Page 113

SEVEN YEARS EARLIER, IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE DARK TIME

T he kill was swift, silent…and without honor.

Honor was a luxury Adric Savonett couldn’t afford.

He crouched on a dumpster in a dead-end alley.

The alley was pitch-black, because he wanted it that way.

While he’d acted as lookout, his sister Marjani had shimmied up the nearest streetlight and shattered the glass with the heavy handle of her dagger.

Now she waited on the sidewalk while he squatted on top of the rusting metal container.

A human would’ve been nearly blind. But he was a fada—he picked up every detail. The dark pool of motor oil seeping into the cracked pavement. The sour-smelling garbage spilling out of the dumpster. The rumble of a late-night delivery truck barreling down the street.

And his uncle Leron as he stalked toward Marjani, brutal features displeased. “What the fuck are you doing here, girl? I ordered you to go to Jumar.”

Adric’s fingers clenched on his dagger. The blade was iron, honed to a razor-sharp edge. Inside, his cougar hissed.

Marjani lifted her chin. “And I said no.”

They’d agreed to give Leron one last chance. If he rescinded his order that Marjani become his second’s whore, Adric would let him live. For now, anyway.

Because everyone in the Baltimore clan, even their uncle, knew it was only a matter of time before Adric challenged him.

“I’m your alpha,” Leron growled. “You don’t tell me no.” He backhanded Marjani across the face—and sealed his fate.

She reeled backwards into the alley, their uncle following. Unlike them, he was a wolf shifter with his animal’s big, powerful body even when he was a man. The S.O.B. was easily twice her weight.

Rage ripped through Adric, clouded his vision with red. He took a calming breath.

Come on, motherfucker. Just a little closer.

“I won’t whore for you,” Marjani spat out. “Jumar can find his own damn woman.”

Leron’s eyes flashed wolf-gold. He showed his fangs. “You’ll do whatever I fucking say. If I tell you to drop to your knees and suck off every single one of my lieutenants, then you will. Understand?”

Marjani snarled and backpedaled past the dumpster.

Leron prowled after.

Closer, closer. And…now.

Adric launched himself off the dumpster, landing on his prey’s back. His uncle cursed and tried to buck him off, but Adric got him in a headlock. Leron ran backwards, slamming him into a brick wall. Adric grunted and grimly hung on.

One hard stroke of the dagger across his uncle’s throat, and it was over. Leron made a terrible sucking sound and clawed at his neck. The coppery scent of blood filled Adric’s nostrils as the iron blade poisoned his uncle, hastening his end.

Adric met Marjani’s eyes over Leron’s head. Her irises glowed cougar-blue in the dark. A sharp dagger was clenched in her hand. He said a silent prayer of thanks that she hadn’t had to use it. Better it be him who killed their father’s only brother.

He released Leron, let him drop to the pavement.

The dying man managed to turn over. His eyes widened. “You,” he gurgled as his blood pooled on the asphalt.

“Me,” Adric confirmed.

“Too much of a coward…to challenge…me.”

Adric leaned forward. “Everything I know about honor,” he growled, “I learned from you. Burn. In. Hades.”

Reaching into Leron’s shirt, he grabbed his quartz pendant and jerked it over his head. His uncle’s face contorted. His mouth opened and shut, and then he shuddered and went limp. His eyes filmed over.

Adric found a rock, smashed the quartz. Leron was powerful. Adric was taking no chances he’d somehow heal himself.

A quiver racked Marjani’s lean frame, but the look she turned on Adric was triumphant. “You did it. You really did it.”

“Yeah.” He stared down at his monster of an uncle and wondered why he felt nothing, not even elation. The man who’d made both their lives a living hell was finally dead. Surely he should feel something?

Together, he and Marjani bundled the dead man into the trunk of their car. By dawn, Leron Savonett was buried deep in a western Maryland forest.

Within a week, Adric had fought off a challenge from first Jumar, then one of his own cousins, and been declared alpha of the Baltimore Earth Fada.

Adric and Marjani immediately set about saving the clan that his uncle had all but decimated. The Darktime, the clan had called it, although only behind Leron’s back.

Adric’s first order of business was to gather the clan in a secret corner of Druid Hill Park and appoint Marjani as his second-in-command.

Then he looked around at his hungry, hollow-eyed people.

In the last ten years, the clan had lost nearly half its members.

The elders had been especially hard-hit, caught up in the bitter infighting of the Darktime.

And he could count the number of cubs born during Leron’s decade-long reign of terror on two hands—and still have a few fingers left over.

