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My heart twisted. That’s the only explanation I can give for the pain in my chest, the difficulty of forcing oxygen down my windpipe. I was frozen. We were all frozen.
No, that’s not true. Tank pushed past us, pressing his fingers against Butch’s jugular. For a long moment, we held our breath. Then Tank shook his head.
“Alright.” Lupe’s voice was firm. “Now we know. Time to get out of here.”
“We can’t leave him like that.” I’d thought the words, but they came out of Ryder’s mouth. As unlikely as it seemed, our most uncouth member and I were united in wanting to show Butch’s body respect.
Lupe shook her head. “No time. We need to regroup. Samhain is Wednesday.”
My brow furrowed. “But Marina’s already crossed over.”
“And if she has free rein, she’ll open the node so wide that half of her friends and neighbors can enter. This job is more important than ever.” Lupe’s eyes narrowed. “And she thinks you’re an asset to her. Why is that?”
Busted. The information I’d never shared solidified in the air between us. For half a second, I stood frozen. Then Tank’s hand settled against the small of my back.
That warmth, his silent support, gave me the strength to speak. “When we were staying here, I saw her at the boat dock,” I started, only to be interrupted by Ryder’s gruff negation.
“No. We saw Tank there.”
“You thought that was Tank?” No wonder Ryder had teased me. If I’d trusted my team mate enough to ask for more information at the time, I would have realized Marina possessed fae glamour. None of us would be in this mess.
My gaze slid to Butch, his torso somehow as erect in death as it had been in life. His loss was inconceivable. This werewolf who’d been the voice of reason among us during Ryder and Tank’s battle. The one who’d uncomplainingly ferried me around during a full day of errands. Who’d supported us all even though he didn’t trust us to accept him for who and what he was.
I swallowed. And this time I told Lupe the entire story. Stealing for Marina. The crazy huge check she’d given me in exchange. My weakness—wanting to make life better for my sister—hung out like butt cheeks in an ultra-mini skirt.
And...Lupe shook her head. “That’s not enough for her to have a hold over you. You’d have to give her something. A gift with no payback.”
A gift. Was that what the wolf bracer had turned into? “Can I see your phone?” I asked Tank.
He raised his eyebrows but passed it over. Logging onto my bank account’s website, I winced at the negative balance.
“Marina’s checks bounced.” I’d forgotten the financial element in the midst of the other awfulness. My inability to pay for Harper’s boarding school, to buy off my stepfather, tightened like a noose around my neck.
“That would do it,” Lupe agreed, not noticing my reaction. “If the check was only glamour, you technically gave her the bracer for nothing. A gift. The perfect way for her to get a hold over you.”
Ryder winced, suggesting Lupe had explained this issue in more detail before I became part of the team. Beside me, Tank’s fingers found mine and squeezed.
Lupe, though, was the one who continued speaking. “You’re a liability to us. We need you far away from the node on Samhain. I appreciate your past assistance, but as of tonight you’re off the case.”
***
“NO. IF SHE GOES, I go.”
Tank’s voice came from behind me, but I felt it rumbling through my skin. When had he pulled me back against his body? The warmth felt good, and yet....
I stepped sideways so I could look up at him. “Tank. This is important.”
His hand landed on my hip. As if creating empty air space between us was inconceivable. “I agree. This is important.”
“We don’t have time for hormones,” Lupe interrupted. “The node’s location is unidentified. Butch called to say it had moved, but now I don’t know if that was Marina or Butch on the phone.”
Ryder erupted into a cascade of cursing that brought the faintest smile to my lips. Then I frowned as something occurred to me. Butch’s knowledge of the node. Lupe’s use of his full name in an attempt to freeze Marina. His unwillingness to share his darkest secret....
“Butch really is fae?”
“Part fae. Part werewolf,” Lupe said absently. She’d pulled out her phone. Hunting for a replacement for me and Tank? It was inconceivable to think she could face down Marina and the entire McCallister pack with only Ryder by her side.
“So, shouldn’t a sword through his body cast him back into the fae world rather than killing him?” Plus, if he was dead, why would Marina have sounded so pleased about learning his true name?
Lupe’s finger stilled. “Butch clearly doesn’t have that much fae blood in him. But perhaps....”
The sword sticking through Butch’s body now looked like an opportunity rather than a horror. Two hands—mine and another’s—landed on the sword hilt at the exact same moment. And, to my surprise, Lupe lowered her eyes and stepped aside.
“You do it.”
Pull the sword out of Butch’s back and hope he would gasp back to life rather than collapse into a puddle of decaying meat? I took a deep breath and...
“Wait.” Now it was Tank beside me. Tank, who pulled Butch’s shirt away from his skin with one hand then used his own sword to sever the fabric in one ripping stroke.
