said.

She tried not to get angry. She had entered the building with terrorists and the man was defending himself in the only way he knew how.

But even a milliliter of that might kill her.

He tugged against her in vain, trying to break free. “Whatever you monsters want, you aren’t going to get it!”

She plucked the syringe from his hand and set it on a high shelf. “I’m going to let go of you. Don’t run or I can’t help you.”

A line of confusion formed between his eyebrows. “What do you want?”

She slowly let go of his wrist. He didn’t move.

Deirdre inspected the barred window protecting the storage room. There was no way she could let the hostages out that way, not unless she got a power saw. “You have a cell phone, right? I need you to make a call for me.”

“Aren’t you with Stark?” the doctor asked. Funny how quickly Everton Stark had become a household name.

“Kind of,” Deirdre said. “Not really.” She ripped a pen out of the doctor’s breast pocket and grabbed an envelope for prescription drugs. She wrote down Rylie’s phone number. “Call this person and tell her that there are fifty people in an abandoned New York City asylum near No Capes.” Deirdre scribbled that down. “A thousand across the country.” She wrote that down too.

“You’re a mole.” Now he looked even more terrified.

He was right to be scared. Both of them would be dead if they got caught.

She shoved the envelope in his hands. “Stay hidden. Make the call. I have to get back before they realize I’m missing.”

“But—”

“Lives depend on you,” Deirdre said.

She left the doctor, striding out of the storage room without looking behind her.

Jacek and Geoff were still on guard, but they looked relaxed, slouching against the wall like taking people hostage was a normal Thursday morning for them.

Niamh was on the computer. She’d always been good with computers—her fingers flew over the keyboard so quickly they were a blur.

“Printing now,” she reported.

Deirdre leaned over the back of her chair. “What is that?”

Stark shut off the monitor, but not before Deirdre saw the OPA database. It was a list of benefits recipients.

“They’re here,” Sancho announced. He lurked beside the barricaded windows. Morning sunlight sliced through a gap in the stacked sofas, spilling harsh yellow light over his eyes. “Two cop cars.”

“Perfect,” Stark said.

Niamh gathered a stack of papers off of the printer. There were already dozens of pages, and the printer was still chugging along. She started shoving the pages into folders, wrapping them in rubber bands, clamping them shut with clips.

Outside, someone yelled into a megaphone.

“This is the Franklinsburg Sheriff’s Department. The Office of Preternatural Affairs is on its way. Come out with your hands up.”

“It’s time, boss,” Jacek said.

“I’m going to send you out to talk with the police,” Stark said to Shawna, her shoulders trapped in his hands. “Give them this message: I am Everton Stark and I want to speak to reporters from at least three major news stations. If I don’t get them by five o’clock this afternoon, I will kill these hostages. I’m not interested in negotiating.”

He turned her around. She was pliant in his hands, weakened by the compulsion.

Sancho pulled the couches aside enough for the slender administrative assistant to fit through the front door’s narrow opening. Stark pushed her outside.

In a blink, the door was shut and bolted again, the sofas back in place.

“Hold the phone,” Deirdre said. “You want to talk to the reporters by five o’clock? Isn’t that kind of a problem, considering your plan is to run out of here before the OPA shows up with silver bullets and fancy cages?”

“I didn’t say we’d be here at five o’clock,” Stark said. “Niamh?”

The swanmay was dancing nervously over the printer, watching the pages come out. “Almost…like, maybe fifty more. Just another minute.”

Deirdre wanted a look at those pages. She wanted to look bad.

Everything else about the raid—the hostages, the reporters—those were a smokescreen for whatever Stark expected to get out of those printouts.

No mistake, they had gone to that benefits office for database access.

Jacek roared suddenly. “There’s someone else in the building!” Deirdre whirled to see the doctor trying to sneak out of the storage room with the other hostages.

Her heart plummeted.

Had he made the call yet? Was he carrying the paper with her handwriting on it?

Before the humans could flee, Jacek opened fire.

A short pulse of bullets, and that was it—the wall was painted with blood that dripped slowly toward the carpet as the bodies fell.

Andrew screamed.

And the front door exploded open.

The couches skidded across the room as men forced their way inside. Deirdre hurled herself behind the desk, dragging Niamh down with her. The others took cover behind the door to the storage room.

Holes punched through the drywall on the far end of the office.

Cops weren’t supposed to open fire so freely. They were supposed to warn first.

But in the glimpse that Deirdre had caught of the invaders, she hadn’t seen police uniforms. She had seen men in all black combat gear. They resembled the SWAT teams of old, but instead of carrying riot shields and tear gas, they had combat-trained witches draped in charms and pentacles.

It was the Office of Preternatural Affairs.

Apparently they’d heard Jacek shoot the hostages.

The agents were still peppering the air with gunfire—and judging by the sickening odor, they were using silver rounds. They weren’t supposed to have silver. There shouldn’t have been OPA agents in the first place.

Geoff leaned around the triage desk and returned fire. He only squeezed off a few rounds before ducking back again.

Silver flame shot through the room, aimed straight at Geoff. It splattered against the desk and gushed across the carpet. Deirdre smelled burning fibers.

When the flames extinguished a heartbeat later, the carpet had burned away completely, and the subfloor was melted.

There was the combat witch.

Deirdre heard Stark’s voice above it all. “Shapeshift, Sancho,” he said. “One of the agents is a shifter. Bring her to me.”

The Beta roared like thunder.

The filing cabinet that Sancho had been using as cover slammed onto its side. The man shifted with a rush of bubbling flesh and breaking bone, rapidly swelling to thrice his usual size. He changed faster than Gage had, as though he were embracing the change, hurrying it along.

Sancho wasn’t afraid of his beast. He relished it.

Considering that he turned into a massive, muscled leopard, he had a lot to relish.

The leopard launched across the office in a single stride, shooting straight over Deirdre’s head to crash into the lobby.

She peeked over the edge of the desk.

It was pure carnage in the lobby, just inches away—almost within arm’s reach. All the OPA agents had turned their guns on Sancho. But they hadn’t gotten a chance to fire. The leopard ripped through them like they were nothing but sheep.

All that remained now was red mist and meat.

There had been six agents when they came in. Six of them. But in just a couple of short seconds, Sancho had gutted four, leaving two people on their feet among writhing bodies, soaked carpet, and splattered wallpaper.

One of the survivors was the shifter agent. Her gold eyes were narrowed with anger as she ripped a shotgun out of a scabbard on her back.

“This is your last warning,” she said, bracing the shotgun against her shoulder.

Sancho lunged.

She fired.

Silver buckshot chewed through the side of his face. Blood and fur and skull fragments splattered to the door behind him.

It didn’t stop Sancho. He smashed into the agent and his teeth closed on her thigh. His momentum carried both of them through the doorway into the office, carrying her toward Stark.

She screamed as she fired straight down into his skull.

Niamh buried her face in Deirdre’s shoulder so she wouldn’t have to see Sancho’s head blast apart.

The other survivor—the combat witch—hurled silver flame at the leopard through the admissions window. His fur caught. It engulfed him.

The spell melted his flesh away, exposing bone.

Deirdre’s stomach lurched. She still had the Sig and the Ruger but there was no way in hell she was going to try to take that witch. She dragged Niamh back under the cover of the desk. It wasn’t much cover at all. Not if the witch could toss fire around like softballs.

Stark ran across the room at a crouch, dodging the witch’s next volley. The magic punched into the wall behind him.

He dragged the agent behind the desk with Deirdre.

The shifter’s name was Agent West, according to the badge on her chest. Her hair was tawny red. She was a tough-looking woman who wore her age well—probably at least forty, forty-five judging by the skin on her hands, but her face could have passed for thirty.

Her leg was a shredded mess of blood and muscle. Sancho may have crippled her. Even shifters could only regenerate so much tissue.

Agent West groaned as she fumbled for her secondary firearm. Stark pulled it out of her holster before she could grab it.

“Shapeshift, Agent West,” he said. “And kill the remaining OPA agent.”

It was painful to watch her slow change. Much slower than Sancho’s shift into the leopard. Fur blossomed over Agent West’s body, overtaking her tanned flesh. Her shredded thigh spasmed as fresh muscle grew within—not much, not enough to fix the leg, but enough to make blood flow fresh from the wound.

“Drop your guns and come out with your hands up,” said the combat witch from the lobby. “And no more shifting.”

Agent West wailed. The human tones turned to a howl.

Even before she was done shifting, she got to all fours and staggered toward the lobby. Her bones kept popping. She stumbled, but slipped through the door and out of Deirdre’s sight.

“Hillary?” whispered the witch.

Deirdre’s hand twitched for her gun. Stark shook his head.

A moment later, the witch started screaming.

“Now we leave,” he said.

When Deirdre got up, the sight of all the dead bodies was nearly enough to make her faint. The three humans Jacek had shot were going cold in the back. The agents Sancho had attacked weren’t moving anymore. And Agent West was ripping out her coworker’s throat.

So much blood.

The front door hung open halfway, broken sofas pushed to the side to clear a path. Stark led the entire team around the still-feasting werewolf. “Don’t follow us,” he told Agent West. To everyone else, he said, “Get ready. There are still police outside.”

Jacek and Geoff moved up to flank Stark, drawing their guns. Deirdre followed suit, gripping the Sig tightly.

She wasn’t shaking anymore. She had gone beyond numb to whatever horrible emotion lurked beyond that.

“What about me?” asked Andrew, the last of the surviving staff members. He was still sitting against the wall, miraculously unhurt, though he’d been splattered with the doctor’s blood.

“You can come with us,” Stark said.

“And what about Sancho?” Niamh asked, hugging the box of files tightly. The leopard wasn’t moving. But there was a chance he’d survived—a very small chance, given the silver buckshot cratering his flesh and his exposed skull. Deirdre didn’t feel optimistic.

Stark didn’t either. “Leave him.”

He slammed through the front door.

Deirdre moved to the right, aiming her Sig into the blinding light of morning outside. It wasn’t just sunlight—spotlights blazed at the front door.

“Get on the ground or I’ll shoot!” Jacek roared. But Stark grabbed him.

“Hold your fire,” he said. “All of you, hold your fire!”

Deirdre shielded her gaze. “Why? Why shouldn’t we shoot?”

“Because this is what we want.”

The spotlights redirected toward Stark, allowing Deirdre’s eyes to adjust. They were surrounded by news crews. There were at least three men with large cameras and two petite women wearing skirt suits.

Reporters. They were filming the hostage situation.

And now Deirdre’s face was going to be seen worldwide, right next to Everton Stark’s.

The reporters weren’t alone. They were being held behind a police line where multiple cruisers waited. The cops themselves were using their doors as shields, aiming their guns at the shifters who had just emerged from the benefits office.

“Excellent,” Stark said.

Deirdre realized how they must have looked to outsiders: a team of five standing in front of the benefits office with a hostage. Two of them wore more leather than the average biker; many of the others were visibly pierced and tattooed. Niamh could have been a model. All five were tall, strong, and beautiful in a frightening kind of way.

They looked majestic. More than that, to Stark’s target audience—young shapeshifters—they would look sexy. An impressive contrast to Rylie Gresham’s press conferences at the White House.

It was all part of Stark’s marketing plan. He wanted everyone to see how cool his pack looked.

The reporters were shouting questions at them. Stark seemed more like an actor advertising his new movie than a man who freely killed people to meet his goals.

“What you plan to do once you’re in charge?”

“Do you want to kill all humans?”

“How do you plan to reform the system?”

Deirdre was the first to see the movement. One of the reporters broke through the yellow tape, trying to get closer for a better picture. Deirdre lifted her hand, trying to tell the reporter to stay back. “Wait!”

The motion must have been too sudden. The police officers shouted, swinging their guns around to bear on Deirdre.

“They’re going to shoot!” shouted Jacek, lifting the machine gun.

“No!” Stark growled. He reached for Jacek and for Deirdre. He couldn’t stop both of them—so he settled for Jacek, the nearer of the two.

She only made two steps before the officers opened fire.

—XII—

Sometimes Deirdre thought that there had been something between death and rebirth.

Most people accepted that everything had come back immediately after the Genesis void destroyed the world. That was the story that they’d been told in school. Deirdre had no recollection of anything happening in between, so the general assumption seemed to be true enough.

And yet she had a sense that much more time than that had passed. Like it had been years between the end of everything and the beginning of everything else.

She fantasized about what could have happened if that were true. She liked to imagine that she’d gone to Heaven. She had been a child after all, a good girl, someone who hadn’t lived enough life to have ever done wrong.

In her fantasy, Heaven unfolded below a vast, open sky suspended in the moments before sunset, when stars began to emerge from the velvety darkness. It would always be warm and never rain.

There would have been forests, grassy fields…and her father.

It was probably pure fantasy. But there was no proof that any of that wasn’t true. Deirdre had mentally relived those fantasies so many times that she was starting to believe it deep within her core.

And sometimes, Deirdre wished that she had never come back to life so she could have stayed with her father.

Dying would’ve been far less painful than reality.

Deirdre woke up screaming.

“Oh my gods!”

The fabric of the world was spun from sheer agony. Shattered glass packed her flesh.

“Just a couple more,” said a voice. It sounded like Niamh, but Deirdre didn’t want to open her eyes to confirm that. She wanted to succumb to the darkness. She wanted to sink into the nothingness of oblivion where there was no pain and never come out again.

Fresh pain spiked through Deirdre, originating from the left side of her chest. Someone was digging iron spikes into her ribs and wiggling them around. Rusty iron spikes. It was the only thing that could hurt that bad.

Deirdre unleashed a string of epithets. She’d grown up around people with filthy mouths and creative minds—she knew a lot of swear words. And she exhausted her vocabulary as that spike ground against her bones from the inside.

“There’s my girl,” Niamh said. “You hang on to that anger, honey. We’re almost done.”

Another flash of pain, this time in her stomach.

Deirdre pried her eyes open. Her half-naked body was coated in so much blood. It couldn’t all be hers. There was too much.

She didn’t recognize the person digging through her wounds with a pair of tweezers, though she imagined it must’ve been a healer. Deirdre hated him instantly. She thrashed, trying to break free.

Niamh leaned her full weight on Deirdre’s ankles, trying to hold her still. Gage had one of her arms.

If Gage was there, then she must have been taken back to the asylum.

The healer was holding a bullet between the ends of his tweezers. He’d just fished it out of her gut. “That one was close to her liver.” He dropped it in the tray. “Good thing we got it out.”

The tweezers moved back toward her body.

“No, no, no—” Deirdre cried.

Everything was pain.

Deirdre healed faster than mundane humans, but not fast enough.

Hours after the healer finished operating, she still felt like her flesh had been packed with shards of glass.

“What I wouldn’t give to be an ordinary werewolf today,” she muttered. Her teeth were chattering, fingers shaking, temples throbbing. Deirdre had ridden out a lot of healing fevers, but none quite like this.

“It’s my fault,” Niamh said, dealing a new hand of blackjack on the table beside Deirdre’s bed. “I shouldn’t have let you be front and center during your first mission. I should have protected you better.”

“I knew this would be dangerous when I got into it,” Deirdre said, since it was slightly more gracious than telling Niamh that everyone in the asylum deserved to get shot by OPA agents.

“But I didn’t even try to change your mind. I’ve seen people getting shot doing this stuff with Stark before, you know. You’d think that he’d always have a handle on things with his compulsion, but there are too many factors outside his control.” Niamh played with the strap of a bra that was on Deirdre’s bed. There were two separate bra piles—one for each of them. “It’s my fault.”

“Okay. Fine.” Deirdre wrapped her blankets tighter around herself. She thought she was going to shiver herself into a million pieces. “If you want to take the blame, it’s all yours. I hate you. Get out of my sight.”

Niamh honk-laughed. “It’s nice having you here.” Deirdre couldn’t say the same, so she didn’t. The swanmay shoved her cards aside. “This hand sucks. I quit.”

“That’s not how blackjack works. You can’t have a bad starting hand.”

“I can and I do. I’m done with this game. It’s stupid anyway.”

“It’s your favorite,” Deirdre said.

“It’s your favorite. I only tolerated it for you all those years, Dee. But I can’t even put up with this stuff today when you got shot with, like, a million bullets. I suck so bad.”

In fact, it had “only” been seven bullets.

Which was about seven bullets too many.

Niamh slumped in her chair, arms folded over her chest. She was wearing a t-shirt with David Bowie’s face on it, a black leather skirt, and a fishnet bodysuit underneath both of those. She wore so much black eyeliner that it looked like she had shoved her hands into a fireplace and rubbed the coals over her eyes. The outfit seemed to reflect her mood. Deirdre couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Niamh so solemn.

Deirdre flipped her cards over. “It’s better that you folded anyway. I’ve got nineteen. I was just going to stay and watch you bust out.” Niamh always busted. Her impulse control wasn’t good enough to stop asking for more cards after sixteen. “Let me see your cards.”

“No way.” Niamh scooped her hand up. “Accept your victory and be quiet about it.” She flung a bra in Deirdre’s face.

“Let me see!” Deirdre reached for the cards, but leaning forward that far made her wounds hurt. She fell back with a wince.

“Stop moving, Dee. You’re supposed to be recuperating.”

“I wouldn’t have moved if you’d showed me your cards. Just pointing that out.”

Niamh’s smile faded. Seriousness had taken over again. Deirdre didn’t like that look on her silly, flighty friend—who didn’t seem nearly as silly and flighty as she used to be. Being part of a rebellion had made her grow up in a big way.

“What happened at the office after I got shot?” Deirdre asked.

“You shouldn’t worry about that right now.” Niamh plucked at one of the holes in her fishnet tights, making the hole bigger.

“Okay, then what was the printout thing about? Did I get shot for a good reason?”

“I don’t actually know. Stark told me what he wanted and I got it. I don’t ask questions.” Niamh hesitated, then leaned in close. “I pulled the names, breeds, and addresses of all families including at least one adult woman and two daughters who had received benefits from the OPA in the last decade. Isn’t that weirdly specific? A woman and two daughters.”

Deirdre frowned. “It has to do with the campaign against Rylie Gresham, right?”

“You’d think.”

Rylie did have at least two daughters. But she hadn’t received benefits. She was the one who’d helped set them up.

Deirdre didn’t know what to think about that.

The bedroom door opened and Gage entered. He took one look at the cards scattered over the table and said, “You almost died and now you’re gambling? It’s been two hours. How do you even feel like gambling?”

“It’s not like there’s money on the line. We play for undies,” Niamh said.

Gage’s jaw dropped. “Underwear?”

“We wear the same bra size,” Niamh said. “Which, by the way, is a 32C. It looks bigger on Deirdre because she’s shorter and likes those pushup bras that give her all the cleavage, whereas I prefer to minimize.”

“Niamh…” Deirdre warned.

“Anyway, the shelters always provided our clothes, but nice bras were not part of those provisions. So whenever we got cute melon hammocks—”

“Melon hammocks,” Gage echoed.

“—we’d gamble for them. Not just us two, mind you, but a whole room of girls gambling for bras.” Niamh gave an exaggerated, lascivious wink. “You should have seen the pillow fights.”

“Okay!” Deirdre said. “Thanks for the win, Niamh, but I would like to talk to Gage now. Alone. As he is my boyfriend and all.”

Niamh grinned. “You should show him your new bra.” Deirdre shoved it underneath the covers before Gage could get too curious. “Group training after dinner. That goes for you, Gage. Dee can probably get out of it for the night. Play sick. Get some sleep. See you guys later!”

She left. Gage stared at the door that she’d shut behind her.

“Is she trying to be flirtatious or is she just crazy?” he asked.

“Crazy,” Deirdre said. “You’re not nearly sweaty enough to be her type. That’s a compliment, for the record.”

“So you won’t be betting me over a card game anytime soon?”

Deirdre laughed. “No.”

“Okay.” Gage grabbed the remote control off the side table. “Now that you’ve got a new, um, thing over there, we have to talk seriously.”

He turned on the television.

The anchor currently on the news was a woman named January Lazar, a celebrity journalist who got the best preternatural interviews. She’d done an exclusive with Rylie a few years back and it had made her career.

Now January Lazar was talking about Deirdre.

Her photo was in the corner over January’s shoulder. The shot must have been taken right after they’d emerged from the benefits office. Deirdre’s mouth was opened in a shout, gun lifted, aimed at the camera. She looked angry in that picture. Deirdre didn’t remember being angry. She only remembered being terrified.

The TV was muted, so Deirdre couldn’t hear what January Lazar was saying about her. That was probably a mercy.

“Oh my gods,” Deirdre said. “Oh my gods.”

“Deep breaths. Try to stay calm,” Gage said.

“I’d like to see you stay calm. Everybody who’s ever known me is going to see this and think that I’m part of the rebellion.”

“You are part of the rebellion.”

“Stupid, tiny detail,” she said. “What’s Jolene going to think of me?”