“As of today, the Darktime is over,” he declared, hard-voiced.

“You can leave, if you choose. But fight me, and die. Those who stay will follow my orders. In return, you and your cubs will be fed if I have to grow the damn food myself. The elders will be honored again, and you will be free to mate as you wish. We will become a strong, healthy clan once more. That, I promise on the souls of my mother and father.”

The clan took a collective breath, and then one by one, they dropped to their knees, accepting him as the new alpha. It was spring. In a nearby tree, a bird sang as the sun rose over the park, casting a pink glow on the kneeling crowd.

Adric allowed himself a thin smile. “Okay, then,” he said, and watched as the clan rose back to their feet, some smiling, some—especially the clan’s wolves—with set faces.

He hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t really wanted it. Hell, at twenty-six turns of the sun, he was barely an adult by fada standards. But he squared his shoulders and set to work rebuilding the clan, Marjani and a few trusted friends at his side, and he kept every damn promise he made.

Every promise but one, that is. The very first promise he’d ever made—to protect Marjani, no matter what.

He’d saved her from Leron and Jumar, but five years later, she’d been lured into a trap by members of his own clan, who’d handed her over to a den of feral river fada.

And Adric hadn’t known until it was too late.

Leron might be dead, but the Darktime hadn’t ended with him.

It still lived in the shadowed corners of the clan’s souls—Adric’s included.

THE PRESENT DAY

A human shrieked with laughter near Adric’s left ear. He winced and fingered his lobe.

The Full Moon Saloon was packed tighter than a can of sardines. Mainly earth fada, but also river fada and a handful of humans slumming with the shifters. The dank air reeked of lust and stale beer, and the band had more enthusiasm than skill.

What in Hades was he doing in this crowded, noisy bar? But it was Saturday night, and he had nothing better to do. Which was fucking sad.

He glowered at his beer bottle.

Crowded around the table with him were two clanswomen and his friend Zuri, a big, smooth-talking wolf with a shaved head and a soul patch.

Zuri divided his attention between the women, and Dina and Cara flirted right back. Then Zuri reeled Dina in for a leisurely kiss.

Cara just smiled and hitched her chair closer to Adric’s. “Hey, sweetie.” She set a hand on his knee. “Wanna take this back to your den?”

He hesitated. The gods knew, he’d gone too long without, and all Cara wanted was a night with the alpha. No harm, no foul, and both of them free to go their own way in the morning.

But he simply wasn’t interested.

Removing her hand from his knee, he kissed her fingers. “Not tonight, beautiful.”

Cara leaned in, a worried pucker between her pretty brown eyes. She was a warm-hearted young deer, one of the few herbivores in a clan of big cats, wolves and bears.

“You sure? You seem—” She paused, rubbed her nose. “Edgy.”

“I’m sure,” he said in a tone designed to halt further questions.

Cara studied him another few seconds before nodding. She was low in the hierarchy. Just questioning him—her alpha—had clearly taken all her deer’s courage.

Looping an arm around her shoulder, Adric nuzzled her cheek, offering reassurance in the way of their animals. She relaxed and turned back to Dina, who was now on Zuri’s lap. The wolf shifter made a dry, Zuri-type comment and both women giggled.

Adric made himself listen, smile. But Cara was right. He was edgy, although he hadn’t realized it was bleeding into his interactions with the clan.

He took a gulp of beer and forced his shoulders to relax.

One more drink, and he’d leave—or maybe check out the poker game in the back room. Because the only thing worse than this crowded bar was his solitary den.

The opening of the saloon’s outer door sent a blast of icy air down the short hall. A woman sauntered inside, her lush body poured into tight pants, a red leather jacket and ankle boots the same scarlet as her jacket. Wavy hair the blue-black of a raven’s wings framed her pretty, heart-shaped face.

One wide smile and Benny, the hulking earth-fada bouncer, fell over himself to wave her in.

Rosana do Rio.

Adric’s heart gave a hard knock. His cougar snapped to attention, eyeing her with a cat’s intentness.

What was she doing here?

And alone.

She headed toward the long wooden bar without bothering to remove her jacket or gloves. The woman didn’t walk, she sauntered, hips swaying, all high breasts and long-legged beauty.

All around the saloon, males—shifter and human—pulled back their shoulders and puffed out their chests. Zuri muttered a curse and set Dina back on her chair.

Rosana hadn’t gone ten steps when a human asked her to dance, a cocky blond college-type surrounded by three equally entitled wingmen.

Adric’s back teeth clamped together.

Not your business.