Rogue Elements

Karen Chance

Karen Chance grew up in Orlando, Florida, the home of make-believe, which probably explains a lot. She has since resided in France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, and New Orleans, mostly goofing off but occasionally teaching history. She is currently back in Florida, courtesy of Katrina, where she writes full-time in between dodging hurricanes (and occasionally drinking a few). Her USA Today and New York Times bestselling Cassandra Palmer series has recently spawned a spinoff, Midnight’s Daughter, following the adventures of dhampir Dorina Basarab.

“There’s no such thing as a half werewolf,” I said, trying not to growl. I’d been dreading this conversation for six months. It figured my boss would wait until now to bring it up. Way to ruin my Christmas Eve.

Gil looked at me impatiently, his bald head reflecting the office fluorescents. The same shiny dome and lack of humor could be seen in the painting behind him: Reginald Saunders, the newly elected leader of the Silver Circle of light magic users. He was the magical community’s version of a president, only without the pesky term limits. Gil was his older brother, and head of the Vegas branch of the War Mage Corps, the Circle’s version of a police force. It was my luck to get transferred from a nice, nondescript department in Jersey to one where any screwup would be all too obvious.

“Your mother was a Were, Lia. House Lobizón.”

“Clan Lobizón. And my mother was a human with a disease.” God, I got tired of trying to get that simple idea through thick skulls. “Lycanthropy isn’t a genetic trait, like eye color. It isn’t passed on to children—”

“Except when it is.” Gil regarded me narrowly, as if expecting claws to show themselves at any second.

It was the usual reaction. Dad was a de Croissets, from an old magical family with a tradition of service in the Corps. To counteract my human surname, my mother called me Accalia, meaning she-wolf in Latin. The combination was enough to get me a double take anywhere in the magical world.

“I’m a war mage, Gil,” I said after a pause. My therapist had suggested deep breathing for my occasional anger management issues. So far, I hadn’t seen a lot of improvement. Of course, working with Gil probably had something to do with that. “How many Weres do you know with magical ability?”

“None. But I know it has happened. They don’t die after being bitten, like vamps, and therefore don’t lose their magic.” He gave me a not-so-nice grin. “I looked it up.”

“I’m not a Were!”

“My point is that your connection to those … people … makes you perfect for this job.”

His tone made it clear that for “people” he’d just as soon have substituted “animals.” I seriously considered turning and walking out of the office. One reason I didn’t was the certainty that another incident of “insubordination,” as my superiors called anything other than unquestioning obedience, and I was out the door permanently. A second was the photograph of the girl staring up at me from the corner of his desk.

She was a pretty sixteen-year-old with china-pale skin and natural honey-blond hair. Her eyes—blue according to her file—were hidden behind Gucci shades, and her five-two frame was draped across the front of this year’s trendy sports car. She didn’t look like a typical runaway.

Of course, she didn’t look like a werewolf, either.

“Daniela Arnou is the fifth Were girl to go missing on my watch in the last six months,” Gil informed me, his complexion darkening to pre-heart-attack level. “The Weres never ask us for help, but they have this time. And the Circle is leaning on me to show results.”

“The ransom demands should tell you something.”

“There haven’t been any ransom demands. Not for any of them.”

“But … why take them, then? Attacking high clan members is tantamount to suicide. Even if they were returned unharmed, the insult would require blood. Why take that risk without a big reward?”

“There you go.” Gil looked like he’d scored a point. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You immediately guessed their status.”

“Rank,” I corrected, “and it wasn’t hard. Arnou is currently the leading clan. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m not the person you—”

His palm hit the top of his desk, cutting me off. “Do you have any idea what kind of flack I’m getting over this?”

Yeah, and that’s the main concern here, I didn’t say. It didn’t take much to set Gil off. Usually, just my presence was enough. I look more like a Were in human form than do many of the real thing, or, to be more precise, I look like the stereotype: tall, with dark hair and gray eyes. Gil’s prejudice against Weres was outweighed only by his dislike for women in the Corps. He’d hated me on sight. Of course, my service record hadn’t helped. I really didn’t want to remind him about certain all-too-recent issues, but I had to get him to see reason.

“Trust me. You do not want me on this case.”

“I don’t want you on any case!” he said tetchily. “But I don’t have anybody else. No one knows the Weres like you do.”

I gave up on subtlety, never my strong suit anyway. “Did you read my file?” I asked incredulously. The Circle might not know everything about my background, but they knew one thing for certain: no clan wolf was going to tell me a damn thing.

Lycanthropy is rarely contracted in the womb, and when it is, the child usually doesn’t live. Most clan children are infected by their parents at age five or six, when their systems are strong enough to handle the change. But despite being from one of the higher clans, where respect for tradition was practically a religion, my mother had refused. The clan leaders assumed it was due to her husband’s influence, and pointed out that I wouldn’t be properly socialized if she didn’t give in. That I would always be an outsider, always different.

She never told them that I already was.

I was born with Neuri Syndrome. It’s named after an ancient Russian tribe said to have been able to change themselves into wolves. That’s ironic, considering that changing is the one thing carriers of Neuri can never do. It occurs occasionally when the mother is Were and the father is not, which is why female Weres are strongly discouraged from marrying outside the clan. Essentially, it is a milder version of lycanthropy, one that prevents the carrier from getting the full-blown disease.

Neuri is a major cause of concern for the clans. The higher clans usually intermarry among themselves, preferring to add to their numbers by reproduction than to “turn” humans, who understand nothing of the culture or hierarchy. But the lower orders aren’t so picky, especially after a war or feud leaves their numbers depleted. If Neuri were to get into the mainstream population, it would render human recruitment increasingly difficult, as more and more people became immune. For that reason, tradition decreed that babies born with the “aberration” be killed at birth.

For a long time, my mother’s status had been enough to protect me. There weren’t many ahead of her in clan rank and thereby able to challenge her decision, and those who were chose not to do so out of respect or friendship. But two years ago, the old bardulf, the clan chief, died and his successor decided to push the issue. Mother managed to avoid a summons to court, and thereby a new ruling, by pleading illness. Unfortunately, it wasn’t faked.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer shortly after my twenty-third birthday. Long after the treatments failed, long after there was no hope left, she nonetheless went through every painful procedure, just to wring out a few more months, weeks, even days. Because every minute she lived was a minute that the clan couldn’t touch me. A minute closer to twenty-five, the age of majority under Were custom, at which time I could formally declare my emancipation from the clan.

She missed it by less than a week. Two days after she died, I was attacked by eight clan members determined to bring Larentia Lobizón’s only child into the fold before time ran out, whether I liked it or not. They forgot one little detail: I was Guillame de Croissets’ daughter, too, and a war mage in my own right. Not to mention that, while Father is retired, he’s far from helpless. Both of us were half crazy with grief at the time of the attack, which hadn’t even waited for the funeral. The result was a bloodbath spread across three blocks, resulting in six dead Weres, two fires, over five million dollars in property damage, and headlines in all the local papers.

The Circle covered it up as a gang war, but I received a black mark on my record for letting the fight become public as well as a quick transfer. The result where the clan was concerned was still to be determined. I somehow doubted I was going to like the outcome.

Gil was looking at me expectantly, like I was supposed to spill my guts and give him all the sordid little details, as if there weren’t enough already in my file. The only thing the Circle didn’t know was why I’d been attacked. Thanks to Dad’s quick thinking and the clan’s refusal to discuss their business with outsiders, most people thought it was the result of some old family feud. And it was going to stay that way.

