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Foxes are world-class climbers and pretty good jumpers. But I wasn’t just a fox. I was kitsune—ten times better than that.
So my muscles vibrated with tension as I ignored the chatter beneath me. I breathed into my stomach as Dad had taught me. Then I pushed off, nails snagging on gridded metal as I launched myself into the air.
Wind rushed past my fur and my sister giggled in delight before me. She could feel the buzz of woken star ball expanding my lungs, could sense the pure freedom that filled my heart as I embraced the form I was meant to wear.
I was a fox for five short seconds only. Had rebuilt myself into a naked woman even before slamming into a blessedly unhindered Kira. Our arms melded, our forms twisting sideways. Then we were landing half on, half off the exact catwalk I’d been aiming toward.
Or make that Kira three-quarters on and me three-quarters off the unyielding metal. “Don’t fall!” my sister cried, clutching at my shoulders as I slid over the edge until only fingertips kept me aloft.
And, with a pop of returning air, vision that had narrowed into catwalk-sister-catwalk expanded back out to include the rest of the world. Snow blew in a broken window, the metal platform vibrated beneath me, and twenty feet below the world erupted into snaps and snarls of a dozen werewolves at least.
I couldn’t afford to glance down, though. Not when Kira was clinging to my arms while the sway of the catwalk suggested someone rushed upward to finish the job gravity and overconfidence had begun. Clawing against the metal, I attempted to drag myself back onto the horizontal surface. After all, if I lost my nerve and my grip, who would keep my sister safe?
A broken fingernail sent a streak of agony shuddering up my spine as gravity stretched fingers closer and closer to the edge of the metal. Now I was clinging by one and a half hands only, the pain of ripped keratin causing two fingers to slip loose.
Meanwhile, the shouts from below had grown louder, as if I was already falling toward the pitched battle beneath my feet. I wasn’t going to be able to chin my way back onto the catwalk, I realized. Not from this awkward angle more beneath than to one side of the surface I was attempting to attain.
“Stand back, Kira,” I gritted out as my sister once again tried to help me rise and nearly toppled over the edge in the process. If I fell, I’d shift to fox form and survive, damn the consequences. On the other hand, if Kira fell then this entire rescue would have been for naught. I knew which scenario I preferred.
Of course, my sister was a pro at ignoring things she didn’t want to hear. Laying down on her belly, she managed to reach all the way under my armpits this time. “You’re not falling,” Kira proclaimed, her voice angry even though a stream of tears dripped from both eyes to plop onto my chin.
“Kira, I’m serious,” I started. “It’s not going to kill me....”
And then Crow was there behind her. Was pushing my sister aside as he lifted me back onto the catwalk as easily as if I was a child. “Come,” the werewolf told us, not even out of breath as he lashed out to grip both me and Kira by one arm apiece.
The hand in question latched down with predictable werewolf firmness...then Crow’s fingers twitched away as if the ability to become a fox was somehow contagious and likely to rub off on him. The male eventually forced himself to regain his grip, but I took advantage of the lapse in order to glance below.
As earlier sounds had suggested, the theater was now filled to the brim with shifters, some in human and some in lupine form. There were so many that they’d pushed the building’s earlier occupants out of the aisle and onto the stage then surrounded Gunner and his compatriots within a nearly seamless wall of human hands and lupine teeth. Still, despite the milling mass of movement, my eye was immediately drawn to the four small figures who had watched in horror as I shifted several moments before.
Ransom, Tank, Allen...and Gunner, whose earlier bruises were now hidden beneath streams of blood running down his arms and face.
Just as in the Arena, my employer was intent upon protecting his brother at his own expense. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a battle to first blood. Instead, as I watched far-too-familiar werewolves attack in a badly coordinated yet still overwhelming wave, I winced at the growing carnage beneath my feet.
Jackal’s not-quite-pack had found us. And they seemed intent upon taking Gunner and his brother down.
***
I SHOULD HAVE CHEERED at the realization that most of the males who knew my secret were floundering beneath enemy attack. But, instead, I ripped myself out of Crow’s still-lax handhold, assessing my options as I backed away from my captor’s advance.
There were two ladders extending down from this particular section of the catwalk, I noted. The one Crow had been pulling us toward led left toward a rear entrance currently devoid of battling shifters. The other led right directly into the heart of the melee.
My fox nature suggested that turning left was a fine idea. Flee, protect my sister, and live to fight another day.
But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Gunner, who was now grunting out a muddled combination of battle rage and breathless agony. And no wonder since two wolves were latched onto his ankles while a human-form shifter layered punch after punch upon the alpha’s unprotected chest and neck. Gunner was putting every ounce of energy he had into shielding his brother, which meant his own body was taking a beating even a werewolf couldn’t stand up against for long.
It was four against approximately four million. And Kira was safe, Crow’s arm encircling the girl’s shoulders not to restrain her motion but rather to ensure the girl wouldn’t tumble over the edge of the catwalk should she lose her footing on the descent.
For a split second, I couldn’t understand why Crow thought touching me was akin to picking up dung with his bare hands while Kira was a porcelain doll in need of protection. Then I remembered that no one had seen my sister shifting. That given her lack of a star ball, Kira wouldn’t be showing off her fox form in the near future either. Surely a pack of boy scouts wouldn’t let an innocent twelve-year-old come to harm....
So I chose the un-fox-like path of helping the precise male slated to execute me. Chose the right ladder instead of the left.
“Wait, I’m coming with you!” Kira cried, properly assessing my decision one instant before my feet began to move.
But she was currently safe and Gunner wasn’t. So sprinting toward the proper ladder, I slid down the rungs like a firefighter and landed directly in the heart of the melee.