"What have you done?" I choked out.

Only, I knew he would do anything for Mum, even something as misguided as this. I glowered at Yazeed with barely checked fury, squinting as pine needles and debris flew past my face. I vaguely heard the screen door slam around back and registered Aurie and Mys were fleeing the cabin. Good. We had planned meticulously for every worst-case scenario. They knew what to do. Even without help from Tegan.

"You led them here?" I accused Yazeed.

My brother dropped his head. "Believe me, it was the only way."

The sky darkened, and the wind picked up, but it wasn't the coming storm. It was a helicopter emblazoned with the gold crest of Overlay Affairs Security buzzing over the clearing. The violent gusts whipped by the blades battered the tall, spindly trees. Combined with Yazeed's blasting radio noise, the din made my ears ring.

Flashes of insanity snatched at me. I twisted my neck to shake it off. Now wasn't the time to lose grip. Nonetheless, excitement and adrenaline pumped through my veins for a showdown. Not against the vampire, but against my own flesh and blood. Yah looked like fresh prey, and my claws came out of their own accord, but I forced them to retract. My brother wasn't the enemy. He was being used.

Somehow Cyprian had convinced the Council of Overlay Affairs I was the real threat. For the first time, I considered the possibility this wasn't about my sister, Yalina Ravani. Perhaps it had never been about her. Was Darcy Cyprian trying to destroy my whole family? My deteriorating thoughts congealed around one crazy revelation: If he was, I was the reason he had gotten this far.

Cyprian had used my instincts against me. Though my mother had warned me not to be blinded by hubris, I realized too late the things I had missed. I had dropped the Alpha title and weakened the pack, pursuing revenge. I hadn't recognized the vampire's mercenaries because I expected to smell his henchmen coming. I had even let down my guard at seeing Yazeed in the jeep.

Every step of the way, I had played into Darcy Cyprian's hands.

From the helicopter, someone with a loudspeaker ordered me to drop my weapon. I let the gun fall from numb fingers and clenched my teeth as I held up my hands, but surrender was the furthest thing from my mind.

Yazeed waved at the chopper. "Please, give me time to get him to surrender," he shouted.

Shaking my head in wry amusement, I figured the poor kid honestly believed he was here to talk me into turning myself in. "They played you," I growled. "They're not taking me without a fight. Worse, you led them to the one piece of Ravani property they didn't already know about. Now this place will be dispersed to whoever earns the title of Alpha during the October elections, along with the rest of the family holdings."

"You think a patch of land matters more to me than you or Mum?" Yazeed reached an open hand to me. "I don't want anything to happen to you. Please!"

"I'm not going with them," I said.

Distress twisted his face, and he balled his fists. "Don't make me have to use force, brother!"

"I don't want to hurt you, Yah!" I baited him.

"Think of what you're doing to our family!" he shouted.

I spread my arms, feeling the muscles bulge as my body bulked for transformation. "I am," I muttered. I was finally thinking clearer than I had in years, and I knew what I had to do.

A yellow fire burned around my irises, matching my brother's. He hunched forward as I doubled over, and we circled one another while the shift worked its magic beneath the surface. We had done this hundreds of times in our youth, but this battle wasn't for play.

I stumbled to a knee when Yazeed lunged at me. His claws sliced through my forearm. I backed off as ribbons of blood flew through the air. Jerking away from his painful clutch, my teeth sank into his shoulder, and I yanked him off his feet. It hurt me to the core when my baby brother let out an agonized yowl, but I dragged him to the ground.

Stay down, I said in his thoughts. As wolves we could communicate better. The helicopter hovered above, unable to land in the densely packed forest. Snarling, I nipped at Yazeed's narrow legs and thick haunches to give the security forces a good show. He returned the attack with a swat to my nose.

At the same time, I sent a flood of information into his head—the pertinent details of the case and how this might be our last shot at saving our pack. The thoughts were delivered in sensations, rather than words. It was the preferred method of communication between werewolves because I didn't have to explain anything. Yazeed saw what I had seen, and now he knew what I knew. I had only needed him to shift in order to make him understand.

