“Or the fangs.”

“Or,” he said with a smile, “you be the vampire and I’ll be the alpha, and we’ll see what happens.”

* * *

* * *

I hadn’t brought many clothes, but I didn’t need a closetful.

Black jeans. Black tank. Black boots. Simple, dark, powerful. I unraveled my braid, tossed my head, and shook out my hair. When I flipped my hair back, it made a long and wavy halo of soft gold around my shoulders. Lipstick of deep crimson, and my sword in hand. No scabbard, no belt. Just gleaming steel.

The rest was up to me.

When I walked back into the room, Theo, Lulu, Connor, and Alexei were waiting.

“About fucking time you showed a little fang,” Lulu said, nodding as she looked at me. Theo and Alexei had similar looks of approval.

I’d have summed up Connor’s expression in a single word: Yes.

“That’s going to make quite an impression,” Theo said.

“That’s the idea,” I said, wiggling my fingers around the corded braid of the katana handle, feeling for just the right grip. And enjoying the satisfaction when my fingers settled into just the right places.

I hoped I wouldn’t need to use it to shed blood in a room of Connor’s Packmates and kin. But that didn’t make me a little regretful I wouldn’t be able to use it at all.

* * *

* * *

They were assembled in the main room. Everett and Cash leaning lazily against the fireplace with cigars. The rest of the clan exuding nervous energy and plenty of anticipation.

Georgia joined Everett and Cash, while Alexei and Theo slipped into the back. Connor and I cut straight through the middle of the room, to the shock, surprise, and fury of several clan members.

There were outbursts from shifters, and I caught “blade” and “bitch” thrown around by some of them. I glanced back over my shoulder, met every gaze in turn, and dared them to step forward. To transform talk into action. And knew that none of them would.

“Quite a dramatic entrance,” Cash said, then puffed on the cigar. “You want points for flair and originality?”

“We have an update,” Connor said, voice flat and all pretense of politeness gone. And then he laid it out.

“Beyo, John, Zane, and Marcus,” Connor said. “Members of your clan who’ve become interested in a cult called the Sons of Aeneas bought magic from the spellseller in Grand Bay in order to change themselves into more powerful creatures. They did that in order to punish Loren for his harassment of Paisley and his role in her death. The magic turned them into human-wolf hybrids, and they’re responsible for the recent attacks, Loren’s death, the Stone farm attack.”

Behind us, the crowd erupted with noise. I didn’t turn around, but could feel their anger at my back, the magic as hot as fire.

Everett’s face showed every expression—shock, disbelief, anger. Cash remained stoic, his only movements the occasional puff of his cigar.

“That’s quite a story,” Cash said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. “And an interesting way to turn attention from you and your . . . paramour,” he said, giving me a look so twisted with loathing and lasciviousness, it made my skin crawl, “to the clan.”

He stubbed out the cigar in a glass ashtray on the high mantle, then turned to Connor, hands on his hips. “In other words, you blame us for the crisis. That’s not going to release you from the Obsideo.”

“We blame no one,” Connor said. “We’re just presenting the facts.”

Cash snorted. “The facts always depend on who’s telling the tale. You have actual, biological proof that Zane and the others turned into these ‘hybrids’?”

Connor arched an eyebrow. “Four members of your clan were present at the attack and saw the hybrids.”

“And saw no transformation.”

“Beyo transformed on a public street in town,” I said, and Cash just rolled his eyes.

“Beyo is unconscious and hasn’t told his side of the story. Bring me a clan witness, and we’ll talk.”

“You want DNA samples?” Connor asked.

“I’m asking you for anything other than this tall tale you’re dumping at my door. Look, Zane’s a problem child. We know it. We’ll deal with it. But there is absolutely zero chance he pulled something like this off.”

“And his visit to the spellseller?”

“You think a two-bit, third-rate sorceress is telling you the truth?” Cash’s laugh was a humorless bark. “She sells garbage from China and has no appreciable skills.”

“Okay,” Connor said, crossing his arms. “I’ll bite. What’s your theory?”

“I have no idea,” Cash said. “But all this started when you walked in that door. I don’t know what kind of witchcraft you brought into our home. I won’t let you turn this clan against itself. I won’t let you use it to win political points with your father”—he looked at me again—“or the Houses.”

