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“Good afternoon, Kuar.”

Snapping out of my daze, I smiled and waved quickly. The young couple looped back to see me, shake my hand, and tell me they were getting married. Shelby Dennis, who I had seen many times but never spoken to, held out her hand and showed me the tiny chip of a diamond that Jared Pierce, her fiancé, could afford.

“Will you”—she coughed—“come to our wedding, Kuar?”

“Of course,” I promised her, taking her hand in both of mine. “Sweetheart, of course.”

I was surprised when she launched herself at me, even more so at the smile on her boyfriend’s face.

“Thank you, my kuar.”

They were both so damned pleased.

“Please bring your mate with you.”

And now I was the one with the goofy grin on my face, I was sure. “I will.”

My reputation as a badass would soon be shot to hell. Maybe, though, that was a good thing.

W
HEN
I
got home that night, I was surprised to find I couldn’t get into my own driveway, and even more so to find my house filled with people.

Members of my ket, guys from my construction crew, Reno and Ginny, and Lou and Carlo were all there. There was a warm welcome for me when I came through the front door, and Lou passed me a margarita.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

“Robert invited a few people over to get to know him better, and it snowballed from there. Most of the ket is here or in the backyard.”

“It’s freezing out there.”

“Your guys brought over space heaters—”

“I just left my guys. What are they—”

“—and Carlo built a bonfire. It’s really lucky your house is at the end of this street and your property stretches for five miles, or I’d have to cite you.”

“Cite me?”

“Yeah. You can’t have a fire that big on private land without a permit.”

I growled at her. “Lou, I don’t want all these people in my house.”

“I’m sorry?” she offered, presumably not sure what I wanted her to say.

Crap.

“The thing is,” she began, smiling at me, “this is good, right? I mean, Robert here, with you, being his regular charming self. He’s such a wonderful host and completely in his element.”

“What?”

“Your mate,” she said, pointing to the kitchen.

I followed the line of her finger, and there was my boyfriend—the tall, dark, gorgeous man who had single-handedly brought warmth and joy into my life—schmoozing with members of my ket. He was in the kitchen surrounded by women, young and old, watching him as he cooked.

“What is he doing?”

“I think that’s the samba.”

The kitchen was crowded, but still, he was dancing a different woman around it each and every time he stopped stirring or tasting or checking whatever was in the oven. I was ready to flambé someone.

“He made tacos and enchiladas, mole sauce, and tamales.”

I turned to her. “Is it real meat?”

“Bean and cheese enchiladas, veggie tacos,” Lou informed me, “and veggie tamales.”

“It sounds great.”

“It is,” she assured me. “And his guacamole is to die for.”

I drained my margarita, shoved the glass back at Lou, and marched into the kitchen, moving people out of my way to get to the man dancing around the stove and being, as far as I could tell, far too irresistible. His dimples were out of control.

“Hey,” he greeted me, the smile making his eyes glow warmly. “How are you, Vy?”

It was completely insane, but I wanted to hear the regular, “There’s my little bird,” or “Look, my little bird flew home,” or some other gooey, gloppy, overly sentimental endearment instead of simply my name. I was used to it, used to hearing him say it, and—

My phone rang before I could respond or grab him or even get a kiss. I turned, shoving my finger in my ear to drown out the music while I answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Kuar!” the voice on the other end screamed. “You have to help us! The wolves are gonna kill Chris! They already got Brady, and I—”

“Jodie,” I barked, pushing out of the crowded kitchen. “Honey, tell me where you are,” I said as I walked back to the front door.

“We’re at the meadow close to Coleman Lake, by the—”

“Star Meadow, I know. I’m coming right now. Tell them your kuar is coming,” I told her, wanting my title used as the warning it was.

“I will, I’m so—Chris!”

The connection went dead, which scared the hell out of me. I grabbed my keys, threw open the door, and bolted for my truck.

“Where are you going?” Lou yelled amiably after me as I reached the driver’s side door.

“Some of the kids are up at Star Meadow, and there are wolves there!”

“Vy!” she shrieked.

