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I made it up two flights of stairs before the werewolves ambushed me. Was already dreaming of my sofa bed, in fact, imagining warm sheets and soft pillows while pretending there wasn’t a hard bar that always ended up poking into the middle of my back. Then, in the midst of that waking hallucination, three sleek-furred four-leggers slid out of the shadows, ruffs raised and lips curled as they growled me back in the direction from which I’d come.
“Really?” I demanded, my voice a hiss as I tried to vent my displeasure without waking sleeping residents. “What do you want?”
A louder rebuttal might have done the job better. But knowing my sister, the girl would come running out of our apartment in her nightshirt if she heard a commotion. Plus, heaven forbid one of the complex’s human residents stumbled out of their own residence then called the police upon sighting three wolves attacking a women so close to their home turf....
The image of Kira and cops and werewolves all mixed up into one steaming stew of catastrophe was enough to prevent me from resisting as I was herded downstairs past the entrance I’d come in through and toward the basement where a second exit opened onto the alley out back. There, though, I hesitated rather than pushing the heavy fire door open even though one of my herders lunged forward to nip at the air beside my knee.
After all, nothing good ever came out of that secluded cesspool by the dumpsters. Rushing out now with three werewolves at my back and nothing but darkness before me felt far too much like walking into a trap....
Luckily, I was now far enough away from both sister and human residents that I could afford to make a little noise. So I resisted the wolves’ nudges and peered around me instead.
On my right was the laundry room, on the left was the resident storage area, and not a single human ear was close enough to hear what was about to go down. Which meant now was the perfect time to whirl and kick out at the closest shifter, grinning when he yelped at the bruise to both his dignity and to his sensitive nose.
“Back up,” I gritted from between clenched teeth, dodging just in time to bypass the shifter leaping toward my unprotected neck from the other side. So maybe these werewolves weren’t just here to mess with me? Maybe they were aiming for a more final end to our engagement than that?
Well, that put an entirely different spin on matters. I hadn’t been willing to indulge in full-scale battle to salvage wounded pride, but I’d do a lot to protect my own skin.
Unfortunately, half of my star ball still hung around my neck where I’d left it to avert Gunner’s suspicion. Which meant the sword I pulled out of its sheathe was really only half a sword, the jagged tip menacing but the internal structure flawed by its recent loss of mass. The weapon would be as likely to shatter as to stab if I thrust it into an attacking shifter....
Of course, the three wolves leaping toward me as a single unit didn’t have to know that. So I bought time with pageantry, whirling the sword in complicated circles while adding in kicks and leaps possessing no function beyond looking pretty and—I hoped—intimidating my trio of foes.
All I needed was a few seconds to strengthen the metal of my sword, a few seconds to bring its molecules back into alignment....
Ah. There.
The weapon still lacked a tip, but now it rang with resilience as I tested its prowess against one of the metal bars separating the hallway from the storage room. And my opponents must have sensed the change in my body posture, because they abruptly backed away from the true menace glinting out of my eyes.
Until, that is, the fire door disappeared behind me. And before I could dodge, a hard male arm settled vise-like across my chest.
***
THE SCENT OF ALPHA werewolf burned like ammonia against the exposed membranes of my nostrils, and yet I found myself relaxing rather than further tensing up. Because while this wasn’t the best opponent to grab me in a near chokehold, he wasn’t the worst either. “Jackal,” I greeted the male behind my back.
I expected the werewolf to release me, having fulfilled whatever charade he was playing out for the sake of his men. But, instead, he pulled me in closer, the subtle slide of fingers across my fabric-covered breasts suggested I wasn’t quite out of the woods just yet.
And while I was willing to go quite a distance for the sake of public appearances, groping was where I drew the line. So I pulled at my star ball’s magic ever so subtly, sharpening one of the buttons on my jacket until the metal boasted a razor edge. The next time my assailant’s finger slid in that general direction....
Jackal stumbled backwards, a much larger cut than I’d intended splitting open the pad of his thumb. “What the—?” he started. Then, recalling our rapt audience, he straightened from his attempt to peer at my fastener, running out his tongue instead to take one long lick along his own bleeding wound.
Within seconds, crimson stained a grinning mouthful of wolf-sharp fangs while fur sprang out in a circle around both of his eyes. The male was seconds away from shifting. And, predictably, his show of bestial dominance knocked the other werewolves off the trail of any potential weakness, sending them stumbling over each other as they retreated from us both.
I, on the other hand, had been busy figuring out how to wrangle a decent conversation without our audience turning Jackal into even more of a dick than he usually was. “If you’ll excuse us for a moment....” I told the room at large, batting my eyelashes as flirtatiously as I could manage. Then I grabbed Jackal’s lapels and drew him into the laundry room, kicking the door closed behind our backs. A quarter in the dryer, and soon I was confident that we could speak without being overheard.
“What do you want now?” I demanded, dropping all pretense at toadying up to the male I usually thought of as one of my few allies within my home turf. “I’m tired. Tell me whatever you have to tell me, then let me get some sleep.”
I expected a request or a warning, not the ammonia-scented rage that came rolling off Jackal in waves. “You’re playing with fire, pup,” he told me. And even though there were no underlings present, he pushed in closer, glaring down at me with teeth that were still as sharp as any wolf’s. “Being seen entering the Atwood mansion after dark then leaving with that filth. What were you thinking? No wolf waltzes in here and takes over my town and my girl.”
The emphatic words rolled around in my head like so many pinballs, knocking down my defenses and abruptly pushing any soothing response out of my reach. “But it’s their territory, not yours,” I countered. “Just because they’ve been staying close to home for the last decade doesn’t mean they don’t have dibs on this land.”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll change that fact,” Jackal answered back just as fast. His fingers were similarly speedy when he yanked a cell phone out of his pocket, tilting the screen so I could look over the crook of his elbow and catch photo after photo of my sister’s smiling face.
Kira out behind the school with no one to protect her except clawless humans. Kira walking to the corner store, a time stamp proving her expedition had occurred this evening after I’d explicitly warned her to stay at home.
The pictures were a visceral reminder that my kid sister could either be helped or harmed by this werewolf who depended upon my supposed romantic interest to solidify his precarious grasp on power. The trouble was, I couldn’t just lock Kira away in her room to keep her safe.
“You’ve enjoyed years of protection,” Jackal told me as I rearranged my understanding of the situation, realizing too late that this male I’d thought my staunch ally was both more fickle and more dangerous than he’d initially appeared. “Now it’s time for you to pony up. Get rid of those trespassers by the end of the week or I’ll be forced to transfer my affections to a more malleable female. Your sister, I think, might just do the trick.”