Ethan stared at her as if she’d diagnosed him as having grown wings and horns. “My ability is a weapon.”

Tana arched her eyebrows. “I can use a scalpel to stab you dead. Doesn’t mean it’s not also a tool of medicine.”

Ethan’s dubious expression didn’t change but he said, “Feel free to call on me if you believe I can provide assistance.”

Tana nodded before returning her attention to Selenka, her brown eyes tired and the usually glowing dark of her skin dull. “The injured will be fine, especially with the first aid we rendered and if we give them a blanket each.”

She smoothed back curls that had escaped the tight bun she preferred to wear while working. “I hate to leave them out here when they’re so scared, but a little hardship might knock sense into them.” Tana’s eyes flashed. “I’ve been telling them about burns and what they do to a body.” That explained the renewed devastation and tears on more than one face. Nope, it wasn’t a good idea to piss off a healer.

Selenka touched Tana on the cheek, alpha to distressed packmate, and the healer turned into her touch. Leaning in, Selenka nudged up her chin and gently pressed her lips to Tana’s, giving the healer the strength of pack that ran in Selenka’s veins. “This dark night is almost done, lastochka. Soon you can rest your healer’s hands.”

Only after Tana had taken a deep breath and nodded did Selenka walk over to the intruders. There was no gentleness in her now, nothing but tempered fury. “You’ll be spending the night out here, under the trees you tried to destroy, with the ugly scent of fuel to keep you company.”

Growls filled the clearing at the reminder of what the intruders had intended to do, the hell they’d nearly unleashed. “Don’t try to escape unless you want to die under wolf claws and teeth.” Selenka’s wolf took grim pleasure in the acrid fear coming off the intruders’ bodies. “Your punishments are to be as follows.”

Only the six changelings—the four wolves and two nonpredatories—looked relieved after she stopped speaking. She decided to make the situation crystal clear to the others. “If I wished, I could claw you bloody, then throw your mauled bodies out on the road as a warning, and Enforcement wouldn’t lift a finger to help you—because we own you now.”

Chapter 20

It is agreed by all parties that the final treaty will formalize what is already accepted fact: that on lands held by predatory changeling groups, whether pack, clan, or family, it is that group’s laws that hold sway. No interference by outside parties will be countenanced.

—Adrian Kenner, peace negotiator, Territorial Wars (18th century)

HEADS JERKED UP, throats moving as the shocked Psy and humans finally realized the shit they were in. Wolf in her eyes, until she knew the reflective glow had to be eerie, Selenka pointed to the right. “Do you see that wolf? His name is Ilarion and he is only eighteen years old. A disciplined young male of my pack who’d die to protect those weaker than him.

“He would never think to go into the territory of another people and threaten their home and their vulnerable. You are all older than him. Yet I wouldn’t trust any of you to watch so much as a kitten.”

Shame suffused more than one face. Zivko’s head fell forward, and the other wolves couldn’t meet her gaze, either.

Leaving them to stew in their shame, she nodded at Ilarion and his fellow soldier trainee to begin passing out the blankets they’d brought down at Tana’s request. The two strong young wolves were an asset to her pack, and she made sure they saw her pride in them.

That in progress, she turned to Gregori, Ethan and Margo having gone to help the healers pack up. “You okay to handle security here overnight?”

“No problem.” From his tone he’d enjoy glowering at the intruders. “Cuffs on or off?”

“Go with your instincts.” Blood hot, she pulled out her phone. “I’m going to talk to Blaise.” Stepping into the trees, she didn’t bother to introduce herself when the leader of Haven’s Disciples answered at the other end. “Fifteen of your people aren’t going to be coming home today. They are guests in BlackEdge territory.”

A small silence before Blaise said, “How badly are they injured?”

Selenka told him. She also told him the extent of their attempted crime.

Blaise swore. “I’ll punish them myself,” he said. “And I won’t go easy—you can count on it.”

“I won’t. They won’t be coming home until they’ve completed their punishment.” She had no faith in Blaise’s ability to control his people. “We’ll set up temporary accommodations for them here.” It wouldn’t be much more than tents and sanitary facilities, but the group was lucky she hadn’t followed the approach taken by California’s SnowDancer wolves: shoot first and ask questions of the corpses. Though that stance was looking more and more attractive.