When I cocked my head, not understanding, Tank explained: “I don’t want him to heal into it.”
As if he expected Butch to not only survive days with a sword impaling his lungs, but to bounce back within seconds. I liked the way Tank thought even though such a recovery felt impossible. Butch’s skin, when I accidentally brushed it, was stone cold.
“Now,” Tank murmured.
The single word gave me the strength to yank the sword backwards. Ignoring the churning in my gut, I kept pulling. Metal rasped against bone. Shreds of skin scattered onto the ground.
There was no blood. Shouldn’t there have been blood if Butch was still living? Instead, our team mate collapsed as if the sword was all that had been holding him upright.
Collapsed into the arms of Tank and Ryder, who eased him onto the floor boards. Butch was dead, I was sure of it.
Ryder was equally certain. His expletives seared with the heat of an oven.
But Tank wasn’t ready to give up. He pressed two fingers into the indentation of Butch’s throat a second time then smiled. “He’s alive.”
***
BUTCH WAS ALIVE, BUT he wasn’t conscious. Definitely wasn’t about to hop to his feet and swing a sword.
“I’ll take care of this,” Lupe told us. “Ryder, feel free to take one of the Jeeps by the boat shed. You’re off duty until Wednesday morning.”
She didn’t even glance at me and Tank. We were dismissed. Off the team. No longer relevant.
Or, no, that wasn’t true. “Athena,” Lupe called as I turned away. “You’ll still be paid. Tomorrow morning, I’ll cut you a check.”
And...I was furious. Yes, cash had been one of my incentives for joining the Samhain Shifters in the first place. But Lupe’s reassurance made me sound like Nick, being paid off to let Harper continue boarding school. “I don’t...” I started, knowing even as I spoke that there was no way to argue the point with someone who could overpower me with a single word.
But Tank spoke over my refusal. “Fae. Can they feed on mate bonds or just pack bonds?”
Mate bonds? I twitched even as Lupe’s lips pursed. For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then, reluctantly:
“Pack bonds only, as best we can tell. Yes, you’ll be helping rather than hindering if you go along to guard Athena’s back.”
“Good.”
Tank’s hand on my spine pushed me out of the cabin. And I went, even though I hated it. Went because he was twice as strong as I was, his physical ability to overpower just as much a given as Lupe’s ability to force compliance with an alpha order.
I went...but I vibrated with anger. Tank thought he could force me to mate with him and use that bond to protect me. This was why I’d steered clear of packs and alphas for the last decade. This was why I’d done everything I could think of to achieve independence from other werewolves.
So why was the worst part seeing the trauma Marina had inflicted on Rowan’s pack and knowing the same could strike Kira and her family? Why was the worst part being forced out of the Samhain Shifters’ strike?
“Wait here,” Tank told me. We’d reached the boathouse, the dark shape towering above us. This was the weedy backside that I’d never had time to explore previously. Multiple Jeeps waited, old and dilapidated. Fallen leaves slicked their interiors.
But when Tank entered the boathouse and emerged with a key, the engine of the one he tried sprang to life.
There was no top, but Tank rustled up two knitted caps, one for each of us. Mine physically warmed me, but did nothing to soothe the fury whipping through my veins.
This was bullshit. I wasn’t going to be taken away like my sixteen-year-old sister, locked in a room for my own safety until Halloween was past.
If I’d spoken, my words would have cut like daggers. So it was probably a good thing that the fabric and the wind made it impossible to speak.
Impossible to do anything, really, other than dwell on my failure. Yes, Butch was alive, but only barely. And I was drawing Tank away from the battle, forcing him into the role of bodyguard to the Samhain Shifters’ weakest link.
Marina would win, and it would be my fault. Well, my fault plus Lupe’s and Tank’s for being idiots....
As if he could feel my thoughts rising to a boil, Tank pulled over. Shut off the engine.
The silence was as dark as the night.
“You need to go back...” I started just as Tank said:
“What do you know about...?”
We both stopped, waiting for the other to continue. And even though I wanted to slap him, I swallowed down my anger and ceded the floor. “You first.”
I expected Tank to tell me where I was being taken, why this was all for the best. Instead, he rumbled out a question. “What do you know about the McCallister pack?”
His eyes reflected moonlight. Not lupine. Entirely human.
I cocked my head. “Why?”
Tank coughed out the faintest hint of a laugh. “I got the impression you weren’t ready to be done with this.”
He was making no sense. “And I got the impression you were willing to let the fae cross over in order to protect me.”
“I am. I will. If that’s what you want.”
But...it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. “No,” I shook my head. “I want to win this.”
And Tank smiled, all twisted scars and glinting wolf teeth. He was big and scary and completely magnificent.
“Alright then. What do you know about the McCallister pack?”