“Jolene’s a vampire. She’s going to be proud of you for killing people.” He waved a remote at the TV. “This is going to be a problem after all of this is over, though. Assuming we survive and you don’t get shot again. Why’d you do that?”

“You’d have to ask the police officers,” Deirdre said. “It’s not like I pulled the trigger.”

“You moved in front of Stark. You took those bullets for him.”

That was news to her. “I was trying to stop a reporter from breaching the line.”

“I’ve seen the video. That’s not what it looks like.”

Deirdre felt weirdly defensive. “You think that I’m eager to save Stark’s life? You know that guy has smacked me twice, right?”

“I just know what I saw. What everyone is seeing.” Gage sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank under his weight. His earthen scent was stronger than usual, and it was only then that Deirdre realized he was all sweaty. He’d been working out. “It looks bad.”

“Huh?” She’d missed that last part. She was too busy staring at him.

He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Are you listening? Conscious?”

“No to both,” Deirdre said. “Listen, Gage, you have no idea what I went through at that benefits office. I don’t—”

“Nine dead and one OPA agent in critical condition.”

So he did know what she’d been through at the benefits office. “It wasn’t my idea of a party.” It felt important that he believe her, but Gage still looked skeptical. “Do you think I’m a killer?”

“No,” he said. “But your allegiances are hazy.”

He unmuted the TV.

The news channel was showing video of Stark’s team emerging from the benefits office. Not just a clip—the whole thing. All of them looking cruel yet majestic.

Deirdre could only watch in sick horror as she stepped forward—stepped in front of Stark—and got shot. They didn’t censor the clip. She watched as the red circles of bullet holes appeared on her stomach and chest. The healing wounds hidden under her baggy shirt twinged with remembered pain.

In the video, she fell. Jacek and Geoff opened fire. People screamed.

And then Stark picked Deirdre up in his arms and carried her out of the camera’s view.

“He carried me?” She would have expected him to drag her by the hair like a caveman. This looked more like the hero on the cover of a romance novel. The extremely sadistic hero who liked to kill people. So basically nothing like a romance novel at all.

“I think he likes you,” Gage said.

“Or he just didn’t want to lose another flunky. His Beta, Sancho—he didn’t survive.”

“I know.”

Deirdre didn’t like the way Gage was looking at her. “It’s not like that.”

He lifted his hands in surrender. “All right. I believe you.”

January Lazar was talking about Rylie now. The title along the bottom said “Response to Stark’s Allegations Expected at Upcoming Town Hall.”

Gage turned off the TV.

“Tell me that something good came out of the mission,” he said. “Like some piece of info that will mean we can bail out of this asylum.”

“I found the doctor who worked at the office while I was alone,” Deirdre said. “I gave him Rylie’s phone number and what little information we have. You know, like a headcount. But…I don’t know if he called Rylie before Jacek killed him.”

“So we didn’t get anything out of this.” Gage’s jaw clenched. He took two steps toward the door, like he was going to run out, then stopped. Turned back to her. The energy of his beast just barely contained within his flesh seemed to vibrate, like the berserker might explode right out of him.

He shut his eyes. Took a few deep breaths.

“We’ll find another phone,” he said. “We’ll call them soon.”

“Yeah,” Deirdre said.

And then he really did open the door to leave.

“Why were you exercising?” she asked, her words stopping him in the doorway. “I mean, I know you were at my surgery, and you’re here now, but why the break to exercise in between? It hardly seems like Pilates time.”

“I like to work out stress on a punching bag,” Gage said.

“You’re stressed? You’re not the one who almost died.”

“It’s not like I’m thrilled about your near-death experience either, Deirdre. Dinner’s at seven. That’s in an hour. You should probably make an appearance.”

He left the room, and she felt weirdly alone without him.

—XIII—

Deirdre went to dinner with Gage. She also went to breakfast the next morning, group training sessions that afternoon, and every other event throughout the house for the week. All she wanted to do was hide out in her bedroom, but she dragged her sorry carcass out of bed and participated anyway.

“You look like whatever a werewolf craps out after eating a deer,” Niamh announced when Deirdre collapsed at the lunch table.

“I got shot a week ago,” she said, letting her face drop onto her arms. “Am I supposed to look good?”

“Yes. You’re a shifter.”

“Newsflash,” Deirdre said. “Still an Omega.”

She had been forcing herself to use the word more often, trying to reach the point where it wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like she could get away from it, after all. The other people in the asylum whispered the word behind her back, and they were the nice ones.

Jacek spat it in her face at every opportunity. And he was gathering a group of people who felt just as disdainful toward her.

They were seated on the far end of the dining hall right now, Jacek and his cronies. There were a couple of werewolves and some other shifters Deirdre didn’t know yet. The odds were decent that they’d be trying to kill her at some point and she’d have to shoot every last one of them.

That was the main reason Deirdre was forcing herself out of bed every day. She couldn’t look weak.

She also didn’t want to be caught alone. When Jacek finally attacked, she wanted witnesses.

“Rumor has it that Stark’s vetting a Beta to replace Sancho,” Niamh said.

“Don’t tell me. He’s picking Jacek,” Deirdre said. It would be just what she needed—giving authority to Jacek so that he could make her life even more miserable.

“Gods, I hope not. That guy’s such a prick.” Niamh took a long drink of water. How she could guzzle that rusty crap from the tap was beyond Deirdre. “I bet we’ll know who Stark picks soon, though. We’re all about to leave.”

“The asylum, you mean?”

“Yeah, we’re mobilizing. Stark’s street team has stolen a few vans and parked them in the loading bay out back. They’re putting in food, guns, the usual stuff. Won’t be long before we leave.”

Deirdre frowned. “How many of us? Everyone?”

“I think so. Stark told me to close up shop and stay in the asylum for the next couple of days, so it’s gotta be soon. He’s been pulling everyone in who lives in the city.”

“So we’re up to something big.”

“Really big,” Niamh agreed.

It must have been the attack on the town hall.

Deirdre pushed her food around her plate, appetite suddenly missing. Not that the food served at the asylum was palatable in the first place. Volunteers cooked big batches of beans and rice on the weekends, and then served that along with cheap cuts of raw meat. She almost missed the groceries she’d gotten with the food stamps.

Gage returned from the buffet line. He had a steak on his plate, chopped into pieces.

“What’s going on, ladies?” he asked.

“We’re mobilizing for another mission, I guess,” Deirdre said.

He took a big bite. “Really?”

“Yep,” Niamh said. “I bet Stark will even take you this time.”

Jacek brayed with laughter on the other side of the dining room. Considering that his cronies kept glancing in their direction, Deirdre was certain that she was the butt of the joke.

She pushed her plate away.

“I’m going to work out,” she said.

Niamh wiped her mouth with a paper napkin that had the Taco Bell logo on the corner. They stole a lot of supplies from grocery store dumpsters and fast food joints. “Really? You look like you’re about to fall over dead.”

“I go without makeup for a couple days and you freak out,” Deirdre said lightly. “I’m rationing my foundation, you know.”

“No need. I’ll get some for you. I remember your brands.”

It was a stupid offer, but it warmed Deirdre. There was the Niamh she remembered with all of her pleasantly shallow priorities. “Thanks,” Deirdre said.

Niamh stood with her to leave. She was surprised when Gage did, too. He shoveled a few bites into his mouth and followed them out of the dining hall.

“Don’t you want to eat?” Deirdre asked.

He swallowed. “I need to blow off steam, too.”

“You can’t do that in the training room,” Niamh said with a wink.

Deirdre’s cheeks heated. “That’s not what he meant.” Gage had been nothing but a gentleman when it came to sharing their too-small bed in their too-small room for the last few nights. She hadn’t woken up with him touching her since that first night.

The training room wasn’t nearly as fancy as the one at Rylie’s sanctuary, though it had its own gritty charm. There were a few foam mats and a lot of free weights. It looked much like Deirdre imagined a prison weightlifting room must have.

A few shifters were training in the corner, occupying the weights. Another pair were sparring with bamboo sticks.

Niamh and Deirdre did some static stretches while Gage watched from the wall in amusement. Deirdre wondered if he’d be looking so smug when he pulled a muscle.

She wrapped her knuckles in tape, preparing to fight alongside Niamh. Neither of them were good at hand-to-hand combat, so they’d been working on it together, using the practice dummies along the north wall as their targets. They occasionally fought each other too, but Niamh refused to hit Deirdre very hard.

“I’ll cut in,” Gage said, pushing off the wall.

Niamh planted her hands on her hips. “It’s girl time. No boys allowed.”

“The two are you are the blind leading the blind. You practically get into slap fights.”

“I know how to defend myself,” Deirdre said. “Just give me a gun and enough space to run away.”

“You can’t always run,” Gage said.

He was serious. He wanted to fight with Deirdre.

Niamh shrugged and backed away, taking the position against the wall that Gage had abandoned.

“It’s not going to make you go berserk if we fight, is it?” Deirdre asked.

A playful smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Not as long as I win.”

“Cheap,” she said. “Very cheap. But why not? I’m game. Fair warning, though—I’ll beat the snot out of you.”

“Big words, Dee,” Gage said, using Niamh’s cute nickname for her.

She lifted her fists in front of her face. “You’re the one who’s not attacking.”

So he attacked.

Gage moved with shocking speed, darting across the mats to swing a right hook at her.

Deirdre dodged.

She wasn’t as fast as him, but her reflexes were decent enough to avoid getting hit. Evasion wasn’t the problem. She’d been evading people trying to beat on her for years.

The problem was fighting back.

Deirdre kicked at him, but Gage caught her leg, trapping it against his side.

He jerked her off balance.

She hit the mats on her back—but not for long. Deirdre flipped back onto her feet. He was there when she was upright again, and it was all she could do to dodge his next swing. Gage kept throwing punches without pausing for breath. He didn’t leave any opening for her to go on the attack.

But after a few seconds of taking his blows on her arms and shoulders, she realized that there was a pattern to it all. Gage telegraphed his moves in advance. He always shifted in the direction he was going to attack.

Deirdre retreated, continuing to duck under his strikes and take the ones she couldn’t evade on her forearms.

He was holding back. It barely even hurt. The pain was just enough to get her attention.

The fact that he’d be so gentle made her angrier.

She waited until he shifted his weight again, then shot in the opposite direction, bringing in a hit from the side.

Her knee finally connected with his ribcage. And she wasn’t trying to be nice about it.

Gage staggered, grabbing his side. Niamh cheered.

“Hey!” he laughed breathlessly.

“Told you,” Deirdre said, blowing her hair out of her face. It was escaping her ponytail. “I’m going to beat the snot out of you.”

“Feel free to start any time now,” Gage said.

“Knock his block off!” Niamh shouted.

It was only then that Deirdre realized that the shifters who’d been sparring and lifting weights had stopped to watch.

Worse than that, Deirdre became aware of a new presence in the room—someone powerful and new. She turned to the door to see Stark watching them.

She hadn’t seen him since they got back from the benefits office. He’d been too busy holding secret meetings that Deirdre could neither attend nor listen in on, since Jacek was always lurking.

Deirdre caught Gage’s eye and jerked her head toward the doorway. “We’ve got an audience.”

“Then let’s put on a good show,” Gage said.

He lunged toward her, jabbing low. He telegraphed the move by the way his torso shifted yet again. Deirdre sidestepped it easily.

At least, she should have sidestepped it easily—but Gage’s fist was right where she moved, connecting with her gut, forcing the oxygen out of her lungs.

He’d tricked her.

She stumbled into one of the practice dummies, catching it with both hands. It was weighted down by a large sandbag. Heavy, but not too heavy for Deirdre. She hauled it off the ground and hurled it straight at Gage.

He leaped out of the way, rolling on the mats.

Deirdre flung a second practice dummy at him, distracting Gage long enough that she could run to the weapons on the wall. There was a little bit of everything. Swords, knives, guns, even whips. Everything a crazy-ass terrorist could dream of having at her fingertips.

She ripped a pair of batons off of the wall. They felt pleasantly solid in her fists. She could break a few bones with those.

“Hey!” Gage protested. “I thought we were doing this bare-fisted!”

“You’re fifty pounds heavier than me,” Deirdre said with a shrug.

And he was fast, too. She swung the batons at him, and he dodged every move with supernatural speed. For a bear, he sure didn’t lumber all that much. He was barely any slower than a werewolf.

Every blow that connected met the shield of his forearms, and never where she intended to hit him.

Worse, Deirdre was sweating—but he was barely winded.

“The batons are making you worse,” Gage said, blocking another strike with his arm. “You’ve never used them before, have you?”

“Practice makes perfect,” she grunted.

Deirdre moved harder, faster, raining blows at his head and shoulders—and he kept up with the pace just as easily.

The other shifters were laughing now, too. Yeah, it was hilarious—Deirdre would have laughed at anyone else being so easily blocked—but the sounds just spurred her on, made her angrier. Her blood was boiling.

Gage caught one of the batons and yanked it out of her grip.

He brought it down on her collarbone.

Crack. The bone snapped.

She cried out, hand flying to cover the injury. The healing fever was swift to crash over her.

Gage dropped the weapon. “Oh, damn. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Deirdre whipped her baton across his face with all the strength she could muster.

He hit the floor hard, and she was on top of him in a second, pinning him with her knees.

“Ha!” she crowed.

Gage didn’t fight anymore. He laid back on the mats, his expression somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “You cheated. You acted like I hurt you.”

“You really did break my collarbone,” she said. It hurt pretty bad, but not as badly as losing would have hurt with that many people watching. “It’s your fault that you dropped your guard.”

His hands skimmed up her thighs. “Cheater.”

“Keep on telling yourself that, if that’s what it takes to heal your manly pride.” Deirdre hopped off and offered him a hand up. Gage took it.

Once he was on his feet, he used her arm to pull her close and kiss her.

Shock washed over her.

What the hell?

Her survival instinct kicked in quickly. She had entered the asylum claiming Gage was her boyfriend—or at least someone she used for sex—and that meant they should have already kissed a hundred times before. If she looked too surprised by it, that would give them away.

She melted against him as convincingly as she could, letting her hands climb his shirt to encircle the back of his neck.

Gage chuckled into her mouth.

“I will kill you later,” she murmured as he pulled away. “You’re so dead.”

“You’re welcome to try it,” he said. “I won’t let you play possum this time.”

A strange thrill twisted through her stomach.

Niamh met Deirdre on her way off the mats, still laughing. “That was nice. Psychologically manipulative. Screw with his head!” She rubbed at the sweat on Deirdre’s neck with a towel. “Boys are stupid.”

“Very stupid,” Deirdre agreed, watching Gage rub his jaw where she’d hit him. He looked good when he’d been exercising, all sweaty and flush with blood.

He wasn’t exactly the kind of nerd that she’d used to date, but he wasn’t bad.

Before Deirdre could step off the mats, Stark approached.

“My turn,” Stark said. He pulled his shirt off and handed it to Jacek, who had just entered the training room with his stupid friends.

Gage wasn’t exactly a skinny guy, but Stark still dwarfed him. The man was roughly the size and shape of a boulder, and his muscles could have been carved from stone just as easily. The tattoos on his arms looked military—he even had the Marines logo on one shoulder, so it wasn’t hard to figure out where he’d come from. Deirdre wondered if Stark had been a shifter while he was in the Marines.

Deirdre started to move aside, but Stark stopped her.

“I want to fight you, Tombs,” he said.

Jacek gave a whoop of delight.

Calling what Deirdre felt trepidation would have been far too kind. It was terror, immediate and powerful. “I don’t want to fight with you. If I did, I wouldn’t have joined your pack.”

“You have to fight me if you want to stay in this pack.”

“Seriously?” She tried not to whine about it, but she didn’t stand a chance against Stark.

He cracked his knuckles. “Seriously.”

Deirdre searched her memories, trying to figure out what she could have done to deserve this. She hadn’t talked back lately. She hadn’t defied him. She had been, by all accounts, an obedient little rebel recuperating in his asylum.

She decided that Stark was just a douchebag.

The onlookers fell silent as she stretched her arms across her chest, trying to loosen her muscles for another fight.

“Wait,” Gage said. “What’s going on here?”

Stark fixed a golden-eyed glare on Gage. “Stand back.”

It must have been compulsion because Gage immediately obeyed, moving to stand beside Niamh, whose jaw had dropped.

Now Stark was a douchebag and a liar, since he’d said he didn’t like compelling his followers. Deirdre couldn’t have been less surprised.

She eyed the batons they’d dropped on the mats, wondering if it would help to have a bludgeon against Stark.

Deirdre didn’t get much time to contemplate them.

The world exploded around her. She felt the blow a moment later. He’d punched her in the jaw, knocking her head back, sending her stumbling.

Stark was faster than Deirdre. Faster than Gage. Faster than anyone she’d met before.

And he was merciless.

He punched her again, and again, before she could even think to fight back. It didn’t matter when she shielded her head with her arms. He broke through her guard as though she were standing still. His moves weren’t telegraphed. They were too fast, too brutal.

Stark struck her in the stomach hard enough to crack a rib and suck the breath from her lungs.

Her vision went white. Her ears rang.

She needed to get out of his reach.

Deirdre ran for the training dummies, but he was on her in a heartbeat. Stark wrapped an arm around her throat, tight enough that she couldn’t breathe. He drove his free fist into her kidney.

She twisted and bit down on his arm—hard. As hard as she could. The taste of iron flooded her mouth.

When Stark moved his arm, the skin tore free in her teeth.

Deirdre barely had enough time to spit it out before he gripped her ponytail and slammed her face into the floor. Jacek had done much the same to her. No more ponytails.

He smashed her face into the floor again, and then stood.

Through the roaring in her ears, Deirdre could hear Jacek and the rest of those idiots cheering. They liked watching Stark beat on a woman. Good for them. She hoped it made them feel big.

His foot connected with her ribs. He was wearing motorcycle boots with heavy soles and the pain was excruciating. She was afraid that one of her ribs might have snapped and dug into her intestines. It’d be great to find out if an Omega could die from internal bleeding.

Deirdre could just barely see Gage and Niamh at the edge of the room through her blurry eyes. Lying down, it looked like they were standing on a wall, jutting straight out horizontally.

Niamh was trying to hold Gage back. Trying to keep him from getting involved.

Deirdre scrambled to crawl away from Stark, gripping the sweat- and blood-slicked mats. He let her get a couple feet away before he kicked her down again.

His foot appeared in her vision, aimed straight at her face.

It connected. Deirdre didn’t really feel it. She blacked out at the instant of impact—barely more than a second of blissful oblivion before she came back.

And then she saw Gage break free of Niamh.

He roared.

With shredding cloth, a bear erupted from Gage’s flesh. It was much faster when he was changing of his own volition rather than by someone else’s command. He went from tan-skinned and erect to a furred, four-legged monster within moments, spraying the shifting fluids across the floor.

The bear rolled toward them, claws shredding the mats.

Deirdre jerked her knees to her chest and threw her arms over her head. She remembered hearing that it was the way to survive bear attacks—curling into the fetal position. She doubted that it would work on a berserker, but what else was she supposed to do?

But Gage didn’t touch her. He launched straight over her body and plowed into Stark.

Now everyone was screaming, and Deirdre couldn’t tell if they were cheering or terrified that they were about to get eaten. All she knew was that Niamh was hauling her off of the mats, dragging her to the wall where she wouldn’t get caught in the fight.

Deirdre tried to get up and slipped. Niamh caught her.

“Wait,” Niamh said. “Don’t move.”

“But Gage—”

“Don’t move,” she said again, more emphatically this time. Niamh helped Deirdre stand, pressing towels to her bleeding face.

Deirdre could only stare as Stark and Gage wrestled. It seemed impossible that a mere man should be able to stand up against the force of an animal that size, but he did. Stark had his hands on Gage’s jaw, holding it open inches from his face as the bear tried to bite down on him.

Finally, Stark broke free. The bear swiped at him with a massive paw. Stark leaped out of the way, dodging the blow.

“Why isn’t he ordering Gage to stop?” Deirdre asked, clinging to Niamh’s arm. “Why isn’t Stark making him shift back?”

Niamh shook her head.

Deirdre understood. Stark wanted this fight. Maybe it was what he had wanted all along.

Gage managed to bite down on Stark’s shoulder, and the Alpha only grunted.

He slammed his fist into Gage’s skull hard enough that something cracked. The bear let go and rolled aside.

Stark was bleeding from so many claw marks now that he must have been weakened. Gage had gotten him good. But not good enough. Stark jumped on the Gage, and his face was impassive as he dug his hands into the thick fur—one hand on the side of his skull, the other on the back.

And then Stark snapped Gage’s neck.

Deirdre pressed a towel to her mouth, smothering her scream.

A broken spine wouldn’t kill Gage. It wouldn’t even disable him for long. But it still hurt to see him drop bonelessly to the ground, temporarily unable to control his body.