“You can’t do that,” Blaise said, and for the first time since they’d met, there was a growl in his tone. There it was at last: a glimpse beyond Blaise’s suave and civilized facade. He remained a wolf under the skin, and that wolf thought it could best an alpha of Selenka’s strength.

A younger Selenka would’ve gone for his throat for the insult. Alpha Selenka Durev noted the slip and stored it for consideration. Blaise had just gone from a tolerated annoyance to a threat. Because what were the chances that a man who liked to control his flock would be unaware of their actions?

He was arrogant enough that things could be taking place under his nose, but the flip side was more likely to be true—that it was Blaise who’d manipulated Zivko and the others to an act that could’ve led to a catastrophic and heinous outcome.

Selenka was within her rights to order the Disciples out of the territory, but this wasn’t about simple annoyance any longer. She wanted them in her sight so she could get proof that would mean the end of the Disciples once and for all—Blaise wouldn’t be getting the chance to get his hands on other vulnerable wolves.

“Our laws are clear and your people broke them,” she said on a growl of her own that shut him up. “Do not show your face anywhere near my territory, Blaise. You—or anyone you send—will end up without a throat.”

She hung up without waiting for a response, then located Ethan. Seeing Gregori had the situation in hand and that Margo had decided to hang with her far grumpier younger brother, she said, “Walk with me.” She could’ve ordered one of her people to bring down a vehicle earlier, but she’d known she’d need time in the forest to resettle her skin, be the alpha her grieving pack needed.

“I can return afterward to help Gregori,” Ethan said fifteen minutes after they’d stepped into the dark embrace of the trees.

Halting, Selenka touched her fingers to his jaw. “No. I need you to stay with me.” It was difficult for her to admit to such need even to the man who was her mate, but Ethan’s openness spoke to the wild girl she’d once been, the one who’d worn her heart on her sleeve and had it kicked for her trouble.

“For my pack,” she told him, “I must be alpha. Yes, I can let down my hair with my lieutenants and my friends, but I can never be anything but their alpha. It is in my skin and it is who we are.”

The light-fractured ice of him, jagged against her senses and riven with static, his pale eyes locked with hers. “The hierarchy always exists,” he said, as if working through her words. “Whether or not you acknowledge it at any one time does not mean it’s no longer there. I am outside the hierarchy, and thus, you don’t have to be Alpha Durev with me, can be Selenka.”

“If that was all it took,” she said, continuing to stroke the bristled roughness of his jaw, stomach tight and wolf filled with pride, “all an alpha would have to do was make a close friend or two outside of the pack.”

Ethan tilted his head slightly to the side, an action common amongst wolves. She wondered if he even realized he’d picked up the small motion. It fascinated her, how he was already integrating with her pack while remaining resolutely himself. No one would ever mistake Ethan for anything but an Arrow.

“It has to do with the bond between us,” he said, pupils flaring. “Even with the interference, I can sense you within me, a primal wolf who . . . values me.”

Selenka wanted to kill anyone who had ever hurt him and made him feel lesser. Closing her hand over his nape, she spoke with her lips against his. “Just know that you are the one person with whom I am not Alpha Durev. To you, I am and will always be Selenka. And you are and will always be mine.” It was a growl, her wolf in agreement with the human part of her that this man was worth the risk to her heart. “You are mine first and you will always be mine first.”

Making no effort to hide the embers that burned inside him, his hands possessive on her hips, her extraordinary, complex, deadly mate considered that for a long moment. “Am I your Zaira?”

It took her a second to place that name—Aden Kai’s mate didn’t court publicity. Like most of the Arrow squad, she preferred to live in the shadows. But her link with Aden meant she had a certain profile, especially among those who worked with the squad.

Selenka had seen Aden and Zaira together only once, but it had been enough for her to understand theirs was a mating. Maybe Psy didn’t call it that, but it didn’t change the fact the two were bonded to the core.

“Who is Zaira to Aden?” she asked, wondering how Ethan saw the relationship.

“Knight to his king.” The starlight barely penetrated the canopy, yet what light there was seemed drawn to the angles of Ethan’s face. “As I am the knight to your queen.”

Selenka frowned. “I don’t think Aden thinks of himself that way in relation to his mate, and I don’t think of myself as queen over you.” Mates were equals always. “You’re my knight only in the sense that you’re my permanent and forever backup.”