“Why are you expected to do anything? Sir,” I added belatedly, in response to his scowl. “The Weres usually handle this sort of thing themselves.”

“That’s what I said when their council threw this mess in my lap, thereby buying myself a royal ass-chewing.” He tapped the glossy photo. “And I mean that literally. This one happens to be the daughter of the king.”

“There’s no such thing. The leading clans do elect a bardric, an overall chief, in times of crisis, but Sebastian has to lead through consensus. It’s not the same as—”

“I don’t care what you people call it,” Gil broke in irritably.

“There is no ‘you people’! I am not a Were!”

“You’re not going to be a war mage, either, if you don’t find that little bitch,” he said, shoving the file into my hands. “Now get out of here.”

Two hours later, I was standing outside the velvet ropes cordoning off the high roller table at a local casino. Despite the stakes, the game was pretty boring, mainly because it was so one-sided. Not surprisingly, considering that one of the players was cheating like mad.

I’d been watching him for almost an hour, and I had to admit he was good. If I hadn’t known what to look for, I might have missed it. It was a small thing, just the slight twitch and flare of a nostril. It could have been a nervous habit or a tell, only this guy was too good to have either. And there was the fact that it happened every time someone made a bet.

“I raise.” The skinny blond kid at the end of the table, who looked really out of place in this gimlet-eyed group, threw in a handful of thousand-dollar chips. I guess he was too young to have heard the old saying: If you’re at the table more than a few minutes and you can’t identify the sucker, you are the sucker.

The brunet settled back in his seat, eyelids drooping over whiskey-colored eyes, handsome face as pleasantly blank as it had been all night. It went with the rest of the package: a well-muscled body done up in good-old-boy denim, cowboy boots, and a sleepy expression. Almost as if playing for a pot that rivaled my yearly salary bored him. He threw in a sizable chunk of his chips. “Call.”

The blond’s confident expression faltered as he turned over his hand: three jacks. It was good, but not great—not with a pot like that. He’d been bluffing, and I had a feeling his opponent knew it. The brunet let the tension draw out for a few long seconds, then casually flipped over a full house. “Better luck next time, kid,” he said. It didn’t sound much like he meant it.

He cashed out, probably afraid that winning any more would put his name on the casino’s suspect list, and headed out the front door. I let him get a small head start, then followed. I needed help to crack this case, and odd as it seemed, he was my best chance to get it.

Fremont Street is where the locals go to drink and gamble, in that order. But despite living in Vegas for six months, I’d never been among them. There was too much temptation to do a spell to skew the odds in my favor, and thereby violate the ban on magical interference in human games of chance. Rigging the games risked letting the human authorities, who monitored them closer than terrorism, discover the existence of the supernatural community. As a result, it was a serious no-no. The kind that carried a possible death penalty.

It was the coercive potential of that little fact that had me following a werewolf through the holiday crowds, while huge, goggle-eyed faces stared down at us like neon gods from the psychedelic arch overhead. Despite everything, he’d never lost the loose-hipped saunter of the upper clans, the one that said the whole world was there for him to walk on. The stride looked casual, but it ate up a lot of ground. I lost him in the crowd around an aging busker belting out “Silver Bells” from the bed of a rusty pickup.

I dodged the cops converging on the illegally parked vehicle and stared around, grimacing. My quarry was nowhere in sight, meaning he’d probably ducked into one of the clubs. But which one? The buxom redheads or the fetish-clad blondes? I mentally flipped a coin and decided on the blondes. A pert version with black eyebrows and a twenties-era bob gave me an odd look, but let me in.

The lights were down in preparation for the next act, and there was enough smoke in the air to count as a screen, but I thought I saw him lolling at the bar. I was sure of it when he suddenly stood up as I approached, the scowl on his face visible even in the bad light. I decided not to take chances. The guy could move like quicksilver; it had been hard enough tailing him when he wasn’t trying to evade me.

He slowly sat back down, eyeing his left hand, which was glued to the bar top by the remains of his whiskey glass. It had been a thick, substantial piece that made a nice puddle when it liquefied and then grew solid again almost immediately, serving as a makeshift handcuff. Along with his fingers, the spell had trapped a little Santa-on-a-stick that had decorated the now evaporated booze. It grinned cheerfully out at the world, like a bug caught in amber.

“Hello, Cyrus.” I appropriated an empty stool on his right. “Miss me?”

“You owe me a drink,” he said, trying to flex his fingers and failing. “I’ll tell my lawyers to add it to the bill when I sue you for assault.”

“Two bourbons, straight up.” I slid a twenty over the sticky counter to the bartender, who thanks to the dim light, had yet to notice the mess. “It’s on me. You’ll need your money for bail.”

Cyrus slammed his free hand down, shattering the glass and making several nearby patrons jump. He began digging chunks out of his palm. “I’m being arrested? On what charge?”

“You’re a lone wolf, without clan protection. Do I need one?”

“The last time I checked, yes!”

“Hmm.” I sucked on a pretzel while the bartender poured our drinks. “Then I guess I’ll have to go with endangering the Secrecy Act.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Your little gambling problem?”

There was a slight pause. “It’s only a problem when I’m losing.”

“Or cheating. By the way, how’d you do it? Can you tell how much a person is sweating? Or does their scent change when they’re bluffing?”

“If you don’t know, you can’t prove a damn thing,” he said firmly, abruptly standing up. “I’ve had a wonderful evening, Lia. Too bad this wasn’t it.”

“If you’re going to quote Groucho, at least get him right. And lone wolf, remember?” Where he was concerned, I wouldn’t need much proof. What little I did, his unusual lucky streak would provide.

Cyrus’ eyes were glittering, but his voice stayed level. “If you were at the game, why not arrest me there?”

“Too many norms.”

“And there aren’t any here?”

I glanced about the murky room. “I think we’re safe,” I said wryly, “unless you plan to make a—”

I turned back around to find my quarry gone and the bartender peering at the mess on the bar with a puzzled frown. I threw another twenty on the counter and headed for the back door. It led into a side street, where Cyrus was already disappearing around a corner. Damn it!

I sent a doppelgänger spell after him, hoping the low light would make the misty double believable, and headed around the opposite corner to cut him off. And found myself slammed against a hard concrete wall for my trouble. “Nice try,” Cyrus breathed, “but you forget your roots. Spells don’t have a scent, Lia.”

Having Cyrus’ full attention was like being the only rabbit in the world in front of a pack of starving wolves. If I hadn’t had the wall behind me, I might even have taken a step back. Only Weres ever did this, walked right past arm’s length and set up camp inches away from my chest. I’d never gotten used to it, and it didn’t help that his knuckles were pressing against my throat.

But showing fear is the absolute worst way to negotiate with a Were. And since he hadn’t yet snapped my neck, that’s exactly what we were doing. “Would you cut it out? I’m not really planning to arrest you!”

“Why not?” The darkness had made his eyes liquid black, but I could still see the suspicion in them. “Surely not some leftover sentiment?”

“I have to find some missing girls,” I said curtly. “And I’m new here. I don’t have the contacts I did back East—”

“And you think I do?”

“You always have contacts. If you help me, I’ll forget what I saw tonight.”

Violet-blue light filtered down from a neon sign, bathing him in strange shadows. It leeched away the good-old-boy vibe, leaving the harsh planes of his face clearly visible. For a moment, I almost thought I could see the wolf staring out at me. “And if I say no?”