Stark stood calmly, wiping the blood off of his face. He spat into his hand a couple of times. His sputum was almost black with blood.

“Clean this up,” he said, waving at Gage. “Put him in the basement until he calms down.”

“With pleasure,” Jacek said.

Stark passed by Deirdre on his way out of the room. He dropped something small and hard into her hand.

It was one of Gage’s teeth.

—XIV—

The healer showed up in Deirdre’s bedroom shortly after the fight. She was glaring at her reflection in the mirror when she saw him enter over her shoulder. He didn’t knock. The old witch walked in as though he belonged there.

“Let me fix you up,” he said, waving an impatient hand toward her bed.

Deirdre refocused on her wounded features. Her light brown skin was mottled with bruises that yellowed as they healed rapidly.

She had been timing how long it took for her injuries to repair, fearing that she might be healing more slowly than usual. She’d never been hurt so frequently or to such a degree in the same week. Her body felt depleted. She still wasn’t certain if her already weakened shifter abilities were getting weaker.

“You might not want to heal me,” Deirdre said as the old man unpacked his bag on her side table. “Stark wants me hurt.”

“I’m not stupid enough to fix something he broke without permission. Trust me. He’s the one who sent me up.”

She finally turned from the mirror. Her fist was clenched around Gage’s broken tooth. “He told you to fix me?”

“Thank your lucky stars for it,” the healer said. “He’s left others to die without batting an eye.”

“Like Gage?”

“Your boyfriend will survive. You can visit him when I’m done with you.”

That was enough to get Deirdre horizontal. She held still as the healer worked over her, burning incense and hovering crystals over her body as he chanted.

The worst of the pains faded. When she looked at her torso again, most of the bruises were gone. But the healer did leave some of it behind. “Consider it a reminder not to piss off the boss,” he said.

“I didn’t do anything to piss him off this time.”

“You must have, or he wouldn’t have done this to you.” He packed up his case again. “Your boyfriend can leave once he calms down, by the way.”

“Is he still shifted?” Deirdre asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” He headed for the door. “Don’t get hurt again. I can only expend so much energy on one stupid shifter.”

Deirdre pulled her shirt down over her stomach. “Thanks.”

Nobody stopped her on her way down to the basement, but she caught more than a few looks. It seemed that everyone had heard about Stark beating Deirdre and Gage at that point.

She didn’t return their looks. She didn’t need to see the hate and disgust and pity they held for her.

The basement door wasn’t locked.

Deirdre moved down the stairs slowly, giving herself time to take in the sight of what was on the other side. The pungent odors of shapeshifting clung to the air. The scents were distinctive—a unique mix of body odors and fluids and earthen musk.

Gage sat behind a few crates on the far end of the room, wrists and ankles chained to the wall. He was in his human form again. There weren’t even any signs of injury now.

He tried to stand up when she came in, but he couldn’t. The chains were too short.

“You look better,” she said, crossing the room to his side. His spot on the floor was encircled in the fur he’d shed when shapeshifting back from his bear form. She pitied whoever had been forced to drag the weight of Gage’s beast down those stairs.

“You don’t,” Gage said. “Stark did this on purpose.”

“It’s not like he tripped and beat the shit out of us on accident.”

“You don’t sound upset about any of that.”

He was right. She wasn’t upset. But she wasn’t happy, either. “It’s not like I thought Stark would turn all hugs and puppies any time soon.” Deirdre sat next to him, wrapping her arms around her knees. “They said they’ll let you out once you’ve calmed down. Are you calm?”

“Don’t I look calm?” he bit out through gritted teeth.

“Not even remotely.”

Gage let his head fall back against the wall. His chains clanked as he readjusted his position to something more comfortable. “I’m calm,” he said, and it almost sounded convincing.

“Want to tell me what happened up there?” Deirdre asked.

“Not unless you want to see how many times I can go berserk in one day.”

“Yeah, all right.” She rested her hand on his arm, lowering her voice. “Just remember what we’re here for. Keep your eye on the target and don’t let yourself get distracted. Okay?”

“Easy,” Gage said.

Deirdre fidgeted, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. It was impossible on such a hard floor. “You kissed me up there. Just trying to perpetuate our story?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Deirdre echoed.

They sat together in silence for a few minutes. It had all been so funny there for a minute—their fight, Deirdre’s accidental injury, even that brief kiss. But all of that had been ruined quickly and thoroughly.

“Well, at least we’re still alive,” she finally said.

Gage gave a short, mirthless laugh. “I’m not all that grateful about it. Damn it, Deirdre, I could have hurt someone. I’d never forgive myself for that.”

“Are you serious? Killing someone in this place would be no huge loss to society.”

He gripped her hand. “I could have hurt you.”

The door to the basement opened. Niamh stood at the top of the stairs, her hair falling over her shoulder in one thick ponytail. “Stark wants to see you, Dee.”

Of course he did.

Deirdre moved to get up, but Gage grabbed her wrist, chains rattling.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“Not a lot of options here.” Deirdre patted his hand. “Hang in there. Deep breaths. Can you do that for me?”

He looked like he was tempted to argue with her, but he forced himself to nod.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

Stark’s bedroom was identical to the one Deirdre shared with Gage, if not a little smaller and dingier. The curtains were shut to cloak the room in artificial night. The Alpha himself sat in the corner. A small lamp on a card table lit his lower legs, his boots, the dirty floor. The darkness draped over the rest of him was a cloak. Deirdre felt like she’d have to cut through those shadows if she wanted to reach him.

Not that she wanted to. She’d had more than enough Everton Stark to last her a lifetime.

She stood stiffly in the doorway, glaring at Stark’s boots. “You asked for me, sir?”

“Are you in pain?” he asked.

Deirdre almost laughed. “I’m healing.”

“Are you aware that your boyfriend mauled Geoff while he was being transported to the basement?”

She clenched her fists until her fingernails bit into her palms. “How mauled are we talking about here?”

“Mauled enough that he might die,” Stark said.

That was pretty mauled. It took a lot of damage to kill a shifter without silver.

“What happens to Gage if Geoff dies?”

Stark’s eyes glinted in the darkness. “You better hope that he doesn’t.” He gestured to the chair on the other side of the table. “Sit down.” She obeyed slowly, though she didn’t like having to get so close to him. “Do you get why we fought today?”

“Because you’re a miserable, bitter man who gets his rocks off throwing Omegas around?” Deirdre knew it was a bad idea to talk back, but what the hell, why not? She’d tried to behave herself and still gotten her ass kicked.

“Miserable.” Stark drummed his fingers on the card table. “Did you see the news reports that came out after our attack on the benefits office?”

“Unfortunately.”

“That mission was intended to reinforce the threat we represent to the public. Instead, you made me look weak. I don’t need to be defended by an Omega.”

He thought that Deirdre had deliberately stepped in front of him to take those bullets. She owed Gage an apology. “So I pissed you off by…what, by trying to save you from injury? I can’t have pissed you off that bad. You saved my life anyway.”

“Even I make mistakes.”

She snorted. “Fine. I’ll let you get shot next time.”

Stark pushed a small wooden box across the table, shoving it into the pool of light from the lamp. “Take one.”

He was wearing a metal bracelet around one wrist. His arm was turned the wrong way for her to see it, but there would be a square of mesh on the underside, exposing an inch of flesh where the veins in his forearm were closest to the surface.

It was an intake bracelet. People who were addicted to lethe, a drug designed for preternatural creatures, wore them so they could get a fast high.

She knew what was in that wooden box.

“I don’t do lethe,” Deirdre said.

“I’m not making a request.” Stark flipped open the lid on the box. Inside, there were little glowing cubes, each about an inch wide. Those cubes wouldn’t be for Deirdre—she hadn’t been fitted for a bracelet. She would need the needle and syringe if she wanted to shoot up. “Some people think lethe was designed to unlock gaean powers.”

“Some people just want an excuse to get high,” she said.

“You’ve got walls, Tombs. You’re made of walls. I want to know what’s inside of them, and I know you do, too.” He inserted the needle into one of the cubes and extracted the fluid inside. It made the syringe glow blue.

Deirdre hugged her arms around herself, keeping them from Stark’s reach. “You ordered me to come in here to take drugs. Is that what I’m supposed to get out of this?”

“Ideally, you’ll get your animal out of this,” he said. Her betraying heart gave a flutter at the sound of it. “Give me your arm.”

She glared mistrustfully at the glowing syringe.

Niamh used to do lethe. Its primary lure was that it was a mild hallucinogen and mood booster, but lethe was also a long-term appetite suppressant. For someone as image-obsessed as the swanmay, the drug was a blessing.

She’d never taken enough to get addicted. It hadn’t ever hurt her. But Deirdre had seen many other shifters lose themselves in pursuit of the next hit.

How much was finding her animal worth? What would she risk for that?

And what would Stark do to her if she refused?

She’d only infiltrated Stark’s little asylum so that she could find out what her animal was. And now it was the only thing keeping her in a place where she was regularly smacked around, treated like trash, and shot full of bullets. If Stark could give her what Rylie had promised—if he could give her access to the ability to shapeshift—she wouldn’t need to stick around anymore.

Deirdre could leave.

She shed her jacket and rested her arm on the table. The needle sank into her vein. It was just a little pinch, but she flinched.

“Now that Sancho is dead, I need a new Beta,” Stark said as he pressed the plunger down. The lethe entered her veins as hot as boiling water. “What do you think about Jacek?”

Deirdre clenched her jaw, trying not to pull back. Gods above, that hurt. “Why are you asking me?”

“You’ve had a lot of experience with him in the last few days. I want an outsider’s perspective.” All the glowing blue fluid was gone from the syringe. Stark withdrew the needle.

“I hate him,” she said. “That’s what I think.”

“But what about his skill? Is he strong enough?”

She rubbed her sore arm, considering the question.

Jacek was scary, sure. If Stark had asked about fear factor, she would have immediately endorsed him.

But strong?

“He’s brittle. He pulls the trigger too fast. Everything makes him lash out. To me, that says weakness. It doesn’t matter how strong a guy is if his armor is full of cracks, you know what I’m saying?” The heat of the lethe was fading, and where it faded, sluggishness remained. She felt like she was speaking in slow motion.

“You don’t think he’d be a good Beta?”

“No. I don’t.” She shrugged. “But it’s not like I’ve been in a pack before. You shouldn’t listen to me about anything. Nobody else does.” Sweat beaded on Deirdre’s forehead. Her whole arm felt relaxed, like she couldn’t tense the muscle. “I don’t feel any animal yet.”

“Give it a minute.” Stark picked up another cube, rolling it between his fingers. The blue glow lit up his face. It made all the little scars on his temple and nose shine. “You took bullets for me. It wasn’t necessary and you shouldn’t have done it.” He glared at her across the table as though she’d delivered some great insult by getting shot by those police officers. “But I owe you.”

“Whoa there,” Deirdre said. “That must have hurt coming out.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow. I want you and your boyfriend on this mission.”

The heat had spread through her whole body. She couldn’t hold still anymore. She stood, pacing to the other side of the room, head cradled in her hands. “What’s the privilege we get to share in this time? Going to strap bombs to our chests and blow up a shopping mall? Drive a semi into a bus of school kids?”

“How do you feel?” Stark asked.

She felt like the floor was slipping underneath her feet. Like the whole building was starting to ooze around her.

A giggle slipped out of Deirdre’s mouth. She tried to catch it with her hand, but too late—the sound was out there, too bright and cheerful for such a dark room.

“I feel so strange,” she whispered.

“That’s normal.” Stark set the syringe back into the box, closed the lid. “I don’t understand you, Deirdre Tombs. You’re strong. I see it in you. You might be the strongest of my followers. Why are you wasting your time on a berserker?”

“Strong.” The word unspooled from her lips, hovering in the air just outside her reach. “I’m weak. I’m so damn weak.”

“Far from it.”

He was standing in front of her. She hadn’t noticed him move from the chair, so she stepped back, startled.

Deirdre swung a half-hearted punch at Stark a few seconds too late.

He caught her fist, pushed her arm down, and took her by the shoulders. He wasn’t being rough, but the fear was choking.

“Let me go,” she said.

He didn’t fight her when she stepped back.

She wasn’t really in Stark’s room anymore. She was in a thousand foster homes and a thousand more orphanages with people who hated her, thought she was weak, no better than the trash clogging the storm drains on the streets of the many cities she’d lived in.

“Why me?” Deirdre asked. “Why don’t you treat me like an Omega?”

He didn’t respond. He was watching her. Evaluating her. Probably trying to decide how to hurt her next.

She didn’t care anymore.

“You know what happened in Genesis?” Deirdre asked.

Stark’s brow creased. “Everyone died.”

“Everyone died. Everybody in the whole damn world died.” She swayed on her feet. It was too hard to remain standing without support, so she opened the curtains and pressed her forehead to the glass of the window. She didn’t see the courtyard outside. She saw a vast wall of black that roared like death itself come upon them. “But most of us came back.”

“Not everyone,” Stark said.

She barely heard him.

“He went to pick me up from school. That’s why he was outside—he realized something was wrong, so he was going to pick me up from school. He thought he could save me somehow. If he’d stayed inside and waited, he would have come back.”

“Who?”

“It was a broken fence,” Deirdre said. “It snapped out of the ground and got thrown by the wind. It was moving almost as fast as a bullet. That’s what my former neighbor told me when I came across her after Genesis. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have known.” Her whole face was hot. It wasn’t tears on her cheeks, but fire—liquid fire rolling out of her tear ducts, pouring all the pain in her heart down her face. “Daddy died trying to save me.”

She wasn’t in the asylum at all anymore. She was a thousand miles and ten years away.

The last time she had seen her father, he had been rushing out the door to go to work. He had been running late. It wasn’t surprising—Deirdre had heard Daddy moving around the house the night before, slamming around in the cabinets, stomping through the kitchen. He hadn’t been angry. He never got angry. But his job had a lot of pressures, and it meant he was often on edge, just like that.

He’d been busy the next morning, so Deirdre had been forced to make breakfast herself and stand at the bus stop with the neighborhood moms while her dad rushed into work. He’d given her a brief kiss, barely more than a brush of lips on her forehead.

Then he was gone. He was gone forever.

“I kept waiting,” Deirdre said, gripping the windowsill so hard that the wood groaned under her hands. “Some people took months to regenerate after Genesis. I’d hear about it on the news at the orphanage. Another family found. A man in Florida. Some people in Japan, a big cluster of them. I thought if those people could come back late, then so could my dad. He’d look like something different. Like he’d probably be something powerful and rare. Something that could save me.”

“Deirdre,” Stark said.

“He didn’t come back,” she whispered.

Ten years, and he hadn’t come back.

She wasn’t facing the window anymore. She was facing Everton Stark, and he could have been on the moon for all the space that seemed to be between them, though his golden eyes were vast.

He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.

“I might have given you too much.” It was strange to see self-doubt in him. Strange, but humanizing.

“You kill so many people,” Deirdre said. “So many people whose daddies aren’t going to come home.”

“Lie down, Deirdre.”

She was flying through the room. The walls were unfolding around her. The floor was warped, a whirlpool trying to suck her under.

“I thought this was supposed to feel good,” she said. “The lethe doesn’t feel good.”

Deirdre was on her back. She was looking up at the ceiling. She was out of her skin, out of her body, out of her mind.

Stark was inside of her skull.

“We all lost people in Genesis,” he said. “The story you tell is everyone’s story.”

“No!” She tried to sit up, reaching through the void in search of something to grasp. “It’s mine! You can’t have my story.”

Something pushed her back down.

“Okay. Keep your damn story. Just relax. The only way out of this is to wait. Your body should metabolize the drugs quickly.”

She heard the words, but either they didn’t make sense or she just didn’t care. It was hard to tell at this point.

Do you feel different?

Can you change?

Is there something inside of you?

Deirdre wasn’t certain if Stark was asking those questions or if she was just thinking them.

She drifted through time and memory, traveling over so many miles as her body remained still. She was in ramshackle public housing in Montreal. She was in the hospital where the Alpha’s mate had first declared her an Omega. She was at home with her father, playing on the swings.

She was looking down on the werewolf sanctuary, where she never belonged.

“Well?” Stark asked. He sounded impatient.

“It’s pretty,” she said. “The whole waterfall thing. It’s idyllic.”

“Waterfall? I’m asking if you feel your animal.”

She was on the grass with Rylie again, recuperating after their race through the sanctuary. They were next to the lumpy hill. The sun was rising.

“She keeps a memorial to someone who isn’t even dead,” Deirdre said. “She keeps it because it’s safe, because it’s magic. She enchanted it to be a bunker. Survive an atomic blast. And it’s not even memorializing someone who’s dead. What’s up with that? Why did Genesis bring back the people who mattered to Rylie and take mine away?”

Stark’s face swam through her vision. He looked angry.

“Do you know Rylie Gresham?”

The question should have alarmed her, but Deirdre was drifting, and she just didn’t care. “Gage grew up there. He grew up with waterfalls and a stupid enchanted memorial and an academy where nobody had ever beaten him. I wish I’d grown up in the sanctuary. I wish I’d had one home to live in this whole time. I don’t want to wander anymore.”

“If you knew what I know about Rylie Gresham, you would feel differently,” Stark said.

Rylie wasn’t the type to have secrets. She was so good, so effortlessly wonderful, and everything around her was beautiful.

Deirdre wasn’t sure if she said any of that aloud or not.

If she had, she was probably dead.

But Stark didn’t kill her. He went on to say, “The Alpha was involved in the outcome of Genesis. The blood of your father, and everyone else who died, is on her hands. That’s why she got the ones she loved back and we didn’t. Rylie Gresham doesn’t deserve to be in charge of the gaeans. She deserves nothing but pain.”

“Involved? Involved how?”

“She and her entire pack brought about Genesis,” Stark said. “I will get my revenge for that.” A hand touched Deirdre’s forehead, the gesture strangely gentle. “We’ll all get the revenge we’re owed.”

—XV—

Genesis was such a dark thing.

Deirdre was hiding underneath the blackberry bush again, knees hugged to her chest, surrounded by shivering leaves and vicious thorns. The approach of the fatal void roared like a rabid bear. There was pain in the cacophony, pain and fear and thunder, with millions of souls extinguished simultaneously.

She screamed back at the void as it consumed her. She screamed until her throat went raw and she couldn’t scream anymore.

Death had come for her, and she was so alone.

Her senses returned in a rush. Deirdre sat up, thrashing against the blackberry bush, arms flailing at the nothingness.

Then her eyes opened and she realized she wasn’t back home.

She was sitting in a bed in a very dark room, tangled in bed sheets.

Still at the asylum. Still with Stark.

Deirdre was drenched in her own sweat, and Stark himself was seated in the chair in the corner again, just as he had been when she first entered the room.

She licked her lips. “Stark?”

He didn’t respond.

She slid out of bed. The drugs were clearly still in her system. She felt hot all over, like she might be running a low-grade fever, and she still didn’t feel sure of her footing. But the visual hallucinations were gone. Her mood was good and her stomach felt satisfyingly full, like Niamh had always described. Deirdre felt she could do anything.

Maybe even take Stark.

But he wasn’t out for a fight. He wasn’t even conscious.

Stark was slumped in the chair, a syringe in one hand. His wrist was turned to expose the mesh square on the inside of his intake bracelet. Hints of the drug glimmered on the metal.

There was a watch on the table beside him. He must have taken it off earlier so he could wear the intake bracelet.

Deirdre picked up the watch, its links chiming softly as the wristband swayed in her grip. It was an expensive timepiece—at least in the four-figure range if he’d taken it to a pawnshop like Gutterman’s. And a pre-Genesis brand, too. So maybe low five figures.

Who had Stark been before Genesis? He clearly wasn’t the kind of person who could afford such watches anymore. He lived in an insane asylum with a ragtag band of terrorists. But he used to be someone else. Someone with money, someone who had military tattoos, someone who—maybe, just maybe—had lost someone on the same horrible day that Deirdre had.

She traced her fingertip over the inscription on the underside of the watch face.

“For Ever,” she said aloud. It was two words, just like that. It didn’t make sense to her. She set the watch down, careful not to make any noise, and backed away.

Deirdre was in Stark’s bedroom and he was unconscious.

It was a perfect time to explore.

A box sat underneath the card table. Its lid was ajar, allowing Deirdre to see the pages that Niamh had printed at the benefits office inside. She watched Stark as she nudged the lid off and lifted one of the folders out.

Deirdre flipped through the pages. It was exactly as Niamh had said: records of families who received benefits that included a mother and two daughters. There was too much information for Deirdre to sift through it while Stark was sleeping. He couldn’t remain unconscious for that long.

She returned the first folder and searched through the others for any sign of what Stark might have been looking for.

One of the folders had several bookmarks in it to indicate specific records. Deirdre couldn’t tell what had made those records stand out to Stark. The people weren’t related. Their home addresses weren’t geographically close. Many of them weren’t even on the East Coast.

