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“Luna?”

The distant call woke me, and I blinked in confusion. I was not in bed. Instead, I shivered as frosty fern fronds came into focus scant inches from my eyes. The only reprieve from the cold was a warm body pressed against my back.

“Luna?” That was Bolin. “Are you out here?”

He stood at the edge of the woods, shining a flashlight beam around the trees, and I remembered where I was—and what had happened. And I groaned.

“Does that mean we’re not out here?” Duncan murmured, stirring against my back.

After the fight in the parking lot, we’d hidden in the woods in our wolf forms, vaguely aware that we should avoid the human woman and her allies that had arrived. But, despite peering in our direction a few times, they hadn’t come out to search for us. They’d been dealing with the death of one of their officers, and they’d also dragged one of the injured intruders to an ambulance. This time, neither Duncan nor I had lost ourselves completely to the savagery of our magic, and we hadn’t killed any of our enemies. But it wouldn’t matter. The female officer had seen us fighting, and she might have seen me change. I feared she would figure out that we were werewolves—and that we’d been responsible for the previous deaths.

“I came more than four minutes early for the dawn excursion,” Bolin called a little tartly as he swung the flashlight around again. The police must have departed before he’d arrived because he wasn’t keeping his voice down; his tone didn’t warn that I might be in trouble. He didn’t yet know…

“Dawn excursion?” Duncan asked.

“I recruited help to storm Radomir’s castle—wherever it is.” I pushed myself to my bare feet, brushing fir needles and dirt off my skin.

“And you’re not in your apartment,” Bolin added. “ Or Duncan’s van. I checked.”

“I’m here,” I called back, “but meet me at the office, okay? I need to get…”

“Breakfast?” Duncan suggested. “Supplies?”

“Dressed. I doubt my young intern wants to be subjected to my naked mom bod.”

“Your mom bod is fabulous and in wonderful shape.”

“Were you examining it while I slept?”

“No, I was sleeping while you slept, but I enjoyed being snuggled up to it, and you’ve been naked often enough in my presence that I’ve imprinted the memory. I believe I mentioned that.”

“You did.”

Bolin swung his flashlight—maybe that was only his phone’s light—in our direction, but he jerked it away when the beam illuminated us. He lowered it to the ground and looked away.

“I’ll wait at my car.” Bolin turned and walked toward the parking lot .

“See, he was traumatized by our middle-aged nudity.” I looked around the apartment complex before stepping out of the trees. A cloudy dawn was lightening the grounds.

“My nudity is magnificent, not traumatizing.”

“You’ve a high opinion of yourself.” I led the way toward my apartment.

“I occasionally look in a mirror. I see what I see.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you could fit a mirror in that van.”

“It flips down from the visor above the driver’s seat.”

“I have that same kind of mirror in my truck. It’s only good for seeing your eyes. Maybe whether you have nose hairs that need to be trimmed.”

“Nothing on me needs to be trimmed. I keep myself impeccably groomed.”

I glanced back as I opened the door to my apartment, though I pointedly looked at his face, not the rest of his body. That didn’t keep him from posing in an invitation to admire his physique. Like a magazine model, he put one hand behind his head and one on his hip as he tilted it for a shameless display.

A damp leaf was stuck to the back of his thigh. I plucked it off. “I’ve never seen someone so eager to have their trimmage looked at.”

“Only by certain people.” Duncan stepped past me to enter the apartment first, peering around to check for trouble.

“You wouldn’t pose for Bolin, then?”

“Certainly not. He wouldn’t be impressed.”

“I barely even looked.”

“And yet… you’re impressed. I’m certain.”

“Yes, I’m on the verge of swooning right now.”

Nobody had come through to clean my apartment in my absence. Too bad. It also wasn’t cordoned off by warning tape and staked out by police officers, so that was something .

While I showered and dressed, Duncan made sandwiches with bread and deli ham in the fridge. Lots of sandwiches. Either he was hungry, or he was making extra for Bolin and me. I didn’t comment on his nude food preparation. One couldn’t be picky when someone else was making lunch.

In the bedroom, I grabbed a towel and plucked the wolf case out of the heat duct under the floor. After all we’d been through together, it still zapped me, its defenses active. At least the towel somewhat insulated my hand.