I flexed my shields a little, slamming him back into a nearby Dumpster. I wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten who he was dealing with. “You haven’t heard what I want yet. You might even like it.”

Cyrus pried himself loose from the Dumpster’s metal embrace. “If you’re involved, I doubt it.”

“Even if it could put you back in the king’s good graces?”

He scowled as I stepped out into the street to hail a cab. “What king?”

“My boss is convinced that Sebastian is the werewolf king.”

“You know damn well—”

“Yeah, but I kind of like it. I think I’ll call him ‘your majesty’ if we ever meet. See how well that goes over.”

“I can already tell you that,” he said dryly. “And what, pray tell, is a lowly grifter and a disgraced war mage supposed to do for the almighty Sebastian?”

We got in the cab and I tossed the file onto his lap. “Save his daughter.”

“You don’t get it! If I don’t find these girls, they could end up dead!”

We were back at his place, a seedy motel room considerably off the Strip, with the buzz of traffic clearly audible from outside. It mingled with the sound of the ice machine at the end of the hall, a couple of parents screaming at their kids, and a guy with a four-pack-a-day habit coughing up his lungs somewhere nearby. Merry Christmas.

Cyrus flipped on the TV and turned it loud enough to drown out our conversation, at least to human ears. “And if you do find them, you could. This smells bad, Lia.”

“So do the Corps’ prisons.”

“You talk like a war mage.”

“I am a war mage.”

“No, the Corps is your job. I’m talking about what you are.”

“Don’t start this again, Cyrus.”

He remained lounging in a threadbare recliner someone had squashed into the narrow space beside the bed. He’d taken off the garbage-stained shirt, and his white undershirt straps were bright against his suntanned skin, his dark hair just a little long and curling over the back of his neck. The flickering light from the TV gilded his lashes and highlighted a few places where he’d done a less than perfect job shaving. He was the image of a weary vacationer, tapped out, irritated, and ready to go home, except for his eyes, which didn’t match.

“You want this job because it makes you feel human. You surround yourself with them, all day, every day. You bathe in their scent, thin though it is, and tell yourself that they’re your true clan. That lycanthropy is only a disease—”

“Because it is!”

Cyrus smiled grimly. “Being Were has never been about genes; it’s not even about the change. It’s about being proud of what we are and what we stand for, the old ways, the honorable ways, in a world that no longer understands what that word means.”

“This from a card cheat.”

“You refuse to see what is obvious to everyone else. You’re Were, like it or not. And you always will be.” He lit up a cigar as he spoke, cupping the end in his big hands, flicking the lighter closed with a practiced flip of the wrist. It was the casual action that got me, the attitude of someone higher in clan status condescending to explain the obvious to an inferior. It was doubly maddening since no clan would have touched either of us.

I decided not to let him, or my temper, get me off point. “Are you going to help or not?”

He blew smoke in my direction. “I’ve done what I could. If it’s not enough to make you reconsider, I don’t know what will.”

Cyrus had confirmed what I’d already suspected: not one, not two or even three, but all five of the missing girls were high clan—from Leidolf, Maccon, Tamaska, and Rand, as well as Daniela from Arnou. That much had been obvious from their names, but the file hadn’t included the small matter of them all being the daughters of clan leaders. Somebody had a serious death wish.

“I need a name, a place, a starting point,” I told him impatiently. “Not reasons to quit.”

He just looked at me, implacability clear on that strong face. It made me want to scream, even though I’d known this wasn’t going to be easy. Unlike me, Cyrus had been clan once. His wolf form had the distinctive black and tan markings of the Arnou itself. Moreover, he had the rare distinction of having been born wolf, which added a cache at any level. He’d had every advantage: marriage into the highest clans, guaranteed wealth from their investments, power, prestige, and the knowledge that if he got into trouble, the family would back him to the last.

Unless, as it turned out, he got into trouble with them.

I’d never found out what he’d done to be named vargulf, the Were equivalent of blacklisted. It must have been something pretty bad, as it’s considered a fate worse than death. All the privileges of rank were forfeited, including clan protection. It wasn’t quite the same as hanging a target on his back, but it was close. Anyone who had a grievance against him, including anyone jealous of the position he’d once held, was free to kill him without fear of clan retribution. He had no reason to do Arnou any favors.

“I thought you said that being Were is all about honor,” I said a little desperately. Because I could haul him off to jail—maybe—but I couldn’t force him to help me. “Was that more talk? Or did you mean it? Because if you meant it, I don’t see how you can stand by while a girl of your own clan—”

“Ex-clan. And I didn’t say I was going to stand by. I said you were better off out of it.”

“Meaning what?”

“That whoever did this managed to overcome, not only the girls themselves, but their bodyguards. Were bodyguards,” he said for emphasis, as if I’d thought they’d be something else. “Your superiors must really want to get rid of you, to send you on such an errand.”

“The Corps is a little busy lately,” I said dryly. There had always been animosity between the Silver Circle and its Black counterpart, a bunch of dark magic users with no scruples and less conscience, but it had recently erupted into full-scale war. This left the Corps seriously stretched for help and probably explained why they had yet to toss me out on my ear. “And no one else knows much about Weres.”

“No one else has had a vendetta declared against them, either. Lobizón blames you for the deaths of their wolves.”

“I know.” It was old news, the proclamation being issued the day after the battle as custom required, “before the blood of the dead grew cold.” It wasn’t the vendetta itself that worried me, though. The clan had already seen what two mages could do; I doubted they wanted to be facing a whole cadre of us. What was keeping me up nights was the thought of what would happen if word leaked back to my superiors. If they discovered that I’d been marked for death by an important member of their vital new alliance, I’d be out the door in about a nanosecond. And that would leave Dad and me facing, not a handful of Weres, but the whole clan.

On our own.

I’d lived with what had felt like a hand clenched around my neck for seven months, knowing that it was only the Were dislike for speaking about clan business with outsiders that was saving me. Ironically, Lobizón’s respect for tradition was currently my best defense. But it was anyone’s guess how long it would hold.

“Lobizón isn’t involved in this,” I said, trying to sound as if the vendetta was no big deal. “And I intend to stay as far away from them as possible.”

“That would be a good trick.”

Something in Cyrus’ tone worried me. “Why?”

“Because they’re currently in town for the Ulfhring,” he informed me quietly. “I thought you knew. It begins tomorrow.”

“They’re holding it here?” The clan leaders usually assembled in upstate New York for their yearly meeting, in Arnou’s home territory. “Why the change?”

“The new alliance. They want to show solidarity with the mages, and they’re based here. Every senior clan leader is either already in Vegas or will be soon, along with his or her entourage. You need to lay low until they leave, not go prying into their business.”

“It’s not prying if we were invited,” I pointed out absently. No wonder Gil was nervous. All the clans with missing daughters were in town and were planning to chew his ass out. Possibly literally, if he didn’t turn up something soon.

“You can try that argument on the families of the Weres you killed,” Cyrus said quietly. “But I wouldn’t give good odds on your success.”

“You can’t expect me to just sit around. The Ulfhring can drag on for days!”

“Then let your partner check things out for you.”

“I don’t have a partner.”

Cyrus placed his cigar in an ashtray, then before I could blink, he’d crossed the room and invaded my personal space. “What happened, Lia? Did no one want to work with someone who smelled a little too much like clan?”

“I just transferred here.”

“You’ve been here six months.” It looked as if I wasn’t the only one keeping tabs.