Stark stirred in his chair, head rolling to the opposite shoulder.

She froze.

After a moment, when he didn’t move again, Deirdre took one of the bookmarked pages and returned the rest to the box. She tried to put the lid exactly the way it had been before she interfered.

Deirdre stuck the page in her pocket and made a short search of Stark’s room.

She didn’t have to look far to locate a gun. He had several in his armoire, where most people hung up their shirts.

There weren’t silver bullets in any of the magazines that she checked. It made sense. Stark could control shifters, so he didn’t need any other defense against them. And it also meant that he didn’t have any ammunition around that could kill him, either.

She weighed one of the machine guns in her hand. It was fully automatic. He had enough ammo in his sock drawer that she could have sawed him in half with the gunfire. That would have been enough to take down most shifters—maybe even Stark.

It would also alert everyone in the house to his murder. Even if she managed to kill him, which was no guarantee, Gage was locked in the basement. He wouldn’t make it out alive. Deirdre probably wouldn’t either.

She returned the gun to its position and shut the armoire.

Stark looked uncomfortable in the chair, which was fine with her, really, because he was an asshole. He’d beaten her up, screwed with Gage, and killed people just because he could. He deserved to wake up with a terrible neck cramp. Heck, he deserved much worse than that. Like an electric chair.

But he’d also carried her out of the line of fire—which he’d put her into in the first place—and he’d been pretty nice about Deirdre suffering from a bad trip—which he’d also forced on her by injecting the lethe in the first place.

No. He deserved the worst.

“Should I really worry about this guy’s comfort?” Deirdre muttered to herself.

The sane answer was no.

But she wasn’t feeling very sane that night.

She took a pillow off the bed and stuffed it under his head so that he looked a little more comfortable. She unlaced his boots and tossed them aside, too. Then she threw a sheet over him—not a particularly warm sheet, which was the pettiest form of revenge she could imagine—and headed out, the bookmarked page folded in her back pocket.

Gage wasn’t released that day. Night came and Deirdre slept in their cold bed, alone and fitful, the paper clutched in her fist.

She swam in and out of dreams that were only slightly less vivid than her earlier hallucinations. She couldn’t remember what she was dreaming whenever she woke up—which was frequently—but she felt like she had spent her sleeping hours somewhere with rolling green hills and a warm, shining sun.

But she woke up in the same musty asylum she’d gone to sleep in.

Deirdre stashed the page she’d stolen from Stark in the dresser. It was sweaty and crumpled from being in her hand all night.

Whatever conversation they might have had that afternoon, and whatever small mercy the two of them had shown each other, Deirdre didn’t have any illusions about what would happen if Stark realized she’d taken that page.

He would kill her.

And he would make it hurt.

She filled the magazine of her Ruger with silver bullets and shoved it in her boot before going downstairs for breakfast.

Though the dining room was filled with more people than usual—more than the fifty Stark had claimed lived in the house—it felt empty without Gage’s presence. The food looked unusually inedible, the morning light extra gloomy, the hostile looks from Jacek’s friends even more hostile.

Niamh sat alone at a table.

“Any news?” Deirdre asked, taking the seat beside her. She’d gotten a scoop of rice for breakfast and nothing more. She still had no appetite.

“We’re out of here this afternoon,” Niamh said. “Apparently we’ll be getting van assignments soon. I hope you and I get stuck together.”

“Me too,” she lied. Leaving the asylum would be the perfect opportunity to contact Rylie, but it would be harder to shake someone like Niamh, who actively sought out her company. If Deirdre was lucky, she’d get stuck with someone like Jacek—someone she didn’t mind hurting to escape.

“Have you heard about Geoff?” Niamh asked.

Deirdre grimaced. “What’s there to hear?”

“The healer says he’ll survive, but…” Niamh trailed off. She was giving Deirdre a weird look.

Deirdre touched her hair, wondering if it was sticking up funny. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Were you doing lethe?” Niamh asked.

Reflexively, she covered her arm, even though the injection point had long since healed. “What makes you ask?”

“You’ve got the flush. And you look guilty.”

Deirdre spooned rice into her mouth, trying to conceal her absent appetite. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It kinda matters. Where’d you get lethe? We’re not allowed to bring it into the house,” Niamh said. When Deirdre didn’t immediately respond, she said, “Oh my gods. Stark.”

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” she muttered, getting another scoop of rice. The second one tasted as flavorless as the first. “Finish what you were saying. Geoff is alive, but…?”

“But he’s going to have scars,” Niamh said. “Gage screwed him up pretty bad. I’d hate to see what a guy like Gage might do if he was unleashed on a mundane population.”

“He’s not dangerous like that,” Deirdre said.

Niamh lifted her eyebrows. “You think?”

A woman approached their table. Deirdre’s hand immediately dropped toward the Ruger concealed in her boot. But the newcomer didn’t attack.

It was Colette, one of the feline shifters. She wasn’t a member of Jacek’s Deirdre Hate Club. Colette was a friend of Niamh’s, someone whose love of video games aligned with the owner of No Capes, and Deirdre considered her low threat.

She bent to whisper in Niamh’s ear.

“What?” Niamh stood so quickly that her chair fell over backwards. It banged into the floor. Everyone turned to look at them.

“He’s with the healer,” Colette whispered.

Deirdre’s heart sank. She hoped that “he” would be someone she didn’t know, but she wasn’t surprised when Niamh grabbed her by the arm.

“Let’s see him,” Niamh said.

Colette hurried ahead of them, leading the way.

“What happened?” Deirdre asked.

“They released Gage this morning and…” Niamh couldn’t seem to make herself say the words.

“And what? Is he hurt?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s hurt.”

The medical bay was on the first floor in the rear of the building. It probably wasn’t all that far from the dining room, but it felt like it took years for Deirdre to get back there.

Niamh and Colette blew through the doors without stopping. Deirdre hung back as the door swung shut, rooted to the floor by what she’d glimpsed on the other side.

Gage was on a bed, and he was covered in blood.

Fear slowed her motions as she entered the room—fear that Stark had hurt Gage after she left his room the previous day, and that she had failed to save him by choosing not to shoot Stark. But she quickly realized that was stupid. If Stark had wanted Gage dead, he’d be dead.

Someone else must have done it. Jacek seemed like the likeliest suspect.

Deirdre would kill him.

“What happened?” she asked, hanging back by the wall. “Did someone attack him in the basement?”

Gage’s eyes were open. He looked at her.

But he didn’t speak.

“This happened after he left the basement. Colette found him in the courtyard with his arms shredded.” Niamh lifted the sheet to check out one of his arms. Even from against the wall, Deirdre could see that the skin was smooth. Gage had healed.

“I got pictures,” the healer said helpfully. “Wanna see ‘em?”

“Don’t you dare,” Niamh said.

“He was chewing on his arms, you guys. Like he was trying to keep them from healing, I think,” Colette said. “There was blood everywhere.”

Deirdre had to laugh, the idea was so ridiculous. “What?”

“Enormous blood loss might kill a shifter eventually.” The healer rolled a crystal between his hands, gazing at Gage thoughtfully. “It would have to be truly enormous. Practically drained for at least a few minutes. That would slow the healing factor long enough to die, I think. I haven’t experimented with that yet.”

“Were you compelled to do that?” Deirdre asked Gage. It seemed like something Stark might do. He liked things messy and theatrical.

The healer wouldn’t shut up, though. “His eyes weren’t fixed and dilated as I see during compulsion. They were responsive to light. It takes quite a while after the compulsion wears off for the eyes to return to normal functionality, so…no, it wasn’t the work of our blessed lord.”

And Gage still wasn’t talking.

Deirdre couldn’t say half the things she wanted to in polite society, and the other half weren’t safe when their enemies were in the room.

“I want to be alone with my boyfriend,” Deirdre said.

Niamh shook her head. “No, no way, he’s a berserker and he’s nuts.”

“He won’t hurt me.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I won’t let him.”

The healer tossed his crystal onto the tray beside the bed. “I can’t do anything else for him. Next time you try to commit suicide, have the courtesy to do it more thoroughly, kid. Easy to hose the blood away and toss your remains in the incinerator.” He limped out, taking Colette with him.

Niamh lingered, but only for a moment.

Her last look was sympathetic.

And then Deirdre was alone with Gage, and she couldn’t find the words for what she was feeling. The emotions were hot as anger, yet far colder, bleaker, like a wasteland opening in her chest where her heart should have been.

Betrayal. That was what she felt.

“What the actual fuck?” Deirdre asked. “Did you really do this to yourself?”

Gage glared at the wall. He wouldn’t make eye contact.

She grabbed him by the chin, forcing him to face her. The truth was written in his eyes.

“Why?” she asked.

He still didn’t speak.

She had the urge to slap him silly. Maybe clobber him with something heavy. Whatever it took to knock the words out of his mouth and sense into his skull.

“If you’re not going to talk, fine,” Deirdre said. “I’ll do it for you. You hate being a berserker. You don’t like feeling out of control. You thought you could handle it while you’re away from Rylie, but you’re wrong, and now you’re scared. You thought you’d just go ahead and kill yourself before you hurt someone you like. Am I on the mark?” Gage’s fists clenched. Anger flamed within Deirdre’s chest, unable to handle the silence. “Talk to me, dammit!”

“You’re half right,” Gage said.

“Which half?”

“The half where you said I’m out of control and don’t like it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “But Rylie couldn’t always control it, either. I changed a couple times while I was there. Almost hurt people. Abel took me down whenever it happened. Even a berserker’s nothing against an Alpha male werewolf.”

“It’s like a game of rock, paper, scissors,” Deirdre said. “Alpha beats berserker. Silver knife beats Alpha. Berserker beats—”

“I’m not joking around.”

“Obviously not, since you almost managed to kill yourself. What the hell?”

“Every time I go berserk, it’s worse,” Gage said. “It all gets hazier. I’m not sure I’m going to come back. And it’s leaking into my mind even when I’m not in the bear form. When I broke your collarbone yesterday, I felt my beast rising.”

“Because it rises when you’re distressed and you were angry at yourself,” Deirdre said.

“Because the beast is winning.”

“It’s not a competition! You and the bear are the same damn thing.”

“I could have killed you when I shifted,” Gage said. “I didn’t jump over you because I was trying to protect you. I jumped over you because I just wanted to kill Stark more than anyone else in the room. And as soon as I got the chance, I mauled Geoff—someone who hadn’t even attacked me.”

There was no point in arguing with him. He’d convinced himself of his monstrousness, and nothing would change his mind. “Then why’d you come here if you were on edge? Because you thought you’d risk a bunch of Rylie’s enemies instead of her family? It makes a sick kind of sense, but—“

“I hoped they’d kill me,” Gage said.

Deirdre felt like she was so heavy that she might break through the floor, sink to the basement, and keep going until she hit rock bottom—or whatever was under that.

“You didn’t come with me because you thought you’d be able to help redeem a suicide mission. You were hoping it would be a suicide mission.”

Gage shut his eyes.

Nobody would have blamed Deirdre if she’d left the room right at that moment. There was a reasonable level of bullshit that any woman could be expected to tolerate and Gage had successfully exceeded it by a million miles.

“You don’t care about the mission at all,” Deirdre said.

“That’s not true. I want to protect Rylie, but it’s complicated,” Gage said.

She leaned over his bed, gripping the sheets in her fists. She glared at him from inches away. “Make it uncomplicated.”

“Shifters don’t get it anymore. Most everyone came along after Genesis, and they’ve always had a network of support from therapists, pack members, and Rylie. She makes being a shifter less awful for most of us. But me…” Gage swallowed hard. “I’ve been like this my whole life and it’s not getting better. It will never get better.”

“Couldn’t you choose a better time to go suicidal?” Deirdre hissed.

“I’m just risking the mission by being here. Stark could make me do anything. The sooner I’m out of the way—”

“That’s not what I mean.” She released him and stepped back. “Couldn’t you not kiss me and then try to kill yourself? If you’re going to be dead, you could try to make it so I don’t care about you first!”

Gage’s eyes widened. “Deirdre—”

“You’re an idiot and I hate you,” she said. “I’m just putting that out there.”

“You hate me but you don’t want me to die?”

“Oh, shut up.” She wanted to tear her hair out by the roots. Or, better yet, tear his hair out. “This is going to be a problem, isn’t it? I can’t trust you to back me up on this. On anything.”

“I’ll back you up,” Gage said. “I was in a bad place this morning. That’s all.”

Nothing had changed. He was just saying what he thought he needed to say to get away with it next time.

Rylie had been right. Gage never should have left the sanctuary.

—XVI—

They left in the fleet of vans that afternoon.

“Where do you think we’re going?” Colette asked as she sharpened her sword, which had a blade nearly as long as she was tall. She’d described it as a “bastard sword” with great pride. She looked like she knew what to do with it, too.

Bowen scoffed. “Isn’t it obvious? The Alpha’s town hall is tomorrow.” It was disturbing to hear a werewolf like Bowen talking about attacking the sanctuary so casually. He was the same breed as Rylie, after all.

“It’s like Christmas is coming,” Niamh said with a grin.

Deirdre sat in the driver’s seat and tried not to listen too closely. She’d volunteered to do the first leg of the trip so that she could avoid the pre-fight chatter. She just wasn’t sure that she could feign excitement for the fight to come. There were too many possibilities and too many unknowns.

Would she have to keep pretending to be on Stark’s side once they arrived at the sanctuary? Would Rylie expect her to continue acting like she was vulnerable to his compulsion? What happened if someone at the sanctuary attacked her?

And how was she going to warn Rylie about the onslaught in time?

“How’s this going to fall out?” Gage asked. He was seated in back with everyone else, and he put on a pretty good show of acting normal. So good that Deirdre wouldn’t believe he’d just tried to kill himself if he hadn’t confessed it himself. “Are we going to all go in with the visitors, or are we going to sneak around back, or…?”

“I bet we’ll just join the crowd. It should be huge. Nobody’ll be able to tell we’re in there,” Bowen said.

“I wish Stark were in this van,” Colette said wistfully. “We could ask him all the questions ourselves.”

Deirdre was relieved that she had been assigned a different van from Stark. He was in one of the other vehicles—she wasn’t sure which. They’d been deliberately obscure about assignments. Probably because Stark didn’t want anyone to know where he was as a safety measure.

Stark had assigned Jacek to the same van as Deirdre, though. She almost thought it was because he wanted to see what would happen if he stuck the two of them together. Like some kind of science experiment. Waiting to see how long it would take for the two to explode and one to die.

The other shifters kept talking on the long drive for the evening. Deirdre only half listened.

She kept one eye on the road behind them. She kept seeing a beaten old Tacoma in the mirrors, its hood white and the rest of it dark green, all of it dented and rusted.

Deirdre didn’t recognize the car, but it had been following her at a distance for three hours.

That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Lots of people took long trips down the highway. That’s what highways were for, after all. But the Tacoma never got close enough that she could see the driver, nor did it try to pass.

Deirdre caught Niamh saying her name, and her attention returned to the conversation in the back of the van. Talk had devolved from guessing at Stark’s plans to personal lives.

Niamh was going on about all the time she’d spent moving through the system, all the boys she’d dated, the friends she’d made. “Deirdre’s the best of them, of course,” she said. “She’s the best at everything.”

“Can we not start a Deirdre fan club while I’m in the van?” Jacek asked.

“Too late,” Niamh said. “She’s amazing.”

Deirdre’s cheeks heated. She focused harder on the road.

“I don’t think I ever told you about the beauty pageant, Gage,” Niamh said. “It was this inter-house thing they started doing annually about…oh, when was that? Five years ago, Dee?”

“This is so interesting,” Jacek said.

“Do you have a better story?” Bowen asked. “Now, about this pageant—were bikinis involved?”

“Oh yes,” Niamh said. “Tiny bikinis.”

Deirdre watched them in the rearview mirror. Gage wasn’t even listening. He was staring at the floor of the van like it was the most interesting thing in the world, hands moving automatically as he loaded a gun.

Niamh went on. “All of the group homes in the state participated in the pageant, like as a morale thing. Dee was staying at Grigori South, while I was at her rival, Grigori North—not far from Marut University, up on the coast. I didn’t realize she was an enemy, so I helped tape a dress to her boobs so that she wouldn’t flash too much cleavage, and—”

“Don’t rush the story,” Bowen said. “What’s this about Deirdre’s boobs?”

Deirdre couldn’t keep to herself anymore. “Okay, this isn’t as pornographic as Niamh makes it sound,” she said, loudly enough for them to hear her over the road noises. “We had to sew our own dresses out of scrap cloth. I was on the brink of a costume malfunction because I’m really, really bad at sewing. I looked like black Raggedy Ann.”

“You’re not as bad at sewing as you were at makeup,” Niamh said.

“Good thing I had you around to teach me.”

“You could have shown some gratitude for it. By, you know, trying to lose.” She fluffed her voluminous curls, preening through the feathers with her fingertips. “I got third place. Deirdre got second. And first place was taken by—”

“Krista Sullivan,” Deirdre said, dredging the name out of the murky depths of memory. “Gods, I hated her.”

“Me too. And when Deirdre got in a fistfight with Krista Sullivan over the first place crown, she had to be moved to a new house—my house. We were united in our hatred and became best friends forever.”

Niamh grinned at her in the mirror. Deirdre made herself smile back.

The truth was that Deirdre had made a lot of “best friends forever” throughout her years in the system, but none who stuck around. She’d lived in the same house as Niamh for less than a year. They’d kept in touch, but at the next house, Deirdre had been best friends with a guy named Dave Parsons. And at the foster home after that, she’d met Jolene.

They all kind of blurred together over the years. Niamh’s fond memories of Deirdre were little more than blips to her. Brief flashes of brightness among years of misery.

“You’re much better at makeup now,” Niamh said, leaning up to rub Deirdre’s shoulder.

It was a nice gesture. Deirdre patted her hand.

“So go back a few steps,” Bowen said. “These dressing rooms were communal, right? Just a whole bunch of gaean girls hanging out together, totally naked?”

Niamh laughed and slapped him playfully. They kept bantering, for all appearances immune to the tension rising in the van. Jacek had noticed Gage’s silence. Now the men were staring at each other, and it seemed likely that the intensity of their glares might make something catch fire.

Deirdre was grateful when the CB radio crackled after sundown. She’d been starting to wonder if they would ever get off the long, relentless highway.

“We’re stopping to pick up supplies,” Niamh announced after a brief conversation with the guy on the other end of the line. “Get off at the exit ten miles down, the one for Trappersville.”

That busted Tacoma was still behind them.

“Happily,” Deirdre said.

The vans had been traveling while widely spaced out, with minimal communication between them, so she was surprised when she pulled off the road to find that only one other van was waiting for them.

Stark stood beside it, watching Deirdre through the windshield as she parked alongside him.

Her heart sank.

They piled out of the van. Deirdre hung back behind the others.

The Tacoma hadn’t gotten off on the same exit as them, and there was no sign of it now that they stood in the parking lot of an empty grocery store. There wasn’t a sign of any other life at all. It was too late at night.

“The rest of the team is moving on,” Stark said. “I need you people to gather supplies for when we reach our destination.” He handed a list to Niamh.

“No problem, boss,” she said.

“Guard them,” Stark told Jacek. “Don’t let them out of your sight. Bowen and Colette, you’re with me. We’re having a meeting.”

He turned his back to climb into his van. Deirdre only relaxed once he was inside and out of sight again.

The van that Stark was riding in was indistinguishable from the others in most respects. It was gray, boxy, and rust-pocked. But there was a small square of lighter gray paint over the rear left tire. Deirdre memorized its shape so she’d be able to pick out Stark’s ride in the future.

“What are you waiting for?” Jacek snapped. “Move, beauty queen.”

The grocery store was at the end of the vast parking lot, which was dotted by busted shopping carts and wind-blown trash. The front doors were chained with silver and iron—a sure sign of a rough neighborhood.

That didn’t mean Deirdre couldn’t break in.

“I’ve seen these kinds of locks a million times,” she told Gage as they headed around the building. “They’re mostly for show. They should save their money.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

She didn’t have to answer. She just showed him the loading bay, which was secured with another silver chain.

“Looks solid, right?” Niamh asked. She grabbed the chain, wrenched it free, and tossed it aside. Considering that the swanmay barely had supernatural strength, the fact that it snapped under her grip spoke volumes about the cheap metal they’d used to guard the rear door.

“The one in front is real. The ones in back are decoys,” Deirdre said.

“Mundanes are morons,” Jacek said. “Do they really think we wouldn’t figure this out?”

Deirdre shrugged. “Most people don’t.”

The door rolled open.

The grocery store felt huge and empty at night. Back before Genesis, grocery stores like that one had been built to be open twenty-four-seven. But few businesses were open after dark these days, especially in bad neighborhoods. The threat presented by demons was too great.