When I turned I saw Carlo for a second on the porch before I started the truck, threw it into gear, did a U-turn on the cul-de-sac, and gunned the engine. I knew Lou would be pissed at me, but the only thing that mattered in that second was the kids—my kids, my ket.

It was a quick trip, maybe ten minutes, all uphill, but in my truck that hardly mattered. When I got close, I saw all the muscle cars parked along the side of the road that couldn’t make it in the mud and tall grass. Whipping the wheel sideways, I took my truck off-roading without even slowing down.

Branches whipped my windshield, and I had to steer around trees and up and down dips filled with shallow, stagnant water, but I was there in the meadow in time to see at least twenty wolves circling six of my hawks.

After stopping the truck, not even bothering to turn it off, I threw open the door and ran.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I roared, reaching them fast, backhanding one of the wolves who dared come at me.

Another attacked then, teeth bared, snarling, and when he leaped, I caught him by the throat easily, hurling him aside as I charged forward. He was unconscious before he left my hand.

“Get out of my territory and off my land!” I thundered, reaching for Jodie, letting her clutch my hand as she pointed at Chris.

He was on the ground, coughing, bleeding, and I saw a boy I didn’t know there, beside him, cradling his head in his hand. I had thought there were six of my hawks there, but in reality, only five and a stranger.

Along with Jodie and Brady were Lisa Palmer and Teague Mindel. The other boy, who was not a hawk, and I hadn’t ever seen around town, I was at a loss to place.

“That’s Wade McCarron,” she told me.

I knew the surname. Wyatt McCarron was the alpha of the White Springs pack. “What the hell is his son—”

“He loves him,” she told me.

“What?”

“Wade,” she clarified. “He loves Chris.”

“Okay,” I said quickly, “you, Brady, Teague, and Lisa, shift and get out of here. I’ll stay with Chris and Wade.”

“We could never leave you,” she cried. “Hawks don’t leave their own.”

“I’m ordering you—”

“No!” Brady yelled.

But I wanted them safe.

“Kuar!” Jodie screamed.

Even as I shoved her behind me, I knew I was about to be overrun. It had been stupid to come alone, but the wolves had been literally circling when I got there, so waiting had not been an option.

Wolves shifted from men to beasts when they fought because the animal form was stronger. That was not the same for me. My hawk was for flying, for leading, for teaching, but not for fighting. I fought as a man because it was then I was most powerful unless I was fighting my own kind.

But I was being attacked by wolves, and so I would stand against them as I was, as would the young hawks with me. Apparently I had taught them the law—
the ket rises and falls as one
—too well.

Jodie screamed as I went down under three of them, and I heard Brady, who I had seen for a second, scream as he too was attacked.

Punching, kicking, pushing, I rolled free. Then I jumped to my feet, grabbed a wolf by the neck, and tossed him over my head. When Carlo and I had paid a visit to McCarron after the minivan accident, we had fought, but as men, and we had agreed to honor the same agreement his father had forged with mine: my hawks stayed off his land, and his wolves stayed off mine. As he was not the kind of man to go back on his word, I knew I was looking at the rabble of his pack, the ones he had promised I would not see again as he was banishing them to become some other alpha’s problem.

They would kill us if we didn’t kill them, and as much as I regretted it, I was not about to shift and fly away and leave my kids to die. When the next wolf came for my throat, I snapped his neck.

In the midst of it all, I saw two things at once: Wade tore off his clothes and shifted, and Jodie went down under two wolves.

I leaped on top of them, tore them away from her, but when I went to her aid, I had turned my back on others. The pain in my right thigh was excruciating, the bite deep and slashing. I swung around but couldn’t dislodge the jaw as another wolf sprang at me and clamped down on my shoulder.

“Vy!”

I snapped my head up because I had never heard my name sound like that coming out of my mate. Robert was running fast, faster than I knew was humanly possible, and others were trying to keep up with him.

Reaching behind my shoulder, I grabbed the wolf on my back and flipped him over and off me before swiveling to punch the one with his teeth buried in my leg.

“Vy!”

Robert was there beside me when I delivered the blow to the top of the wolf’s head, knocking him out.

