Chapter 7

Mud squished between my toes and my sword tingled to life in abruptly human hands as I lunged toward the male threatening my sister. I half expected Gunner to get there first, frowned as I saw him instead shift and sink into the mud with human shoulders bent earthward. “Pack leader,” my former protector murmured. “I have done everything you requested. I ask that you do the same.”

The brothers’ compromise. Of course. Ransom had ignored the fact that I was a kitsune three months earlier in exchange for Gunner’s fealty. Now it appeared that the time had come for the latter to pay up.

A rock dug into my left instep as I swerved sideways to steer clear of the alpha I’d thought was on my side but who might actually be forced to do Ransom’s bidding. No matter. I could trust Kira to roll sideways at the proper moment. So all I had to do was...

...twist away from the five wolves who had slid out of the trees and into my sight line while my attention was riveted upon Gunner and his brother. The newcomers reeked of Atwood ozone, their trajectory clearly intended to cut me off from their leader’s unprotected backside. And, based on the way they lunged forward without even glancing toward Ransom for permission, I had to guess they’d also caught a glimpse of my illicit fox-related shifting....

Suddenly, I couldn’t spare a thought for Kira’s predicament or for Gunner’s precarious loyalty. Instead, it was all I could do to push off the mud-slick pathway and slip between two teeth-bared muzzles as sharp fangs grazed the skin of my unclad thigh.

Now they growled, the sounds smug with imminent triumph. No wonder when I was entirely surrounded, five wolves spreading in a tight circle that pushed me toward a laughing enemy each time I backed away from one of his pack mates. My sword could only do so much in tight quarters and I was surprised the quintet hadn’t already leapt forward and taken me down into the muck.

Their strange reluctance to finish what they’d started, however, couldn’t last forever. So I hacked desperately, the flurry of blows insufficient to break me free of the circle but enough to send my enemies back a single step.

A whimper. The scent of Kira’s terror. I couldn’t spare a glance in her direction, but she was clearly in distress now.

So I tried something I’d been pondering ever since Elle bested me with a scratch from her finger. I flicked my sword back instead of forward, seared a larger cut than I’d intended onto my left forearm.

My own blood tasted nothing like a rabbit’s. Instead, it was sweet and at the same time peppery, full of magic I’d yet to learn how to tap.

Necessity is the mother of invention, I decided, closing my eyes for one split second and pulling every burst of power down my spine and into my feet.

Mud splattered around me, slipping through my parted lips and onto my tongue. The soil was gritty and vile, tasting strangely of iron even though the scarlet seeping from my leg and arm shouldn’t have made it all the way to the ground so quickly.

Unfortunately, a mouthful of mud was all I got out of the endeavor. No shards of star ball pushed my enemies backwards. No wall of magic prevented their approach. Instead, the wolves pressed in closer, the fear in their eyes promising danger.

Because frightened wolves tend to react predictably. They squash their terror, then they attack.

***

“Don’t touch me!”

Kira’s voice rang out as I tried—and failed—to rebuild my sword from a lax and diffuse star ball. Her silence up until this point had been carefully calculated, I knew, to prevent distraction. The fact she was now speaking, her voice more shriek than words, proved that the situation was growing worse outside my circle of werewolves even as I edged closer and closer to losing the current fight.

Desperation hadn’t been enough to turn the tables in my favor, but worry over my sister pushed me forward where the impulse for self-preservation had been insufficient. Giving up on rematerializing a physical weapon, I instead slid into my fox skin as easily as a swimmer dives beneath the water. And, like a swimmer, I immediately felt gravity recede beneath my feet.

Human, I’d been unable to escape the ring of werewolves. Vulpine, I leapt over the closest wolf’s head and landed atop his well-padded rump light as an errant sunbeam.

Unfortunately, my opponent wasn’t a fan of sunbeams on his butt. He whirled, teeth snapping shut a millimeter from my fox tail...or perhaps he did end up with a mouthful of white-tipped hairs after all. The small loss of bodily matter was irrelevant, however, when I was already ten feet distant, scampering toward a sister who I now saw was engaged in a struggle of her own with two familiar-scented Atwood males.

Ah, the bridge watchers had made a reappearance. So Ransom had kept an eye on us after all. Hadn’t been as hands-off about Gunner’s exile as he’d initially appeared.

And as if my puzzle-piecing had caught the pack leader’s attention, Ransom’s eyes abruptly bored into me from only a few feet distant. Meanwhile, Tank, Allen, and Crow were all belly down in the mud in wolf form, resolutely peering the other way as one of the bridge watchers wrenched Kira’s right arm up behind her back.

They aren’t going to help her. This sign of cowardice on the part of my supposed allies hit me strangely, deep and low like a punch in the gut. For the last three months, every one of our house mates had treated Kira like a beloved kid sister. But now, when push came to shove, they were just going to let her be manhandled without batting a lash?

Well, I wasn’t so fickle with my loyalties. I bared my teeth, unsure what a single fox could do against masses of wolves but ready to make a stab at some sort of offensive anyway.

Only, before I could act, Ransom growled out an order. “Rein in your woman,” he demanded, gaze turning now to his kneeling, naked sibling.

And Gunner didn’t even attempt to disobey his brother. Didn’t jerk his chin and give his men the right to help us out of our predicament.

Instead, he lifted his head from perusing the mud. Met my eyes. Used my debt against me.

“Mai, stop,” Gunner said curtly. And, predictably, the kitsune necessity to repay all of the kindness Gunner had showed me and Kira froze my body mid-swivel. Wrenched me back to humanity. Knocked me into the mud so hard that I didn’t get back up.