On my way to the kitchen, I looked sadly at the corner where I’d leaned the sword that I hadn’t stopped thinking of as his , despite Duncan giving it to me as a gift. Its absence made me feel bleak, like I’d failed by allowing myself to be robbed. After I freed Duncan from Radomir’s control, I would come back and find it. I couldn’t stomach the idea of taking that awful elixir of location again, but the motorcycle thugs came by regularly. They couldn’t live that far from here. I only hoped they hadn’t sold the sword at a pawn shop. I also worried about that magical artifact the man had used on me.

All along, I’d thought of the local thugs as annoying but normal and not as dangerous as those who courted the paranormal. But if they had acquired magical items, they could prove more deadly going forward.

“Do you want to shower before we go, Duncan?” I waved to the bathroom.

“Another time, I would accept that offer, but your interns await.”

“Interns? I only have one.”

“Your niece knocked on the door. She mentioned working for you to earn your heartfelt recommendation for her résumé.”

“I told her she’s already got that. We even discussed fancy fonts with curlicues to convey that heartfeltness. ”

Duncan spread his hand. “She believes she must do more.”

I had invited Jasmine to come along, so I didn’t say more. When offered a sandwich, I accepted it and also raided the kitchen for coffee, bottles of water, and two salami logs—in case I needed to bribe any family members to get in to see Mom. Once packed, we headed toward the parking lot, Duncan finally hopping into his van to put on new clothes. As a werewolf herself, Jasmine wouldn’t have thought anything of him answering the door naked, but I was glad nobody else had come by the apartment.

“As I told you, my weapons were taken in the robbery,” I said when he rejoined me. “Do you have anything we could use?”

“For the discussion with your mother?” Duncan asked. “Is it likely to get spirited?”

“You know what else I hope will happen while we’re visiting my mom.” I held up the wolf case.

Duncan sighed but didn’t say he wouldn’t change. The wariness in his eyes did make me wonder if he knew something I didn’t know—and wouldn’t like. Such as that he might, in bipedfuris form, mercilessly attack someone who followed him?

“You lost the grenades as well as the sword, right?” Duncan asked. “I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to buy more.”

“Yeah, sorry. I do still have the magnet you gave me.”

“Well, those come in handy. That’s good.”

“I used it to open a barred garage door.”

“Oh?” His eyes gleamed with pleasure. “That’s excellent, my lady.”

“Some people would chastise a woman for breaking and entering.”

“I’m not that kind of a people. One never knows where treasures might be located.”

“I found freezers and shipping containers. ”

“Were there treasures in them?”

“Smelly mushrooms.”

“Maybe you’ll find something better the next time you use my magnet.”

“I’ll cross my fingers.” The control device I hoped to steal came to mind.

My phone rang as we walked out to the parking lot, and I paused, my son’s name popping up.

“Hi, Austin.” I strove for a casual tone, but I’d been worried about him since we’d learned Radomir had factories—or mushroom farms—not far from where he and his buddies were staying for their trip. “Everything okay?”

“Why, did you hear something?”

“Uhm, no.”

“You didn’t check Oakley’s socials, did you?”

“I can’t even remember which one of your friends Oakley is.”

“Ms. Valens,” came a young male voice from the background. “I’m offended.”

An image of a freckled red-haired kid came to mind to match the voice. “Okay, I remember Oakley, but I don’t follow him on the social-media sites, no.” I kept from scoffing aloud at the idea.

“Okay,” Austin said. “Then my lesson went amazing yesterday. I’m hardly bruised at all.”

That prompted laughter in the background from more than one mouth.

“As long as you didn’t break any bones,” I said.

“I didn’t.”

“The tree broke bones,” Oakley said. “Or branches. When Aussie hit it.”

Duncan had been walking at my side but stopped to wait, his eyebrows raised.

“I told you to avoid trees and cliffs,” I told Austin .

“There aren’t any cliffs on the Heather run. But there are trees everywhere. It’s a forested mountain, you know.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I just called to say… Well, the guys said… I mean, it’s okay if you come up for Christmas morning if you want.”

Even if I doubted Austin and his gaggle of freshman friends wanted a mother there, the invitation touched me. I hadn’t meant to make him feel guilty enough to ask his buddies if I could join them, but the fact that he had, probably risking ridicule to do so… meant something.

