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“I’ll take care of this,” Gunner told me, his voice curt as he strode away to trail his hands across the heads of panting shifters. They were clearly in need of a pack leader’s attention, so I didn’t complain about the tone of his voice. Not when I had a pressing problem of my own to attend to—Kira standing hand-in-hand with our grandmother, both fully surrounded by a ring of men wielding swords.
These were the humans our grandmother had treated like puppies yesterday, but they didn’t appear particularly gentle at the moment. Instead, they held their weapons in exactly the proper manner. Loosely en garde and ready to slice into anyone who looked at their charges with the wrong gleam in their eye.
Despite their clear training, however, I approached without hesitation, stopping just far enough away from the closest male so my sword could meet his advance should he decide to attack. But that was all the attention I gave to the humans. Instead, I peered over the guard’s shoulder at the old woman in their midst.
She was still small and still wrinkled. But—if I guessed right—she was also the impetus of the recent battle that had caused at least one werewolf’s death. And Sakurako made no effort to explain her actions. Instead, the elderly kitsune greeted me with a single word.
“Granddaughter.”
Well, if she wasn’t going to explain herself, then I’d deal with the only thing she held that I still cared about. “Kira, come here,” I demanded, knowing it wouldn’t be so easy to get my sister safely out from behind the ring of swords.
I expected the males to stop her from passing between them. Or, perhaps, for my grandmother to finally show her true colors and use kitsune magic to hold Kira in place. Instead, it was Kira herself who planted her feet and refused me. “Mai, chill,” she answered with yet another teenagerly roll of the eyes.
So I’d have to cut my way through the swordsmen to reach her. A matter made slightly more realistic when two wolves bumped their shoulders into my hips. Tank and Allen—I could smell them without looking downward. Unlike the rest of Gunner’s pack mates, I would trust these two with my—or rather, with my sister’s—life.
So I didn’t pause as I strode forward, ignoring the way five swords swung toward me in tandem as they prepared to hinder my approach. The bodyguards were almost too pretty to be fighters, their perfect faces so similar I couldn’t help thinking they’d been chosen not for skill but rather for looks.
I couldn’t count on that, however. Couldn’t count on anything except the star-ball sword that was now raised between me and danger, plus the two wolves standing firmly at my back. Three against five wasn’t terrible...but the battle would be dicey with Kira unprotected and open to enemy attack.
As if hearing those thoughts, my sister snorted, wrenched her hand free of our grandmother’s, then slipped between the guards as easily as if they were trees planted in a grassy meadow. “Mai, I told you, they’re protecting me.”
She hadn’t actually said that, but I was the one failing to listen now. Because I held my breath as Kira padded forward, waiting for someone to restrain the departing child.
Except...all five guards plus my wily kitsune grandmother did nothing. No, that wasn’t quite true. One guard scooted sideways to give Kira space to pass unhindered. Another bowed ever so subtly while, behind them, our grandmother merely smiled as if this had been her intention all along.
“Thanks for the help, guys,” Kira called back over one shoulder. Then she was beside me while Allen shifted upwards to grab onto her before she could slip away from us.
“Ow!” Kira complained, attempting to shrug free of the protective grip of the werewolf. And this time the armed humans hardened, took a step forward...then halted at the subtlest clearing of my grandmother’s throat.
It really did appear that these swordsmen had been charged with protecting Kira rather than with menacing her. Still, “Take her home,” I murmured. And Tank and Allen obeyed me, drawing Kira away from the danger, the latter two-legged and the former still in the shape of his wolf.
As for myself, I firmed up my stance between the strangers and my retreating sister, fully expecting complaint from the swordsmen or from the woman who had told me to call her by a pet name the day before. Instead, the old woman cackled, pressing through her guard just as Kira had done moments earlier. She didn’t stop when she’d breached her guards, however. Instead Sakurako just kept coming until she could reach up and cup my face with crinkly fingers that felt unbearably cold against my over-heated skin.
“Now that you’ve called off your dogs, granddaughter,” she told me, “perhaps we can finally finish our little talk.”
***
“YOU WANT TO TALK?” I barely restrained myself from physically shaking sense back into the woman who swore she was my grandmother but acted like someone intent upon tearing everything I cared about apart. “We have nothing left to talk about. You asked if I was willing to give up Oyo and....”
“Stop.” Sakurako held a hand palm-out between us, and I wasn’t quite rude enough to talk over her. After all, she was old and was one of only two surviving relatives. So I obeyed the gesture and gave her space in which to speak.
Only the old woman didn’t. Instead, she nodded at her guards, sending all except one striding away from us into the darkness. Then, once her final lackey started folding the picnic blanket, she slipped her fingers around my elbow and led us away from the carnage of the battlefield.
“I misunderstood your affection for these werewolves,” she said after a moment, and I could tell she rarely admitted to having been wrong. “This is not my work, but I could have stopped it if I’d made an effort. Next time, I’ll think more deeply about what you might have wished.”
It wasn’t quite an apology and I definitely didn’t believe in her supposed lack of involvement. Still, I didn’t tear my arm out of her grasp and storm away into the night. “What do you want?” I asked instead, my tone not quite cordial but not so antagonistic that the male now trotting behind us dropped Sakurako’s picnic paraphernalia and drew his sword.
“I want a chance to explain to you about the larger world you are a part of,” my grandmother answered quickly. “Oyo—yes, I want Oyo also. But I was premature to set a deadline on that decision. I know you well enough by now to see that once you understand the repercussions, you will make the proper choice.”
She thought I was wrapped around her little finger just like her guards and—apparently—Kira were. She assumed that acting like a doddering old woman would win my affection and garner my regard.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled a second time. So I merely shook my head. “My decision is made, Sakurako. I don’t trust you around my friends or around Kira. You know my answer. I want you out of clan central before...”
“What if I made a promise?” Once again, my grandmother had spoken over me. And, once again, I closed my mouth and allowed her to speak. “I swear to protect, not harm, everyone you care about for the next twenty-four hours. Is that good enough to buy one more day to change your mind?”
It wouldn’t have been if she’d been a werewolf or a human. But I could feel Sakurako’s kitsune oath binding us together and placing her in my debt as she spoke.
Plus, I remembered how carefully she’d guarded Kira. How easily she’d released my sister back into my care once I demanded the youngster be returned to me.
And yet.... “Now that you’ve called off your dogs, granddaughter.” The words rolled through my mind in belated warning. Sakurako was protecting my “dogs” only because she wanted something from me, not because she thought they deserved protection for their own sake.
Still, I trusted the kitsune oath to keep the pack together for twenty-four hours. And I was also getting the distinct impression that my familial stubbornness may have seen its source in Sakurako’s veins.
So I accepted defeat gracefully. Bowing my head, I caved to her offer. “Tomorrow we will speak again, Sobo. Tonight, I need to help my pack lick their wounds.”