“I told you, we’re shorthanded—”

Cyrus interrupted me by taking a deep breath right beside my ear. “I’ve met half-Weres before and they smell human. Just human. They don’t smell familiar, like family, like home. Why do you?”

Before I could answer, his mouth came down on mine, warm with brandy and rich, sweet smoke, his hands sliding down to my hips, and for a moment, it was as perfect as if we’d never been apart. As if he’d spent the last six months mapping out my body every night. I’d never wanted anyone else like this, not even close.

It had been the original Bad Idea. I’d known it when I met him, known it when I kept going back, again and again, for glimpses into the Were world, for help with cases I couldn’t crack, for that intoxicating sense of belonging I got every time we were together. Known it when I seduced him for the first time.

I’d agonized over it for weeks, never having been with a Were, knowing damn well I shouldn’t be with this one, not even sure how to go about it as Were seduction techniques weren’t something I wanted to ask Mom about. In the end, the answer was simple: Just kiss him and strip him and let him take me to bed. Sleep beside him afterward, my face tight against his neck, the wild, unmistakable scent of clan engulfing me. Kiss his temple in the morning before getting up and steal his last doughnut on the way out the door.

It would have been a great recipe, except that I was a war mage and he was someone who took the law as a not-very-serious suggestion. Eventually, after my life imploded, I’d done the right thing and walked away. Because Cyrus on the side of law and order wasn’t happening, and I didn’t want to have to put my boyfriend away someday. Because it was already so hard to leave that it scared me. Because Cyrus had taught me that it was possible to never stop being friends and yet to end up enemies. And that walking away is sometimes the only way to stay sane.

“Anyone else would have been paired up almost immediately,” he murmured. “Why risk your life for the Corps? They don’t care if you live or die.”

“And you do?”

“Strangely enough, yes. Which is why you’re staying here.”

“I’m a war mage, Cyrus. I don’t need protection!”

“You do from Lobizón. If they kill you in some back alley, with no witnesses, they can deny it to the Corps. In the current situation, they’d probably get away with it. Not to mention that you’re a young woman who smells like clan: exactly the type going missing lately.”

“And you’re a Were. Just like those bodyguards that were killed!”

“Yes, except the only person I’m going to have to look out for is me.”

“You need me. If Were resources were enough to deal with this, they never would have called us in!”

“I’ll manage.”

“I’m not staying here,” I said flatly. And, fortunately, there was no way he could make me.

“You are if you want my help.” Except that one.

I’d seen his mouth set in that hard, tight line before, and decided not to waste more time arguing. “When will you be back?”

“That depends on how forthcoming my sources are.” Cyrus put a hand around the back of my head and rubbed his thumb along the side of my neck. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. And keep your head down.”

I waited until his footsteps had vanished. Then I waited some more, because there was a good chance that he was hanging around the parking lot to see if I’d follow. I switched channels to a Christmas special coming from somewhere with actual snow.

After sitting through two musical numbers, including a dog that barked “Jingle Bells” and an appropriately timed antacid commercial, I decided it had been long enough. A full moon illuminated the parking lot, but there weren’t any wolves prowling around. Of course, there wouldn’t have been even if Cyrus had still been there. The old stories are a myth, based on the writings of one screwy medieval monk: Weres can change at will. It’s one of the things that makes them so deadly.

I caught a cab back to Fremont, where my Christmas present to myself was safe in valet parking. Fortunately, old habits die hard and I’d tagged Cyrus at the motel. The little spell caused me to turn my beat-up Honda motorcycle, brand-new in 1983, in the direction of its faint tug from the East.

Tracking spells are useful but they only do so much. They usually get me to the right general area, but don’t tell me exactly where a person is. But I didn’t have a long search that time, because that road only led one place.

“Strictly Pleasure, where we’re strictest about ensuring your pleasure. What fantasy can we help you fulfill tonight?”

The woman who answered the door of the plain brick structure was young, Asian, and extremely pretty. Or, at least, I assumed she was. The silk-clad body had elegant curves and the dark hair was long and sleek. But the face was covered in enough makeup to make a geisha jealous.

“I’d like a Were. Female,” I said tersely.

“Of course.” She waved me into a vestibule with an adjacent small office. “Would you like a dom or a sub this evening?” I just looked at her. “That would be a sub, then. Do you have a preference as to species?”

“Wolf.”

“I’m sorry. We’re a little short on those lately. Will a wererat work for you? They’re very sturdy—can take almost as much pain as a wolf, and it’s been my experience that they heal even faster.”

That was a lie, but I didn’t call her on it. “I don’t know. Has she been here awhile?” I needed someone who might know what was going on.

The woman looked torn. She wasn’t sure what I wanted to hear, that the sex worker with whom I was contemplating spending my Christmas Eve was fresh and relatively untouched, or experienced and skilled. “She’s been here a few months,” she finally admitted. “But with their healing abilities, honestly, you can’t tell. She has almost no marks at all.”

Anything that would leave a permanent mark on a Were would have been lethal to a human. I made a note to file a report on Strictly Pleasure’s idea of safe working conditions. “I’ll take her.”

After the processing of my credit card and the reading of a few rules, which were repeated so fast that they were almost unintelligible, I was led down a corridor to “Jezebel’s” room. She turned out to be a short, muscular brunette with a dark tan and a world-weary demeanor that didn’t match her maybe twenty years. She didn’t look submissive, but I guess these things are relative, and I had asked for a Were. The room was a surprise, too, with a cluttered, college dorm feel, complete with rock-star posters on the wall, clothes dribbling out of an overstuffed wardrobe, and a Hello Kitty wall clock.

“You were expecting maybe a dungeon?” she asked, seeing my expression.

“Something like that.”

“They’re downstairs. Rent by the hour.”

“I’m just here to talk.”

“Dirty?” She sounded hopeful.

“Only if it includes information.”

The hopeful look was replaced by a frown. “What kind of information?”

“About Weres. Wolves, in particular.”

The frown became a scowl. “Why? What have they got that I don’t?”

That was the big question. “There aren’t any here, then?”

“Our last two wolf girls left a month ago.”

“Left for where?”

She shrugged. “One day, I got up and new people were moving into their rooms.”

“Is that normal?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you care?”

“Is there any reason you shouldn’t tell me?”

“Is there any reason I should?” I took the hint and got out my wallet. Fifty bucks did the trick, mainly because she didn’t know much. “It was weird. Mostly, if someone gets lucky and a big shot wants to set her up on her own, everybody hears about it. One of the guys got a sweet deal a couple weeks ago, and he went on and on, like the rest of us were complete losers—”

“But these girls didn’t?”

“Nope. One day they’re here, next day they’re gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

Just like the high clan girls. I tried to look only mildly interested. “Lone wolves?”

“No. Felan.” It was one of the smaller, lower-ranked clans in the area. That surprised me. Clans are close-knit, with what reflects on one reflecting on all. I had a hard time imagining any clan wolves being allowed to take up a profession that, while legal in the supernatural world, wasn’t likely to improve their clan’s standing.

“Maybe the leaders found out what they were doing and came for them.”

Jezebel rolled her eyes and flopped back onto her messy bed. “Who do you think sent ’em here?”

“What?” I was certain I’d heard wrong.

“The leaders got a percentage of what they made. Mine do it, too. Lots of ’em do.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that their clans forced the Felani girls to work here?”

