As silently as she could, Ainsel crept toward the cage from upwind. The wolf pack had its attention fixed on Zoë as the other girl climbed the hill, and so she was able to get within a few yards of her goal before a ripple passed through the pack and they all turned toward her.

With a sort of wheezing group whine, they flowed toward her. Ainsel froze despite herself, trembling. It took everything she had not to drop everything and flee. The human faces had such sneers, and the fangs of the wolves seemed impossibly large as they flashed. She could so clearly imagine them slicing into her—

—and with a snarl, the black wolf form of Remy burst out of the long shadow she cast against the spill light of the hilltop spots, barrelling into the closest wolf. With a muffled yelp, the other wolf staggered backward before springing forward to close with Remy.

As he’d predicted, the other wolves froze, their attentiion focusing exclusively on Remy and the other wolf. Remy had shaken his head, running his hand through his hair as he’d explained earlier.

It’s because of my blood. He’d seemed so weary as he explained. It’s stupid and I hate it, but the same blood that lets me shadowstep means the other wolves want to follow me. I’m not a good leader. I’m too selfish to be a good leader. But at least for a few minutes, I can make sure all they care about is whether I’m going to take over the pack. As long as their true pack master isn’t there, it’ll hold them.

Ainsel didn’t quite understand the social dynamics involved, but she knew Remy was doing something he hated so she could help Zoë. She wasn’t going to squander that. Slipping past the rapt wolves, she lifted the bolt cutters they’d acquired from Zoë’s garage and began to snip the wire on Lucien’s cage.

Only a few moments later she’d carved a hole large enough to duck into. Dropping the heavy bolt cutters, she went through and knelt down beside the unconscious boy. She had to get him awake and moving as soon as possible, and yet despite this, she hesitated, staring down at Lucien.

She knew his face, knew it in a way different than the painful way she recognized shadows of other abandoned memories. The haunting familiarity of his face was fresher and closer in time. She couldn’t identify how, but it reinforced what Zoë had told her: somehow, she had a connection to this person.

It’s not the right time for this, she scolded herself. He had a bite wound on his throat. She inspected it, brushing her fingers over it. Then she pressed her fingers against his temples. His skin was cool to her touch, and she could sense his depleted energy and how it drained through the wound. Gently, she poured her own magic into him, mending the wound itself and distractedly analyzing how a werewolf’s self-healing differed from a unicorn’s general healing. The magic that whipered through her hands lay quiescent within him, as if without his horn he couldn’t access it.

She only realized she’d succeeded in her goals when his hand came up, covering her mouth. His eyes opened at the same time and they stared at each other. A shock passed through Ainsel as something in her reached out and connected to this boy. His fingers against her mouth demanded silence, and the grim recognition in his eyes made her want to hide away.

Instead she nodded. He took his hand away and rolled silently to his feet, moving with an unreal grace. After he slid through the hole in the fence, he reached down and pulled her after him. As she straightened up, the werewolves watching the nearly silent battle stirred, looking around. One of them made a strangled, excited sound as it fixed its gaze on Lucien and Ainsel.

Then, charging out of the dark night came the smaller sleek brown form of Danui in his wolf form. Wiith an uncanny synchronicity, Remy’s opponent jumped backward as Danui slid in to take his place, snarling and red-eyed.

Ainsel, in the process of recovering the bolt cutters, froze. Why was Danui here? Galbaric had assured her he’d keep the lead werewolf away from them. And Danui’s appearance had freed the other werewolves to turn on them. Any second, Tyler would know—

A muscled arm slid around her neck and Lucien jerked her back against his chest. His other hand closed around her chin, tilting her head. “You see how it is, wolves,” he said conversationally. “We both walk out of here, or neither of us do.”

“Lucien,” cried Ainsel, horrified, struggling vainly against his grip. All at once, both Remy and Danui sprang apart, and Remy’s narrow ice-blue gaze was fixed on Lucien.

“He’s planning something terrible,” said Lucien, with that same conversational calm. “If we’re both dead in this form, he fails.”

“Terrible? Oh yes,” Tyler stood higher on the hill, holding Zoë by the wrist. Seeing her, Ainsel’s struggles stopped, and she thought she felt a frisson of the same tension that seized her pass through Lucien.

“Go ahead and let them go,” Tyler added.

The wolves seemed restless with this order—they were all wolves now; the human forms ones had transformed when Ainsel hadn’t been paying attention. But Danui’s ears flattened and they all stepped backward.

Lucien walked Ainsel backward, speaking softly in her ear as he did. “When we’re far enough away, can you run?”

Can you, not will you. A cold sweat ran through Ainsel but she forced an answer past teeth that wanted to lock together and a wave of dizziness that would have made her sway without Lucien’s grasp. “Not… not like you can.”

“After all,” continued Tyler, watching them back away with a thin smile. “They’ll be back. I have Zoë.”

Next to him, Zoë shook herself and then kicked Tyler, yanking on her arm. When that didn’t work, she shoved her hand in his face. With a twist of his mouth, he caught her free hand and then swept her legs out from under her, lifting her over his shoulder.

“Bradley!” shouted Tyler as a figure in a long coat strolled down the hillside. “Hey, nice new coat, man, we should talk about that later, are you ready yet? Don’t know why, but things are heating up fast.”

Whatever Bradley said didn’t carry over the sudden rise in growling from both Remy and the enemy werewolves, and Ainsel noticed anxiously that all of them were watching her and Lucien. Had Remy fallen under the sway of Tyler after all?

Then Tyler shouted “~Down~” in a voice that seemed to hammer on Ainsel’s head and all the wolves flattened against the ground—all but Remy. And then Ainsel had no time to appreciate that as Bradley threw something toward them: a glowing ring, spinning as it flew. Lucien froze, his grip on Ainsel loosening. “That’s bad,” he breathed.

But Remy had his blue gaze fixed on the ring and as it dropped toward them, he crouched and leapt, jaws wide to catch the ring.

For a heartbeat, it looked like he’d caught it. Then, with a cracking sound, it wrenched itself away from him as he fell back to the ground. Ainsel squeaked and lunged toward him as Lucien released her, dodging sideways.

The spinning ring jerked toward Lucien. He rolled again and light rimmed his form.

And then the ring jerked again, dropping suddenly and neatly over Ainsel’s head.

Instantly, the glow of the ring vanished and it became dull metal, tightening around her neck. And, without any other warning, Ainsel realized she had four legs instead of two.