All that darkness itched at Deirdre. The deep shadows reminded her of the home she’d left behind in Montreal.

She hoped that Jolene was okay.

“We’ll do this faster if we split up,” Gage said.

“Great idea,” Niamh said.

But Jacek shook his head. “Not a chance. I’m supposed to watch you guys. We’re sticking together.”

Deirdre suppressed her disappointment. A store like this would have phones somewhere, but if she slipped away, Jacek would sound the alarm in a heartbeat. And their next fight would be a heck of a lot sooner than Deirdre was ready for.

Gage grabbed a pallet jack and pushed it through the store while Niamh and Deirdre loaded supplies onto it. They started with a foundation of stuff that wasn’t easily breakable, like cases of water and toilet paper, and stacked everything on top of that.

The quantities that Stark had written on the list were big, but not as big as Deirdre would have expected. He obviously didn’t expect to take care of his pack outside the asylum for long.

They passed an employee area by the frozen goods section. The freezers had lights that hadn’t been turned off with the rest of the store’s power, and the pale blue glow reflected off of the office’s sign.

Deirdre caught Gage’s eye, jerking her head toward the door.

He nodded his understanding. If they got a chance to contact Rylie, that would be where it needed to happen.

“Move faster,” Jacek snapped.

“We’d be faster if you helped,” Deirdre said. “What kind of shifter are you supposed to be, anyway? A sloth?” Niamh cackled.

He stepped in front of her, forcing Deirdre to stop short or bump into him. “I’m a viper.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

“It should,” Jacek said.

Deirdre brushed past him. “Well, you might moonlight as a viper, but you’re a human now. That means you have arms. Help us load.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Deirdre turned to Niamh, hoping to share her exasperation. But Niamh was distracted. She wandered toward the produce section, stopping to stand beside a display of potatoes.

“You okay?” Deirdre asked.

Niamh frowned. “I thought I saw something moving.”

Heart leaping, Deirdre looked out at the produce section. She didn’t see anyone. In fact, she didn’t see much at all. The grocery store had been dark the entire time they’d been in there, but it felt so much darker now. She couldn’t see anything beyond the bananas ten feet away.

A chill settled over Deirdre. She rubbed her upper arms. “Do you guys feel that?”

Niamh frowned. “Feel what?” She swiped a hand at her shoulder absently, as though trying to brush a hair off her shirt. She brushed again, and again, and then looked down at herself. The color drained out of her face. “Oh gods.”

Deirdre tried to see what was freaking her friend out, but she looked the same that she always had. She was wearing a Melaka Fray shirt, leather skirt, and big, chunky boots. Nothing new there.

Niamh was starting to hyperventilate, picking at her clothes and flapping her hands.

“Oh my gods!” she cried. “They’re all over me!”

Deirdre suddenly remembered the time she’d hidden in the attic of the group home with Niamh. They’d accidentally broken open a spider’s egg sac in an explosion of tiny, eight-legged bugs. Niamh had gotten the worst of it. She’d been finding dead spiders in her hair for weeks. And now she was arachnophobic.

It looked an awful lot like Niamh was trying to wipe spiders off of her shirt.

But there wasn’t a bug in sight.

“Oh no,” Deirdre said.

Mildew crept over the wall, spreading from the corner to consume the basket of melons. The fruit shriveled and blackened.

Slimy green water gushed out of the crate.

Jacek shouted from the other side of the produce section. Gunshots rang out, muffled and distant.

“Get the hell away from me!”

Deirdre shut her eyes for a moment, trying to find a center of calm within herself. But even with her eyes closed, her senses were assaulted. Cold water sluiced over her feet. The stink of rot clung to her sinuses.

It wasn’t real. None of this was real. Not the rotting fruit or Niamh’s spiders.

Gutterman had located Deirdre.

She opened her eyes to find the entire store melting around her. The freezers were busted and dark, filling with murky black water like an aquarium where all the fish had dissolved.

It was raining indoors, dripping from the ceiling tiles and quickly flooding the floor.

“Get out of here,” Deirdre said, shoving Niamh. “Get outside. He won’t follow you. He wants me!”

Niamh screamed, slapping at her chest and throat. She wasn’t in a place that she could hear Deirdre’s instructions.

“Wait here.” Deirdre shoved Niamh against one of the crates, giving her something to hold on to. It looked like the contact of her body made the wood crumble. That was an illusion, just like the water that rose around Niamh’s knees.

Deirdre struggled through the waters to return to Gage and Jacek, arms wrapped around herself for warmth. Everything she saw might not have been real, but the effect the cold had on her was. Her ears were numbing from the chill.

The aisles were a labyrinth of bloated flesh. Cereal boxes opened red-tinged eyes to glare at her, swell, and then pop. Vines slithered out of rotted cracks in the walls.

Distant gunshots echoed through the store.

Men were shouting.

She rounded the end cap in the freezer section just in time to see Jacek falling under the surface of the water. He’d emptied his gun into the ceiling, but still he squeezed the trigger, firing on empty.

And then he was gone.

Gage had backed himself into the corner. It looked like the vines were wrapped around his legs and hips. He didn’t register her presence at all.

Deirdre caught Gage’s face in both of her hands. “Look at me. Look at me, Gage!”

His whole body shook as he stared past her, unseeing. He was lost in the darkest corners of his own mind—a place so dark he’d already tried to kill himself once.

“I’m sorry,” he said to nobody. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Damn it,” she said, and she kissed him hard.

It took him a second to respond, and in that second, it was like pressing her lips to a very warm brick wall. She feared that even that wouldn’t be able to get through to him.

But then he stirred. His hands came up to her waist, wrapping around her, and he returned the kiss.

His mouth parted, his tongue responding to hers.

The contact was brief. They didn’t have time for anything more than that. But when he pulled back, Gage’s eyes were much clearer.

He looked around them. He still wouldn’t see what Deirdre saw, but he seemed to realize what was happening.

“Crap,” he said.

“No kidding,” Deirdre agreed. “Now let’s go, okay?”

She dragged him away from the freezers, searching for Niamh. It was hard to tell where she was going. Her feet were sloshing through icy, ankle-deep water and everything had become so moldy that she couldn’t distinguish walls from shelves. In fact, she couldn’t see anything at all beyond arm’s reach. For all she knew, she was running in circles.

They passed the employee area, its door covered in creepers and mold.

“Wait,” Gage said, digging his heels in. “A phone. We should call Rylie.”

“We can’t stop.” She tried to pull him along, but he released her.

“Go on,” Gage said. “Get Niamh out of here.”

“You’re crazy,” Deirdre said.

But she wasn’t going to stick around long enough to argue with him.

Gage vanished into the darkness, and she lingered for a moment, watching the place where he had vanished. The expression on his face when she’d found him was stuck in her mind. He’d looked so completely hopeless—as though he’d sunk to the absolute bottom of despair and would never be able to emerge again.

She turned to keep searching for Niamh.

Gutterman stood behind her.

Deirdre stopped so quickly that she slipped, dropping shoulder-deep into the icy water. She groaned and tried to stand. Her feet couldn’t find traction.

The nightmare was huge. His head brushed the ceiling, and the rolls of his bruised, pimpled fat draped over the floor. A veiny tumor jiggled on the right side of his head. He grinned and exposed crooked, broken teeth at her.

“Hello, Deirdre dear,” Gutterman said. “You look cold. Didn’t bring a jacket?”

“Go screw yourself,” she said.

She leaped to the right, directly into what looked like a wall of rotten creepers.

It wasn’t really there. She pushed right through it.

Gutterman sloshed toward her. His rolling girth made the waters cascade toward her in waves.

“But Deirdre, I want to chat with you.” His voice echoed through the store. It rattled around in her skull, losing itself in her brain. “I already had such nice encounters with your friends.”

“If you mean Jacek, he’s not my friend,” Deirdre panted. It was getting hard to breathe. The water had risen to her jaw, and even though she knew it wasn’t real, she couldn’t help but lift her head to try to keep her mouth above the surface.

“You are keeping strange company these days. Very strange. My Deirdre, joining a rebellion? The girl so honorable that she balked at repossessing cars from former customers? I can’t imagine.”

There was a hint of threat in that tone, but it was a hint and nothing more. Gutterman didn’t know that Deirdre had spoken with Rylie. He had no idea she wasn’t loyal to Stark. There was no information that he could use against her.

She ignored him and pushed through the darkness.

Waves lapped at her chin. Water dribbled into her mouth.

It tasted like dead fish.

Deirdre spluttered, gasping for air. Her feet slipped out from under her.

The water closed around her head.

She thrashed against the waves, trying not to panic and failing. Gutterman’s fear consumed her. It suffused every atom of her body until she no longer remembered what it meant to be warm and dry and breathing oxygen.

Deirdre sank into the darkness and kept sinking.

There was no floor. No bottom.

She was going to drown.

Deirdre couldn’t cry or scream. She had no air left in her lungs for that. Her blood boiled with futile anger even as she lost strength in her muscles.

“Deirdre!”

That was Niamh’s voice.

Fingers wrapped around Deirdre’s wrists and jerked her out of Gutterman’s frozen ocean.

Deirdre slammed into the pavement of the parking lot behind the grocery store, Niamh’s warm body pressed to her back.

Water gushed out of the loading bay door and slopped over both of them—but only for an instant. Everything vanished the instant it connected with the ground. The asphalt was completely dry, and so was Deirdre.

Niamh rolled off of her, and Deirdre got to her knees, looking down at herself.

The only moisture on her body was sweat.

“Nightmare demon?” Niamh asked without getting up.

“Oh yeah,” Deirdre said.

“Friend of yours?”

“Not anymore.” She grabbed Niamh, hauling her to her feet.

Darkness billowed out of the open loading bay door. Gutterman’s presence was expanding.

Deirdre had always assumed he was one of the weaker demons on Earth—what kind of nightmare wastes his time being a loan shark?—but the infernal forces bubbling within the grocery store looked like they belonged to a pretty damn powerful demon.

Apparently he held a grudge about getting zapped back at Deirdre’s house.

They raced around the side of the grocery store, avoiding the encroaching edges of Gutterman’s presence. There was still light in the parking lot. He hadn’t gotten that far yet.

Stark leaped out of the back of the van when Deirdre and Niamh pounded toward him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Deirdre grabbed his sleeve, using it to hold her up as she caught her breath. “There’s a nightmare demon in there. I lost Gage—and Jacek.”

“And the supplies?”

“Forget the supplies! The guys are still in there! You know, the lives that aren’t replaceable.”

Stark brushed her hand off. “I’ll take care of this.”

His absolute confidence was reassuring for once. He didn’t balk at the shadows around the rear of the grocery store at all. He strode inside as though he had no fears of his own to face—like the man had never had a nightmare in his entire life.

The darkness consumed him, and he was gone.

—XVII—

Deirdre and Niamh spent the next hour in Stark’s van, watching the shadows billow around the grocery store. At that distance, Deirdre could barely feel Gutterman’s influence. She didn’t have any more hallucinations. But she was still cold, so horribly cold, even when Niamh piled a couple blankets on top of her.

“They’ll be okay,” Andrew said, mistaking Deirdre’s shivers for worry.

Andrew was the lion shifter that they’d taken from the benefits office. Deirdre had known that Stark took him to the asylum, but she hadn’t seen him in days; she’d been assuming that Stark’s brand of tender loving care had led to his untimely death.

Finding out that Andrew had been in Stark’s van that whole day—and that he most certainly was not dead or injured—had been a shock, to say the least.

“She’s dating Gage,” Niamh explained. “Can’t blame her for being worried.”

Colette was prowling outside the van, waiting for the men to return. She gave a sudden shout, drawing their attention beyond the door of the van.

Stark and Jacek had emerged from the grocery store.

Gage was nowhere in sight.

“What took you so damn long?” Bowen asked, taking Jacek from Stark. The viper shifter could barely stand. He was halfway to unconsciousness.

Stark wiped his hands off on his jeans. “Jacek will need to be hydrated.”

Bowen turned to Deirdre, but she shook her head. “You do it. I’m not babying that asshole.”

Grumbling, he dragged Jacek into the other van. At another time, Deirdre might have enjoyed the sight of Jacek so weakened. She might have even taken the chance to get revenge on him for that confrontation in the bathroom. But she’d been subject to Gutterman’s thrall so often that she actually pitied the bastard.

“Where’s Gage?” Niamh asked.

“I didn’t see him in there,” Stark said. “We’re leaving. We’ll have to get supplies somewhere else.”

Deirdre pulled her jacket tighter around herself, gazing at the grocery store. She remembered how Gage had looked under the influence of the nightmare—that total hopelessness, and the apologies that he’d mumbled to a specter she couldn’t see.

There was no way she would leave him in there.

She only got two steps toward the grocery store before Stark grabbed her.

“We’re leaving,” he said again, biting out the words.

Just the idea of defying him was enough to make her heart cringe up into a miserable little knot. She remembered the pain of defiance far too well. But the idea of leaving Gage behind was even worse.

“Five minutes,” Deirdre said. Stark’s mouth clenched into a hard line. “Please.”

“Wait!” Niamh cried.

There was someone else in the parking lot now, staggering from the side of the grocery store. He was moving slowly. It kind of looked like he was limping.

“Gage,” Deirdre said.

As he drew closer, she realized that he wasn’t limping.

He was dragging the pallet jack behind him with all of the groceries on it.

Niamh and Deirdre rushed over to help him. As soon as Niamh took the handle of the jack away, he fell over. Only Deirdre managed to keep him from hitting the pavement.

Gage smiled weakly. “Did someone order groceries?”

“I don’t know why he left,” Gage said. “One minute everything was dark, and the next, it was fine.”

“The nightmare just left?” Deirdre asked.

“It ran away because it was scared of Stark,” Colette said, punctuating her statement with a guffaw, like that was just the funniest thing ever. But Deirdre wouldn’t have been surprised if that were true.

The grocery store, Gutterman, and the town with all its barred windows were hours behind them. Now they were seated around a campfire in the woods outside a town called Northgate. It was only one of several fires. When Stark and Deirdre’s vans caught up with the rest of the group, they had already been camping out in a large clearing with about two hundred people Deirdre had never seen before.

More than two hundred shapeshifters preparing to assassinate Rylie.

Deirdre had been shocked to see the numbers when they got there. Not because it was big, but because it was so small. Stark didn’t seem like the type to risk losing a battle with such unequal numbers.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t like she could ask him what was going on. Stark still hadn’t officially announced that they were crashing Rylie’s town hall, even though it wasn’t like they could be at Northgate for any other reason.

The town’s name was appropriate—it truly served as the gateway into the shifter sanctuary. Northgate was the nearest location to the sanctuary that non-shifters were allowed to visit. It also guarded the only road into the valley where Rylie had built her home.

At the moment, that small town was packed. Nobody had looked twice at the multitude of vans with out-of-state license plates because there were thousands of other visiting cars, too. Every single field, roadside shoulder, and parking lot was packed to the brim.

Everyone wanted a chance to go to Rylie’s forum.

And that meant everyone was going to experience Stark’s attack.

“I don’t believe you,” Niamh said, kicking Gage’s shin lightly. “I don’t think a nightmare let you go for no good reason.”

“Well, I wasn’t the one he wanted,” Gage said.

Deirdre felt like everyone around the fire was staring at her. She didn’t return their looks. She picked at the baked potato that she’d cooked in the campfire. Her appetite was slowly returning after that hit of lethe, but she still couldn’t manage more than a couple of bites.

“He was my boss, back in Montreal,” she said. “I messed up a repossession, he wanted to fire me, and I thwarted him. He’s still pissed about that, apparently.”

“Apparently.” Niamh snorted. “He followed you all the way here.” She leaned into Andrew’s shoulder, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That bastard made me see spiders. If I run into him again, you better believe it’ll be the last time.” She punched at thin air.

It wasn’t an intimidating threat coming from a swanmay. Andrew laughed. Deirdre was polite enough to try not to do the same.

“So he just let you go, Gage?” Deirdre asked quietly while Niamh and Andrew kept talking loudly.

He ducked his head beside hers. “I’m not sure that’s the best way to describe what happened. It really was like he dissipated. I was still in the office when it happened.”

“An hour after I left you?”

Gage glared at the fire. “I didn’t want to leave.”

He’d been frozen by fear again, just as he had before Deirdre kissed him. She shouldn’t have left him alone. “And the call?” Deirdre asked, even more quietly. She almost couldn’t hear herself at this point.

“I reached her,” Gage said. “She knows. She’s planning.”

They couldn’t get more specific than that. Many shapeshifter breeds had supernatural hearing to go along with their strength, speed, and healing. They couldn’t whisper quietly enough to avoid being heard.

Gage was still just an inch away from Deirdre. She realized with a jolt that he was gazing at her lips.

Her cheeks got hot, and it wasn’t from the campfire.

“You know I kissed you to get you back for the training room thing, right?” she asked. “And to save your life and all.”

“Sure you did,” Gage said.

He dipped his head in and kissed her again.

Deirdre didn’t pull away, though she considered it. It was a bad idea to get involved with Gage on about a thousand different levels. He had so much emotional baggage that he practically needed a freight company to ship it wherever he went.

Plus, the whole berserker thing? Bad idea. Really bad idea.

But he tasted like campfire ash and seared, salty beef, and his skin was so warm. Her body reacted to him in much the way it had to lethe—with a pleasant rush of adrenaline and a heady buzz that made her feel like she was dreaming.

Niamh’s mocking smoochy noises broke through the haze.

Gage released her, and Deirdre tried to act like she wasn’t blushing furiously. “What?” she asked, folding her arms tightly over her chest.

“Look at the cute little lovebirds,” Niamh said. “I bet that’s what you are, Dee. A cutesy little snuggly lovebird shapeshifter.”

“Don’t bears eat birds?” Deirdre asked.

“I don’t think so, but I bet that one does.” Niamh’s grin was outright lewd.

Gage flicked the aluminum foil from his baked steak at her. “Don’t be jealous I took your girlfriend.” His fingers brushed Deirdre’s hand where it rested on her side, his knee bumping against hers. Had he been sitting that close for long? She didn’t even remember.

Deirdre’s laugh faded when she realized that someone else was watching—someone who wasn’t around the campfire.

Stark was standing apart from everyone else, under the branches of the trees where the firelight could barely touch him. It only seemed to reflect off of his eyes. The gold irises glowed in the darkness.

Gods, he was creepy.

“Tombs,” Stark said, beckoning to her.

She rose from the fire. Gage’s hand only slipped from hers when she tugged it away.

He watched her walk away. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

Stark led Deirdre into the shadows underneath the trees, just out of sight of the rest of the team. His expression was strangely intent. Like he was expecting her to have something to say to him.

“What?” she asked uneasily.

There was another long, awkward moment of silence. The fact that he looked away first surprised her, but it was only so that he could produce a small wooden box from his pocket. There was a syringe and a glowing blue cube of lethe inside.

Deirdre lifted her hands in refusal. “I went all stupid last time. I don’t want to do that again.”

“It had an effect on you. I think you were going somewhere.”

“Yeah, off the deep end.” She shook her head. “I’m especially not getting high where everyone can see me. What if I do something really stupid, like start dancing on top of one of the vans? No thanks.”

“I’m not asking your opinion,” Stark said. “Do you know what today is?”

“The nineteenth,” Deirdre said.

“It’s one week since the full moon and one week until the new moon. It’s a time of neutral energy.” He pulled the contents of the case out and stuck the box back into his pocket. “A good time to try to coax your animal out again.”

Calling it “coaxing” when it was really more like “tripping balls” was cute.

Stark drew the fluid inside the lethe cube into the syringe.

She watched the blue glow fill the vial, surprised that the sight of it excited her a little. The last time she’d taken lethe hadn’t been that bad, really. Just kind of embarrassing.

And if there was a chance that a second dose might bring her animal out…

Deirdre licked her lips. “Aren’t we going to attack the sanctuary in the morning?”

Stark didn’t look surprised that word had gotten around. “The worst of it will wear off by then. You’ll be cogent.”

She extended her arm toward him. “Promise you won’t let me dance on top of anything?”

“I have no interest what you do unless it’s shapeshifting into your animal, Tombs,” Stark said. “As long as you’re human, you can perform the entirety of the H.M.S. Pinafore while standing on your head for all I care.”

“What kind of crazy terrorist knows Gilbert and Sullivan?”

“You’d be shocked by what I know,” he said.

“Careful talking like that. You haven’t punched me in days and I’ll start to think you have an actual sense of humor.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said.

Stark inserted the needle into her arm. The lethe entered her veins.

The night was warm and bright.

When dawn broke, Deirdre found herself submerged in a stream.

She groaned, trying to drag herself toward the shore. Her sodden clothes were heavy. The leather jacket was probably ruined. And even though she was soaking wet, she felt hot, like she was in a bath that had been filled with boiling water.

That was the healing fever.