Jezebel shrugged. “I don’t know about forced. But you know how it is. Defy the leaders and you pay for it, and keep on paying. So does your family. I figured I’d do my time. Another year and I’m out of here, and nobody else from my family gets tapped. I got two younger sisters, you know?”

I nodded. A pretty little blackmail routine: do as we say or we take your sisters instead. Could that be why Daniela had been kidnapped? By parents outraged over Sebastian’s indifference to the fate of their own daughters? As much as I wanted an answer, it seemed unlikely. A low-ranking family from a minor clan would no more attack Arnou than they would turn vegetarian. Humans might try it, if they were enraged enough, but Weres just didn’t think that way.

“I need to find out where those girls went,” I said after a minute. “Where are the records kept?”

I got a disdainful look. “You want to talk about stuff everybody knows, okay. We talk. But I’m not getting in trouble for—” I waved a hundred in front of her face and she stopped abruptly, but still looked mutinous. “That won’t cover the beating I’ll get if anyone finds out I helped you.”

I added a second bill and fluttered them in front of her. “I can blank short-term memory. No one has to know.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.” Her eyes tracked the money, but she made no move to take it.

“I’m a war mage,” I added.

The bills were suddenly gone, disappearing somewhere in the short, bright wrapper she wore. “The records are in Yuki’s office,” she told me briskly.

“The woman who checked me in?”

“He ain’t no woman. But yeah, he runs the place.”

“Is there any way to get him away from the desk for a minute?”

Jezebel shook her head. “He wants to make sure we don’t bring any regulars in on our own and stiff the house. He guards that door like a hawk.”

“Is he a mage?”

“No. Tsume.”

“But that’s a clan name.” It meant “claw” in Japanese.

“Yeah. He’s our last wolf. Acts like one, too. No offense.”

“I’m not a wolf.”

Jezebel wrinkled her forehead. “But you smell like—”

I held up a hand. “Don’t, okay?” Yuki being a wolf constituted a problem. Unlike humans and most mages, Weres are very resistant to magical suggestions. There was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to spell him to tell me anything, or to blank his memory afterward. And Weres don’t frighten or intimidate easily. This could get ugly.

I stepped into the hallway and cast a privacy spell to let me call Gil without worrying about Were hearing. “I didn’t give you my personal cell so you could ruin my holiday,” he told me acerbically.

“It isn’t Christmas for another four hours. And besides, you haven’t heard why I’m calling yet. I might have a line on those girls.”

“Like hell you do. You haven’t even been on the case a day!”

“I said might have. But there’s a chance I’ll need to use a little … persuasion … to get my lead to talk.”

“What lead?”

“Just a guy. It might be nothing. But I wanted to clear it with you first.”

“You called me up on Christmas Eve to ask if you can torture someone?”

“It probably won’t come to that.” I stepped out of the way of a large dominatrix in a shiny PVC cat suit and the guy in chains who was crawling after her. They edged around me politely. “Although I appear to be in the right place for it.”

“What? Where are you?”

I didn’t answer, because a door had opened down the hall and a very familiar backside emerged. The guy it was attached to didn’t see me, maybe because the half-dressed young woman lounging in the door had his whole attention. “I’ll take care of you, Nissa,” he said fondly. “Now what are you going to do for me?”

“I tell everybody, we no talk to the mage.” Her voice was low and sultry, with a heavy Spanish accent.

“To any mages,” Cyrus corrected, a finger to her lips. “But particularly to any with dark hair, spectacular legs, and homicidal tendencies.”

She pouted. “Is she prettier than me?”

“She’s more dangerous than you, which is what you need to keep in mind,” he chided. Then he kissed her.

His shirt was unbuttoned with the tails hanging, leaving the hollow of his throat pale and vulnerable. I swallowed hard, trying to resist the alien desire to leap down the corridor and tear into that soft flesh, to feel his blood slick and hot in my mouth. For a moment, I could actually taste it.

“Lia!” Gil’s voice in my ear made me jump. “Where the hell are you? What’s going on?” I tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.

I’d wondered why Cyrus had left Jersey at almost the same time I did. I’d been vain enough to think that it might have had something to do with me, although he’d made no effort to contact me. I’d also thought things might have gotten a little hot for him in Atlantic City, so he’d moved West to its bigger, badder cousin, where he wasn’t as well known. But what if he’d had another reason?

Because I found it really hard to believe that all this had been going on and no one in the high clans had heard anything. And since no effort was being made to stop it, it was a good guess that they were being paid to look the other way. For that to work, they’d need someone to gather and channel the kickbacks to the leaders. Someone with lots of contacts and no reputation to lose, who could be a convenient scapegoat if things went wrong. Someone like Cyrus.

I slipped back into Jezebel’s room and shut the door with a soft click, laying my forehead against it. The sudden adrenaline rush faded to leave me cold, sick, and shaking. I had to take a few deep breaths to catch up with myself, to remember that there was a procedure to be followed. If I was right and leading Weres were dirty, I needed proof. And for me to successfully bring a case like this, it had better be airtight.

“I’ll call you back,” I said, cutting into whatever Gil had been squawking. I put my phone away very deliberately and turned around so I wouldn’t be tempted to put a fist through the door. “I’m going to go talk with Yuki,” I said.

Jezebel took in my expression. “Huh. Think I’ll go talk to him, too.”

As a Were, Yuki was a sad disappointment. He started looking panicked before I even asked him anything, about the time I hung him from the chandelier in his office. It was wrought iron with lots of pointy bits and didn’t appear to be all that comfortable. I smiled pleasantly like my trainers had taught me and pulled out photos of the missing girls.

“Have you seen any of these?” He started to shake his head and I held up a finger. “Think real hard. Because I know you’d hate to lie to me. Just like I’d hate to see you get overly intimate with the coatrack.”

“I haven’t seen them,” he said. For some reason, all the lilt had gone out of his voice.

“He’s telling the truth,” Jezebel said. “I could smell it if he was lying.”

“Then what about the two wolves who went missing from here? What happened to them?”

I could almost see Yuki trying to puzzle out how much he could plausibly get away with denying. I was about to apply more threats, but Jezebel decided we’d talked enough. I got the feeling there wasn’t a lot of love lost between those two, and she obviously thought it would be a shame to waste a good memory wipe. After she pulled a Taser out of her wrap and started waving it around, Yuki became positively voluble.

“The boss selected them for a private party,” he said quickly. “The buyers specifically wanted wolves.”

“And when they didn’t come back?”

“No one comes back from those kind of parties,” he said, his eyes tracking the Taser. “Some patrons like it extra rough, and we have rules about the extent of damage inflicted on-site. But elsewhere … things can get messy.”

“And the clans do nothing?”

“We usually pick lone wolves for that kind of thing.”

“But not this time.” I poked him hard enough to set him swinging. “Why not?”

“Because we didn’t have any! The bosses prefer to use clan wolves around here when possible, because if they run away, the clan will bring them back. But we employ lone wolves from time to time for jobs like this. The clans don’t like it much if we return their people in pieces. Or don’t return them at all.”

“Then why didn’t their clan object this time? If the girls die, there goes their cut of the profits.”

“They were well compensated. Very well, from what I heard.” He looked sulky, like maybe they hadn’t offered to share.

As sick as his story was, it did sound possible, but only where the Felani girls were concerned. Because I couldn’t see anybody capturing high clan members for some demented fun and games. It would almost ensure that they were caught, and Arnou wouldn’t take cash in retribution. They would take blood. And everybody knew it.