Casually, he put an arm on the mantle. “We’ll see what Beyo has to say. Then we’ll know the truth, at least as far as Beyo is capable of giving it.”

“And if someone dies in the meantime?” Connor asked.

Cash’s gaze was hard and brutal. “Then we’ll wonder how you managed to predict what would happen. You want to be released from the Obsideo, I suggest you go back to the drawing board.”

* * *

* * *

  We walked out of the lodge, assembled again in the clearing near the horseshoe pit.

“He’s using you to cement his own power,” Theo said. “Clever. Dickish but clever.”

“Yeah,” Connor said. “It’s not a bad spin for short-term thinking. Spin the problem as caused by us, or complicated by us, or unresolved by us. Problem is, it falls apart in the long term.”

“Because the clan falls apart in the long term,” Georgia said grimly.

“Yeah,” Connor said again. “We already know he doesn’t trust the younger shifters, and we’ve handed him proof he was right. If he was smart, he’d use this situation to cement the elders’ power—call it proof the younger generation isn’t fit to rule. Instead, he’s focused on Chicago versus the clan or vampires versus the clan.”

“Outsiders versus the clan,” Theo said, and Connor nodded.

“Exactly. Even if we’re going, the intraclan struggles will still be there, simmering. Eventually, that pot boils over.” He looked at Georgia. “You should consider putting more guards on Beyo.”

“I want to object and say Cash wouldn’t try to hurt him. But that would be a lie.”

I nodded. “He’s an eyewitness. The only certain link between clan and creatures.”

“Beyo has responsibility here,” Connor said. “But he’s not responsible for everything. Cash takes Beyo out, and he’s got a very tidy answer to his very thorny problem.”

“Blame it on the spellseller and the bad egg,” Theo agreed. “And everything’s hunky-dory until the hybrids come back.”

“Short term,” Connor said again. “He’s just arrogant enough to think that if he can solve the immediate problem, he’ll have plenty of time to address the rest of it.”

“A fucking disgrace,” Georgia said, gaze narrowing at the lodge. “This clan has become a fucking disgrace.”

“Unfortunately,” Connor said, “I’m inclined to agree.” And he watched warily as Maeve approached us. She was alone this time, and the obvious malice in her eyes was gone. Her expression was blank, so it didn’t give me any idea of what she was actually thinking.

She nodded at Georgia, then turned to Connor. “That was quite a story you told.”

“Not a story,” he said. “The absolute truth.”

She looked pained, but nodded. “I don’t want to believe it, but I know Zane and the others. They’re arrogant, sometimes stupid, and always complaining about the elders.”

“Do you know anything specific about the creatures?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We weren’t friends. Just acquaintances. It’s not the kind of thing they’d have talked to me about.” She looked away, then back at me. “Could we talk?”

I lifted my brows. “About?”

“You’re going to make me say it aloud in front of everyone?”

I watched her for a moment. “Could you give us a minute?” I asked Connor.

He watched Maeve just as I’d done, considering, then nodded. “All right. Meet us back at the cabin.”

“Sure.” I waited until they’d walked away, then lifted my brows. “Well?” I asked Maeve.

Her eyes flashed, but this time I thought I saw respect in them. “You’re a hard-ass—you know that?”

“I’m a vampire.” I gave her a toothy smile. “So that’s a compliment.”

“Fair enough.” She cleared her throat and didn’t make eye contact for a long moment. “Miranda was rude about the Connor thing. I thought she had information about you—knew something about you using him. I don’t know you very well—”

“You don’t know me at all,” I said.

“That’s fair,” she said after a moment. “I only know what I saw in the media, and what I’ve heard.”

“From Miranda.”

“From sources,” she said. “There were rumors this was just a game for you. And I took those rumors for fact, because I didn’t take the time to, you know, talk to you about my concerns. To be up-front. I just assumed and accused and was wrong, so now I look like the asshole. Because it’s pretty obvious that you aren’t using him.”

“Finally, something we can agree on.”

A corner of her mouth quirked. “I don’t like you, but I kind of like you.”