Her palms were scraped, her elbows banged. It felt like she’d rolled all the way down the mountain, even though she seemed to be at the top of a ridge. Snow clung to the ground nearby.

How had she ended up at such a high elevation?

Deirdre’s hands touched dry ground. A pair of feet were standing just a few inches away.

She tracked the feet up to the tattered knees of his jeans and the gray t-shirt hugging his chest.

“Hey, Gage,” she said. “Can I get a hand up?”

He did better than that. He grabbed her under the arms and lifted her.

Deirdre grabbed the nearest tree for balance.

“You’re probably wondering why I went for an early morning swim in the stream wearing all my clothes,” she said.

He thumbed her eyelid back. “No, that’s not unusual behavior for someone on a lethe high.”

“Please don’t tell me that I danced on top of something last night.”

“Worse. You vanished completely. It took me hours to find you,” Gage said.

Deirdre pulled her over-shirt off and squeegeed it out over the ground. Her tank top clung to her back, and when the breeze blew, she shivered. “So I didn’t make a scene? Thank every dead god out there.” She wiggled out of her wet jeans. “How do you know what a lethe high looks like anyway?”

Gage didn’t turn away to let her undress in private. He watched her with a look that was a mixture of desire and worry, like he wasn’t certain if he wanted to shake her for being stupid or kiss the skin she exposed to the cold morning air.

“I’ve spent my entire life battling my inner bear,” he said. “If you think I’ve done that without the occasional escapism, you think better of me than I deserve.”

“What? It’s just lethe. Don’t be so dramatic.”

Gage’s brow furrowed. “You know people die from that stuff, right?”

“Whatever,” Deirdre said. Maybe weak people died from it, but she felt good. And she didn’t have the urge to take more of it, so obviously addiction wasn’t going to be a problem.

Wringing the water out of her clothing only helped a little. When she pulled everything back on, she was still cold, the wind felt bitter, and she would have been miserable at any other time. The lethe still hadn’t worn off completely, though. She was too content to be miserable.

Deirdre took a few steps in her soggy boots. Her legs were still wobbly and weak. She had to stop to grab another tree branch.

Gage pulled her arm over his shoulders. It was a gentlemanly touch. He was only supporting her, not trying to feel her up. “I’ll help you down to camp. Everyone else is already in line for the town hall.”

That was a splash of cold clarity. She’d forgotten what they were in that forest to do.

“You seem pretty calm about this,” Deirdre said.

“I had to find unearthly calm or else I was going to go berserk. I was convinced that Stark had finally gotten around to murdering you. If Niamh hadn’t told me what you’ve been getting up to, then I might have—no, forget it. Gods, Deirdre, what were you thinking? Are you stupid?”

“I meant that you seem calm about the attack on the sanctuary.”

“That’s another ‘chill or go berserk’ scenario,” Gage said tightly. His calm was fraying. “The plan so far is that everyone gets into the town hall, and then we’ll get further instruction.”

“All of us? At once? How?” Deirdre asked.

“He didn’t say.”

If the town hall were anything like Rylie’s announcement at the White House, then she’d have video monitors to allow people in back to see her. Niamh was good with computers. She could probably hack into the feed and play a video Stark had given her.

“Why can’t I remember last night?” she asked, letting Gage guide both of them down the mountain toward camp. There were no trails that high up. He had to cut right through the underbrush. “Is memory loss a side effect of lethe I don’t know about?”

“It’s not a side effect of lethe, no,” Gage said. “But it’s a side effect of shapeshifting.”

Deirdre lost her footing and almost slipped. “What? That’s not true.”

“I told you I was a shifter before Genesis, right? I remember what it was like when all shifters were constantly moon-sick. Whenever my family changed, our consciousness would get taken over by the animal. We’d wake up the next day with no idea what we’d done. I’m still like that.”

“You think I changed? And that I’m moon-sick?”

“How’d you get to the top of the mountain while you were tripping balls?” Gage asked. “I walked up there and it took me hours, even while I was sober. You got up there while disoriented but still had time to flop around in the river and take a long nap.”

Was it possible that Deirdre could have shifted and had no idea of it? That wasn’t how she wanted to change. She wanted to be one with her animal, free and joyous. Not unconscious and unaware of what had happened.

“I wasn’t tripping balls,” she said sullenly, even though she’d used the same phrase.

“Okay,” Gage said.

They reached the empty camp an hour later. The only signs that hundreds of people had been there the night before were the smoldering remnants of campfires and the vans parked under the cover of trees.

The sight of everyone gone was almost as unsettling as the idea that Deirdre could have shifted and had no idea about it. All those people—followers of Stark, a violent radical—were among the general population, waiting for their orders to kill.

Deirdre went searching among the vans for the one she’d been driving in. She’d tossed a bag with clean clothes in back, which meant dry clothes.

She changed quickly. The only thing she hadn’t brought in duplicates was shoes, so her feet continued to squelch when she climbed out to meet Gage again. He was waiting for her at the edge of the clearing.

As she moved through the vans, she realized that they were missing one.

“Stark’s van is gone,” Deirdre said.

“How can you tell? There are a half a dozen gray vans that are identical.”

“Not completely. His van has a patch of lighter colored primer here. I noticed it when we stopped at the grocery store.” She touched the side of the nearest van above the wheel well. “I don’t see it anywhere.”

Gage took a minute to search for that patch. He returned to her frowning afterward. “You’re right. Does that mean he’s gone?”

Deirdre didn’t know what it meant.

Nobody was allowed to take vehicles into the sanctuary for the town hall meeting.

So where could Stark have gone?

—XVIII—

The line to get into the sanctuary was so long that it reached all the way into Northgate, and Deirdre and Gage had to join the queue at the very end. Deirdre itched at being stuck so far away from the action, but when she’d tried to cut in with Niamh and Andrew, Niamh had acted like she didn’t know Deirdre at all.

The message was clear. Stark’s followers weren’t supposed to group together.

It was a good idea, since it meant that they’d be spread throughout the audience, capable of inflicting maximum impact. Deirdre wished, not for the first time, that Stark were slightly less clever.

Gage jogged back from Poppy’s Diner carrying a plate and two forks. “I got pie!” he announced, handing one of the forks to Deirdre.

“Pie? Really? It’s not even eight in the morning,” she said.

“It’s worth it,” said a man ahead of them in line. “Poppy’s has the best pie in the northeast. Literally, the very best. I heard that’s why the Alpha settled here in the first place.”

Gage laughed. “Because of the pie?”

“You’ll believe the rumors once you taste it,” he said. “I’m Franklin, by the way. Werewolf from Arizona. You guys?”

“I’m Gage and this is my girlfriend, Deirdre.” He called her his girlfriend a little too easily. It didn’t even sound like a lie anymore. “Arizona’s a long way from here. You guys made a heck of a trip for a two-hour event.”

One of Franklin’s friends gave an annoyed grunt. “I know. And now we don’t even get to see the Alpha.”

“Why’s that?” Deirdre asked.

“She got called to some important meeting with the ethereal coalition,” Franklin said. “They just announced it an hour ago. Summer Gresham’s going to handle the town hall instead. So lame.”

Deirdre’s tension eased a fraction.

There probably wasn’t any meeting with the ethereal coalition. Rylie had taken Gage’s call seriously and gone into hiding.

“Guess that’s life as Alpha,” Gage said. “Lots of demands on your time.”

“If she can’t make us a priority, maybe she shouldn’t be Alpha anymore,” said one of the other guys. “Everton Stark—”

“Shut up,” Franklin said. “I told you, we’re not getting into this debate again.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!”

The men turned from Deirdre and Gage to argue. She was grateful for the distraction. She didn’t want to hear people discussing the merits of Rylie versus Stark like it was the stupid Superbowl.

She pulled the lapels of her jacket up to conceal her face, hoping that nobody would recognize her as the woman Stark had carried away from the firefight at the benefits office.

“Well, you heard the guys. Best pie in the northeast,” Gage said. He speared a piece on his fork and offered it to Deirdre.

She pushed his hands away. “I told you, I don’t want any of that.”

“Yeah, but when’s the last time you ate? Don’t tell me that it was last night because I know you only had two bites of that baked potato.”

“Were you watching me eat? And since when do berserkers like pie anyway?”

“For the record, unlike wolves, bears are omnivores. In the wild, a bear’s diet is primarily fish and berries. Given the opportunity, though, they’ll get into all kinds of human trash. Including pie.”

“Drawing parallels between Poppy’s pie and trash isn’t whetting my appetite,” Deirdre said.

“Did you know that half of the deaths from lethe are because addicts starve themselves?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not an addict.” But she took a bite anyway, just to prove to him that she could.

It wasn’t easy to eat a pie while standing in line, especially one that moved as briskly as the one in Northgate. Whoever Rylie had at the entrance to the sanctuary kept things moving pretty well. They couldn’t have been doing much by way of security checks.

Before they’d even finished the slice, Deirdre and Gage were out of Northgate and into the trees. The entrance for the sanctuary was less than a mile ahead.

Deirdre dropped the paper plate and forks into a trashcan on the side of the road. “So what did you see?” she asked, licking the taste of cherries off of her fingertips. “When Gutterman attacked us at the grocery store. What did you see?”

“Oh.” He hooked his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. What did you see?”

She glared out at the forest. It was so warm, so bright—so distant from the chilly horrors that Gutterman evoked in her. “I get cold. Everything starts oozing water and molding, and it’s so damn cold.”

“That’s weird. Why’s that? Some childhood trauma? Survived some kind of hurricane or flooding or…what?”

“No, I just don’t like getting wet. Someday, when I’ve got money and don’t need to rely on public benefits, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to move to Africa.” Deirdre tipped her face toward the sun, closing her eyes. “I’m going to roam the savannah with the lions and elephants or whatever, and I’m going to soak up the sun, all the time.” When she opened her eyes, she realized that Gage was giving her a funny look. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. I just think that sounds like a good idea. I can see you doing that. It’s nice.” Gage raked a hand over his scalp. “I haven’t fantasized about what I’d do in the future for a long time. I don’t think I have a future.”

“It’d be cool to see a bear taking on lions,” Deirdre said.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I bet I could take a lion.”

She reached out to touch his chest, tracing her hands along the lines of his muscles. His body was firm under her fingertips. “Tell you what. You can share my fantasy for the future. Picture it—you, me, the savannah, and nothing but sunshine and heat.”

Gage looped an arm around her waist. He was watching her lips. “That sounds pretty good.”

“Yeah, I think so.” A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Deirdre leaned into him, letting the weight of her hips press against his. “Of course, even if you could take down lions, you’ll have to get a lot tougher to take me down.”

“You had to cheat to win a fight against me,” Gage said.

“But I did win.” She kissed him. He was almost the same height she was, so she didn’t have to reach up at all, and she kind of liked that.

She had only intended to tease him with that kiss, but when Deirdre tried to withdraw, he tightened his hands on her waist and held her in place. He kissed back much harder, nearly bowing her over with the force of it.

It wasn’t the imagined savannah sunlight making her body heat against his.

Deirdre was breathing hard when he finally let her step back. Gage’s shirt was rumpled where she’d grabbed him, and she hadn’t even remembered clutching at his clothes so hard.

“Still think you could beat me?” he asked.

She liked that he hadn’t taken his arm away from her waist.

“I’d find a way,” Deirdre said.

The line moved again, forcing them to close the gap with the people ahead of them or lose their spot. But Gage didn’t let go of her. He hung on to her waist for the whole mile into the pass, walking together quietly.

Deirdre had no idea what was going on between them. A few kisses, sharing a bed, infiltrating a rebellion together. It was a weird relationship, if they even had any kind of relationship at all. But she kind of liked it, whatever it was.

She thought that Gage liked it, too. His earlier drama was nowhere in sight. There was no way to tell he was the kind of guy whose moods could turn him into a bear one moment and make him attempt suicide the next. He was so chill, so easy to be around.

Maybe Deirdre fixed those parts of him. Maybe she made him better.

Or maybe he was just a really good actor.

Deirdre finally stepped away from Gage and leaned around the line to look ahead. They weren’t far from the entrance now. Her feeling of dread about the whole situation hadn’t stopped growing, despite her companionable walk with Gage.

Something was wrong—something more than the obvious.

Deirdre lowered her voice to a whisper. “Doesn’t it seem weird to you that Stark would attack a public forum?”

Gage shrugged. “I don’t put anything past him.”

“But he’s kinda populist,” Deirdre said. “If anything, you’d think he’d be in favor of the government listening to what shifters have to say.”

“I doubt he has much faith in the establishment. To him, Rylie’s town hall must seem like elaborate theater to quell the masses.”

“Guess you’re right.” But Deirdre felt like she was on the brink of some kind of realization. “It’s just that there are no mundanes here. It’s all shifters.”

“So what?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “When we were at the benefits office, he spared the shifters. He might be a sadist but I really think he wants our kind to do better.”

Gage finally seemed to understand what she was getting at. “You think he wouldn’t do anything that could put such a big group of shifters at risk. So what is this, then? Why’d he send all of us here? It can’t just be some class field trip.”

“No, you’re right,” Deirdre said.

That would have been a huge waste of time and resources. It made no sense for Stark to send everyone to the sanctuary like that.

Especially since he’d left.

An ugly idea unfurled in the darkest corner of Deirdre’s skull. “Wait. Rylie’s hiding, right? Her daughter’s going to do all the talking, and he won’t bother attacking someone who isn’t the Alpha.”

“Yeah,” Gage said. “We thwarted Stark by tipping off Rylie.”

“But what if he knew that sending hundreds of his followers to the sanctuary would make Rylie go into hiding?”

“It wouldn’t matter because he doesn’t know where she hides. That’s the whole point of hiding. Being hard to find. Plus, Rylie’s got a veritable bunker to protect her.”

A bunker. Like a memorial enchanted to protect her from anything.

Deirdre swallowed hard. Her mouth was so dry.

When she’d taken her first hit of lethe, she’d been talking about Rylie with Stark. She’d told him about that memorial and its enchantments. If Deirdre had taken the mental leap to think that Rylie would hide there, someone as smart as Stark would, too.

“What if Stark knows exactly where Rylie is hidden?” Deirdre asked.

Gage’s brow lowered over his eyes. “Does he?”

She couldn’t bring herself to explain what had happened.

“We need to get to her first,” she said.

Gage knew the terrain surrounding the sanctuary well, so they skipped the security line and hit the mountain directly. He avoided the trails and cut a path straight through dense underbrush, carving a path for Deirdre behind him. She was in great shape, but even she struggled to keep up.

He was a man with a purpose now and nothing could slow him down.

When they reached a sheer cliff face, he didn’t even pause. He just started climbing.

“There’s a road up top,” Gage panted, gripping the rocks and heaving himself off of the ground. “It’s for accessing some of the warded fencing around the northern edge of the property. We can reach the airstrip and the memorial from there.”

Deirdre watched him scale the rocks until he was a solid twenty feet above her, noting how he positioned his hands and feet.

Then she took a completely different route.

“Follow me,” she said, scrambling up the cliff.

She didn’t look down to see if he was keeping up. She kept her eyes on the cliff above, focusing all her energy on searching for the next handhold.

But she couldn’t resist the urge to look down into the valley.

The mountain sloped sharply down into the sanctuary proper, with all of the houses and grassy fields spread out just as they had been on Deirdre’s last visit. The only difference was that she couldn’t see any of the fields anymore. They were packed with shifters, like some kind of preternatural Woodstock.

There was a huge stage at the far end of the field where all the shifter children had been playing. Just as Deirdre had expected, it was flanked by large video screens that projected an unfamiliar face for the people in the back to see.

It must have been Rylie’s daughter giving her speech. They’d taken too long to get around the back of the sanctuary, so the town hall had already started.

Deirdre could almost make out Summer Gresham’s words. Her deep, feminine voice echoed through the valley, though with the approaching roar of the waterfall, it sounded like little more than random mumbling.

Rocks crumbled. She looked down to see Gage just a foot underneath her. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he grunted. His face was red. He was drenched in sweat. “But don’t stop.”

She reached the top almost a minute before he did, and then reached down to pull him up.

He rolled onto his back on the cliff. Deirdre stood over him with a half-smirk. He might have almost beaten her in a fight at the asylum, but when it came to climbing, she dominated him.

“You need more exercise,” she said.

“Bears don’t climb,” Gage said. “On the bright side, I think I’ve identified you as the first spider-monkey shapeshifter I’ve ever met.”

Deirdre rolled her eyes. “I hope not.”

“Who knows? You could be anything. Maybe you’re a gecko.”

“Quiver with fear before the were-gecko,” she said dryly. “I’ll still be slightly more useful than I am as an Omega.”

She lifted him to his feet. Gage shook off the fatigue. “Okay. The fence is up this way. It’ll take me a minute to figure out how to circumvent the wards, but I don’t think we should get blasted.”

“You don’t think we’ll get blasted?” Deirdre asked. “Blasted how?”

“The sanctuary wards were designed by powerful witches. We have balefire protections.” He laughed breathlessly at her expression, pushing through the trees. “It’d kill even an asshole like Stark, but don’t worry, we won’t…”

He stopped talking.

A moment later, Deirdre realized why.

They had found the fence. Or at least, what used to be the fence.

The earth around it was a crater filled with claw marks. Someone had dug down to find the crystals anchoring the wards, shattered them, and then ripped through the split rail fence to leave an open path into the sanctuary.

It wasn’t hard to imagine who had done it.

Deirdre spread her fingers out over the claw marks. They were easily three or four times bigger than her hands. Stark’s animal, whatever it was, must have rivaled Gage’s bear in size.

“What was that you were saying about the balefire wards killing Stark?” Deirdre asked.

Gage’s jaw clenched, the veins in his neck bulging.

He’d switched from laughing to the brink of going berserk in that heartbeat he’d seen the fence.

“Rylie,” he muttered.

He stepped through the broken fence. There was no jolt of magic, and definitely no balefire.

The wards were completely shattered.

They reached the road on the other side in moments. It was just through the trees. Gage broke into a run, rounding the rocks at the bend in the trail with Deirdre at his side.

And she almost ran right into Everton Stark’s back.

She skidded to a stop, unable to withhold her shout of surprise.

Stark turned to look at them slowly, so slowly, as though even he was in disbelief that he could have run into someone else on that remote access road.

He was wearing a flannel shirt and dirty jeans without a jacket—nowhere that he could hide a weapon. Not that he needed one. The man was a weapon even in his human form.

“What are you doing here?” Stark asked, surveying both of them coolly.

Deirdre couldn’t think of any words. Even words that would have damned them had fled her mind.

For a moment, it was silent aside from the waterfall and the distant echo of Summer Gresham’s voice.

And then Gage spoke.

“We’re looking for Rylie.”

Stark looked more surprised than angry. Deirdre was sure the latter would follow soon enough. “Why?”

“Rylie’s not giving the speech,” Gage said. “It’s her daughter on stage. I thought that Deirdre and I might be able to find Rylie ourselves—since, you know, I came out of the sanctuary. And then we could do it on our own. Kill her, I mean.”

It wasn’t actually a terrible excuse.

Deirdre still flinched when Stark advanced on Gage.

“Why didn’t you tell Jacek what you’re doing, then?” Stark asked. “He would have reported to me. Or he would have gone along with you.”

“I don’t trust that guy at my back,” Deirdre said, trying to draw his attention to her, away from Gage. “If I’m facing down an Alpha werewolf, I’m doing it with my boyfriend and nobody else.”

“I bet she’s hiding out at the memorial,” Gage said. “The one at the top of the trail.”

“You’re right,” Stark said. “That’s what my intelligence told me.”

“Speaking of intelligence, what’s going on here?” Deirdre asked. “Did you leave everyone down there for a reason?”

“I have thousands of followers, Tombs. Rylie has millions. There’s bound to be at least one traitor among my people.” And judging by Stark’s expression, he thought he’d found two. “Should I confront Rylie Gresham while she’s prepared, in her home territory, surrounded by friends—or should I threaten her with force and catch her when she hides instead?”

“That’s smart,” Deirdre said weakly.

“Smarter than an Omega going after an Alpha.” She had Stark’s full attention now, and she didn’t like it at all. “How the hell did you plan to kill her?”

Deirdre drew her Ruger. “Silver bullets.”

He took the gun from her. Deirdre forced herself to release the gun without a struggle, and relaxing her hand took more willpower than she thought she’d possessed.

Her nerves jangled like alarm bells as he ejected the magazine. He sniffed the bullets.

Then he popped the magazine back in.

Stark lifted the gun. Deirdre’s whole body tensed. “I see. In that case…” He turned the Ruger around and offered it to her butt-first.

He wasn’t going to shoot her—he was giving it back.

Deirdre reached out to take it.

His hand shot out, clamping down on her wrist. She gasped. “Deirdre Tombs, I want you to find and kill Rylie Gresham,” Stark said. “Don’t do anything else until she’s dead.”