“Who paid you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The names were obviously fake.” Jezebel brandished the Taser again and he paled. “A lot of people don’t use their real names when they contact us!”

“But they have to give a real address. What was it?”

Yuki shook his head frantically. “I can’t tell you that!”

“I’ll get it out of him!” Jezebel snarled. She was clearly looking forward to it.

“Give me the address and I’ll blank all this from your memory,” I said, holding her off. “If the clan questions you, you can deny any involvement and they’ll believe it. Because you’ll believe it.”

Yuki just hung there, swaying gently, for a long moment. His heavy mascara had run, making tracks through his pearly cheek powder, like he was crying black tears. I put on my sympathetic face, and I guess it must have worked because he finally told me.

I glanced at Jezebel and she nodded. I wrote down the address, making him spell it twice so there couldn’t be a mistake, and turned to go. I was halfway to the door when I heard the sound of tearing fabric and a thump behind me. Yuki caught me by the arm, his long, perfectly polished nails almost but not quite breaking the skin. “Wait! You haven’t done the memory wipe yet!”

“That would be because there’s no such thing. Not for Weres.”

“But you said—”

“I lied.”

“But they’ll kill me!”

I thought about the two girls he’d callously sent to a horrible end. “That would be my guess.”

“But you’re a war mage! You can’t—”

“I’m not a very good war mage,” I told him sadly. “You should see my performance evals.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the clans,” Jezebel added. “When I tell everyone what happened to those girls, and that you set it up …” She gave him a slow smile. Yuki looked at me, but I guess he didn’t see anything helpful because the next minute he took the hint, hiked up his skirts, and ran. Jezebel sauntered out after him.

I called Gil with the address on the way there. It was a little hard to concentrate considering the traffic—it looked like most people preferred one more roll of the dice to visions of sugarplums—but it was a short conversation. “I’ll meet you,” Gil said when I finished, and hung up. I smiled. It had to be pretty major when a department head got out of a warm bed to sling a spell or two in the cold—and to hog the credit.

The address Yuki had provided led me to a large McMansion in one of the new, absurdly overpriced subdivisions that have been springing up like mushrooms all around Vegas. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been pale yellow stucco and a red tile roof, surrounded by a neatly swept lawn and a lot of cars. An SUV pulled up while I sat there, and a couple of people in sequins and Santa hats got out, carrying a bottle of booze in a shiny gold package.

I drove past and let my bike idle around the corner while I checked the scribbled instructions again. As strange as it seemed, the number was right, so I parked the bike and waited for my backup. And waited.

After twenty minutes, I called Gil again, but his cell went straight to voice mail. Where the hell was everyone? Traffic wasn’t that bad. And unless the war had suddenly come to town, I found it hard to believe that another case had taken precedence.

I decided to move a little closer and at least find out what kind of wards we were dealing with. Only there weren’t any. There also weren’t any of the standard traps, snares, or other nasty surprises I’d been expecting. The door wasn’t even locked, so either someone was superconfident or unbelievably careless. Or this was a trap. But it didn’t feel like one. There was no sign of anything illicit going on, just a brightly lit vestibule with terra-cotta- tiled floors and a pine wreath with a big red bow. Music and laughter spilled out of a side room, which I couldn’t see without going all the way in.

Damn it! It was no surprise that Yuki had lied, but I hadn’t thought Jezebel would help him. And now he had an hour’s head start. Even worse, Gil was on his way to raid some norm’s Christmas party.

I pulled the door shut and started to turn, only to hear someone’s voice from behind me. “About time you showed up,” it said, and the world exploded in pain.

I woke up an indeterminate time later, feeling as if I’d run into a wall. I tried looking around but my eyes didn’t seem to be working. My memory is usually pretty good, so it probably wasn’t a positive sign that I had no recall of whatever had happened. Just fragments of conversation that didn’t make sense.

… mother was a Were. I always suspected …

If she’s human …

She’s not. And we’re running out of time.

I’ll prepare …

I felt a needle prick my arm, and then nothing but cold creeping painfully over my body. I strained, desperate to move an arm, to open my eyes, to think, but for a long time all I felt was the dragging weight of a body that wasn’t obeying my commands. And then feeling returned and there was nothing but agony.

When I finally forced my lids open, a terrible white light was pouring in, stabbing at my brain. I tried to block it, but I couldn’t lift my hand. I also couldn’t see straight, and all I could hear was an awful, inhuman noise coming out of my own chest. For one horrible second, I needed air and couldn’t remember how to get it, my lungs refusing to work. There were suddenly voices all around me, blurry faces peering down, and a smug voice saying, “I told you so.” Then darkness again.

I came around the second time mainly because of the absence of pain. It didn’t feel like it was gone for good, more like it had taken a break and would be back to torture me again soon. But for the moment, I could breathe, although my ribs ached with each shallow attempt.

My wrist had fallen near my face, and my watch informed me that it was 12:05 A.M. Christmas morning. I’d have traded all the presents in the world for the ability to sit up, to know what had happened. I flexed a finger and it was stiff, like a dried twig that would snap if I pushed too hard. My brain was screaming at me to do something, to move, to get into a defensive position, but I couldn’t manage it. I did finally lift my head, though, and saw that I wasn’t in the foyer anymore. Not unless the owners had decided to renovate it in early industrial ugly while I was out.

I also wasn’t alone.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I croaked, and a blond head snapped up. The girl had been seated on the other side of the small cage we seemed to be sharing, staring at its iron bars. She stared at me now instead, blue eyes wide.

“You’re alive.” Daniela seemed surprised.

I licked my lips, but couldn’t feel it. “The jury’s still out.”

She grabbed a water bottle that was hanging on the side of the cage. She couldn’t stand up, the cage top was too low, but she scuttled over on hands and knees. “None of the others lasted this long,” she said, as I tried to drink through numb lips.

I spit water all over my shirt. “What others?” I croaked.

“The other Weres who were here. They’re all dead.”

“How, why?”

“Failed experiments,” she said angrily. “Some mages are planning to blow up the clan leaders at the Ulfhring tomorrow.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“I’m the bomb.”

I tried to drag myself into a sitting position, but failed. “Come again?”

“They need me to get past security. That’s why they took the daughters of highly placed members. If I say it’s an emergency, security will let me in. They know me.”

“And they think you’re just going to carry in a bomb for them?”

“They plan to put me under a compulsion.”

“That doesn’t work on Weres,” I pointed out.

“I know that! But they’ve come up with a potion that’s supposed to help the suggestion to take.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Because it didn’t work! All it did was kill everyone after a couple of hours. They’ve been trying to get the formula right, so I have time to blow myself up before I die.”

“Let me guess. It killed the other high clan girls, so they started using low clan women to experiment on.” The kind they thought no one would miss.

Daniela nodded. “They think they finally have the formula right. I get to find out in a few hours. But I’ve been thinking. I’m the only high clan girl left, and they don’t have time to find a replacement.”

I rolled over onto my side to get a look at her face. “What are you saying?”

“That you need to kill me.”

“Come again?”

“I won’t be responsible for killing my own father! I’d take care of it myself, only”—she glanced around, looking a little lost—“I’m not sure how …”

“I came to rescue you, not to kill you.” I grasped one of the bars, and somehow managed to pull myself up with it. My strength ran out almost immediately, and I ended up slumped in a corner, limp as a rag doll.