Tumbling in a rough-looking fight with very minimal actual damage, he asked in my head, What about our mother? I showed him the ace up my sleeve, and he bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. Darcy Cyprian wasn't the only one with a clever plan.

Peripherally, I glimpsed a Fext soldier leaning out of the chopper with a tranquilizer gun. Scope to his face, he aimed at me, but I rolled the smaller, less developed wolf to where I had been standing, and the dart cut through the air and impaled him in the neck.

Yazeed developed a blank stare. Damn, that ached, he channeled to me. His fading consciousness signaled he was fading out for the count.

I am so sorry, Yah, I said via telepathy. I took off racing into the woods. Three soldiers rappelling to the ground gave chase, but I knew the forest better than I knew my own name. I had the advantage. Leaping over a low-hanging branch and scrambling under bushes riddled with thorns, I heard the crash and thrash of man-shaped objects hurtling after me.

Fext soldiers were an army of undead. However, they weren't invincible. The arduous chase would try anyone's patience. I scurried into a hollowed tree as my pursuers followed me far from the beaten path. Hours passed. The woods grew darker, and I knew they would give up soon.

Soon as I heard my pursuers pass my hiding place, I dashed out and took a northerly route to draw them away from Aurie and Mys. My four legs ate up the mile until suddenly a drone zipped overhead. Another one joined it minutes later. Growling at the devices, I focused on disorienting their pilots with a zigzag track.

My friends needed time to reach the rendezvous point where Tegan was supposed to meet them. If my partner chose not to return? Aurie and Mys were resourceful enough to get to the embassy as planned. But I had to believe Tegan Stoney wouldn't bail on us.

Even if Tegan harbored a secret desire to restart our failed relationship, we both realized her feelings were largely nostalgic. We were a team. She had my back, and I protected her. That was the way it worked. In fact, after this was over, I would take the fall to keep her out of trouble.

I would also try to find time—somewhere between now and going feral—to convince Tegan that she deserved better than the losers she dated on the regular. Like the creep who owned the chop shop where she had gotten the burner car.

I slammed to a halt. The chop shop. Illegal tint, no plates. I struggled to retain a man's mindset, but the fuzzy picture taking shape grew clearer due to wolf instinct, not logic and reason. Details of memories, passing thoughts coalesced.

Buzzing overhead drew my attention. The drones whirred behind me where the Fext soldiers hadn't been able to keep up. Chomping at the air, my four paws splashed through a muddy stream to a burrow on the other side. Once I shook the drones, I was able to think.

The chop shop was where Tegan could get any burner car, such as the Ford that had hit Aurie Edison. I remembered the Century Luxe Hotel surveillance footage of Darcy Cyprian entering that penthouse suite had disappeared from the evidence locker on Tegan's watch. Paul Jameson's cellphone triangulation had been completed by her. She had been the one to place him near the party, though Jameson swore up and down he was in New Orleans on vacation.

Tegan had warned me off Darcy Cyprian. She had searched the cold case storage room for the vampire's older criminal record and claimed the reports were nowhere to be found. Yet, she had come up with the case files the day I was suspended. Such convenient timing.

I had missed so much, but this seemed too far-fetched to be believed. My trusted friend and partner couldn't be one of Darcy Cyprian's pets, could she? I suddenly remembered Tegan's profuse apology to Mrs. Edison for what had happened to Aurie. In retrospect, her emotional outburst wasn't the misguided reaction of an enthusiastic fan. It was guilt.

But why deliver the very evidence I needed to take Cyprian down? Why put the cold case file in my hands in the end?

Because the two of them were ushering me to a location off the grid. Tegan knew about my cabin. Cyprian pressured Aurie with a tight seventy-two-hour schedule, knowing I would try to get her away from him. We had been corralled into the woods, and I had invited a snake into camp. Now, my friends were running straight into a trap.

I had to get to them. I bounded out of hiding and galloped back toward the cabin. I came up short as a drone descended right in front of me.