Deirdre’s jaw dropped.

He was trying to compel her to perform the assassination.

Anyone taking on Rylie alone was facing death. As harmless as the woman seemed, she was still an Alpha werewolf, with all the powers that entailed. She controlled other shifters’ abilities to change forms. She could also shift faster than anyone else, and she’d be far more powerful in her wolf form, too.

It was a good way to get rid of followers that Stark suspected of sedition.

But Deirdre wasn’t worried—not really—until Stark rounded on Gage and did the same.

“Kill Rylie Gresham,” he said. “Don’t do anything else until she’s dead.”

Gage went glassy-eyed, pupils dilated.

Oh gods above and below. No.

When Gage broke into a run, Deirdre didn’t know what else to do—she followed him.

They raced at top speed together up the trail. Gage wasn’t as fast in his human body as he was in his bear form. Deirdre, on the other hand, had been training at free running for months—her top speed was pretty damn good.

She pulled ahead of him in moments.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Stark was following at a stroll. He wasn’t in a hurry. He didn’t need to be, especially now that he’d sent two shifters ahead to do the job for him.

Deirdre turned a curve around the trail and she could no longer see either man.

The memorial appeared further along the trail, the same grassy lump that Deirdre had recovered beside after her race against Rylie. The flowers were starting to bloom. There were no guards outside, and nothing else to indicate that anyone was inside.

Deirdre prayed that the Alpha wasn’t there.

Apparently she didn’t pray hard enough.

She burst through the door to find Rylie sitting at the center of the room. She was resting on a bench carved out of a log that faced an altar.

The worry on Rylie’s face dissolved when she recognized Deirdre.

“Hey,” Rylie said, standing and smoothing her hands down her dress. She apparently hadn’t planned on making any kind of appearance at the forum. She was wearing a long sundress and no shoes—the Alpha’s idea of casual wear. “What’s going on? How’d you find me?”

Deirdre could barely breathe. She slammed the door shut and leaned against it.

“Stark’s down the hill, and he just compelled Gage to kill you,” Deirdre said. “They’ll both be here in…oh, about five seconds. Where are your bodyguards?”

Rylie paled. “Gage?”

“Where are your bodyguards?” Deirdre pressed.

“With my daughter,” Rylie said. “I left everybody to protect her. The enchantments on the memorial…” She hesitated, fingering the straps of her sundress. “Did Stark try to compel you, too?”

“Yeah, but you know, still immune, so—“

“So he can’t know that you’re not trying to kill me.” Rylie pointed at the altar. It was a heavy stone slab, big enough for someone to stretch out on its surface. “Get on the floor behind that. It should protect you from Gage while I divert him. Act unconscious.”

“But—”

A body slammed into the outside of the door.

The whole memorial shuddered. Dirt showered from the ceiling.

“Go on. Stark won’t be able to get into the memorial. Gage will,” Rylie said, shedding her dress.

For a woman in her thirties, her body was taut and youthful, skin unblemished by the many children she’d borne. The only sign that she’d ever been anything but a werewolf were the faint, silvery scars marking her chest—the remnants of the wound that had changed her.

She began to shapeshift.

Deirdre didn’t watch. She dropped behind the table, just like Rylie had told her to do.

Her heart was pounding an erratic beat, and the rush of blood to her head made her feel dizzy. The idea that she was just going to lie down while a berserker rampaged was insane. Terrifying. But she couldn’t shoot Gage with silver bullets, nor could she transform and fight him; her only hope was pretending to be a possum shifter.

Rylie shapeshifted as the memorial continued to shake under Gage’s barrage.

Deirdre had seen thousands of changes before, but none like that of the Alpha werewolf. She made it look graceful. There was no hint of pain in her eyes as she stepped out of her human body and into the skin of a wolf.

Her beast was beautiful, too. Rylie’s fur was long, sleek, and golden brown. She was significantly smaller than Gage in his bear form, but still larger than a natural wolf. Almost big enough that Deirdre could have ridden her like a pony—not that she considered riding an Alpha werewolf a good idea.

With a stature almost more feline than lupine, Rylie looked much too fragile to be an Alpha.

If Gage shifted, she wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

The door exploded inward, and Gage entered. He was still in his human form.

Deirdre couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes and play dead. It was like watching two trains approach each other in slow motion. She knew they were about to collide and that people were going to die. She didn’t want to see it—but she couldn’t turn away, either.

Gage drew his gun and fired it at Rylie.

She dodged so quickly that she was barely more than a blur. The bullets buried into the far wall of the memorial. One hit the floor near Deirdre. She jerked behind the leg of the table to protect herself.

He fired until the gun clicked empty and then tossed it aside.

Rylie darted forward. Her jaws closed on Gage’s leg…and she ripped.

He screamed as he fell. Rylie stayed on top of him, tearing at the other leg.

Deirdre muffled a scream behind her hand. It had happened so fast, so suddenly.

Sweet, polite Rylie had deliberately hamstrung a man she considered to be a son.

The damage was enough to keep him on the ground, but not enough that he’d lose the limb. Rylie hadn’t surrendered to her beast’s control. She’d just sized up the situation and taken the action she thought was likeliest to save both of their lives—which meant temporarily mutilating someone she loved.

Even though he was bleeding on the ground, Gage wasn’t giving up on his attempt to kill Rylie. He dragged himself toward her using his arms. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, filled with mindless anger.

“We finally meet, Gresham.”

Stark stood just outside the doorway, hands on his hips. He sneered at the bear shifter writhing in pain at his feet.

It took all of Deirdre’s willpower to shut her eyes and go limp, even though total fear gripped her now.

Rylie was an Alpha, but was she Alpha enough to resist Stark’s compulsion?

She snarled.

Deirdre couldn’t keep her eyes shut. She peeked through her eyelids to see Stark grab Gage’s ankle and yank him through the door, pulling him outside the magical protections that enchanted the memorial.

Rylie surged, leaping onto Stark. She knocked him away from Gage. And both of them rolled outside of the memorial’s protective magic.

The sounds of fighting became muffled, growing distant. Rylie didn’t seem to be giving Stark a chance to test his compulsion on her. Wolf and man tangled together, and it was impossible to tell who was winning.

Gage gave a low groan. The unmistakable sound of bones breaking echoed through the memorial.

“Oh no,” Deirdre whispered.

He was still compelled to kill Rylie. And now that he’d lost the ability to stand as a human, he was going berserk just a few yards away from Deirdre.

Either she could stay in the memorial with an insane, vicious bear, or she could go outside where the two powerful shifters were fighting.

Gage made the decision for her. As he changed, he grew bigger, filling the space in the memorial. He was going to be half as big as the room.

If Deirdre didn’t get out immediately, she wouldn’t be able to get out at all.

She leaped over Gage’s rippling body and launched through the door.

Something large hurtled toward Deirdre’s head. She flung herself at the ground, ducking it.

It was Rylie’s body. The Alpha smashed into a tree beyond Deirdre so hard that it shook half of its leaves off.

Rylie dropped to the ground, motionless. Her flank was raw and bloody.

Stark turned to look at Deirdre, lifting a bushy eyebrow.

That was when she remembered that she was still supposed to be a mindless automaton attempting to assassinate Rylie.

As soon as Deirdre realized that she had his attention, she lifted the gun, aiming it at Rylie. She would have to shoot and miss—even if it meant wasting silver bullets.

“Stop,” Stark said. “Don’t kill her.” Deirdre was almost relieved, but then he said, “I want to do it.”

With that, Stark’s human skin peeled away, revealing a furred body underneath.

It was like the animal had been curled up inside his ribcage where organs should have been, and all it needed to do was erupt out of him. That was impossible, of course. There was no way anything as big as his beast could have been inside a man, even one as large as Everton Stark. But what remained on the ground when he was finished looked like nothing more than a human skin suit.

And Deirdre had no idea what he had become. It wasn’t an animal she’d ever seen before.

The musculature of his body was very much like a bear—just as big as Gage, with a broad head and a long muzzle. But there was something wolfish about the way he moved. His tail was long and his rear legs obviously weren’t meant to support his weight the way a bear’s could. His vicious fangs and claws were silver, like a werewolf’s.

He reminded Deirdre of a saber-toothed tiger, in a way. The beast looked primitive. A few rungs behind on the evolutionary ladder.

Whatever Everton Stark had become, his species should have been extinct.

The sight of him gave Rylie pause, too. She was on her feet and healing quickly, but she didn’t attack in the instant when Stark might have been vulnerable.

That instant of hesitation cost her.

Stark moved. Rylie was immediately drenched in blood, her side opened in long, vicious gashes that exposed the glistening white bone of her ribcage.

Deirdre hadn’t even seen Stark running. He’d crossed the top of the cliff in the time it took her to blink.

Rylie whirled, snapping at Stark, but he was already gone again. He’d leaped to her other side with a slash of claws and a fresh spray of blood.

The Alpha wasn’t fast enough to keep up with him.

A monster roared behind Deirdre.

Gage’s massive bear form pounded across the grass, his claws shredding the earth underneath him. He struck both Rylie and Stark—too blind with the berserker rage to differentiate between the two.

Blood splattered. Animals growled as they fought.

The lashing mass of fur and fangs was too wild to tell what they were doing or who was winning. All Deirdre knew was that they were screaming, biting, clawing, bleeding. She had to do something—anything.

She aimed the Ruger at the mass of battling shifters. They rolled together, jaws locked on one another, claws opening each other’s flesh and then healing just as quickly.

When the three of them struck the trees, they knocked them down. Their bodies crushed rocks. Their claws ripped up the earth and left huge gouges behind.

It was like watching gods battle.

Deirdre had no idea where to shoot.

Motion down the road caught her eye. One of the gray vans had somehow gotten onto the access road, and members of Stark’s rebellion were coming to retrieve their master.

When the van turned around the corner, the sun shifted enough that Deirdre could see through the windshield. Niamh was driving it. She’d been privy to Stark’s plans and hadn’t told Deirdre anything about them.

A piercing yelp broke through the crash of the waterfall. Gage flung Rylie and she soared almost to the edge of the cliff before hitting—and she hit hard.

Gage stopped dead, staring at the place that Rylie lay limp.

His stillness could only mean one thing: The compulsion had lifted from him.

Stark had told them not to stop until Rylie was dead.

“No,” Deirdre whispered.

Gage rounded on Stark, his fur bristling. His golden eyes were wild.

Compelled or not, there wasn’t any hint of man in him.

He’d really gone berserk.

Gage attacked so quickly that even Stark didn’t get a chance to react. The bear struck him down, jaws clamped shut on his throat.

The van screeched to a halt beside Deirdre, and Niamh jumped out with Jacek and Bowen.

They didn’t hesitate to shoot.

Bullets pelted Gage. The bear ripped away from Stark and took a huge chunk of flesh with him. Blood and saliva drooped from his furry chin.

“What are you doing? Stop!” Deirdre tried to wrest the gun away from Jacek, but he slammed the butt of the machine gun into her stomach, knocking the breath out of her.

“They’re normal bullets, you idiot,” he said. “Once I’m Beta, I’m going to kill you for being so damn stupid.”

He shot again, showering Gage in gunfire.

The bear fell.

On all fours, Deirdre stared around the top of the cliff at the limp animal bodies and all the blood. Her heart didn’t seem to be beating anymore. She couldn’t breathe.

Gage couldn’t be dead. There was no way.

And Rylie…

A helicopter buzzed overhead. It was circling, descending rapidly upon the airstrip. Once it landed, whoever was inside would be only minutes from raining hell on them. And considering that Rylie Gresham was friends with the Office of Preternatural Affairs, they would surely be armed with silver.

“Get them in the van,” Niamh said.

It took all three of them to move Stark’s body into the van. Deirdre’s heart sank when she saw him stirring, flesh rippling as he began to change back into human form. She hadn’t really thought that Gage’s swift attack would be able to take him down, no matter how brutal, but she’d hoped.

Once Stark was loaded, Niamh tried to drag Deirdre to the van.

“Wait!” Deirdre said. “Help me get Gage!”

“He tried to kill Stark,” Niamh said.

“It’s not his fault—he went berserk.”

The approaching helicopter vanished behind the trees. Its engine cut out.

If Rylie was dead, then the OPA wasn’t going to be gentle with Gage. They wouldn’t listen to his side of the story. They probably wouldn’t put him on trial, either.

They’d see a berserker and they’d shoot.

Deirdre clung to her friend’s arm. “Please, Niamh.”

Niamh hesitated. She actually hesitated.

“Andrew!” she shouted. “Help us with the bear!”

“We don’t have time,” Jacek said.

But Andrew was already out of the van, and with his help, Deirdre and Niamh managed to drag Gage to relative safety.

They were gone before the OPA arrived, leaving Rylie’s body cooling by the waterfall.

—XIX—

It was raining in New York City.

Deirdre hated the rain.

She held her jacket over her head as she paced the alley from one end to the other, back and forth, over and over again. She only peeked out every few minutes to look for helicopters again.

It turned out that there were a lot of helicopters over New York—ones that belonged to news channels, the local police, and gods only knew who else. On such a gloomy day, she couldn’t tell if any of them belonged to the Office of Preternatural Affairs.

It was safer to assume that they all did.

Deirdre was still shocked that they’d made it back to the city without getting killed in the first place. Niamh and Jacek seemed pretty confident that they’d lost the OPA tailing them, but not confident enough that they’d returned to the asylum yet. They didn’t want to risk leading anyone back to their hideout.

In the meantime, they were waiting with one of Stark’s friends, who owned a cigar bar several blocks away. The van was parked in the alley behind the bar.

They had been there for eight hours. Deirdre had been on the lookout for two of those hours.

In the rain.

Everyone else was inside, aside from Jacek, who was sitting behind the wheel of the van. They weren’t having fun in there, though. Stark and Gage had both needed serious attention from a healer.

It turned out that shapeshifters didn’t heal damage inflicted by an Alpha werewolf as quickly as normal injuries. Both of them had gotten torn up by Rylie pretty thoroughly. Without a healer, Gage might not be able to walk for months.

Even with a healer, he might have been permanently damaged.

Deirdre wanted to go back inside and check on Gage’s progress, but she’d been given explicit instructions to stay outside and keep watch. So she was keeping watch. Who knew what was happening in the meantime? Gage might have been healed, or Stark might have slaughtered Gage for what he’d done at the sanctuary.

“Gods, I hate the rain,” she muttered.

“Deirdre!” The whisper drew her attention to the street. Deirdre saw a flash of gold on the sidewalk.

Her heart leaped.

She stopped walking and watched. Then she saw a blond ponytail swing into view again as a woman poked her head around the corner to hiss a second time. “Over here!”

Deirdre glanced at Jacek to make sure he wasn’t watching, then slipped around the corner.

A woman was waiting for Deirdre on the other side of the wall. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, a hat jammed low on her head, big sunglasses shielding her eyes. With the voluminous coat hiding her slender body, Deirdre almost didn’t recognize Rylie Gresham, werewolf Alpha.

Living werewolf Alpha.

Deirdre’s adrenaline spiked as she looked back at the van again. Jacek was reading a magazine. He hadn’t noticed anything.

“What are you doing here? Are you insane?” Deirdre pulled around the wall where neither of them would be visible. “I thought you were dead! Everyone thinks you’re dead! Don’t you want Stark to think you’re dead?”

“I wanted Gage to think I was dead so he could break out of his compulsion. But they’re about to release a report on the news saying I’m alive, so it won’t be secret for long,” Rylie said. “I needed to check on Gage. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”

“And you’re going to die if anyone sees you. He’s fine! Get out of here.” Deirdre hoped that was the truth. It had been hours since she’d seen him.

Rylie bit her lip and nodded, but she didn’t go anywhere. She was obviously struggling with words.

The street was busy, but nobody looked at the two women talking by an alley. Deirdre still felt insanely exposed, standing outside a cigar bar where Stark was currently hiding, talking to an important political figure who was meant to be dead.

Deirdre was certain that the helicopter that kept passing overhead belonged to the OPA now.

When Rylie finally managed to speak, the words erupted out of her all at once. “You guys should leave with me. It was wrong of me to send you two after Stark. I saw the news, and what you had to do, and—you can stay in the sanctuary with me now. Come home.”

Frustration clawed at Deirdre. “After everything we’ve done to get in his good graces? Just give up?”

“He’ll make you do more horrible things,” Rylie said.

She had no idea exactly how horrible it was at the asylum. It was all so much worse than the Alpha ever could have conceived.

But Deirdre hadn’t been beaten down, shot up with drugs, and forced to watch people murdered only to leave before Stark was defeated.

“I’m staying here to bring this guy down. Not for you,” Deirdre added quickly, “but because he’s dangerous and it needs to get done.”

“Your tone’s changed a lot since you left the sanctuary.”

Rylie’s hands clutched at her heart, as though it were breaking inside of her chest. Her eyes were shining. “What about Gage?”

Hell of a good question.

Deirdre glanced around into the alley again. Niamh was standing by the van, talking with Jacek. They must have been about to go back to the asylum.

“I’ll let Gage know you want him home, but I can’t make any promises about what he’ll do,” Deirdre said.

“Thank you.” Rylie bit her bottom lip. “I should go. I have to meet with the OPA secretary. Did you see that Stark hacked the monitors at the town hall and played another video? He’s accusing me of causing Genesis. The press got a hold of that video, and once everyone realizes I’m still alive…it’s going to be a mess.”

“But you’re not really responsible for Genesis, right?” Deirdre asked.

She wanted Rylie to deny her involvement. If she did, then Deirdre would happily forget Stark had ever mentioned it.

But a shadow crossed Rylie’s eyes and she didn’t say anything at all.

“Oh my gods,” Deirdre whispered.

“Apologies will never be enough,” Rylie said. “But I will say it as many times as I can. I’m sorry. I will always be sorry for my role in what happened.”

She didn’t give Deirdre a chance to ask more questions.

The Alpha disappeared into the crowd.

The asylum felt even colder and more decrepit after leaving the sanctuary.

Deirdre dropped her bag inside the door of the bedroom she shared with Gage and stared at the bed, with its stained sheets and dented headboard. The room was lightless, with peeling wallpaper and warped floors. It was drizzling outside. Rain pattered lightly against the window, and the gentle tap-tap-tap echoed in the cramped space.

The group had returned to the asylum in twos and threes, so Deirdre hadn’t even gotten to talk to Gage about Rylie yet. She had been subjected to another two hours of mind-numbing boredom in that alleyway before being allowed to leave with Niamh.

Even though Gage had left before Deirdre, there was no sign of him in the bedroom.

Deirdre felt empty without him.

Niamh rubbed her shoulders gently. “Don’t beat yourself up about what happened at the sanctuary. If it was going to be easy to affect big changes, anyone would do it.”

She thought that Deirdre was depressed because they hadn’t managed to kill Rylie.

It was such a bleak assumption. The idea that Deirdre’s mood would have been better if more people had died—it was horrible.

Deirdre gazed at her friend and realized that she looked…different. She couldn’t put her finger on why. Niamh was the same bright-eyed, feather-haired swanmay that Deirdre had always known. But Niamh was trying to give her pep talks after their failed assassination.

Niamh was different, but it wasn’t physical.

Or maybe it was Deirdre who kept changing.

“Thanks.” She hesitated before asking the next question. “What’s Everton Stark?”

“His animal, you mean? I don’t know. Nobody knows.”

“Someone has to know,” Deirdre said.

“I’m sure he does, but Stark’s not the chatty type,” Niamh said. “I’ve never seen anything like him before.”

And hopefully Deirdre would never see anything like him again.

A chill rolled down her spine. She rubbed her shoulders, trying to warm herself. “Is he back yet?”

“Most of the vans are accounted for, but not his. I think he must have made a stop somewhere else,” Niamh said. “I’m sure we’ll have a meeting as soon as he gets home. He’ll want to start hashing out our next moves.”

Home. Niamh thought of the asylum as home.

Rylie had called the sanctuary Deirdre’s home.

“I think I need some alone time,” Deirdre said. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep herself together.

“All the time you need, Dee.” Niamh gave her a quick squeeze and left.

Deirdre only waited for Niamh to disappear around the corner before leaving her bedroom.

Gage needed to know what had happened to Rylie.

The asylum was filled with a hushed silence that made everything feel a little bit darker. Nobody was smiling. Everyone she passed looked tense, as though they expected a bomb to drop on them at any moment.

Maybe they were waiting for a bomb. Stark hadn’t gotten back to the asylum yet, after all.

Whatever happened after their failure—it wasn’t going to be good. He’d kicked Deirdre’s face in for trying to save his life. And now they’d managed to screw up Rylie Gresham’s assassination.

The retaliation for this would be far, far worse.

For now, Stark wasn’t in the asylum, and everything was quiet. Disappointment clung to the air in a sickening haze.

