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The sword slashed toward my head with startling speed. I jerked my practice blade up, barely in time to block it. Frustrated at being caught off guard, I threw more muscle into the effort than necessary and had to hurry to return my weapon to a defensive posture in front of my body.

My green-haired, twenty-year-old instructor never used more effort than necessary and usually whipped his blade back in time to punish me for overextending myself. This time, Yuto merely cocked an eyebrow and stepped back, waving that we could take a break.

Thank the moon. I only resisted baring my teeth—especially the extra sharp canines granted to me by my werewolf heritage—because I was too busy panting.

“You are very strong for a…” Yuto waved his practice sword vaguely around the empty dojo, as if the rest of the sentence might be found floating with the dust motes in the sun beaming through the front windows.

“A woman?”

“An older woman.”

I scowled at him. “I’m forty-five. That’s middle-aged, not older .”

Nobly, I fought down the urge to rush to the bathroom and peer at my hairline in the mirror. With everything going on in my life of late, it had been a while since I’d spent quality time with a bottle of raven-black dye.

“When I visited your apartment complex, I met your son,” Yuto said blandly. “We are almost the same age.”

“So? Your mom is middle-aged too. Not older . I promise you.”

He cocked his head as he regarded me. “Actually, you are quite strong for a woman of any age. And for many men.”

“My job involves a lot of heavy lifting.” I didn’t know if Yuto, or his uncle who owned the dojo we were practicing in, believed in werewolves or other paranormal beings, but most people didn’t.

“Aren’t you the property manager?”

“I do a lot of the repairs myself. Including junk removal when tenants move out without taking everything with them, like their crappy couch stained by beer and cat puke.” Just that morning, I’d hauled that beauty out of a recently vacated apartment. My life continued to be glamorous.

“That must be it.” Another eyebrow cock accompanied the words.

If Yuto intended to question me further, I didn’t find out, because he was distracted by whistling that floated through an open window overlooking the parking lot.

Outside, the Christmas snow had melted, with a string of pleasant fifty-degree days following, so Duncan had the perfect weather for metal detecting. He waved his device back and forth, examining the parking lot and landscaping around it in the search for who knew what treasures.

The whistling paused, and a faint beeping wafted in, though I knew without a doubt that the pavement out there didn’t hold any great prizes.

Duncan hadn’t said so, but he had come along to keep an eye on me, and he would toss aside the metal detector and leap to my defense if some of Radomir’s thugs showed up.

Not long ago, we’d again thwarted the old man’s plans, and he wouldn’t forget.

As if to deny my certainty that there were no treasures, Duncan one-handedly hefted a wooden bench with cement supports to swing his device under it. Something had caught his eye.

“He is also quite strong,” Yuto mused.

“He removes a lot of junk too.”

“He said he was a traveling treasure hunter, not a property manager.”

“Traveling junk hunter, maybe.”

After witnessing Duncan pulling not one but two priceless magical medallions up from bodies of water, I supposed I should tease him less about the quality of treasures he found.

But… maybe not. The evening before, he’d taken me on a date to the Ballard Marina and used his super-strong magnets to pull out three broken bicycles, two rusty car fenders, and a dog crate with kelp woven through the metal bars. Treasures, they had not been.

A thunk sounded as Duncan released the bench and moved to investigate a stormwater grate. The excited, “Oooh,” as the beeps intensified made me glad he hadn’t taken me to a wastewater treatment plant for our date.

Yuto waved for me to lift my practice sword. Was the break already over?

I must have made a sour face—perhaps displaying those canines again—because he offered, “You’re progressing well and have excellent reflexes. We could move from wooden swords to the blade you wish to learn to use to… poke werewolves.”

When we’d met, I’d asked how long it would take me to master such a skill. He must have thought it a joke, but who knew what he knew?

Other than that busy single eyebrow of his, Yuto wasn’t that expressive of a kid, so I could rarely guess what he was thinking.

Not like my eighteen-year-old son, Austin, who was usually easy to read.

Though I’d had a hard time telling what he was thinking the last couple of days he’d been home for Christmas vacation.

He’d been calm and collected during the battle the night that Duncan and I—and my niece Jasmine and intern Bolin—had rescued Austin from kidnappers, but he’d also, for the first time in his life, seen me change into a werewolf.

