To think, the Shifters in her Shiftertown had driven her away. What total dumb-asses.

“You need to learn to hold it,” Zander said, trying to tamp down the thoughts stirring inside him. Long twilit evenings, Rae next to me in the bed below, the boat rocking as the setting sun trickles through the windows.

Zander cleared his throat and lifted the sheathed sword he’d brought out for himself, one with no magic at all, as far as he could tell.

Rae watched him. “Explain to me who I’m going to be fighting with a sword?”

Zander shrugged. “You never know. The Fae still use them. They charge out of their world from time to time, trying to do whatever shit they take it into their heads to do. They have swords that control the Collars—did you know that?” Zander jerked his finger at the Collar around Rae’s neck.

The black and silver of it gleamed against her skin, enhancing her instead of detracting.

“I know,” Rae said. “My dad explained it to us.”

The Fae had, twenty or so years ago, had a hand in making the Collars that the human government put around the neck of every Shifter they could round up. Since that time, the Fae had been crafting magic swords that worked to activate the Collars when they were near a Shifter, thus rendering whatever Shifter they pleased in horrific pain.

The Fae hadn’t yet burst out of Faerie waving their magic swords, but everyone knew they would someday. Shifters with Collars were now working, in secret, to take off the Collars and replace them with fakes so the humans would be none the wiser. The cubs and Shifters far down the hierarchy already had replacements, but it took time. The secret of removing the Collars painlessly was an influx of Fae gold, which was rare and hard to obtain. Their supply, given to Shifters by a Fae who actually wasn’t a total bastard, was small.

Zander had never worn a Collar and wasn’t about to start now. The Shifters he’d visited in Austin had tried to get him to wear a fake so he could avoid arrest if someone realized he was Shifter, but Zander couldn’t bring himself to try even that. The touch of the metal did something to him—sucked out his soul maybe. He didn’t know.

As nice as Rae looked in her Collar, Zander would love to see her out of it. The symbol of her captivity bothered him a lot.

“So,” he said, balancing himself on his bare feet. “Say a Fae gate opens in the middle of the ocean and I, a crazed Fae, spring through it. What do you do?”

Zander drew his sword with a whoosh of steel. Sunlight flashed on the blade that he kept polished in honor of the man who’d bequeathed it to him.

Rae started to lift her sword, holding it all wrong, then her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think the Fae carry samurai swords.”

Zander moved the sword in front of him, the blade perfectly balanced. “Maybe not.”

“Where did you get it?” Rae asked with curiosity, but she also had a teasing light in her eyes. “A souvenir shop?”

“No, from a samurai,” Zander said. “He was a friend. He left his swords to me when he died.”

“Oh.” Rae flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“He was a good guy. A Shifter. I saved his life once and then when he was dying of old age, he sent for me and gave me the swords for safekeeping. He didn’t have anyone in his pack left alive and he didn’t want humans getting hold of them.”

Rae lowered the sword, looking interested in his story. “There are Shifters in Japan?”

“Not as many as there were. Harder to hide these days—most have come to the States. But yeah, there are Shifters in Japan. Bears in the north and some wolves in the mountains. This guy was Lupine.” Zander raised the sword again, holding it with perfect steadiness. “There are Shifters all over the world. It’s called diaspora.”

Rae’s brows went up. “Ooh, the bear knows the big words.”

“Pay attention, smart-ass.”

Zander tapped the end of her blade. Rae raised the sword clumsily, but not as clumsily as he would have thought. She’d either been practicing or it was helping her.

“Like this,” he said.

He stepped to her and showed her how his sword rested loosely in his grip, his fingers light, his thumb rotated toward the outer part of his arm.

“Keep your wrist flexible but not too loose, straight but not stiff,” he said. “It’s not like in the movies where they hold the swords like clubs and go clang, clang, chop, chop. A good swordsman can do anything with his sword. Peel a grape if he wants to.”

Rae tried to copy his hold, his stance. “I don’t think I could hit a grape with this thing. Or even a cantaloupe.”

“It takes practice. Get used to the weight of the blade, the momentum when you swing it. Eventually it will become an extension of your arm—you’ll feel what it feels.”

Zander took a step to his left, reached out with his blade, and hooked Jake the Snake, who’d slithered out from his box in the wheelhouse, over the blunt side.

Rae took a step back, bringing the sword up in a perfect defensive move.

Zander’s amusement rose as he set Jake on his other wrist. “You’re a Shifter who grew up in the woods. A snake scares you?”

“The snakes in the woods are rattlers, all different kinds of them. I keep a respectful distance.”

“Respect.” Zander turned away. “Is that what you’re calling it these days?” He stepped quickly into the wheelhouse and returned Jake to his box. “Sorry, guy. She’ll come around, don’t worry.”

Zander made sure Jake was comfy and came out to the deck again, shutting the door behind him.

“Let’s do some swings,” Zander said. “Controlled,” he growled as Rae whirled the sword at her side.

Rae scowled in frustration. “I can’t help it. I think it wants to play.”

“Great. A piece of metal with ADHD.”

Zander gave a moment of thanks that the samurai had been a Shifter without any Goddess magic, just a regular guy who happened to be a perfectly trained warrior. The Lupine’s entire clan had been samurai over the centuries, the people around them completely unaware they were Shifters. Or at least, if the villagers had guessed, they’d never betrayed them.

“I’ll put you through some drills,” Zander said. “Maybe that will calm it down.”

He showed her some easy moves, a block, a lunge, a parry. Rae learned them quickly. She had the litheness of a Feline even though she was wolf—maybe all those years of living with Felines had rubbed off on her.