Deirdre found Gage lurking between two oak trees in the courtyard. He was looking up at the gap in the clouds where stars should have been. There was too much light pollution from the city for them to appear.

It wasn’t raining anymore. She ventured out to meet him at the center of the courtyard, and as she drew closer, she saw the bitter anger etched in hard lines across his face.

There were no visible wounds left on him, but he was leaning heavily on the leg that Rylie hadn’t bitten. It looked like the healer might not have been able to fix his thigh completely.

Deirdre leaned against one of the trees nearest him. “Not about to chew your veins open again, are you?”

“It’s getting worse,” Gage said, rubbing a hand down his face. “I don’t even remember what I did when I went berserk anymore. I just remember Stark ordering me to assassinate Rylie, and then waking up on the drive back here.” The question was implicit in his tone.

Had he succeeded in killing Rylie?

“She’s alive,” Deirdre said in a low whisper. “I saw her.”

Gage practically went boneless with relief. “Gods. We got lucky.”

She couldn’t disagree with that. “Rylie wants you to go back to the sanctuary. I told her I’d ask.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I’m staying here.” She shrugged. “I won’t blame you if you go back.”

“I’m never going back there again, if I can get away with it. He ordered me to kill her,” Gage said.

“Yeah. So what?”

“So I almost did. I thought I had.” He pushed off the tree to start pacing, frustration in his every gesture. “The woman practically raised me, and being ordered to kill her still wasn’t enough to make me break out of Stark’s compulsion.”

“But you didn’t do it. She’s safe, you’re free from the compulsion, and everyone’s okay.”

Gage clenched his hands into fists. “This time. But what happens if he plants some deeper compulsion in me—some permanent order to kill Rylie?”

“I don’t think he can do that,” Deirdre said.

“Who can tell? No way. I’m too dangerous to return to the sanctuary.” He laughed bitterly. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Stark’s going to kill me. The healer told me that I fought with him.”

“You’ll have to tell him that you were out of control. Your bear was in charge. You’re a berserker—he’ll buy it. You can stay here, undercover with me, if you want to.”

“Does that even matter anymore?” he asked.

Deirdre wanted something magic to say to fix his problem, something that would convince him he wasn’t as far beyond self-control as he thought.

Even if she’d known the words to say, it wouldn’t have changed cold reality.

He was susceptible to Stark. And his beast couldn’t be removed.

Gage was right—he was a bomb waiting to detonate.

Deirdre ran her hands down his chest, feeling the beating of his heart underneath his breastbone. “We’ve saved Rylie tonight, but Stark’s not done. We need another plan. Something long-term.”

“I don’t want to deal with that,” Gage said. He gave Deirdre a long, weighing look. “In the grocery store, when the nightmare attacked, I saw my father.”

She spanned her fingers over his pectoral muscles. “Oh.”

“Before Genesis, there were these people called kopides—people who hunted shifters professionally. My dad spent my whole childhood telling me that these kopides would come kill us if we didn’t hide well enough.” He rested his hands on top of Deirdre’s, stilling them. “Long story short, I got bored hiding in the woods with my family all the time. I went into town when I shouldn’t have and caught the eye of a kopis.”

“And that’s when you got shot,” Deirdre said. She could feel the ridges of the bullet scars through his t-shirt.

“The worst part was that I went home and led the kopis back to my family. I was the only one who…” He trailed off, gazing at something over Deirdre’s shoulder. “Anyway, the rest of them didn’t make it.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight,” Gage said. “It wasn’t very long before Genesis.”

“You’ve probably been told a thousand times that it wasn’t your fault, huh? I’m sure Rylie woke you up every morning by telling you it wasn’t your fault and served dinner with a hot glass of sympathy every night.” He didn’t have to respond. His low chuckle told Deirdre enough. “But you still have nightmares about it.”

“At first, I thought it was a good thing that the kopis wiped us out. As far as I know, we were the last berserkers.” He shuddered. “That’s what I have nightmares about. I think of how hurt my dad would be to know that I ever thought my whole family dying might be a mercy.”

That kind of guilt was a stupid thing to carry around. It wasn’t like he wanted his family dead, after all.

And Deirdre was pretty sure that Rylie had told him that a million times.

So she didn’t say it again. She kissed him gently, even though the fists clutching his shirt were so tight that her arms trembled.

Gage’s response was desperate, needy. He tangled his hands in her hair and gripped her tightly enough that she could feel the danger lurking in his body. He was almost more bear than man, even now.

She pulled his shirt up, over his head, exposing the scars underneath. Her fingertips probed the craters. Traced around the edges of his muscles. Skimmed the surface of his smooth, human skin. Deirdre feared his bear, but she showed none of it. She put on the fearless face that she could only wish was genuine.

His abs clenched under her touch, retracting from Deirdre’s fingertips. She loosened his belt.

“Deirdre,” he breathed against her neck, hot and urgent. “Here? Now?”

It probably wasn’t good timing. They were at an abandoned asylum where terrorists lurked; anyone could walk out into the courtyard and find them together.

But Deirdre didn’t care. She kissed Gage to keep him from talking, holding his mouth against hers with a hand at the back of his neck.

“Tell me yes,” Deirdre murmured. “Tell me you want this.”

“I want you,” Gage said.

She smiled into his lips. “Close enough.”

Deirdre only pulled back so that she could shed her jacket and shirt. Gage smiled at the sight of her topless.

“That’s the bra you won from Niamh,” he said. “I like it. Lacy.”

She took his hands and pressed them to her breasts. They were full and heavy, big enough that he almost couldn’t wrap his fingers around them. “Take it off of me.”

“You’re bossy.” He ran his thumbs along the lacy edges. The thin material made those light touches diffuse across her skin. Her body heated, nipples tightening to peaks.

“I just know what I want, that’s all.” She pressed herself to him, forcing him to reach around, unclip the bra, and slide the straps down her shoulders.

His lips trailed along the exposed skin. A long, active day in a bra that didn’t quite fit had left indentations on her skin.

He bent to move his mouth down her body, kissing a hot path to her nipple that left goosebumps in its wake. A sigh escaped Deirdre. She arched her back to give him access, and he hitched her up against his hips, her back against the tree.

“Amazing,” he said, and then he sucked her nipple into his mouth, pulling the flesh out long and loose and slick with his saliva. His free hand roved her body. He was learning the shape of her full hips, the weight of her thighs pressed to either side of his legs.

Her hand slid into his waistband, curving around his length. He was hardening, almost ready for her. She stroked in a steady rhythm that matched her tongue probing his mouth.

It was satisfying to bring those low grunts from his chest and know that she was causing them. Whatever else was going on in Gage’s head, for the moment, he felt good. She made him feel good.

She wished everything else were as simple to remedy.

Gage’s warm, searching mouth made its way down her stomach, tongue dipping into her navel. Her belly had a slight curve to it; he cupped it with his hands, worshipping the shape of her body.

He tugged down her waistband inhaled the scent of her womanhood.

The look he gave her from between her legs was more animal than man.

“You’re perfect.” The compliment came from him, hushed and reverent, and it was followed by more whispers—telling her how beautiful she was, how wonderful she felt and smelled. But it was all lost in the wind and her increasingly choppy breaths.

His fingers slid between her legs, seeking her core.

“Wait,” Deirdre said.

She lowered Gage to the dirt and stood over him as she stripped her leather pants off the rest of the way. The brush of warm air against her bare hips and thighs was bliss—pleasant contrast to the fever taking over the rest of her body. Gage drank in the sight of her with obvious hunger.

He looked at her like she was a goddess.

Deirdre sank to her knees, raking her fingernails lightly up his thighs. His leg was definitely still injured. A bandage was wrapped around him from knee to hip on one side.

There was no hesitation in his kiss now. The taste of her sweat lingered on his lips. Their movements stirred the earth and filled the air with the pungent odors of the damp soil.

He had spilled his blood there only days earlier, trying to end his life. Now she straddled him and took his body inside of hers, trying to show him what it was like to be alive, and that there were still things worth living for. She sank onto him slowly, inch by inch.

Gage held her hips as she rolled atop him. His eyes were unfocused, his breathing choppy. She could feel him deep within her. It was almost uncomfortable, uniting their bodies. The acute awareness of her body, inside and out, made her too conscious of the emptiness inside of her where her beast should have been. But Gage was empty too—empty of joy, empty of control.

They were too broken to make the pieces of themselves complete each other. But for the night, they could make themselves feel just a little less hollow.

Her fingers moved between her legs as their hips moved against each other. The heat built as a blacksmith stokes his fires, filling her body with molten flame, driving her mind toward a place of white noise that was giddier than the high from lethe.

Deirdre climaxed atop him with a sound that was more a sigh than a cry. Gage watched her as she trembled, holding her tightly, supporting her through the wave.

His movements became irregular, his breathing uneven.

Deirdre lifted herself off of him before he could finish. She took him into her mouth instead. Her taste was all over him, and he was so hard, so flush with blood, about to tip over the edge.

So she pushed him the rest of the way with lips and tongue.

Gage came with a shout, back arching off the ground.

And for a few moments, he almost looked content.

—XX—

Deirdre and Gage didn’t hurry to move inside. They were relatively sheltered underneath the trees with the landscaping forming a protective ring around their bodies. She felt no urge to return to the asylum and whatever insanity waited there.

They spooned together on the dirt, the leaves of a bush tickling Deirdre’s shins. She recognized the shape of those leaves. She reached out to brush them with her fingers. The stems were thorny. “Blackberry,” Deirdre said softly.

Gage’s face was pressed to the back of her neck, his legs curved around hers. “What’s that?”

She rested her cheek on her arm. “I was just noticing that this is a blackberry bush. I like blackberries, is all.”

He made a sound of assent, accepting the explanation. Deirdre would tell him about the blackberry bushes back home later. The ones she’d been cowering under when she met the Genesis void.

For now, the night was too nice and that subject too dark. Her body still hummed with pleasure and she didn’t want to scare that good feeling away.

Gage didn’t seem to be sharing in her postcoital bliss. He was quiet and morose as he played with her hair, rolling it between his fingers.

His problems ran deep, far deeper than Deirdre would ever be able to reach within him. She was nothing but a bandage for his self-hatred—a wound that even a shifter would never be able to heal.

What kind of relationship could they have together? Would it ever improve? Deirdre would always be reaching to Gage, offering him a hand up to sanity, happiness, maybe something that resembled love. And Gage would respond by turning inward to brood on how much he hated the berserker inside of him.

Gage’s fingers trailed down her side from ribcage to hip. “Thanks. For…you know.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” Deirdre said. “I did it because I wanted to. That’s all.”

“You’re not as tough as you like to pretend to be.”

She rolled onto her back to look at him. He looked as sad as he had before they’d had sex. “I’m a thousand times tougher than I pretend to be,” Deirdre said. “Nothing will break me down. I’m strong enough for the both of us if you let me be.”

“It’s not that easy,” Gage said.

“It could be.”

A shadow crossed his eyes. “You don’t understand.” He was staring past her, eyes glazed, as though seeing something that weren’t there. “Nothing is ever that easy.”

Deirdre realized that it was getting colder outside—no longer warm enough for her to be comfortable.

A chill crept over her bare flesh.

She’d felt that chill too often and too recently to mistake it for a change in the weather.

“Damn,” she whispered.

Deirdre scrambled for her clothes.

Her fear was only confirmed when Gage didn’t react to her movement. He kept staring at the bushes in front of him, even as she stuffed her legs back into her pants and tried to get her bra on again. Her fingers fumbled over the clasp.

Freezing water gushed out of the surrounding plants, splashing over her legs. Deirdre bit back a shriek.

The bushes shriveled and turned black. Vicious purple weeds thrust from the earth, coiling around Gage’s legs, smearing muck across his tanned skin.

“Get up, Gage!”

“I’m sorry,” he said without looking at her. “God, I’m so sorry.”

Bodies shifted in the courtyard behind her.

She needed her gun.

But Deirdre hadn’t gotten her boots back on yet, and the Ruger was still inside of them. She couldn’t even see her shoes. They were hidden under what looked like a foot of chilly sludge now. She plunged her hands into the water, squeezing her eyes shut as she searched for her pistol.

She found it. The Ruger dripped black water down her arms when she pulled it out, and Deirdre resisted the urge to try to wipe it off.

It’s not real. None of it’s real.

The water was climbing rapidly around her knees, slopping around Gage’s face as he remained immobile on the ground. He was going to be gone in seconds. He would vanish under the surface and drown, and Deirdre would never see him again.

She grabbed his arm. Pulled him to his feet.

“What is it?” Gage finally saw her.

“Gutterman,” Deirdre said.

And then the nightmare himself stepped from the bushes.

Everton Stark was right beside him.

Deirdre had the gun aimed at Gutterman in an instant, prepared to shoot. The trees were rotting now, and black bark plopped onto her shoulders, sliding down her bare back, leaving icy trails.

“What the hell is going on?” Deirdre demanded. Her whole body was trembling.

Stark glared at her for so long that she thought he had been overtaken by Gutterman’s thrall, too. But then he said, “Is this who you saw?”

He wasn’t speaking to Deirdre.

“That’s right,” Gutterman said. “That man tipped off Rylie Gresham at the grocery store.”

Deirdre almost dropped the Ruger.

“What?” she asked.

Gage covered his face with both of his hands, drawing in on himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, over and over again, speaking to an illusion that only he could see.

“Lift the thrall from the man,” Stark said. And then he turned to Deirdre and said, “Put on your shirt.”

Deirdre clenched her jaw and obeyed, tugging it over her head.

She felt slightly less vulnerable once she was fully dressed, but only slightly. It was hard to feel strong when her bare feet were sinking into the mud and her body was turning into an icicle.

Gage shook his head as though clearing it. Once the thrall left him, it only took him a second to take in Deirdre, Gutterman, and Stark and realize how much trouble they were in.

He bristled, a low growl rolling through his chest.

Deirdre stepped in front of him. Trying to shield him from the others. “What are you doing here, Gutterman? I thought Stark killed you.”

The nightmare sneered, lip peeling back to expose yellow teeth and gums and a black, thrashing tongue. “You wish. They might have succeeded at killing me if I hadn’t had information they wanted, and what a shame that would have been.”

She gripped the Ruger in both hands. “Yeah, a big damn shame.”

“Are you sure, Gutterman?” Stark pressed. “Are you absolutely certain that Gage is the mole?”

“That’s right. Soon as he got a chance, he ducked into the office at the grocery store, called Rylie Gresham, and told her everything. I heard him. There’s no mistake.”

“Are you really going to believe some demon over us, Stark?” Deirdre asked. “After everything we’ve done together?”

“You’ve been good. I’ll give you that. But your boyfriend…” Stark shrugged dismissively. “I’m not surprised.” He lifted a folded piece of paper between them. Deirdre recognized the yellow sticky bookmark. “When I searched your bedroom, I found this.”

It was one of the pages that Deirdre had stolen from Stark’s room.

He thought that Gage had stolen it.

Stark advanced on them, cutting through the dripping rot from the trees. He was as vivid and terrifying as anything else in Deirdre’s vision. “The only question remaining is whether you’re a traitor too, Tombs.”

Gage shoved her aside. “No. I’m the only one.”

She whirled on him. “Gage!”

“No,” he said firmly. “I used you to get into Stark’s pack. I’m sorry, Deirdre, but it’s true. I’ve been aligned with Rylie all along.”

Deirdre gaped at him. She understood what he was trying to do—trying to clear her name even while confessing to his own guilt.

But Stark would kill him for it.

“Whose side are you on, Tombs? After everything we’ve done together.” Stark was so calm about it, so dry, almost as though the situation were funny.

Her mind spun with the impossibility of the situation. She’d die if she sided with Gage. More than that, Rylie wouldn’t have anyone left in Stark’s pack to fight against him.

But Gage…

The decision was taken from her.

A scream of rage ripped out of Gage’s throat. His skin rippled as he began to go berserk.

Deirdre took a reflexive step back. “No!”

Stark spun her around and forced her to look at him. “If what he said is true, and you’re only a victim of your boyfriend’s sedition, prove it. Kill Gage.”

“What?” She gaped at him.

“He ruined my attempt to assassinate Rylie Gresham. I want him dead and I want you to kill him. If you don’t do it, I’ll have to believe you’re a traitor and kill you myself. Those are your options.”

Stark wasn’t even attempting to compel her. He was dangling the choice in front of her: Gage’s death by her hand, or his.

“Save yourself the effort,” Gutterman said. He was lurking in the far corner from the shapeshifting bear. He was smiling so broadly that every single one of his jagged teeth gleamed in the night. “Deirdre’s trash. Rip her head off.”

“Get out, demon,” Stark said.

Gutterman didn’t try to argue. He vanished into nothingness.

Just because she could no longer see him didn’t mean that he was gone. His thrall dangled over Deirdre, leaving his fear to suffuse every fiber of her being.

And Gage was writhing on the ground, already twice his size.

She lifted the Ruger halfheartedly.

Deirdre still had silver bullets. The same silver bullets that Rylie had given her.

The weight of a thousand regrets bore down on Deirdre. She wished that she hadn’t allowed Gage to make that phone call in the grocery store. She wished she’d left with Rylie earlier that day. Deirdre even regretted stealing the page and leaving it in her room.

All of it had spiraled down to this single, painful instant.

Gage rose onto his haunches, taller than the trees in the courtyard. His growl was like an earthquake rippling through the earth.

There were no excuses left.

“Do it,” Stark said, backing away to give them room.

He moved too far to the side. His motion drew Gage’s gaze, and the bear shot across the courtyard to slam into him.

Deirdre tracked Gage with the handgun and watched as Stark easily tossed him aside.

The berserker still wasn’t strong enough to kill Stark. He hadn’t been strong enough when he’d had Rylie’s help, and he definitely wasn’t strong enough on his own.

Gage rolled back onto his feet. His attention was on Deirdre now.

He’d said that he had no idea what he did as a bear anymore. He wasn’t like the other shifters who could keep their humanity throughout the change. When he went berserk, all rational thought vanished, replaced by the mindless rage of his animal.

But it looked like he recognized her.

“Gage,” Deirdre said.

She could still hear him in her mind.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

He jerked into motion again.

Gage pounded toward her, mouth open in a roar. There was no man left in him. No conscience to tell him that he was trying to kill the woman he’d just had sex with—someone that he considered a friend.

He was going to kill her, and once he realized what he’d done, he’d kill himself too.

Deirdre aimed the gun at his head. Shut her eyes.

And she squeezed the trigger.

The first bullet struck true, burying deep into his throat, but it wasn’t enough to take him down.

He slammed into Deirdre, crushing her to the wall. He bit down on her free arm. Immense pressure wrenched at her shoulder. He was going to rip it off.

“I’m sorry,” she groaned, pressing the Ruger to his skull.

She fired again and again.

Deirdre kept shooting until her magazine was empty.

Only then did Gage fall.

It seemed appropriate that it should start raining again when Gage died. It was cold on Deirdre’s skin, colder than the tears that tracked her cheeks, and the chill settled deep into her bones.

She didn’t know if it was actually raining or another of Gutterman’s illusions. She didn’t care anymore.

Gage was dead.

Deirdre kneeled beside his body, a hand resting over his furry, unmoving breast. There was no heartbeat, and without that, he wouldn’t shift back to his human form.

There would be no recognizable body to return to Rylie and the pack. They would have to mourn the animal that Gage had spent his entire life hating.

His fur was sticky with blood tinged silver. Silver rounds were soft—all the better for breaking apart in the shifter’s body. That was part of what made them so dangerous. It was hard to dig out all the fragments when much of it dissolved into the system. Deirdre wouldn’t be able to pull all of the bullets out of Gage’s flesh.

It was crazy to even think about doing it. Gage was dead. The silver wouldn’t hurt him now.

But she wanted him to hurt. If he were in pain, he’d be alive.

Had that been consciousness glinting in his eyes when he attacked her? Had he deliberately barreled toward Deirdre, knowing exactly what he was doing as he bit down on her with the full force of his jaws?

Had he forced her to kill him?

Deirdre heard Stark moving behind her. She knew it was Stark, but she didn’t turn to look at him. Let him break her neck or rip her apart or shoot her or—she didn’t care.

“You killed him,” Stark said.

Her grief twisted into rage, immediate and hot. She ripped handfuls of his fur from his pelt. The fur stuck to her bloodied fingers and palms.

Deirdre wasn’t going to succumb to Stark the way Gage had succumbed.

“He was a traitor. He lied to me,” she said in a low, hoarse voice. She couldn’t work up very much fervor. She didn’t need to anyway.

Her actions spoke for themselves.

The hands that lifted Deirdre from the ground were strangely gentle. Stark looked grim, but satisfied. “It’s better that he’s dead. Now there’s nothing between you and what comes next.”

“And what is that?” Deirdre asked dully, holstering her gun.

“Deirdre Tombs, you’re going to be my new Beta.”

War of the Alphas Book 2

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