Before, I’d always hidden that part of my heritage from Austin and his brother, Cameron.

I’d wanted to explain my reasons to Austin, but…

he’d pointedly not asked. He’d avoided speaking about anything of consequence and hurried off to the airport the day before, returning to his Air Force training.

I had no idea when I would see Austin again and couldn’t help but be disappointed. And sad. My other son barely spoke to me. Austin had been more understanding after the divorce. I would hate to lose my relationship with him.

“Ms. Valens?” Yuto prompted at my silence.

“Sorry. Yes. I do long to put the pointy end of that sword into werewolves, but it’s been misplaced.”

It had been stolen by a bunch of local thugs who had turned vandalizing Sylvan Serenity’s parking lot into a hobby.

“Misplaced,” Yuto mouthed.

“ Temporarily misplaced.” Duncan, now standing in the doorway, nodded firmly at me.

“Yes,” I said, hoping that would prove true.

He’d given the sword to me as a gift, and it had silver and magic melded into the blade, making it not only invaluable because it was a centuries-old artifact but because it could wound werewolves. Thanks to our powerful regenerative abilities, our kind tended to be hard to kill.

“How go the lessons, my lady?” Duncan acknowledged Yuto with a cheerful wave, then smiled and bowed toward me, managing to hold the metal detector out wide without clunking the door frame.

“I’m progressing, I’m told.”

Yuto nodded. “She is athletic and a pleasure to teach.”

This time, my eyebrow journeyed upward. “You just called me old.”

“ Older .”

“I assumed you thought I would need a cane to leave the premises.”

“Only if you’re stiff and sore after exercise.”

No, I usually wasn’t, not since I’d stopped taking the sublimation potion that had dampened my werewolf magic for more than twenty years of my life.

Even if my existence had turned chaotic since then, I did appreciate the perks the power conveyed.

I’d also been sleeping better and had more energy, a good thing since I’d needed it to fight cranky family members and megalomaniacal bad guys.

“Perhaps we could spar for a bit?” Duncan pointed to me, touched his own chest, then waved toward wooden practice swords leaning against a wall. “It might be invigorating, and it’s good for your training to battle other types of opponents.”

“You know how to fight with a sword?” I asked.

“Of course , my lady. A gentleman always learns how to duel.”

“A gentleman from 1703, maybe.”

“I’m not quite that old.”

I eyed his short salt-and-pepper hair. It was thick and lush, but he didn’t bother applying dye to hide the grays.

“I’ll be happy to demonstrate my youthful fitness.” Duncan plucked up one of the practice swords.

Yuto stepped back, pulling out his phone to look at the time. “There is a class in a half hour. You can have the floor until the little kids start showing up.”

When Duncan put aside his metal detector and removed his shirt, my gaze snagged on his muscular torso.

His assurances of his youthful fitness were not unfounded.

The wolf-headed medallion he’d recently found, the match for the one my mom owned, lay nestled in the valley between his pectorals, drawing attention to the rounded muscles.

My eyes lingered longer than I intended, and Duncan turned to face me before I looked away. Had he caught me ogling him?

“You think you need to be shirtless to spar with me?” I asked.

“The better to distract my opponents, especially my female opponents.” He winked.

Damn, he had caught me ogling him.

“Do you get a lot of women lunging at you with swords, wanting to duel?”

“Not copious numbers, no. When women lunge at me, they usually have other things on their minds.”

“Feeling full of yourself today, are you?” I raised my practice sword, nodding that I was ready, though I hadn’t done a lot of free sparring yet and didn’t know what to expect. The majority of my lessons had involved repeating different parries and combinations of attacks over and over.

“It’s probably the medallion.” Duncan touched the gold chain hanging around his neck.

Though it was a family heirloom from my pack, he’d been the one to locate it after it had been lost for generations, so my mother had agreed to let him borrow it.

She’d even implied that he was invited to join our pack and wear it permanently, but the itinerant Duncan hadn’t given any indication that he wanted that.

He was helping me with my problems, but who knew how long he would stay in the area?

Seattle couldn’t have that many fantastic treasures in its lakes and in Puget Sound.