“Jesus, Vy, why wouldn’t you call for me, make me come with you?” he gasped, using his great strength to pry the animal’s jaws open so I could wedge my leg free.

“I had to get here,” I screamed, shoving him aside as a wolf caught me in the chest, driving teeth and claws though my T-shirt, deep into my skin.

I grabbed the wolf’s head, wrenching him off me, but he came back, snapping his jaws until Robert took hold of him, lifted him off his paws, and flung him away.

“You have to kill them, or they’ll just keep coming back,” I cried. “I’m sorry but—Robert!”

We were swarmed then, the wolves separating us. I went down fast and couldn’t see Robert, but when I finally rolled to my feet, I found that he too was standing, throwing wolves off as they slashed and bit him in the process.

Carlo was there, I heard him, and Lou, and others from my ket, but I saw more eyes in the tall grass and knew there were more wolves too.

“Jesus, how many are there?” Teague moaned from where he’d fallen to the ground as I stood, swiveling around to get an idea of the number.

“Fly to McCarron,” I screamed at Lou. “He needs to call off his pack!”

She shrieked at another hawk, and I should have known she’d never leave me, that none of them would, but before he could get free of his clothes to shift, the wolves were on him.

With Lou’s gun at home, and me being the strongest there but bleeding and feeling myself weakening, panic washed over me even as I stopped a wolf from reaching Robert.

“Stay behind me,” I ordered him.

“Vy.” His voice cracked, and when I turned to look at him, I saw tears running down his cheeks, how hard he was breathing, his hands balled into fists.

“It’s okay,” I lied, seeing him break out in a sweat, trying desperately to soothe him because the heart-wrenching pain I saw on his face was worse than any I was feeling.

My dear sweet man was wrestling with a demon, and it wasn’t the ones in front of him but the one who lived under his own skin.

“The others will come, just protect yourself, please,” I told him.

“I need to protect you!” he shouted, and I heard terror in his voice and saw how gutted he was.

For a moment the guilt was staggering. Robert had told me what happened to his parents, and now he’d have to watch me die too.

“I’m so sorry,” I shrieked as I was hurled to the ground, buried under a pile of wolves, gouged and torn, keeping them from my throat by sheer will. One of them slipped under my arm and missed my face only because I butted his muzzle with my forehead as hard as I could.

His sharp whine distracted another, and I dislodged him from my forearm in time to look up and see my mate covered in furry bodies.

There were too many. I couldn’t reach him, and I screamed myself hoarse trying. “Robert!”

He was gone. Everything stopped, and I had no idea, with him dead, how I was still alive. It wasn’t possible. He had become, so fast, utterly necessary.

The roar, even over the cacophony going on around me, startled me. It didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before, a blast of concentrated sound, almost like an electromagnetic pulse, and when I stumbled back, I saw a huge paw come from the pile.

Instantly I knew. Robert had shifted.

He reared up all at once, to his towering height and weight, easily seven feet tall and, if I had to estimate, closer to eight hundred pounds than the seven hundred he had described, all of it muscle and power and ravenous, unleashed fury. It was jolting to see him, and the wolves froze for a moment, which was their mistake.

In his human form Robert was the epitome of a gentle giant; in his bear form he was terrifying. Jaws closed on necks and backs, razor-sharp claws disemboweled animals that had seemed large but, compared to him, were miniscule. Those not killed in the air were slammed to the ground, instantly broken, the sound of bones snapping sickening to hear.

He was cutting a swath of blood through the wolves, and those who tried to work as a pack to circle him and bring him down were caught easily and eviscerated until not a single wolf that had attacked us remained standing.

I had so wanted him to shift, but I was sick that what I thought would be a beautiful experience had turned out to be a horror. And I had been the catalyst for it. How could he ever forgive me for making him shift, for forcing the choice on him?

“No!” Chris was screaming, apparently having woken.

I looked over and saw Robert advancing on Chris’s wounded boyfriend, Wade, who I had seen trying valiantly to protect him. In that moment I knew Robert wouldn’t listen to Chris and might not even know him. He certainly couldn’t distinguish Wade from any other attacker, seeing only a wolf, something that had assaulted me and tried to kill him. All he knew was that it needed to die.