“Thanks. I’ve got some work stuff keeping me busy, so I might not be able to make it, but we’ll do our own celebration when you get back, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, that would be great.” Austin sounded more relieved than disappointed.

I was glad I’d read him right.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come, Ms. Valens?” came a call from the background. “Aussie needs someone to rub Icy Hot on his bruised bits.”

“Shut up, Davenport. You almost hit that tree too.”

“ Almost is not the same as smacked right into it. With your entire body. Like you wanted to make love to it.”

Austin sighed. “I gotta go, Mom. Bye.”

I said goodbye and hung up.

“Am I work?” Duncan asked dryly. “Or were you referring to Radomir?”

“Oh, you’re absolutely work.”

We crossed the parking lot and found Bolin and Jasmine standing near his SUV. Bolin plucked nervously at the hem of his shirt while Jasmine poked at her phone screen, neither of them looking at each other or speaking. It was hard to imagine Bolin successfully serenading Jasmine. Had he even managed to mumble a good morning ?

When our eyes met, Bolin looked away, though I was now fully clothed, even wearing a parka in the nippy morning air.

“Do you want me to drive?” Bolin waved at his Mercedes SUV, though he also looked warily at the missing fender and smashed rear end of my truck. “Four people won’t fit in there unless they ride in the back, and it’s… been violated.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I murmured.

“We can go in my van,” Duncan said. “It’s sturdy, and I’ve missed it.”

“How does it navigate during low-speed car chases on old logging roads full of potholes?” I asked.

“Like a champ,” Duncan said. “Remember, it has off-road tires.”

“It’s not armored,” Jasmine said. “Aunt Luna’s enemies have an armored SUV with electrified door handles.”

“If we come face to face with her enemies, I’ll deal with them another way. With the power of my physique, not my automobile.”

“At least it’s trimmed,” I murmured, heading toward his van.

“I knew you were impressed.”

“Oh, wait,” Bolin blurted before following us.

He unlocked his SUV and pulled a violin case out of the back seat.

“Are you going to thump my aunt’s heinous enemies with that?” Jasmine asked.

“Not exactly.” Bolin managed a quick smile, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

This might be a long car ride.

“Did you bring me anything?” I asked Bolin, reminded of why I’d invited him.

“Yes.” He dug into a pocket, pulled out a felt pouch, and placed it in my hand. Two compressed-powder spheres followed.

“Do those work like the others?” I resisted the urge to call them bath bombs again. He’d found that insulting .

“Yes, they’re also Orbs of Entanglement.” Bolin nodded firmly, then patted another pocket. “I reserved a couple for myself, should self-defense be necessary.”

“So I should send the bad guys straight at you?” I asked.

That prompted an aggrieved look. Bolin glanced at Jasmine, probably reminding himself why he’d volunteered for something so far out of his wheelhouse, then hugged his violin case to his chest.

“I’ll send them at Duncan,” I said.

“Good. I’m sure he’ll appreciate them more.” Bolin nodded, then held up a finger and pulled out a small metallic circle.

Having an inkling of what it was, I drew him aside and stood so that we would block Duncan’s view.

“Is that the GPS tracker?” I whispered.

“Yeah. It’s magnetic, so you can stick it to a car.”

“What about to a werewolf?”

“Uhm, not unless they’ve been drinking water from ferrous pipes recently.”

I got the joke but didn’t laugh. How would I convince Duncan to carry a magnetic tracking device? It was less obvious—and dignity-destroying—than a collar, but I had a feeling we would have to go with my backup plan. I would have to change into a wolf and follow Duncan, somehow remembering to carry the tracker in my mouth so Bolin and Jasmine could trail us with our gear.

Bolin glanced toward Duncan, who was waiting for us by his van.

“He’s a nonferrous werewolf, I’m pretty sure,” I said.

“Well, if you can figure out a way to stick that to your target, I’ve got it set up with an app on my phone.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Not wanting to rouse Duncan’s suspicions by delaying longer, I tucked the tracker into the bag of items that Bolin had given me .

“To your mother’s cabin?” Duncan asked when we were all in the van, me in the passenger seat with my knees to my chest and my shoes propped on boxes and bags where one’s feet would normally go. Bolin and Jasmine found places to sit in the back.

I nodded. “It’s where all hunts begin.”

He gave me a wary this-is-a-bad-idea look again, but he put the van in gear and didn’t object to my plan.