“No. By the time I’d learned to control myself, he was dead.” Gideon blew out a breath. “Enough about me, love. What are you going to do about Rinaldi?”

What, indeed? she thought. That was the question, wasn’t it? “We’ll take the fight to them.”

“Smart girl,” Gideon murmured. “So, what’s your next move?”

“I have absolutely no idea. I was hoping you’d know.”

“It all depends on whether you want to attack them in human form or wolf.”

“Hmm. I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think we need to do a little reconnaissance over at their compound. See what kind of precautions they’re taking, if they’ve ramped up their patrols. If we can get close enough, we might be able to find out if they’re planning another hit.”

Kay nodded. He was right. They needed to take action. Two of their people were dead. If she didn’t fight back, Rinaldi would take it as a sign of weakness. If it came to a fight, there would surely be more casualties. The thought of going to war was sobering. Intimidating. Frightening.

“You and I should go check things out tonight,” Gideon said.

“Just the two of us?” she asked incredulously.

“We don’t want so many that we’re tripping over each other. We just need to test their defenses, find out if they’ve increased their security.”

That made sense. “Let me change my clothes.”

“That’s my girl.”

Kay changed into a pair of black pants and a black sweater. She pinned her hair up and covered it with a black knit cap, then pulled on a pair of boots.

Gideon tucked a lock of hair under her cap. “You look like a ninja.”

Kay laughed. “That’s me.”

“You ready?” Gideon asked.

She blew out a sigh. “Ready.”

Before leaving the house, Kay took a minute to let Greta and Brett know where she and Gideon were going. Brett was against it. Greta wasn’t happy about it, but she saw the wisdom in scoping things out.

It didn’t take long to reach the border between the two packs. Once there, Gideon suggested they both shift.

He watched the boundary while Kay undressed. He knew by the ripple in the air when she shifted. He joined her moments later. Side by side, they padded through the darkness toward the valley that sheltered the pack’s headquarters.

Gideon paused when they reached the fence line. Lifting his head, he sniffed the air. A half-dozen men patrolled the perimeter; two in human form, four in wolf form.

Taking the lead, he trotted along the fence toward where the two humans stood, talking quietly.

“She won’t fight Rudolfo,” the taller of the two men was saying.

“Why do you say that?” the second man asked. “She killed Victor.”

“Don’t you know anything? Her father forced her to marry Victor. She hated him.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“She killed him. No divorce necessary. No loose ends.”

The second man shook his head. “She’ll fight. She doesn’t have a choice.”

“Then why hasn’t she issued a challenge? We’ve killed two of her pack mates. Tomorrow night, we’ll kill two or three more.”

“It’s obvious Rudolfo’s trying to provoke her. She’ll either have to fight or back down as Alpha. Rudolfo wants her to fight. He outweighs her by a good sixty pounds. She doesn’t have a chance. He’ll be able to avenge both Victor and Diego and take over as Alpha of the Shadow Pack all in the same night.”

Gideon had heard enough. Nudging Kay’s shoulder, he turned and loped back to where she had left her clothing.

She quickly shifted and dressed. “So, Rudolfo’s trying to provoke me, is he?” she said, jamming her knit cap on her head. “Well, it’s working. When they come tomorrow night, we’ll be ready for them.”

When they returned to the Shadow Pack’s compound, Kay and Gideon met with Greta and Brett in the living room.

“So,” Greta said when Kay had finished relaying the conversation she and Gideon had overheard, “where do we go from here?”

“Tomorrow night, I want Jared, Tyler, and Joe to patrol the fence line. I want the rest of the men to take cover on the outside of the fence, in pairs. I don’t want Rinaldi’s men to know what hit them. They’ve killed two of ours. I want to even the score.”

Brett nodded. “They’ve got it coming. I’ll alert the pack.”

“If they decide to attack us in force, do you think they’ll wait for the full moon?” Greta asked.

“I don’t know. I guess it depends on how anxious Rudolfo is for revenge.”

“So, they won’t come busting in here with guns blazing?” Gideon asked, glancing at the others.

“I don’t think so,” Kay replied, grinning.