Daniela eyed me skeptically. “Uh-huh. But seriously, we’re dead anyway—”

“Seriously, I intend to live forever, or die trying,” I told her, parroting one of Cyrus’ borrowed sayings. Speaking of whom, how did he fit into this? Because, okay, he and the council were currently on the outs, but killing all of them seemed a little … extreme … for the guy I knew. And Daniela had said mages. “Who is behind this again? And why do I feel like I was run over by a convoy?”

“I don’t know who they are. We don’t chat a lot,” she said sarcastically. “And you feel that way because they gave you the treatment. One last test, to make sure it works. And since you’re still alive, they must have got it right.” She gripped my arm. “We have to do something!”

I refrained from pointing out that I was doing something. And at the moment, not falling over felt like a major achievement. “It didn’t work because I’m not a Were,” I said instead.

“But you smell like—”

“I don’t care what I smell like! Just tell me why they’ve targeted only women?”

“Because we’re so much easier to control,” Daniela said with a snarl. It pulled her lips back from her nice, white teeth. It should have looked comical, but somehow, it didn’t. “That’s what one of them kept saying, over and over, when anyone suggested bringing in a guy. We’re weak-minded, more easily influenced. I’ll show them weak, if I ever get out of here!”

“Why can’t you?” The bars were steel, but with Were strength, that shouldn’t have been a problem.

“Because the damn cage is warded!” She slammed her hands into the side, and it didn’t even make the bars rattle.

“Shield charm. Pretty standard.”

“For a mage! Too bad we don’t have one.”

“I’m a war mage,” I informed her, right before I flopped onto my face. After a moment, I got my hands under me and pushed. Nothing happened. Come on; you’re tougher than this, I told myself sternly. War mage tough. Two-hundred-push-ups-before-breakfast tough. Full metal jacket, can’t handle the truth tough. Shot a man in Reno just to watch him—

“Really?” Daniela sounded doubtful.

“Really. Got the certificate and everything.” I somehow got to my knees. “Do you ride?”

“What?”

“Bikes. Motorcycles. Because my piece of shit Honda is around the corner. To the left, after you go out the front. Get it and get out of here.”

“And what are you going to do?”

I fumbled around in my jacket and found the keys. They’d taken my weapons, but left those. Guess no one had thought I’d be using them again. “Crash a party,” I said grimly.

The corridor outside the basement wavered alarmingly. I tried shaking my head, but that only made it worse. I finally found the stairs by stumbling into them.

I gave up looking cool and climbed up on my hands and knees. Daniela had left the door open at the top and the guard dead, his neck slashed, the imprint of paw prints in the blood. Good girl. I took his gun and potion-belt, but didn’t bother strapping either on. I didn’t have enough coordination, and anyway, I was probably going to need them soon.

The telltale signature of the tag I’d left on Cyrus started licking at the back of my neck. It was louder at the end of the corridor, and alarm-like by the time I made it into a well-appointed living room filled with decorations, presents, and a lot of freaked-out party guests. The last probably had something to do with the man waving a gun around. He had his back to me, but I’d recognize that butt anywhere.

“The experiment was a failure,” Gil was saying, his hands in the air. He was wearing a green Christmas sweater with brown reindeer on it, I noticed irrelevantly. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t come to an arrangement. I’ve heard about you. You fought your brother for the title and lost. They kicked you out of the clan, removed their protection, made you an outcast. Wouldn’t you like to get a little of your own back?”

“Give me Lia and I’ll think about it.”

“I thought Were hearing was supposed to be sharp,” Gil said disdainfully. “The bitch is dead. Like you’re shortly going to be if you don’t—”

I blinked, and in the space of time it took to get my eyes back open, Cyrus was gone and a huge black and tan wolf was tearing apart the living room. A moment later, five guards who must have snuck up on the outside of the house decided to hell with discretion and burst through the bow window. Gil dove behind the sofa, Cyrus followed him, and everyone else ran screaming for the door.

Within seconds, the Christmas tree went flying, the presents got mushed, and someone crashed into the cheerfully burning fireplace. It was a mage with his shields up, because he didn’t get so much as singed, but he managed to fling firewood across the floor while climbing out. It turns out that wrapping paper is pretty good kindling, because the scattered presents were soon burning merrily.

A few guys managed to keep enough of their wits about them to try a spell or two, but I emptied the guard’s clip into them. I couldn’t see straight so my aim was off and most of them had shields up anyway, but at least it provided a distraction. Only one of the people it distracted was Cyrus, who glanced at me and then did a swift double take, which looked really strange in wolf form.

It wasn’t much of a slip, but it allowed a couple of mages to get a net spell on him. Only that spell usually takes a minimum of three people, which might explain why, when Cyrus reared back, they both went sailing over the couch. The unraveling strands of the spell trapped them and a pissed-off werewolf in a snarling, flailing ball.

Instead of trying to help his beleaguered men, Gil took one look and ran for the back door, taking him straight in my direction. I smiled and he put on the brakes. “Lia. You’re …”

“Alive, yeah.”

Sweat broke out on his bald head. “In the nick of time, I was about to say. What took you so long? Help me contain that thing!”

“Nice try. But spells have a flavor of the caster, Gil. And I broke through yours on the cage downstairs.” Not to mention that, judging by the portraits on the mantel, the idiot had been running his scheme out of his own basement.

He changed tactics without so much as a pause. It was actually kind of impressive. “Don’t be a fool. You’re in as much trouble as I am. Help me and I’ll return the favor. Otherwise, it will be my word against yours. And who do you think the clans are going to believe?”

The one who doesn’t smell like a liar, I almost said. “Out of curiosity, what is the point to all this? I know you hate Weres, but—”

“I could give a shit about them. But the deaths of their leaders will cause chaos in the clan system, and make them look like the unreliable allies they are. It will also discredit my brother, who talked us into this alliance in the first place.”

“And you would want to do that because?”

“Because the position should have been mine!” Gil snarled. “The coalition decided his youth and good looks would appeal to more voters, and ran him instead of me. He used my contacts, my political clout, to his advantage, and what did I get? A clap on the shoulder and a handshake, then left in this dead-end job! What do you think about that?”

“I think it’s crazy,” I said, and he relaxed slightly, although he didn’t take his hand out of his pocket. “Youth and good looks? ’Cause, seriously, Gil, I’ve seen your brother—”

“The clans hate you, Lia!” he snapped. “Why do you think I chose you for this job?”

“Because you knew they wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Exactly. But if you join me, I’ll shield you from them.”

“Right. You’re going to protect me. Someone so ignorant of Were customs that you don’t even understand the hierarchy?”

“What?” And it was obvious that he really didn’t know. That he’d killed seven people, maybe more, for nothing. It was sickening.

“Any of your test subjects could have told you,” I spat. “Even if your plan worked, there’s a clearly delineated line of succession, with an appointed second coming forward immediately to take the place of a fallen leader. And if he dies, there’s a third, and so on, down to the last member of the clan. And the first thing each and every one of them would do on assuming power is to hunt you down. Protect me? Thanks, but I prefer to take my chances.”

“Sure about that? Life without allies can be a bitch.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and pointed the weapon it held at me.

I didn’t bother to reply, because in order to fire, Gil had to lower his shields. And as soon as he did, I threw one of the dead guard’s potion vials in his face. He dropped the gun, screaming, as its corrosive properties went to work. I watched him trying to claw out his own eyeballs for a moment; it was oddly satisfying. “Yeah. Fortunately, so can I.”

