The pack greeted me with howls and cheers and stomping feet as I walked into the sacred space. The sound hit me and rocked me back, but I was getting used to the shifters idea of what was sacred, nothing like the murmured chants and whispered sacraments of the covens I’d been raised with.

The cheers stopped at a motion from Grayson. Everyone sat along the stone benches that circled the lowered fighting arena, and across the fighting ring, where once I’d killed black warlocks who had attacked the pack, was my lover, with a woman on his arm.

Well. If this isn’t the most humiliating breakup ever, I don’t know what is. I pretended that it didn’t bother me, and, strode around the ring to his side. The clingy blonde backed away as I approached, hatred burning in her face. But Gray didn’t see it. His eyes were only for me, as hungry and possessive as ever.

He took my hand and raised it high to a fresh outpouring of cheers from the pack. “Here is our lady of the night, who took on the Fae and won.” The cheering and stomping were deafening for several minutes, while I tried to keep my composure.

I tightened my grip on Gray, and he pulled me into a hug, a rarity for him in front of his potential she-alphas. “Help me get rid of that infernal sword, so we can just get back to life,” I shouted in his ear, and he lifted me up, twirling me around.

“Go,” he called out as the pack started to quiet down, “go hunt, while I teach the heroine how to run.”

‘Teach me to run’ had long been a barely veiled euphemism for fuck my brains out, so I added my cheer to the rest as they shed their clothes. Magic flared as brightly in that subterranean room as in any part of Fairy as fur flowed, and cheers became growls, roars, and howls and the shifters raced up and out into the moonlight.

“Thanks, Gray. I… I was really worried that you’d changed your mind about me while I was gone.”

He shrugged. "I won't pretend I don't have concerns or fears, I guess, about what your power really means." He kissed me, a chaste, sweet brush of his lips on mine. "But I am never confused about your loyalty or your love."

“So you’ll help me unburden myself of this disastrous relic before I need a straight jacket?”

“If you’ll help me choose a she-alpha who you can tolerate.”

I flinched. “Oh. Of course.”

His jaw tightened at my response. “You can’t have it both ways, Morgan. You won’t let me lead, and you want my love. This is the logical solution.”

My stomach heaved a couple of times and settled again. “Of course. I suppose I thought you and Niall would lead together, and we would just…be.”

“You really need to take some time out of your Fae studies and learn how the shifter world works then.”

I paced the balcony, my mind whirling. “What does it mean then, to have a she-alpha if you aren’t mated?”

“It means we stay together. You would stop taking part in shifter ceremonies, and she would take your place at my side as leaders of the pack.”

Half the ceremonies I’d taken part in, had ended with Gray and I having amazing sex at the end of the hunt. “Take my place in all things pack?”

“Yes, Morgan. What, you care now? After you threw yourself at that snake-oil salesman of a Fae? But now he’s found his true love, right? So I can have you back?”

“Tryst forgave the debt, yes. Saving the Fae was payment in itself. He was never trying to screw me, just doing business as a Fae.”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Exactly. And we’ll do business as shifters, and you’ll still be my girlfriend.”

The room spun slowly around me as his words hit me like arrows. “I need to take care of the blade, Gray. After that, we’ll talk, okay?”

I stumbled out of the room without waiting for an answer. The Fae are only monogamous when they choose to start a family, and witches only polyamorous for the sake of big magic. I’d never blinked at either. But the shifters mated for life, monogamous and devoutly loyal to their partners. And I had changed that. Gray was entertaining women to be his shifter mates and expecting me to somehow still be waiting for him like some mid-century housewife.

Somehow I found my way back to my apartment and dug through my still packed bags until I found the soft linen I'd wrapped the sword in. I unwrapped it and held it in my bare hand, the hilt warming my palm, sending a mild electrical current into my arm.

“Ugh. Stop it. You will not control my mind, and you will not force my hand.”

“I am not the thing that angers you.”

“You’re a damn fine substitute, glow-blade.”

“Not much of a hero, lass. We could cut that were-cat down for suggesting you share him. Find a real Fae to fill you up.”

“Gods. Don’t be crass. It’s not my fault you’re in my head.”

“Isn’t it?”

I sighed. “Fine. Not my intention, then.” I rewrapped the blade and slipped down the stairs to avoid another accidental meeting with Gray while I still wanted to chop his head off.

“Or some body part, at least.”

“You’re insufferable.” I put the blade in the back of the Jeep and climbed behind the steering wheel, only to glance over and see the naked sword in the passenger seat. “Goddamned insufferable.”

The park was closed, but it was easy enough to coax the security gate open with some vine wildflowers and pull through. I parked near the walking path that led to the cliffs, tiptoeing past the sleeping sea lions to a deep inlet, foamy from the crashing surf.

Nine times I bound the sword in a red thread as I repeated a binding spell over it, then nine more to be sure. Witchcraft had brought the sword to me, and witchcraft could bind it under the waves where it would do no harm for another thousand years.

When I could no longer hear the siren song of the blade in my head, I threw it into the waves as far as I could, sending it spinning end over end until it sliced through the water and disappeared. “Well, that’s one problem solved. But what the hell do I do with Grayson?” I muttered and cursed to the sleepy terns and the bright-eyed raccoon I passed on my way back to my car, exhausted and ready for my own bed, in my own home, even if I was sleeping there alone.

I dialed Gray when I was just about back to my car, but he didn’t answer. I tried not to think of him hunting with another, sleeping in her arms when they were both spent. “Hey, it’s me. You’re the alpha, and you must do what’s best for your pack. Meet me when you’re done and tell me how this works. You still have your key.”

Modern world, meet modern girl. I made it home without a call and slipped into my apartment without waking Pippi, or so I thought. Apples and caramel were waiting for me on the counter, and a beer, still cold, next to the plate. It really was good to be home. Plate washed and set in the drying rack, empty bottle in the recycling bin, I finally gave up on being awake when Gray showed up.

I shut down the house and went to my room, where I dug out my ugliest, most comfortable nightshirt to sleep in and changed, then climbed into bed. My hand hit cold metal under my pillow, and I jumped out of bed again, throwing the pillow on the floor to reveal the relic blade in my bed.

“It has been too long since I felt power like yours, girl. I will not be so easily discarded.”

“I’m stuck with you, am I?” I hissed, grabbing the coverlet and wrapping the sword in it. “I will never give in to you.”

“Oh,” it sang sweetly in my head, “you all come around, eventually. Enjoy your victories, Princess of the blade. We will celebrate many more to come.”

I dropped the sword in the magic trunk where I kept my most dangerous magical tools. “Enjoy your new home, Caorach, captive blade. You’ll learn exactly how powerful I am if you stay. I am the princess of the Seelie high court, blood caller, master of the trees and storms. You will never have power over me.”

I slammed the lid of the trunk shut and locked it, then finally, blessedly, collapsed into bed. Gray still wanted to find a way to bridge the chasm between us. My father was safe and would become stronger than ever as the nobles who stole the magic from Fairy were caught and punished. All in all, it was not a terrible day.

And snuggled under the crisp sheets in the safe comfort of my bed, sleep overtook me, a soft, sweet lullaby, playing in my head.