“Why not?”

Kay stared at Gideon. “Why not?” she repeated, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Brett? Greta?”

Brett answered. “It’s not our way. We’ve always done our fighting during the full moon, pack against pack, or Alpha against Alpha. Or on the sly, the way Rinaldi’s men killed Bobby and Stewart. As a declaration of war.”

Kay mulled that over for several minutes, then pushed it to the back of her mind to reexamine later.

“So, Brett, have you tried shifting yet?” she asked.

“No.”

“Try it, now.”

Rising, Brett stepped into the middle of the room. He stripped down to his shorts, then took a deep breath, his brow furrowed in concentration. At first, nothing happened; then, little by little, there was a change in the air, a subtle ripple of preternatural power that gradually grew stronger until it raised the hairs along Kay’s arms.

A growl rumbled low in Brett’s throat and in the blink of an eye, his shorts shredded and a large brown wolf stood before them.

Kay smiled.

Greta clapped her hands. “It works! It really works!”

“I think it would be a good thing if our whole pack could change at will,” Kay remarked. “It would give us the upper hand if it comes to a full-scale war. We’re stronger in wolf form. Harder to kill. Our senses are sharper.”

Gideon shook his head. “Are you sure about this? Won’t it make them all Alphas?”

“No,” Kay said. Her father had told her that only a few of each generation were born with the Alpha gene. When she had asked why, he had told her that if every pack member carried it, there wouldn’t be any werewolves after a while, because they would kill each other off. “That gene is only passed to a few in each generation.” She shook her head. She’d had it all this time and never knew. “I’m the last of my father’s direct line. The only other pack member who might have the gene is Brett and Greta’s son, Isaac.”

“So my blood somehow enables them to shift at will and that’s all?”

“Well, as far as I know,” Kay said. “There’s no way to be sure.”

“If you decide to go ahead with this, then Isaac should be exempt until we determine whether he carries the gene or not,” Greta said. “You know how unpredictable young Alphas can be.”

Kay nodded. Young males were never left alone until they learned to control their wolf.

Kay glanced at Brett, who stood in the middle of the room, watching her.

“Now for the hard part,” she said. “Brett, can you shift back?”

It took him less time than usual to resume his own form.

“How do you feel?” Kay asked.

“Good,” he said, pulling on his pants. “I feel good. Hell, I feel better than good. I feel like I could take on the whole Green Mountain Pack by myself!”

“Any desire to take over our pack?” Kay asked, eyeing him somewhat apprehensively.

Laughing, Brett shook his head. “No. None at all.”

Greta picked up his shoes and socks and tossed him his shirt. “Let’s go bring the pack up to speed. We’ll all need to get a good night’s sleep. Good night, Gideon,” she said, nodding in his direction. “See you in the morning, Kiya.”

Shrugging into his shirt, Brett followed his wife out of the room.

Kay stared after Brett.

“Something wrong?” Gideon asked.

“No. I was just thinking—Brett was able to shift right away. Why did it take me so long?”

“Probably because you’re only half wolf. Or maybe because you’re female.”

She punched him in the arm. “Chauvinist pig vampire!”

“Ouch!”

“You’re probably right about the half wolf thing. Even though it didn’t happen right away, I could feel it coming,” she mused, remembering how her appetite had increased, until it seemed that she was hungry all the time. There had been other symptoms, too, changes in her body that she couldn’t explain at the time. She stretched her arms over her head. “I think I’m ready to call it a night,” she said, yawning. “Are you ready for bed?”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He didn’t say so, but she knew he was going out to feed. She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Twenty at the most.”

She shook her head as he vanished from her sight. If only he could pass on that ability to vanish at will, she thought, heading for her bedroom. That would really give them an edge.

Thinking of Gideon, she changed into her nightgown, then washed her hands and face, combed out her hair, and brushed her teeth.

When she returned to the bedroom, he was there, lounging against the pillows.

“You look like a sultan awaiting his harem,” she remarked.

He jerked his chin in her direction. “Pretty small harem.”

“Are you complaining?”

His gaze moved over her, ever so slowly. “Nope. You’re all the woman I need.”