I staggered over to Cyrus. He’d gotten his hind legs caught in a bunch of tinsel that had fallen off the ruined tree. “I’d offer you a hand, but …” I tried to wave and fell on my ass.

He crawled over to me using only his front paws. It looked like his hind legs weren’t just caught, they were useless. He collapsed by my side in a great furry heap.

We lay there quietly for a few minutes, listening to the crackle of burning gifts. On the plus side, the fires eventually went out on their own and no one else attacked us. Not too surprisingly as most of them didn’t seem to be still in one piece. Even Gil had finally stopped screaming.

“How are you?”

I blinked blearily at him. Oh. He’d changed back.

“Can’t move.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “I’m having the same trouble.”

“Pretend we’re drunk.”

He huffed a short laugh. “I wish I was drunk.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Jezebel.”

“Ah.”

“I passed Daniela coming in,” he added. “She’s gone to get help.”

“Good.” I still didn’t know how he fit into all this, but at the moment, I didn’t care. I snuggled into him, letting the smell of clan surround me—musky, earthy, and indescribably sweet—and relaxed in spite of myself. A moment later, I was asleep.

I opened my eyes to find someone bending over me. At first, I thought it was Cyrus. But there were no snug jeans, soft flannel shirts, or cowboy boots in sight. Instead, the man by my bedside in what appeared to be a hospital room was wearing a crisp shirt and tie, subtle cuff links, and pants with a crease sharp enough to cut yourself on.

He looked like Cyrus, though, except for a pair of pure blue eyes. As my vision returned, I noticed subtle other differences: a slightly broader jaw, a narrower mouth, and a more classic nose. His hair was dark, but not as curly, and was cut shorter. He looked older, too, by maybe four or five years. But, other than that, they could have been brothers.

“We are.” He settled himself on the chair that a nurse quickly scooted into place, and I realized I must have spoken aloud. “Could we have a moment, please?”

There seemed to be a lot of people around: doctors, nurses, and a bunch of heavily armed types who were obviously Weres despite being in human form. None of them was Cyrus. “How is—?”

He held up a hand and we waited until everyone filed out and the door shut. “My brother is fine. As is my daughter, thanks to you.”

It took a moment for the implications of that short sentence to register. It was a good thing Cyrus was still alive, I decided. That way I got to kill him. “So I finally get to meet the great Sebastian.”

“And I am at last able to make the acquaintance of Larentia Lobizón’s daughter. I have heard much of you.”

“None of it good, I bet.”

“Until today, I’m afraid not. Your clan was quite displeased with you.”

“Was?”

“I took the liberty of acquiring you for Clan Arnou. My brother rather insisted upon it.”

I was pretty sure I’d missed something. “Why?”

“The vendetta. Arnou outranks Lobizón. Once they discover that you now belong to us, I expect the dispute to be quickly resolved.”

I didn’t doubt it, and it was a huge relief. But it also brought up another issue. “About the change—”

“It is each clan’s right to determine how aggressively rogues are pursued.”

“I’m not a rogue.”

“You are clan-born, yet refuse the change. By most clan’s laws, that makes you a rogue.”

“And in yours?”

“We have never forced anyone to undergo the change who does not choose to do so. For whatever reason.”

The unspoken word hung in the air between us, like the large, full moon outside. He had to know. He must have wondered why I was affected by a spell designed for Weres when I had refused the change. It wouldn’t have been difficult to have me tested for Neuri while I was out. But he said nothing, so I didn’t, either. After a moment, he leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

“Welcome to the family, Accalia,” he murmured, and left.

I just lay there for a few minutes, until a pressing personal matter insisted that I get up. I found that I could actually walk and that the room stayed satisfyingly steady around me. It seemed that my body had won the fight.

I came out of the bathroom to find Cyrus lounging on the bed without so much as a scratch on him. “My niece totaled your bike,” he said, by way of a greeting.

“She said she could ride!”

“Normally, she isn’t bad. But she was a little upset for some reason.”

I sat on the bed and looked at him, alive and well and grinning cockily, and couldn’t manage to feel too bad about it. “You’re Sebastian’s brother.”

“I knew this was coming.”

“And a dangerous outlaw who challenged him for clan leadership?”

“That might have been slightly exag—”

“And who, despite that, is able to call in favors from him?”

Cyrus sighed. “The other clan leaders viewed Sebastian as more of a diplomat than a warrior. He needed a show of strength before the vote for bardric to help him seal the win. Beating me in open combat provided that. Plus, we’d heard some disturbing rumors and he needed someone to investigate them. We thought that clans with secrets would be more likely to talk to someone who had been publicly disgraced than to a clan wolf who might turn them in.”

“You’ve been investigating the club.”

“Among other things. It’s why I came to Vegas.”

“But why not shut it down? Those girls might still be alive!”

Cyrus took another deep breath. I briefly wondered if we had the same therapist. “And a lot of others would have gone unavenged. This has been going on for years, Lia. Without an overall leader, too much has been allowed to slip through the cracks. We needed evidence against all of the clans that participated, even those who don’t have members there at the moment.”

“But when the girls started disappearing—”

“We thought there might be a connection, but shutting the place down would have meant forfeiting our best chance of finding them. And the club isn’t the only dirty game in town—not by half. They were one suspect among many. It may take years to clean up the entire mess.”

“And you didn’t tell me this because?”

“You know why. I didn’t want to take the chance that you might go missing, too.”

“I’m a war mage. This kind of thing is my job.”

“No. This was clan business. Sebastian should never have gone to the Corps.”

“I wouldn’t have reported anything! Not if you’d explained.”

Cyrus cocked an eyebrow at me. “You’re a war mage. It would have been your job.” I glared at him and he did that thing where he hid a smile somewhere under the skin of his face. “I knew I couldn’t trust you to leave it to me, so I asked my informants to keep you out of the loop.”

“Including Nissa.”

“Ah, yes. Nissa. The sacrifices I make for—” I pushed him off the bed. His head popped back up, still grinning. “You seem awfully energetic for an invalid. Ready to go?”

“Go where?” I wasn’t looking forward to the screaming messages that were no doubt crowding my answering machine. The Corps had to have discovered by now that the Vegas department head had gone bad, and taken half a dozen other operatives with him. I was going to drown in paperwork for weeks.

“It’s still Christmas for …” He checked his watch. “Another forty-seven minutes.”

“So?”

“I got your present downstairs.” He threw some heavy denim and motorcycle leathers on the bed. “But you have to get dressed to see it.”

I pulled on the clothes so fast that I didn’t manage to flash him more than a couple of times. We snuck out the back way, dodged the few staff members who weren’t gathered around the nurses’ station, and there it was. Gleaming under the parking lot lights was a tripped-out Harley-Davidson Night Rod with black chrome and bloodred accents. It was love at first sight.

“Ever see Red Rock Canyon by moonlight?” Cyrus asked, as I ran my hand possessively over its undented sleekness.

“No.”

“You will tonight.” He threw a leg over the seat of a black and silver version parked alongside. “Race you.”

He was out of the lot before I even managed to scramble on board. But the powerful motor gladly leapt into the chase. The air was cold, the stars were out, and the Vegas skyline was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was like flying.

“It’s a full moon!” Cyrus yelled, as we turned on to Blue Diamond Road.

“So? I’m not a wolf!”

“Really?” His mouth wasn’t curved but he was smiling anyway. “Bet I can make you howl.”

He shot away, eating up the open road. I gunned it and followed. I bet he could, too.

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